The Evolution of the System of Radiological Protection: The
Transcription
The Evolution of the System of Radiological Protection: The
The Evolution of the System of Radiological Protection: The Justification for New ICRP Recommendations Roger H Clarke Chairman ICRP Chilton, Didcot Oxon OX11 0RQ Abstract The present ICRP recommendations were initiated by Publication 60 in 1990 and have been complemented by additional publications over the last twelve years. It is now clear that there is a need for the Commission to summarise the totality of the number of numerical values that it has recommended in some ten reports. This has been done in this paper and from these, a way forward is indicated to produce a simplified and more coherent statement of protection philosophy for the start of the 21st century. A radical revision is not envisaged, rather a coherent statement of current policy and a simplification in its application. The Commission plans their publication in 2005. 1. Introduction The 1990 system of protection, set out in Publication 60, was developed over some 30 years. During this period, the system became increasingly complex as the Commission sought to reflect the many situations to which the system applied. This complexity involved the justification of a practice, the optimization of protection, including the use of dose constraints, and the use of individual dose limits. It has also been necessary to deal separately with endeavours prospectively involving radiation exposure, ‘practices’, for which unrestricted planning was feasible for reducing the expected increase in doses, and existing situations for which the only feasible protection action was some kind of ‘intervention’ to reduce the doses. The Commission also considered it necessary to apply the recommendations in different ways to occupational, medical, and public exposures. This complexity is logical, but it has not always been easy to explain the variations between different applications. The Commission now strives to make its system more coherent and comprehensible, while recognising the need for stability in international and national regulations, many of which have relatively recently implemented the 1990 Recommendations. However, new scientific data have been produced since 1990 and there are developments in 1 societal expectations, both of which will inevitably lead to some changes in the formulation of the Recommendations. The previous 1977 Recommendations were made in Publication 26, which established the three principles of the system of dose limitation as Justification, Optimization and Limitation. Assessments of the effectiveness of protection can be related to the source that gives rise to the individual doses (source-related) or related to the individual dose received by a person from all the sources under control (individual-related). Optimization of protection is a source-related procedure, while the individual-related dose limits provide the required degree of protection from all the controlled sources (see Figure 1). Optimization of protection was to be applied to a source in order to determine that doses are ‘as low as reasonably achievable, social and economical considerations being taken into account’, and decision-aiding techniques were proposed. In particular, the Commission recommended cost-benefit analysis as a procedure to address the question, ‘How much does it cost and how many lives are saved?’ The Commission recommended that the quantity Collective Dose should be used in applying those optimization techniques to take account of the radiation detriment attributable to the source in question. This quantity was unable to take account of the distribution of the individual doses attributable to the source. Attempts were made to address this problem in Publications 37 and 55, by suggesting a costing of unit collective dose that increased with individual dose received, the procedure was essentially never adopted internationally. The individual is protected from ALL regulated sources by the DOSE LIMIT All individuals are protected from a SINGLE source by the DOSE CONSTRAINT Figure 1. Source-related and Individual-related criteria 2 2. The 1990 and Subsequent Recommendations The issue was partially resolved in the 1990 Recommendations: while it was still stated, as in 1977, that in relation to any particular source within a practice, the doses should be as low as reasonably achievable, social and economic factors being taken into account, it then continued: ‘This procedure should be constrained by restrictions on the doses to individuals (dose constraints), or the risks to individuals in the case of potential exposures (risk constraints), so as to limit the inequity likely to result from the inherent economic and social judgements’ (Paragraph 112). The concept of the constraint has not been clearly explained by the Main Commission in its subsequent publications. It has not been understood and, although it has been the subject of debate by international bodies, it has not been sufficiently utilised nor has it been implemented widely. The Commission now aims to clarify the meaning and use of the constraint. The dose constraint was introduced because of the need to restrict the inequity of any collective process for offsetting costs and benefits when this balancing is not the same for all the individuals affected by a source. Before 1990, the dose limit provided this restriction, but in Publication 60 the definition of a dose limit was changed to mean the boundary above which the consequential risk would be deemed unacceptable. This was then considered to be inadequate as the restriction on optimization of protection and lower value constraints were required to achieve this. This introduction of the constraint recognised the importance of restricting the optimization process with a requirement to provide a basic minimum standard of protection for the individual from the source under consideration. The principles for intervention set out in Publication 60 are expressed in terms of a level of dose or exposure where intervention is almost certainty warranted (i.e., justified), which is followed by a requirement to maximise the benefit of the intervention (i.e., the protection level should be optimized). This is effectively an optimization process and therefore it may be seen in exactly the same terms as for practices, i.e. there is a restriction on the maximum individual dose and then the application of the optimization process that is itself expected to lead to lower doses to individuals. It can be seen then that all of the Commission Recommendations since 1990, both for practices and for interventions, have been made in terms of an initial restriction on the maximum individual dose in the situation being considered, followed by a requirement to optimize protection. This underlines the shift in emphasis to include the recognition of the need for individual protection from a source. 3 Since the 1990 recommendations there have been nine publications that have provided additional recommendations for what are effectively to be regarded as ‘constraints’ in the control of exposures from radiation sources. When ICRP 60 is included, there exist nearly 30 different numerical values for ‘Constraints’, listed in Table 1, in the ten reports that define current ICRP recommendations. Further, the numerical values are justified in some six different ways, which include, • • • • • • Individual annual fatal risk, Upper end of an existing range of naturally occurring values, Multiples or fractions of natural background, Formal cost-benefit analysis, Qualitative, non-quantitative, reasons, and Avoidance of deterministic effects The new recommendations should be seen, therefore, as extending the recommendations in Publication 60 and those published subsequently, to give a single unified set that can be simply and coherently expressed. The opportunity is also being taken to include a coherent philosophy for natural radiation exposures and to introduce a clear policy for radiological protection of the environment. The question to be addressed is whether, for the future, fewer constraints may be recommended that are sufficient to encompass the needs of radiological protection, and whether they can be established on a more uniform and consistent basis. Table 1. Compilation of the Existing ICRP ‘Constraints’ to Optimization SITUATION TO WHICH IT APPLIES Effective Dose* Basis Publication + NORMAL OPERATION OF A PRACTICE ~0.01 mSv/a a, c 0.1 mSv/a e Exemption level, protection optimized Constraint for long-lived nuclides 82 0.3 mSv/a e Maximum public constraint 77 20 mSv/a a Maximum worker constraint 60, 68 10 mSv/a (1500 Bq m-3) b Worker Constraint for Rn-222 -Optimized level between 500-1500 Bq m-3 65 2 mSv e Surface of the abdomen of pregnant worker 60 1 mSv a, c Foetal dose over remaining term of pregnancy 75 1 mSv/a a, c Dose limit for the public 60 4 64, 76 PROLONGED EXPOSURE ∼10 mSv/a c ∼100 mSv/a 10 mSv/a (600 Bq m-3) ∼1 mSv/a 10-5 /a Below this intervention is optional, but not likely to be justifiable 82 c, f Intervention almost always warranted 82 b Constraint for Rn-222 at home -Optimized level 200-600 Bq m-3 65 c Intervention Exemption Level, protection optimized 82 Risk constraint 81 a BIOMEDIAL RESEARCH 0.1 mSv a Minor level of societal benefit 62 1.0 mSv a Intermediate level of societal benefit 62 10.0 mSv a Moderate level of societal benefit 62 > 10.0 mSv a Substantial level of societal benefit 62 SINGLE EVENTS AND ACCIDENTS Effective Dose* Averted 50 mSv e, c Sheltering warranted – optimized 5-50 mSv 63 500 mSv 5000 mSv skin e, c Evacuation warranted– optimized 50-500 mSv 63 5000 Gy thyroid e, c Issue stable iodine – optimized 50-500 mSv 63 1000 mSv d, a Arrange relocation (-10s mSv per month) 1000 mSv 5000 mSv skin f 10 mSv 100 Bq/g (α), 10000 Bq/g (β/ ) (β/γ c, d 63, 82 Constraint for planned emergency work 63 Optimized value for foodstuffs 10-100 Bq/g (α), ), 1000-10000 Bq/g (β/ (β/γ) 63 *Unless otherwise stated + a. individual annual fatal risk, b. upper end of an existing range of naturally occurring values, c. multiples or fractions of natural background, d. formal cost-benefit analysis, e. qualitative, non-quantitative, reasons, and ff. avoidance of deterministic effects 5 3. The 2005 System of Protection The primary aim of the Commission continues to be contributing to the establishment and application of an appropriate standard of protection for human beings and now explicitly for other species. This is to be achieved without unduly limiting those desirable human actions and lifestyles that give rise to, or increase, radiation exposures. This aim cannot be achieved solely on the basis of scientific data, such as those concerning health risks, but must include consideration of the social sciences. Ethical and economic aspects have also to be considered. All those concerned with radiological protection have to make value judgements about the relative importance of different kinds of risk and about the balancing of risks and benefits. In this, they are no different from those working in other fields concerned with the control of hazards. The restated recommendations will recognise this explicitly. The Commission now recognises that there is a distribution of responsibilities for introducing a new source leading to exposures, which lies primarily with society at large, but is enforced by the appropriate authorities. This requires application of the principle of JUSTIFICATION, so as to ensure an overall net benefit from the source. Decisions are made for reasons that are based on economic, strategic, medical, and defence, as well as scientific, considerations. Radiological protection input, while present, is not always the determining feature of the decision and in some cases plays only a minor role. The Commission now intends to apply the system of protection to practices only when they have been declared justified, and to natural sources that are controllable. The justification of patient diagnostic exposures is included, but has to be treated separately in the recommendations, because it involves two stages of decisionmaking. Firstly, the generic procedure must be justified for use in medicine and, secondly, the referring physician must justify the exposure of the individual patient in terms of the benefit to that patient. It is then followed by a requirement to optimize patient protection and the Commission has advocated the specification of Diagnostic Reference Levels as indicators of good practice. Where exposures can be avoided, or controlled by human action, there is a requirement to provide an appropriate minimum, or basic, standard of protection both for the exposed individuals and for society as a whole. There is a further duty, even from small radiation exposures with small risk, to take steps to provide higher levels of protection when these steps are effective and reasonably practicable. Thus, while the primary emphasis is now on protection of individuals from single sources, it is then followed by the requirement to optimize protection to achieve doses that are as low as reasonably achievable. In order to achieve this, it is proposed that the existing concept of a constraint be extended to embrace a range of situations to give the levels that bound the 6 optimization process for a single source. The optimization of protection from the source may involve either, or both, the design of the source or modification of the pathways leading from the source to the doses in individuals. They would replace a range of terms that include intervention levels and action levels since there would be no need to distinguish intervention situations separately, constraints, clearance levels and exemption levels as well as the dose limits for workers and the public. The system of protection being developed by the Commission is based upon the following principles, which are to be seen as a natural evolution of, and as a further clarification of, the principles set out in Publication 60. Once the source is justified by those appropriate authorities, the radiological principles may be expressed as, For each individual, there is a limit to the acceptable risk imposed by all regulated practices - LIMITS For each source within a practice, basic standards of protection are applied for the most exposed individuals, which also protect society - CONSTRAINTS If the individual is sufficiently protected from a source, then society is also protected from that source. However, there is a further duty to reduce doses, so as to achieve a higher level of protection when feasible and practicable. This leads to authorised levels - OPTIMIZATION These constraints or basic levels of protection can be recommended by ICRP and accepted internationally. The responsibility for optimization then rests with the operators and the appropriate national authority. The operator is responsible for day-to-day optimization and also for providing input to the optimization that will establish Authorised Levels for the operation of licensed practices. These levels will, of necessity, be site and facility dependent and beyond the scope of ICRP. 4. The Choice of New Constraints The Commission now considers the starting point for selecting the levels at which any revised constraints are set is the concern that can reasonably be felt about the annual effective dose from natural sources. The existence of natural background radiation provides no justification for additional exposures, but it can be a benchmark for judgement about their relative importance. The worldwide average annual effective dose from all natural sources, including radon, as reported by UNSCEAR is 2.4 mSv. 7 The challenge is whether fewer numbers could replace the 20-30 numerical values for constraints currently recommended. Further, could they also be more coherently explained in terms of multiples and fractions of natural background. A smaller number of constraints can be chosen from amongst the current numerical values so as to ensure continuity. They can be explained in terms of multiples or fractions of background, which achieves simplicity. Finally they are to be seen as a necessary, but not sufficient condition for protection, which requires optimization. The resulting suggested scheme is shown in Figure 2. 5. Optimization of Protection The Commission wishes to retain the phrase ‘Optimization of protection’ and applies them both to single individuals and to groups. However, it is applied only after meeting the restrictions on individual dose defined by the relevant constraint. It is now used as a short description of the process of obtaining the level of protection from a single source, that is as low as reasonably achievable. Figure 2. Proposed constraints to the process of optimization of protection. The Commission stated in Publication 77 that the previous procedure had become too closely linked to formal cost-benefit analysis. The product of the mean dose and the number of individuals in a group, the collective dose, is a legitimate arithmetic quantity, but is of limited utility since it aggregates information excessively. For making decisions, the necessary information should be presented in the form of a matrix, specifying the numbers of individuals exposed to a given level of dose and when it is received. This matrix should be seen as a ‘decision-aiding’ technique that 8 allows different weightings of their importance to be assigned to individual elements of the matrix. The Commission intends that this will avoid the misinterpretation of collective dose that has led to seriously misleading predictions of deaths. The concept of collective dose was also previously used as a means of restricting the uncontrolled build-up of exposure to long-lived radionuclides in the environment at a time when it was envisaged that there would be a global expansion of nuclear power reactors and associated reprocessing plants. Restriction of the collective dose per unit of practice can set a maximum future global per caput annual effective dose from all sources under control. If, at some point in the future, a major expansion of nuclear power were to occur, then some re-introduction of a procedure may have to be considered to restrict a global build-up of per-caput dose. The process of Optimization may now be expressed in a more qualitative manner. On a day-to-day basis, the operator is responsible for ensuring the optimum level of protection and this can be achieved by all those involved, workers and professionals, always challenging themselves as to whether protection can be improved. Optimization is a frame of mind, always questioning whether the best has been done in the prevailing circumstances. For the more formal authorisations, which are decided by the regulator in conjunction with the operator, they may in future best be carried out by involving all the bodies most directly concerned, including representatives of those exposed, in determining, or in negotiating, the best level of protection in the circumstances. It is to be decided how the Commission’s recommendations will deal with this degree of societal process. However, the result of this process will lead to the authorised levels applied by the Regulator to the source under review. 6. Exclusion of Sources and Exposures The Commission intends its system of protection to apply to the deliberate introduction of a new controllable source or the continued operation of a controllable source that has deliberately been introduced, i.e. a practice, and to controllable natural sources. Its Recommendations can then be applied to reduce doses, when either the source or the pathways from the source to the exposed individuals can be controlled by some reasonable means. Sources that do not fall within this definition of controllable are excluded from regulatory control. There are sources for which the resulting levels of annual effective dose are very low, or for which the difficulty of applying controls is so great and expensive, that protection is already optimized and the sources are therefore excluded. In its restated policy the Commission defines what sources and exposures are to be excluded from the system of protection and will not use the term ‘exemption’. Exemption or clearance is seen as a regulatory decision that is applied to nonexcluded sources by the appropriate regulatory body. That body has the responsibility for deciding when radioactive material is to be released from its control, which is in effect an ‘Authorised Release’ no different from that specified for effluent discharges after application of the optimization process. 9 Apart from these exclusions, the Commission has aimed to make its recommendations applicable as widely and as consistently as is possible, irrespective of the origin of the sources. The Commission’s recommendations thus will now cover exposures to both natural and artificial sources, so far as they are controllable. 7. Radiological Protection of the Living Environment The current ICRP position regarding protection of the environment is set out in Publication 60: “The Commission believes that the standards of environmental control needed to protect man to the degree currently thought desirable will ensure that other species are not put at risk.” Up until now, the ICRP has not published any recommendations as to how protection of the environment should be carried out. The Commission has recently adopted a report dealing with environmental protection. This report addresses the role that ICRP could play in this important and developing area, building on the approach that has been developed for human protection and on the specific area of expertise to the Commission, namely radiological protection. The Commission has decided that a systematic approach for radiological assessment of non-human species is needed in order to provide the scientific basis to support the management of radiation effects in the environment. The proposed system does not intend to set regulatory standards. The Commission rather recommends a framework that can be a practical tool to provide high-level advice and guidance and help regulators and operators demonstrate compliance with existing legislation. The system does not preclude derivation of standards, on the contrary, it provides a basis for such derivation. 8. Some Outstanding Issues and Proposed Timescales The Main Commission is preparing a number of supporting documents on which the main recommendations will draw. These include summaries of the health effects of radiation at low doses and the review of RBE values, which together will lead to a document on the decision for revised radiation and tissue weighting factors. Other major issues which are under development and need further discussion are; • • • • Exploration into the possibility of specifying a fewer number of numerical constraints than presently exist and whether they can be more coherently explained Clarification of the Exclusion concept and further elaboration of the observation that all releases from regulatory control are ‘Authorised releases’ A review of the ‘critical group’ concept as used to represent the hypothetical individual. ICRP has not addressed this since well before the 1990 recommendations. Develop methods by which the optimization of protection can realistically be achieved 10 The intention is to have draft recommendations prepared for discussion with the four Committees late in 2003 so that a well-developed draft is available for the IRPA 11 Congress in May 2004. It is planned to produce the final version in 2005. Bibliography ICRP Publication 26. Recommendations of the ICRP, Annals of the ICRP, Vol. 1 No 3 (1977) ICRP Publication 37. Cost-Benefit Analysis in the Optimization of Radiation Protection, Annals of the ICRP, Vol. 10 No2-3 (1983) ICRP Publication 55. Optimization and Decision-Making in Radiological Protection, Annals of the ICRP, Vol. 20 No 1 (1989) ICRP Publication 60. 1990 Recommendations of the ICRP, Annals of the ICRP, Vol. 21 No 1-3 (1991) ICRP Publication 62. Radiological Protection in Biomedical Research, Annals of the ICRP, Vol. 22 No 3 (1993) ICRP Publication 63. Principles for Intervention for Protection of the Public in a Radiological Emergency, Annals of the ICRP, Vol. 22 No 4 (1993) ICRP Publication 64. Protection from Potential Exposure: A Conceptual Framework, Annals of the ICRP, Vol. 23 No 1 (1993) ICRP Publication 65. Protection Against Radon-222 at Home and at Work, Annals of the ICRP, Vol. 23 No 2 (1994) ICRP Publication 75. General Principles for the Radiation Protection of Workers, Annals of the ICRP, Vol. 27 No 1 (1997) ICRP Publication 76. Protection from Potential Exposures: An Application to Selected Radiation Sources, Annals of the ICRP, Vol. 27 No 2 (1997) ICRP Publication 77. Radiological Protection Policy for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste, Annals of the ICRP, Vol. 27 Supplement (1998) ICRP Publication 81. Radiation protection Recommendations as Applied to the Disposal of Long-lived Solid Radioactive Waste, Annals of the ICRP, Vol 28 No 4 (1998) ICRP Publication 82. Protection of the Public in Situations of Prolonged Radiation Exposure, Annals of the ICRP, Vol. 29 No 1-2 (1999) ICRP Publication zz. Relative biological Effectiveness(RBE), Radiation Weighting Factor(wR ), and Quality Factor(Q). Annals of the ICRP (2003a) In press. ICRP Publication xx. A Framework for Assessing the Impact of Ionizing Radiation on Non-Human Species. Annals of the ICRP. (2003b) In press. 11 Risk as continuum: a redefinition of risk for governing the post-genome world Denise Caruso The Hybrid Vigor Institute San Francisco UNITED STATES Abstract The achievements of the past 30 years in molecular biology have produced an unprecedented volume of genetic material, information and experimental activity. During that period, the products of genomic biology writ large have gradually become an integral part of the Zeitgeist - genes themselves, genetically modified and engineered organisms in drugs and food, databases filled with the genetic identities of millions of people, and ever-cheaper and more powerful technology to deconstruct and analyze them. Not only do these achievements stand to permanently alter our notions of human autonomy, the natural environment and health but, perhaps most fundamentally, they force us to reconsider our definition and perception of public risk. Some of the potential scientific risks are being considered for the first time in history, such as the exposure of humans and the environment to genetic pollution from modified living organisms, and engineering of the human germline cells which pass along our heredity traits to future generations. Some of the social and economic risks may have equally far-reaching consequences: the theft of genetic resources, ongoing controversies over the patenting of genes and other living materials, the privacy and civil liberties risks of compiling DNA databanks, the economic risks of commodifying living organisms. Protecting the public from undue risk is the job of governance. The degree to which the scientific risks posed by the products of genomic biology are still largely unknown - and the social and cultural risks mostly unacknowledged - has magnified many of the shortcomings of present-day government oversight, laws and regulations in areas where science and technology meet public interest. At the heart of these shortcomings is the fact that the post-genome world lacks a transparent framework for risk and its regulation that includes the input of all knowledgeable stakeholders affected by these decisions, while simultaneously encouraging responsible technological and economic development. 12 This argument for redefining risk includes a discussion of the risk of reliance on the data and agendas of scientists and the risk of oversimplifying this debate. We then present a series of perspectives from various disciplines on possible ways to mitigate these risks, closing with a discussion of some new and potentially useful approaches and methods for opening the process of governance to include the full complement of stakeholders who are affected by decisions made on their behalf. 13 Risk Perception is not what it seems: the Psychometric Paradigm Revisited1 Lennart Sjöberg Center for Risk Research Stockholm School of Economics Box 6501 113 83 STOCKHOLM SWEDEN E-mail: [email protected] Abstract Risk perception has become an important topic to policy makers concerned with technology and the environment, and the psychological analysis of this construct has attracted much interest. Psychological research on risk perception has been dominated by the psychometric paradigm which has been fruitful in bringing up important issues in research. Yet, most of the conclusions reached in the paradigm are not sufficiently well based on empirical data and appropriate analyses. Results are presented here which show the prevalence of risk for energy attitudes, the importance of Tampering with Nature as a new risk dimension accounting for much of the perceived risk of nuclear waste, widely different levels but similar correlational structures of risk perception data for experts and the public, moderately strong correlations between perceived risk and trust (especially specific trust rather than general trust), and demand for risk mitigation being related most strongly to seriousness of consequences of a hazard, not the risk of an accident or the riskiness of the activity. Risk perception is related to conceptions of knowledge which stress the limits of science and different, New Age type, ways of knowing. Finally, interest emerged as an important predictor of demand for risk mitigation. A conceptualization of the risk perceiver, based on these results, is briefly discussed. Introduction Risk is an important aspect of attitudes to technology. Consider the following results, obtained in a recent study . Respondents (N=294) judged their global attitude, on a 7 step good-bad scale, of 18 technologies. These ratings were regressed on 5 independent variables, also rated. They were risk, benefit, voluntariness, possibility to protect oneself against the risk and whether the technology was replaceable. Results are provided in Table 1. The table shows that these simple models fitted fairly well to the attitude data with a mean proportion of explained variance of 0.407. The standardized regression weight show that risk was the most important explanatory variable, with benefit as the second most important variable. Voluntariness and protection possibility played a very marginal role. . Paper supported by a grant from the Bank of Sweden Tercentary Fund, project ”Neglected Risks” 1 14 Table 1. Results from regression analyses of global attitude (reversed scoring) towards technologies, largest value in bold face. Standardized regression coefficients Technology 1. Commercial passenger aviation 2. Car ferries 3. Micro wave ovens 4. Alcohol 5. Genetically modified food 6. Pesticides 7. X-ray diagnostics 8. High speed train 9. The Internet 10. Cellular telephones 11. e-mail 12. Nuclear power 13. Wind power 14. Hypertension medicine 15. Private automobile satellite navigation 16. Personal ID numbers 17. Heart transplants 18. Television Voluntariness Protection possibility Replaceability Benefit Risk R2adj -0.089 -0.082 0.165** -0.377*** 0.197** 0.274 0.032 0.036 0.076 -0.033 -0.020 0.000 -0.046 -0.056 -0.051 -0.113* 0.109** 0.015 0.045 -0.067 0.007 -0.125** -0.037 0.029 -0.013 -0.110* -0.108* -0.002 -0.078 0.063 0.019 0.062 0.036 0.051 0.231*** 0.152** 0.261*** 0.194*** 0.068 0.189** 0.117* 0.108* 0.246*** 0.242*** 0.345*** -0.300*** -0.336*** -0.270*** -0.260*** -0.171*** -0.021 -0.302*** -0.324*** -0.421*** -0.499*** -0.291*** -0.467*** -0.186*** 0.385*** 0.383*** 0.344*** 0.478*** 0.500*** 0.447*** 0.456*** 0.281*** 0.269*** 0.264*** 0.378*** 0.248*** 0.252*** 0.306 0.404 0.416 0.489 0.553 0.276 0.394 0.369 0.373 0.456 0.647 0.549 0.325 0.048 0.052 0.040 -0.455*** 0.310*** 0.399 0.013 -0.043 0.067 0.010 -0.021 0.050 0.324*** 0.185** 0.288*** -0.212*** -0.369*** -0.266*** 0.398*** 0.107* 0.229*** 0.518 0.228 0.341 ‘ p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001 Results like these establish risk perception as a variable of focal interest in socially and politically important attitude such as attitude to a technology. Several decades of work have been devoted to psychological work on the understanding of perceived risk. The received message from this work is called the psychometric paradigm. It has gained wide credibility and popularity. But what is the recipe for success in psychology and social science? History teaches us that success seems sometimes to have only a weak relationship to actual empirical power of a model or a theory, and much more with the apparent power, which in turn can be created in many ways. A necessary condition is probably that there is a credible observational base. However, what is credible is in the eye of the beholder. In the present paper I will discuss a current case of a well-known approach, or paradigm to borrow Slovic’s phrase , in risk perception research: the psychometric paradigm2. I will show how apparent credibility has been created, and present results that refute essential elements of the purported validity of the psychometric paradigm. First I give a brief historical expose to provide the wider context in which this approach was established. . I will also use the term the psychometric model, referring to an essential element of the paradigm, viz. the set of qualitative risk characteristics and their relation to perceived risk. 2 15 Development of risk perception research Risk perception appeared on the stage of policy as a very important concept in the 1960’s. It was implicated as a main determinant of public opposition to technology, most notably to nuclear technology, but other early examples can be given as well . In Sweden, parliamentarians now devote about three times as much attention to risk issues as they did in the first half of the 60’s, as reflected in their submitted private bills . Attempts were made to handle the difficult situation that had arisen due to unexpected opposition to technology. Sowby suggested that risk comparisons be made . The risk of smoking is very much greater than the risk of living close to a nuclear power plant, according to nuclear experts, to take one example. People smoke, so why not accept nuclear power? This approach had little immediate effect in making people willing to accept technology risks, perhaps not very surprisingly. Starr then investigated risks in some detail and found that society seemed to accept risks to the extent that they were associated with benefits, and were what he termed voluntary . Starr’s work gave rise to much interest in risk management and an awakening of interest in the question of how people perceive, tolerate and accept risks. Risk perception came to be seen as an obstacle to rational decision making, because people tended to see risks where there were none, according to the experts. The conflict between expert and public risk perception is at the basis of the social dilemmas of risk management . The Rasmussen report on nuclear risk in 1975 further stimulated the debate and polarized the camps, since the report claimed that the risks of nuclear power could be quantified scientifically and that they had been assessed as being very small but not zero. Then TMI happened (1979) and later Chernobyl (1986). The political turmoil surrounding nuclear power and nuclear waste is still intense in many countries. Meanwhile, in the 1970’s, a small group of cognitive psychologists with a background in the experimental study of decision making, became very interested in investigating how people react with regard to risks. One of the inputs to this work was experimental studies of lotteries and other forms of gambles, and in this field attempts have been made to define an abstract concept of risk and to measure it by means of psychological scaling procedures . This work says something about how people react to lotteries and similar gambles, but probably little or nothing about the risk policy questions that bother decision makers. Preferences regarding lottery gambles appear to be unrelated to just about everything else . Another part of the input to the process came from work on subjective probability by Kahneman and Tversky . They found great differences between probability according to calculated probability calculus and the intuitions people had about probabilities. Assuming that risk is about probability it was tempting to conclude that this work had much to say about how people perceived and acted upon risk . However, no such 16 evidence has ever been presented. Risk perception in a policy context is probably not a question of cognitive biases . Returning to Starr and his concept of voluntary risk, a number of authors suggested variations on the theme in the 1970’s. The need to do so was obvious both because Starr seemed to have hit upon a goldmine full of interesting and important problems, and because his own solution was obviously in need of improvement. Surely, both a train passenger and a mountain climber are doing something which is ”voluntary” more or less - and more obvious distinctions would concern concepts such as control. Several books on risk topics, such as acceptability of risks, were published in the 1970’s, suggesting different interpretations than voluntariness of the Starr findings. This work led to the development of the psychometric paradigm, to which I now turn. The psychometric paradigm In 1978, an important paper was published by Fischhoff et al. . In this paper the authors had compiled 9 dimensions from the literature, including voluntariness, and asked people to rate the ”risk” of a large number of activities on each of the dimensions. They computed mean ratings for each activity, or hazard, and then intercorrelated these means. The intercorrelations were factor analyzed and it was found that two major factors explained much of the variance: Dread and Novelty. Nuclear power was high on both so here was apparently an explanation why people were opposed to this technology! Fischhoff et al. also showed that perceived level of risk, and risk tolerance as rated by their respondents, could be well explained by Dread and Novelty of the risks. Multiple correlations were of the order 0.8 . Later work with larger groups of subjects and more rating scales and hazards, and by several researchers, essentially replicated these initial findings. Some of the later work has been carried out in different countries, usually with student groups, and, again, on the whole confirmed the findings, see Boholm for a review. Hence, the basic work in the psychometric paradigm has been replicated many times and it has virtually always been possible to demonstrate that the factor structure is fairly invariant and that perceived risk is well accounted for by the factors. It is probably for these reasons, and their intuitively appealing contents, that the paradigm has been claimed to be ”enormously successful”. Many citations can be found, among them in a book published by a Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court . These citations usually take the validity of the Psychometric Model for granted. There are grounds for a cautious assessment of the paradigm and the model, however. The claim that Dread and Novelty account for virtually all of the variance of perceived risk is based on analysis of means, and regressions are calculated across hazards. However, when perceived risk is regressed on the psychometric factors across respondents, for one hazard at a time, the level of explained variance is typically about 20%, not 70-80% . Marris et al. have published intra-individual correlations among psychometric variables, i.e. correlations computed for each respondent, 17 across hazards. The mean of the intra-individual correlations can be related, on the basis of their published results, to the correlations between the means . When this is done, it is seen, that the mean intra-individual correlation was linearly related to the corresponding correlation between means, but only about half of it. In terms of proportion of explained variance, there would therefore be a drop to about 1/4 when changing from correlations between means to mean intra-individual correlations, from 80% to 20%. One can debate which is the most appropriate level of analysis. If, however, we are interested in the processes of individual perception or in individual differences it is clear that the appropriate analyses are those that give the lower levels of explained variance. The correlation between means may be high, but that says nothing about how well we can account for individual differences or the individual risk perception process. When the latter are in focus, the psychometric paradigm clearly leaves most of the variance unexplained. This is true for level of perceived risk, and even more so for more policy-related variables such as demand for risk mitigation or risk tolerance. Misleading conclusions from analyses at the aggregated level have long been discussed in the social sciences and are termed the ”ecological fallacy” . The fact that the factor analyses of the psychometric model show that the two major factors account for about 70% of the variance is of course no evidence for those factors accounting for a large share of the variance of perceived risk. This misunderstanding occurs in the literature, however. Also, the fact that the factors are replicated (and that they are so few) is probably mostly due to shared semantics of these words, and to the fact that relatively few words are used, and sampled from a very restricted domain. Even cross-cultural validation with mostly highly educated samples of respondents does not prove that these are very important factors of perceived risk. Overlapping semantics of basic vocabulary is commonly found. In other papers, it was claimed that the model explained only lay risk perception, not the risk perception of experts . The latter were said to take into account only the facts, annual fatalities and the like. This, too, is a finding which is quite attractive and matches the preconceptions of many, perhaps especially of experts. However, there are several problems with the statement . The finding is based on a very small sample of expert respondents, only 15, and they made judgments of a very broad range of hazards, much broader than anyone can be a topical expert in. At any rate, the concept of expert usually refers to someone who has advanced topical knowledge in a given field, and it is clear that the group studied by Slovic et al. did not qualify in this sense. Data from a fairly large group of nuclear waste experts were recently re-analyzed. It was found that, in this group, risk perception was related to qualitative risk characteristics. The correlations were lower than for the public, probably due to the much smaller standard deviations of experts’ data . 18 A further development was that of introducing trust as yet another determinant of risk perception, said to be very powerful . But trust correlates only about 0.3 with perceived risk . Only a few studies, out of about 20 published, have provided higher levels of explanation. Siegrist has claimed that there are strong correlations between trust and perceived risk but the claim is only supported by data where both risk and trust are measured by means of Likert type attitude scale items, not by the usual ratings of both constructs . Hence, a methodological factor seems to be the explanation for his result. A well-known study by Slovic involved asking people how their trust would be affected by various events . The conclusion was that it is easy to destroy trust, hard to re-establish it. This may be true, but the data say little since they merely reflect the beliefs that people had about how their trust would change. Such beliefs are notoriously invalid as indicators of what psychological event would in fact take place, cp. Nisbett and Ross . A still further methodological twist was the introduction of associations. In the studies of public opinion to a HLNW repository in Nevada, people were asked to report their associations to a nuclear waste repository . As expected, these were quite negative. ”Nuclear” and ”waste” are both words which have negative connotations, their concatenation even more so. However, it is unclear just what such associations mean in terms of action readiness or further consequences. Attitude by itself has well known ties to action , and in a comparison it was found that attitude was a more informative dimension than that of associations . Risk perception data are presumably collected because there is a belief that perceived risks are, and should be, of importance to policy makers. The larger the risk, the more should people demand that the risk be mitigated. That assumption sounds very likely to be true. However, many other factors enter the picture and it has been found in several studies that demand for risk mitigation, when rated separately, is most strongly related to severity of consequences of a hazard, not to its ”risk”. Perceived risk is most strongly related to probability of an accident or some other type of unwanted outcome . These results go against a central tenet of the Psychometric Paradigm which is centered on ”risk” as people perceive it. Risk is usually also undifferentiated with regard to target, but it has been found in many investigations that personal and general risk differ . In relation to risk policy, personal and general risk have different implications depending on what kind of risk is under consideration. Results from a study by Sjöberg show that general risk is more important than personal risk with regard to risk policy attitude when there is a large protection possibility. These are lifestyle risks such as risk from alcohol consumption. It is the risk to others which is driving policy attitude. In the other extreme, personal risk is more important. These are hazards people feel they cannot protect themselves from, such as nuclear risks. 19 The psychometric paradigm work usually operates with an undifferentiated concept of risk without a specified target. It has been found that such non-specific risk ratings most closely resemble ratings of general risk , thus making them more relevant for lifestyle risk policy than for environment and technology policy attitudes. This is unfortunate since the paradigm has been motivated foremost by the need to inform the latter type of policy making. Another thesis of the psychometric paradigm is that media have strong effects on the public’s risk perception, see af Wåhlberg and Sjöberg for a review. The media are the main scapegoat in experts’ debates of risk policy dilemmas and it is frequently asserted that media have a very large effect on risk perception, see e. g. Okrent . The media are often seen as irresponsible and only interested in disseminating negative information, with a special inclination to cover low probability/high consequence risk . But typically, few references are given to support such statements. A classical study is the one by Combs and Slovic published over 20 years ago . This was a preliminary study of very limited scope and oriented towards accidents and illnesses rather than risks proper. Okrent also cites Kone and Mullet as support for the thesis of media effects. However, that paper describes a study of risk perception in Africa, finds it similar to Western risk perception, and concludes that media must be the reason. This is clearly only indirect evidence for a media effect. Combs and Slovic reported that perceived causes of death correlated more strongly with media report frequency than with actual mortality statistics. As they pointed out, this is no proof of a causal effect, of course. Many alternative explanations are possible. Perhaps more important, the study pertained to illnesses and accidents rather than technologies, which are the usual topic of risk policy issues. Suppose the study would have relied on data from, e.g. nuclear waste and genetically modified food. No deaths have been reported in media, and no are known in statistical data bases. Yet, people have strong views about these hazards and perceive risks of varying intensity. Why? Perhaps because media cover them. But there are no data showing strong relations between perceived risk and amount of media coverage. In our recent project concerned with risk perception and media in five countries in Western Europe (project RISKPERCOM, with partners in Sweden, Norway, France, the UK and Spain) we found no support for the simple media image common in the debate. We found that perceived risk correlated only weakly (across hazards) with media coverage, whereas self-rated knowledge about the risks correlated more strongly. The former correlations were only of the size 0.2, the latter about 0.6 . Demand for risk mitigation was not correlated with media coverage. In our study, media gave a fairly balanced picture of risks and accidents . It was also not true that media gave priority to risks of the type small probability/large consequence. The media reported, for example, many traffic accidents, which are fairly common and typically do not have catastrophic consequences; only few people are involved in any accident. What was written in Swedish newspapers about Chernobyl in the spring of 1996, commemorating the Chernobyl accident in 1986, was indeed negative (how 20 could it be otherwise?) but Swedish nuclear power was given a balanced treatment. To take another example, some researchers have complained that media did not inform sufficiently about facts in connection with the local referendum about a high level nuclear waste repository in Malå in Northern Sweden in 1997 , but there are many other ways to get information than through the local newspaper. The local newspaper does not even seem to be the most likely source of scientific and technical information. The web is today a very important alternative. Media seem often to be the only channel of information seriously considered when risk perception is to be accounted for. However, there are several alternatives worthy of considerations. One is movies3 and television dramas, another is rumor , or personal contacts . It is also possible that the mere connotations of the terms carry strong suggestive power for eliciting risk perceptions. ”Nuclear waste” sounds very unpleasant even if you know nothing more about it than the verbal label and have only a vague idea about the concepts of waste and nuclear. The psychometric paradigm is also open to the possibility that Cultural Theory carries important explanatory power with regard to perceived risk . This theory is discussed elsewhere and will not be treated here in detail. In a quantitative form, as operationalized by Dake and Wildavsky , it has been found to explain only some 5% of the variance of perceived risk in European studies, somewhat more in US data . Peters and Slovic, with results fully in accordance with such a very modest level of explanatory power, still claimed that Cultural Theory dimensions were powerful determinants of perceived risk. They investigated correlations between Cultural Theory scales and various risk judgments and found a number of, mostly very weak, but often statistically significant correlations, which they describe in the text in a somewhat optimistic manner. For example, the correlations between the egalitarian subscale and technology concerns were -0.22, -0.10, -0.01 and 0.02, a not very impressive set of correlations. Nonetheless the authors wrote that ”these data confirm the hypothesis that the Egalitarian factor will be strongly related to concerns about technology... ” (p. 1439, emphasis added). Other examples of optimistic bias in interpretations could be given, see . Slovic and Peters have responded to this criticism with arguments pertaining to the use of squared correlations as measures of explanatory power . Although this is an interesting debate, they did not succeed in demonstrating the futility of correlations in the current contexts. They cited authors who had shown that correlations between independent and dependent variables in an experimental context may be quite misleading as to the practical value of the experimental interventions. However, the present discussion is about the explanatory value of a dimension as an indicator of the value of a theory . The squared correlation is the first statistic suggested in . For example, the movie ”The China Syndrome” which was released shortly before the TMI accident in 1979. 3 21 the APA manual as a measure of effect size . It seems strange to see this standard statistical measure be written off as misleading and even obsolete . Finally, what is driving policy attitudes and demand for risk mitigation? Several studies, including the present one, have shown that it is seriousness of consequences, not risk per se . Here, it was also found that the risk inducing activity was important in the sense of commonness, or frequency. This makes sense. If people are often exposed to a risk, it would be more important to mitigate it. On the other hand, the riskiness of the activity had little importance for demand for mitigation, and accident risk also turned out to be less powerful as an explanatory variable. The psychometric paradigm is based on the assumption that risk of an activity is the most important variable to investigate; a wealth of data has by now shown this belief to be false, and that it does make a difference which risk variable is selected for study. It has also been found, in a very consistent set of analyses, that interest in a risk was a relatively powerful predictor of demand for risk mitigation, clearly more so than perceived risk . The risk perceiver seems to be willing to pursue risk themes in a positive mood, perhaps because such an active attitude creates a feeling of empowerment and heightened self esteem. The results were surprising because we had earlier found that risk perception was negatively related to interest in groups of adolescents . Risk perception should clearly not be analyzed only with reference to negative thoughts and feelings. The psychometric paradigm is an interesting and fruitful pioneering effort and it has without doubt done much to create an interest in important issues. Yet, as so many pioneering efforts, it has raised more questions than it has been able to provide well founded answers to. The psychometric paradigm: conclusions As pointed out in the introduction, the shortcomings of the psychometric paradigm are not hard to see . When data are analyzed in an appropriate manner, it is clear that the model accounts for, at the most, 20-25% of the variance of perceived risk and risk tolerance. The strong explanatory power claimed for the model is based on misleading data analysis using means. The same method that was used in the 1978 paper is still used for current claims about the powerful properties of a similar model of ecological risk . The explanatory power of the psychometric model is largely due to the inclusion of Dread items among the explanatory variables. However, Dread is probably a consequence of perceived risk, not a cause of it, and therefore it should not be used as an explanatory variable. It seems unlikely that we first feel fear, then perceive a risk - at least the assumption must be substantiated in some way. The risk characteristics form a logically coherent group of variables denoting properties of the hazard, not how the respondent reacts emotionally to the hazard. The fact that there is a moderately strong and consistent relationship between emotional reactions and risk perception 22 is documented in our work as reported elsewhere . It can be added that Dread was a misnomer for the set of items summarized under that heading ; they denote severity of consequences in various respects . One or two items which do attempt to measure emotional reactions appear not to carry any explanatory power. The data on experts cited so frequently turn out, on examination, to be very weak as evidence. Only 15 experts were studied, and their claim to expertise is most dubious. When real experts in a chosen field were analyzed, as I recently did for the case of nuclear waste , they turned out to give risk ratings which were explicable by the psychometric model dimensions in a manner similar to those of other respondents. The present study gave similar results. Experts’ risk perception was correlated with risk characteristics in a similar manner when compared to the public. This was true also for policy attitudes, but that aspect of risk attitudes needs to be developed beyond what was done in the present study. Trust is a fairly weak explanatory variable with regard to perceived risk. The present results support that statement and suggest that trust measures should be made specific, not general. A specific risk measure turned out to give moderately important contributions to the explanation of perceived risk. The psychometric paradigm misses out by neglecting important distinctions and variables. People make quite different judgments of personal and general risk, for example . Personal and general risk differ both in level (personal risk is usually much lower than general risk) and in correlates. General risk is a better predictor of policy attitudes for lifestyle risks such as alcohol while personal risk is more or equally important for technology and environment risks perceived as being outside of our individual control, such as nuclear power . The model does not take into account the powerful dimension we have called Tampering with Nature , nor does it account for the rather loose relationship between rated ”risk” and policy attitudes, such as demand for risk mitigation. The latter dimension is hard to explain with risk data but so far it has been found to be most strongly related to expected consequences rather than probabilities or risks . The latter finding is true whether hazards are defined as activities or consequences, as shown in the present paper and elsewhere . The psychometric paradigm is founded on the presumption that activities are important for risk policy attitudes. The present data, and data in the cited references, strongly support the notion that consequences are much more important. Despite its important shortcomings, the psychometric paradigm has become an attractive basis for most current work on risk perception, both research and consulting . The question I pose here is why. A few suggestions are offered as answers: The model is very simple. It is very easy to understand and is close to ”common sense”. 23 The model provides answers which are politically desirable. The public is depicted as emotional and ignorant, just as policy makers have always suspected. In contrast, experts are said to make the objectively correct risk judgments. The model seems to supply a final answer. As we have seen above, the model has been popularized with the help of a kind of data analysis which can hardly fail to provide the impression that risk perception is explained. Furthermore, it gives replicable data, probably because it profits from common semantics of risk and related concepts in various groups and even nations or cultures. Similar semantic overlap has been noted before, e.g. with Osgood’s semantic differential . Perhaps other aspects also are involved, but those mentioned above appear to carry the Psychometric paradigm a long way. A conception of the risk perceiver Myths based on the psychometric paradigm have indeed penetrated very far. Jasanoff puts the matter quite well in the following citation: ”The psychometric paradigm, in particular, has been instrumental in preserving a sharp dualism between lay and expert perceptions of risk, together with an asymmetrical emphasis on investigating and correcting distortions in lay people’s assessments of environmental and health hazards. In policy settings, psychometric research has provided the scientific basis for a realist model of decision making that seeks to insulate supposedly rational expert judgments from contamination by irrational public fears”. (p. 98). The simple diagram, reproduced many times, of the factors Dread and Novelty, seemed to show convincingly that people oppose nuclear power because they were emotional and ignorant. And, as Jasanoff points out, experts were widely held to be rational and objective in their risk perceptions. The widespread notion that policy decisions should ignore the public’s perceived risk probably has some of its roots and at least considerable support in these conclusions from the psychometric model. It disregards the simple fact that the views of the public cannot and should not be ignored in a democracy . Public opinion is becoming a more salient factor also in sociological theory . In our research we have found a quite different picture of the risk perceiver, be he or she an expert or not. The dominating factors in risk perception are of an ideological character, e.g. Tampering with Nature. The belief that the development of technology involves unknown dangers is very important, and it seems no less rational than not believing that such is the case. Science does develop all the time and risks we do not know about today will be discovered tomorrow. If experts say ”there is no risk” this usually means ”no risks have yet been discovered”. 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Public opinion research and political sociology. Research in Political Sociology. Wildavsky, A., & Dake, K. (1990). Theories of risk perception: Who fears what and why? Daedalus, 119(4), 41-60. 29 Strategic Questions Regarding the Patenting System – Global Market Access Demands IPR Protection Eskil Ullberg Service Management Group SWEDEN [email protected] Introduction The role patenting is playing in corporate strategy and more generally in the global economy at large is changing. During the last two decades, it has become a key instrument for market access and trade strongly associated with economic development in a more “co-productive” fashion. The previous “monopoly right” is converging in usage towards an instrument to secure the intellectual assets, or property, when the economy goes from “product” to a “service” economy. Management of risk1 The sole purpose of patenting, from a corporate perspective, is then to manage the risk and uncertainty in the (global) market. This view of patenting best explains the usage of the patenting system. It also gives a way of thinking for changing the system to become more efficient in absorbing risks and uncertainties in today’s more complex and uncertain world. The patent right is transferable with mutual consent and thereby provides a basis for a “market in ideas”. Not only the customer’s are customers but also strategic partners become customers to the technology you have developed. This transferability or right puts competition closer to the customer. Management of intellectual resources The general legal structure of assets can be divided into two categories: physical assets and intellectual property rights. Physical assets are defined as “value in possession”. This means that the value is there weather you do something or not. You must use it to create value but the right, and the value, is in the possession of the object. Here a portfolio strategy can be developed to spread risks effectively. Intellectual property rights, IPR, on the other hand, are “value in action”. You don’t possess any asset but the only value is in doing something with the right. These rights Risk management issues discussed: Risk Management – from portfolio strategy to value creating systems strategy, Ullberg, et. al. Geneva Papers, July 2002. 1 30 are therefore much more connected to the management of this opportunity. A portfolio of IPRs has been used for long to spread risks here but since the action part demands knowledgeable people (working typically in companies) a more “systemic” view of the value creation is demanded to get the most out of the asset. This is true both for the creation of these assets and the exploration of the assets. Trading these rights therefore becomes a basic tool, a commodity, of the new, more knowledge driven, service economy. Here several constraints are present today due to the rather recent development of this trade. The developing countries, and small countries, are here challenged the most to be able to participate in the “global trade” of IPR. Of these rights patents are the most “aggressive” and therefore also most contested2. The usage of patents for market access then becomes most challenging for economic actors in securing their intellectual property worldwide. Capitalization The patenting system challenged This development towards the usage of patents and IPR is moving the whole patent industry “from patent to patenting”. A system of value creation is developing, rather than “technology monopolies” of competing actors. This is in particular true in complex technology industries like IT, where no single actor has “monopoly” on all technologies used in a product, for example a single computer, to be competitive in the market place. This challenges traditional ways of doing business and managing risk. The “obvious” rights to market access it not so obvious anymore. The need for securing IPRs increases if one wants to have direct customer relations and not only become a “supplier” in the system. This development is however not only technological nature but of a business logic nature. The previously dominating “production logic” where the production of the product is at the center is being replaced by a “service logic” type of value creation where the knowledge is at the center. This shift in logic challenges the whole patenting system. New ways of doing business, in close collaboration with the customer, innovating “business concepts” rather than innovating technology also poses needs for increased risk taking. However, the patenting systems of were not made for this “non technology” aspect of innovation. This has let to different position worldwide. In the US “business method” patents are in fact granted. These patents are not technology patents but “schemas” of doing business. “Abstract schemas” are traditionally not patentable. In Europe the technology position is firm – no business method patents. Japan follows the US approach. The effect of this is that other, less efficient, IPRs are used to manage risk 2 For example during the TRIPS negotiations and current implementation. 31 like trademarks, copyright, design, undisclosed information, geographical indication, licensing agreements (for software) (WTO/TRIPS IPRs). The patenting system is therefore challenged as instrument to absorb risk in the “new” global service economy. At the same time it is the “service sector” or service activities of the economy that dominate and grow. This has created an increasingly complex situation for policy makers, investors and inventors. Valuation of these assets also poses challenges. Since they are very uncertain on average when it comes to value – only 2% of all patents lead to any business – a more “innovation system” approach is necessary. A “risk management” approach to the patenting system is therefore a key to understanding the strategy of patenting systems and their usage. The system becomes an “infrastructure” to the economy. This has policy implications for patenting institutions. A more “active” role is demanded in the economy being part of the risk management of companies. There is also a “chicken and egg” problem related to adopting patenting systems for developing counties. The European Patenting Office, EPO, is an interesting case with respect to strategic moves to an “infrastructure for growth”. 1. From Patent to Patenting ing – how business capitalizes on patents The usage of patents has changed since first conceived. During the 18:th century “protection” was on the agenda. The development of national industry required trade barriers. Manufacturing monopolies in the UK allowed boosting the industrial revolution. This protection was the fundament of the system: The industrial manufacturing logic – “the product”. During the 19:th and 20:th century, the formula changes somewhat to “innovation and information for monopoly”. The idea was to enable companies to recover R&D expenses by monopoly pricing of products. Towards the end of the 20:th century and now in the 21:st century, is seems that the usage is changing again towards “market access”. Patenting becomes “a business” (through extensive licensing/cross licensing). With more complex products that turn into systems not a single supplier can make all R&D investments. A multiple of patents are needed to make a “system”. This development moves into services as indicated above. This means that portfolios of patents are interesting for all actors just to get market access – something new for many industries. These portfolios thus gives incentives to competitors to cross license since they also would like to have access to all and the best technology. In a global market, building a national industry is no longer relevant, nor is recovering cost the only way to capitalize on knowledge. The capitalization reaches far beyond and increasingly becomes a source of income. New risk management strategies are developing with these new perspectives. 32 a) Usage of patents on “everyone’s” strategic agenda Different strategies are developing in this more competitive global, innovation driven, service economy. IBM for example, “the inventors” of modern patent portfolio management only patents in the large patenting markets in the world. Here large patent portfolios are built up. These are used to cross license with actors from small countries. In that way both actors get a wider market access – but at lower cost for IBM. Apart from these cross licensing activities, IBM licenses patents for more than 1b$ per year. This equals 1% of world licensing revenues! Telecom companies used to have “gentlemen’s agreements” on innovation and patenting. Towards the end of the 1980’s, this lack of patenting strategy “stopped” European manufacturers to enter the US market. Now these “gentlemen’s agreements” are replaced by global competitive market where IPR plays a role. Companies also tend to include patented technologies in to world standards. This give the right to licensing revenues (under RAND conditions), replacing the original “monopoly idea” of patenting with a market access idea where standards play the most important role for market access: example GSM, GPRS, etc for mobile telephony. This change in patenting strategy (the usage of patents as enabler of new more competitive corporate strategy) reflects a shift in competitive focus towards a service logic and economy. b) The challenge for the patenting system – the service economy is where the value is created The development of the service economy has changed the driver in the economy. It is not totally driven by customer oriented usage concepts. The west has a lead of 30 years to the rest of the world in this development. Intellectual property and innovation here plays a critical role in a country’s knowledge strategy for the future3. Service sector in % of GDP4 Year West 1900 25% 1970 50% 2000 >70% World ~50% Ref. to presentation at UNECE IP Advisory Group in Belgrade, 2004-03-27, “Management of IP Assets for Strategic Advantage and Development of IP-driven growth strategies”, E. Ullberg. 4 Geneva Association and other sources 3 33 c) Patenting system competition Innovation is now taking place on a global basis. Experience from South-East Asia is shared with those of US, Sweden, Australia, etc. This “global innovation” needs global protection. The protection can today only be given nationally (even the EPC is a “bundle” of national patents) thus putting patenting systems in competition with each other. Their respective risk management capabilities play an essential role in attracting IPR and then enabling to for example cross license and open “global” market access5. The competition is national versus “regional” in Europe. US – Europe – Japan when it comes to where to patent first. This is guided by language, market size, presumption of validity, enforcement, etc6. With high presumption of validity, more risk can be assumed and stimulate investment in innovation. Competing systems then gets increased importance for market access. Today, when many international customers choose, they use increasingly the PCT route since it manages risk better, faster, more uniform (one standard), etc. 2. Complex issue for … The issue competing patenting systems and importance of IPR is a complex issue for: a) policy makers, b) investors and other stakeholders as well as 3) the inventors. a) Policy makers Policy makers are in the situation of choice of system. This has to be done in coordination with other overall economic and international trade policy decisions. The USPTO with “internet patents” have extraterritorial ambitions. If using certain technology on the Internet, then you are infringing US patents. The EPO has an “extension system” which allows, as the only system in the world, to engage in bilateral agreements. A nation can choose to opt in / opt out of a validation system, which grants patents on state-of-the art basis (all major technology is patented in US, Europe, Japan). The concept of “back-yard” (The Wilson doctrine) does not hold any longer. New approaches to intellectual property field can be made after WTO/TRIPS. The WIPO standard, PCT, is the “preferred choice” of international users. Standards, which are set by WTO/TRIPS, are not easy to fulfill and not obvious for all economic development levels. IPR depends on a certain innovation activity. Since TRIPS standards are “maximum” standards rather than “minimum” standards it is difficult to set standards at will. It is also very challenging, if not almost impossible to Much additional research is needed here to get empirical facts on the relationship between IPR and FDI (Foreign Direct Investment). 6 In the US, since early 1980, a change in principle was made regarding the presumption of validity. The view used to be that the courts made a fresh investigation upon challenge of a patent. Now the courts presumed that it was valid. 5 34 build a database of all state-of-the-art in the world if one does not get all applications of relevance to the art. This economic equation then favors centralized handling of patents. Developing a patenting system- “Chicken and egg” problem For nations, the patenting system can be a “chicken and egg” problem. All European patenting systems have come into place after an extensive copying of technology from abroad. German and Swiss chemistry is an example. The copying led to growth of a national industry in the field. The national industry then demanded protection from national competition – and got it. Some recent examples of this are Taiwan and India. Taiwan started out as a high tech US manufacturing facility. This spurred local innovation. Demand from local inventors – and investors – for protection in the local market brought the patenting system in place. India is a big (“illegal”) medicine manufacturer, which is spurring local innovation. Now voices are raised from local inventors for protection in the local market. Soon maybe an efficient patenting system will be in place. Now it is the quality issue of patent that is the predominant issue: EPO “quality” of search etc. versus US “registration” policy with extraterritorial claims. b) Investors and other stake holders From the investor perspective, the risk management issue dominates. Here financing issues are driven by the uncertainty of investments in R&D activities. A strong right reduced the uncertainty. Other measures of the value include groundbreaking research by Prof. B. Lev. Based on citations. If a certain patent is cited much in comparison with other new applications is has been shown to indicate future earnings from that patent / technology very well. The quality issue is a real issue here. Quality of search is crucial for any judgment on the value of the patent. c) Inventor For the inventor today’s system lack much. It is heavy, cumbersome, slow and not very transparent (timeliness of decisions easily manipulated, etc.) The system is predominately used - and therefore also built – for the industrial policy is should support. These have been primarily large companies, not small. Although the IPR has “equalizing” effect between companies and countries, the procedures and efforts needed to secure one’s assets are far from “efficient” for smaller companies. A democratization of IPR seems to be a good idea for the global economy, when the economic differences are exposed in free trade. 35 3. Summary Capitalization Summarizing this section on capitalization, patents (or IPR) become part of every business as the only way to secure freedom to market. This is not a simple granting issue any more but a complex, business issue with strong global undertones (innovation, patent systems, etc) in fierce competition, multiple laws and possibilities to cheat. This development is different from industry to industry but globalization drives even medical companies to rethink their market policy7. Valuation Valuation – a system’s issue In valuing a patent or IPR is typically not a “single patent” issue but a much more systemic issue. It is the “technological capabilities” of the company that are valued. Biotech and Citations Valuation of hi-tech biomedical companies in the US shows a direct relationship between citations of researchers / patents and market value of companies8 This indicates that it is not an individual patent issue but more a “technological capability” issue. IT and Patents IBM states patents in annual report for the purpose of consistency in technological capability and R&D investments. Citations/patent According to B. Lev’s research consistency in performance of new technology is a good differentiator of relation between investments in R&D activity and market value. For example, Dow Chemical has low citations/patent but DuPont high citation/patent. Consistency in patenting is the value. The “R&D activities” are given a number by the fact that a lot of things are going on with relation to a specific technical area. From a policy point of view, a good idea would then be to provide for “valuation systems” actors (in other words not to preempt that market with for example government subvention statistics). Ref. to Economist article on Pharmaceutical companies, July 13th 2002, page 51-52. 8 B. Lev, et al., Stern, N.Y. Univ. 7 36 Valuation – corporate side Risk in R&D investments Risk in R&D investments can be managed by classifying patents according to citations give a sharp instrument for investors and management. The patenting system can thereby help create great institutions. The typical average patents has a 2% success rate but taking “high quality” patents and innovation systems (with high number of citations) into account the volatility of future earnings with respect to investment in R&D activities goes down with a factor or 49. The risk is then at comparable level to physical assets. Generally valuation is then related to “innovation system” and “inventor”. Valuation is also linked to access to global experiences. Actors outside the innovator’s and company management’s control in this case hold the citation information. It provides for a neutral, transparent position, rather than overstated company “innovation reports”. A great institution can then be built not a “bright idea”, nor on a “great company” but more the management of that organizations capacity to produce consistently hi quality hi tech. The system EPO Case The European Patent Office, EPO, has adopted this risk management view of the patenting system, for the benefit of the economy as a whole. They focus on the role of creating an “infrastructure for the economy” – managing economic risk and uncertainty. The ultimate potential of this is a more efficient patenting system. More on this can be found on the EPO website. Rethinking the patenting system Strategic issues related to the patenting system from a policy and corporate perspective then arise from several sources: • • 9 From patent to patenting – adopting a systemic view and risk management focus The usage of the system has gone from a simple monopoly right to global market access. The success and challenge is more in business concept innovation. B. Lev, et al., Stern Univ. 37 • • • • Global patenting system competition create efficiencies by the customers choice Introducing a patenting system successfully - a “chicken and egg” problem. Yesterday local innovation was the driver. Today we have global innovation. New institutions are needed to absorb this risk more effectively. Valuation of patents - a system’s issue From the individual investor - “democratization” of patenting. The issue of “survival” of the patenting system is challenged. The local protection argument is gone in a global economy with TRIPS-agreements. The usage is changing with “global innovation” and the service economy – standards must also change! The patenting system then gets a new goal: Generating growth for the economy. This goal supersedes the national industry protection, R&D recovery and focuses on a new dimension demanding: • Global standards/competition • Independent from government policy • Service economy • Private inventor usage (democratization) The new goal can be achieved by giving the patenting system a global (economic) risk management focus. Recommendations for discussions There are several issues of interest to discuss further. First the “systemic view” of patenting based on the risk management aspects of the system. Secondly there is a multi government agency issue. Typically several agencies are involved in the patenting system: Legal, economic, financial are the most commonly used to “host” the system. They have conflicting interests and in order to create an efficient patenting policy these initiatives must be coordinated in some way. Thirdly the “chicken and egg discussion” needs much empirical evidence. Forth there are public issues here: efficiency of patenting system, quality of system, scope of patenting (value driven), transparency (sharing information), etc. Fifth there are private challenges in creating global protection of intellectual property enabling a global market economy. This is a very central economic policy point of view. Taking the role to manage risk for growth combines the private and public interests – not simply “granting monopolies”. How patents (both the innovation and the right) are used to manage risk then becomes the key issue to understand. 38 Participation Under Uncertainty Moses A. Boudourides Department of Mathematics University of Patras 265 00 Rio-Patras Greece [email protected] http://www.math.upatras.gr/~mboudour/ Abstract This essay reviews a number of theoretical perspectives about uncertainty and participation in the present-day knowledge-based society. After discussing the on-going reconfigurations of science, technology and society, we examine how appropriate for policy studies are various theories of social complexity. Post-normal science is such an example of a complexity-motivated approach, which justifies civic participation as a policy response to an increasing uncertainty. But there are different categories and models of uncertainties implying a variety of configurations of policy processes. A particular role in all of them is played by expertise whose democratization is an often claimed imperative nowadays. Moreover, we discuss how different participatory arrangements are shaped into instruments of policy-making and framing regulatory processes. As participation necessitates and triggers deliberation, we proceed to examine the role and the barriers of deliberativeness. Finally, we conclude by referring to some critical views about the ultimate assumptions of recent European policy frameworks and the conceptions of civic participation and politicization that they invoke. Science, Technology & Society Many have already discerned that something is changing in science and the world at the turn of the millennium: “business as usual in science will no longer suffice, that the world at the close of the 20th century is a fundamentally different world from the one in which the current scientific enterprise has developed” (Gallopin et al., 2001, p. 219). But almost everybody acknowledges that the main changes have been occurring in science with respect to the world, i.e., in the relationship between science and society. In the early arrangements between science and society, there used to exist clear distinctions between the two fields such that norms and principles in each one of them were harmoniously cohabiting and co-ruling a deterministic, regular (and linear) cosmos. Of course, this coexistence did not exclude any combination between science and society; the trajectories of facts, discoveries, ideas, beliefs were possibly molded by passing through a multiplicity of different modalities but in each one of them they were capitulated into exact non-contradicting rules of reason governing both science or/and society. However, since the late 1980s (and with the end of the Cold War), the distinctions between science and society were suddenly blurred and 39 their boundaries became no longer self-evident. Since then, we have been witnessing a “reconfiguration, one that in the eyes of many researchers has narrowed the confines of academic freedom, while giving free play to commodification of research and commercial stakeholder interests (market governance) and other players, including social movements and activists or NGOs” (Elzinga, 2002, p. 2). In other words, the witnessed reconfiguration is not just a mere rearrangement by a two-ways mixing or mutual permeation of science and society; it is something more since structural transformations are occurring in both science and society. In particular, science, the authority of which used to be the foundation of legitimacy of the modern state, “is now increasingly seen as an instrument of corporate profit and unaccountable power” (Ravetz, 2001, p. 7). The way Michel Callon sees it, science in the present-day society is just a ‘quasi-public good,’ because it has become to a certain degree socially, economically or politically ‘appropriable’ (Callon, 1994, p. 400). During the last two decades, there has been an increasing number of different conceptualizations of the ways such recombination of science and society is shaped and many different names, ideas, theories and models have been coined in order to grasp the new relationship between science and society.1 Nevertheless, one should remark that it is not completely clear whether always these conceptualizations are just opinions on descriptions of how things are developing or whether they also constitute normative prescriptions of how things have to develop according to the insight of the promoters of such concepts and theories. In this sense, Mark Elam and Margareta Bertilsson (2003) are cautioning that “behind every authoritative account of major changes of science and society relations stands a more or less explicit vision of how the future ‘knowledge-based society’ should be organized. The work of accounting for change is never innocent of a desire to make a difference to change” (p. 2). Having said the last caveat, it remains to remark that – independently of the rhetoric and the inmost intentions of the coiners of all such descriptive or normative concepts or theories – some elementary but very essential premise is required to be satisfied so that these re-imaginations of science and society might be practically viable and contextually sustainable. This is the idea that a new ‘social contract’ or a ‘New Deal’ (Lubchenco, 1997; Latour, 1998; Gibbons, 1999) is needed to be established among all involved parties in the assayed draw of science close to society. Such a new social contract is strongly needed not just as a procedural means to ratify the new arrangements but also as a necessary requirement to settle with a concomitant crisis linked to the changing character of science and society in our times. As it is stated in a recent working document of the Commission of the European Communities (2000), there is a paradox in the existing relationship between science and society. On the one side, science and technology constitute the “heart of the economy and society,” attracting an increasingly high amount of expectations towards the belief that they can bring a growing positive impact on society. On the other side, advances in science and technology have been happening in such ways as to end up greeted with equally growing skepticism or even alarming hostility. The reason is because sometimes techno-scientific expertise might either fail to cope with social expectations or tend to 40 neglect public concerns about the outcomes of techno-scientific developments, which are vitally important for the whole society. For this purpose, in a concrete effort to establish a new contract between science and society, the European Union (EU) has recently adopted a number of extremely urgent priorities, which aim to improve the quality of policy-making by establishing an inclusive and participatory policy framework. Thus, the Commission of the European Communities is currently setting up the processes to implement the strategic goal to make Europe the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010, based upon the creation of a strongly participatory and democratic European Research Area (EC, 2000, 2001b). It is believed that such a sound institution is needed in order to improve the interactions between policy-making, expertise and public debate and, thus, to produce sustainable relationships between science and society (EC, 2001a). The attempted policy reorientation, which in particular strives to deal with the new situation in science-technology relationships, is commonly epitomized as the turn from traditional governing or political steering towards a new process of governing, usually described as ‘governance.’ Although there exist multiple definitions of this concept (cf., Kooiman, 2002; Rhodes, 1996; Boudourides, 2002), the general tendency is to understand governance as an analytical framework for collective action resulting from multiple interdependent state and public actors, private institutions, voluntary organizations etc. with blurring boundaries and responsibilities (Stoker, 1998). Although – at least in the context of Europe – the governance perspective is usually considered to emanate from the so-called ‘democratic deficit’ and the concomitant predominance of a strong ‘input-oriented’ legitimacy of policy-making over a weak ‘output-oriented’ democratic perspective (Scharpf, 1999), there are many further theoretical investigations of the sources of the concept. According to Philippe Schmitter (2002, p. 54), governance emerges as a result of a double failure: “state failures and/or market failures.” State failures are created when something goes wrong with “calling upon the government, backed by the hierarchical authority of the state, to impose a solution.” Market failures arise from “relying upon firms to allocate resources by market competition and, thereby, generate a voluntary, mutually satisfactory outcome.” In the words of Luigi Pellizzoni (2001b, p. 11), state failures manifest the “failure of pluralism,” because of the increasing marginalization of the political institutions of parliamentary democracy from processes of competition among civil society groups. On the other side, Pellizzoni argues, market failures are just the “failures of neo-corporatism,” because of its inability to cope with complexity, when “in a post-fordist, globalised economy, interests and concerns are too diversified to be represented and managed by a handful of monopolistic actors” (Pellizzoni, ibid.). In other words, what the proponents of the governance paradigm are arguing ibid is that “network governance” comes to fill up the empty space that hierarchies and markets are increasingly producing in regulatory practices. 41 Complexity & Policy-Making Therefore, as it is typically acknowledged nowadays, there is the need for an administrative re-organization because of the observed tensions between the functional approach usually followed by governments and the increasing complexity that modern societies are exhibiting (Lebessis & Paterson, 1997). For instance, in the EU Science & Society Action Plan, the rationale for the new research and foresight must be sought and thought “in view of the complexity of relations between science and society” (EC, 2001b, p. 19). Thus, the key concept is that of ‘complexity,’ a concept paradigmatically inscribing most of the claims in the ongoing discussions about the new recombination of science with society. This is why in this section we are going to be concerned with how complexity (or better said complexities) are put in action in the context of policy studies. However, to define complexity is beyond the scope of the present essay (not to say that it still appears to be an open, unresolved, theoretical question). Just to give some hints, we can say that complexity is a property of things or processes (or systems), which distinguishes them from those which are simple (or ‘complicated,’ on the other end) in terms of a number of various attributes, such as: relational structure, holistic orientation, multiplicity of scales (either in space or in time), irreducibility (in its parts or in other references), multiplicity of legitimate perspectives, contextualized signification, representational incompletion, emergence, reflexivity etc. (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1994; Gallopin et al., 2001; Law & Mol, 2002). Let us give an example from political philosophy drawing on the work of Walzer. In his book Spheres of Justice (1983), Michael Walzer argues against the singularity of John Rawls’ theory of justice. For this purpose, Walzer builds his version2 of justice on a set of multiple orders that he calls ‘spheres of justice.’ Each of these domains have their own way of distributing justice, wealth and power but also any other social good. Furthermore, Walzer calls ‘complex egalitarian’ a society that is sustaining these spheres on the basis of certain autonomous distributive mechanisms, which are imposing strong limitations to the conversion of one social good into another. Apparently, Walzer’s scheme of a ‘complex equality’ is an elegant conceptualization of a social complexity on defense of pluralism and equality, which is exhibiting some of the defining characteristics of the concept like rich multiplicities and rigid irreducibilities. Thus, when complexity theories enter the arena of policy studies, it should not elude that policy studies themselves – but also society (and science, of course) – are by their own constitution highly complex fields. As a result, one could wonder – slightly paraphrasing Peter Stewart’s (2001, p. 323) “question of social complexity” – do complexity theories give answers to all the hot political and social issues that policymakers are trying to answer or are some of them too complex and always elusive to be tamed by these theories? In fact, P. Stewart (critically examining N. Luhmann and other proponents of system theory, critical realism etc.) argues that this is the case with society, in the study of which complexity theories have many weaknesses 42 and rather fail to rigorous model social processes in complexity terms. Thus, when a policy-maker comes to examine the practical utility of complexity theories in policy considerations, she might always bear in mind that not only the object of complexity theories is a complex and stringent entity but (necessarily – from the reflexive point of view) similarly complex and contested are the means and strategies (either cognitiveintellectual or pragmatic-political) typically used to approach this entity. Nevertheless, the previous criticism does not intend to diminish the success that modern complexity theories have in the context of systems-theoretical or cybernetic, mathematical-computational, physical and biological sciences. There are many examples from the latter sciences, in which remarkable advances by complexity theories are observed, such as in the cases of chaos and nonlinear dynamical systems, fractals, algorithmic complexity, self-organization, autopoiesis, organizational complexity etc. As a matter of fact, it is the rich analytical insight gained from these fields that policy theorists can use in their investigations in order to confront the real complexities of the contemporary world (Boudourides, 2000). After all, would it be possible for policy studies to tackle the complexities of the new reconfigurations of science and society without drawing upon the ‘new’ language of the science(s) of complexity aiming to harness social complexities? There is nothing wrong with such an appropriation for a field in which reflexivity on the acceptance of made policies and efficiency in their implementation are virtues that count most. Furthermore, up to the degree that the language of complexity can also reflect and sustain the fundamental principles of the Western democratic tradition (as participation-inclusivity, deliberation-responsivity, pluralism-accountability etc.), then it is a pressing challenge for policy studies (in particular) and political theory (in general) to cope with the increasing complexities of modern societies (Zolo, 1992). For this purpose, in the next section, we are going to discuss a certain trope of science policy, which attempts to appropriate3 fruitfully and to ‘mobilize,’ for a good cause in the policy context, concepts and ideas shared with complexity theories. Post-Normal Science This is a science policy trope, which seems to be taking seriously in account the lesson of complexity. Its fundamental thesis is based on the idea of ‘post-normal science,’ a thesis, which has been proposed and developed by Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz (1991, 1992, 1993). To see how close to complexity this idea claims to be, it suffices to recall a very popular slogan: “post-normal science as a bridge between complex systems and environmental policy” (Funtowicz et al., 1996, p. 8). By its name, it becomes clear that this trope intends to outgo the Kuhnian regime of ‘normal science,’ argued to have been ruling the past arrangements of a routine puzzle-solving scientific practice, administered in a similarly simplistic, self-assured and certain policy environment. According to the post-normal science thesis, current problems (mainly originating from environmental debates) demand another style of both science and policy: one which is typically characterized by uncertain facts, 43 values in dispute, high stakes and the need to take urgent decisions (Ravetz, 1999, p. 649). Thus, what is seen to happen under post-normality is nicely described by an inversion of the “previous distinction between ‘hard,’ objective scientific facts and ‘soft,’ subjective value-judgments,” because now “we must make hard policy decisions where our only scientific inputs are irremediably soft” (ibid.). ibid ibid.). This is why, when the “textbook analogy fails” and the demand of quality of decisionmaking (both in terms of processes and outcomes) becomes increasingly crucial, the proponents of post-normal sciences resort to two concepts – ‘systems uncertainty’ and ‘decision stakes’ – in order to seek the locus of the new science policy in relation to more traditional problem-solving strategies (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1991, 1992, 1993). Uncertainty signifies the limitations or the unavailability of confident knowledge about the ways systems function; stakes indicate the magnitude of consequences when adopting one view over another, i.e. the value-sensitivities or the valueladenness of policy decisions. When both uncertainty and stakes are small, traditional research and expertise do the job, without having to pay any attention to value-laden considerations. When either one (or both) of them is medium, routine techniques are not enough, making necessary the appeal to ‘professionally consultancy’ (as are the services provided by surgeons or senior engineers). Post-normal science emerges when either (or both) of these key issues is high. Then the accentuated intensity of these issues unavoidably raises inferences, which necessarily have to be conditioned by the values held by the involved stakeholders (in contrast with the ‘value-free’ character of traditional science). One of the main implications derived from this thesis refers to the claim of the particular cognitive demands set up by post-normal science. These are special needs in relation to “direction, quality assurance, and also the means for a consensual solution of policy problems in spite of their inherent uncertainties” (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1991, p. 145). What these needs necessitate – so the argument goes – is the mobilization of an ‘extended peer community’ (p. 149) in order to extend the quality assurance character of conventional (normal) science policy mechanisms. The post-normal extended peer community consists of all stakeholders, potentially affected by policy decisions at issue, who are expected to offer their ‘extended facts,’ which are covering, for instance, all sorts of local knowledge, anecdotes, community based research, personal and communal value commitments etc. (Ravetz, 2001, p. 6). Therefore, broadening4 the framing of an issue – at the level of admission of uncertainties, value-loadings and recognition of the right of all interested parties to speak out and be heard by policy-makers – is adding a tone of ‘openness’ and (democratic) ‘participation’ in policy processes of decision-making, otherwise condemned to failure if they were based solely on the purely technical dimensions of the issue (ibid.). ibid.). However, the ibid implicated further extension of democracy by citizen mobilization is not the main concern here – it is merely believed that the involvement of a larger constituency of peers, covering different kinds of knowledge, will contribute to the accomplishment of high-quality policy outcomes. Nevertheless, as Ravetz remarks, such opening in public participation does not necessarily result a restoration of trust in official 44 scientific expertise, because through these processes the public might become “even more suspicious of government assurances of safety” (pp. 6-7). In any case, these are the stakes of the “‘post-normal’ world of science policy, in which scientific demonstrations are complemented by stakeholder dialogues … all sides come to the table with full awareness that their special commitments and perspectives are only a part of the story, and with a readiness to learn from each other” (p. 15). The post-normal science approach has already proved attractive enough as a policy framework to deal with global environmental issues (including global warming) – for instance, as adopted by O’Riordan & Rayner (1991) – and it has provided concrete tools for the management of uncertainties – like the NUSAP (Numerical, Unit, Spread, Assessment, Pedigree) scheme (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1990). However, this approach has also attracted a number of severe criticisms (Jasanoff & Wynne, 1998; Yearley, 2000). These criticisms mainly focus on the following points (for the first two points see Wynne [1992] and next section): • • • • Negligence of qualitative differences among forms of not-knowing or incertitude. Questionable ‘objective’ measurability and comparability of the two principal dimensions of uncertainty and stakes. Disregard of the interdependencies between uncertainty and stakes, two dimensions which neither in principle nor in practice can be considered to constitute truly discrete entities: contests over the stakes are always inseparable from claims about the uncertainties (Yearley, 2000, p. 110). Insufficient justification of why and how the claim on the advisability of extended peer review follows from the theoretical premises of the post-normal condition. Steve Yearley (2000, pp. 109-110) has assessed that the argument of the postnormal science thesis looks less convincing in cases near the axes of the two principal dimensions (uncertainty and stakes), such as, for example, the case of cosmology (high uncertainty, low stakes) and the case of various disasters (high stakes, low uncertainty). Yearley has argued that the problem with post-normal science in such cases is an incomplete explanation of the rationale and scope of public involvement in knowledge production and certification, sometimes together with a false identification of the required qualification for participation, i.e., the elements and constituencies of the extended peer review involvement. Furthermore, given the frequent public mistrust to expertise, Yearley doubts whether the publics might be eager to adopt the role only of peer-reviewers (p. 120). Types of Uncertainty According to Jerome Ravetz (1997, p. 6), uncertainty is a non-quantified form of risk and it may unfold in many versions ranging from sources of statistical errors (and notions of confidence intervals) up to various considerations of ignorance. In particular, Ravetz considers that two forms of ignorance are very important. One is what he calls “policy-critical ignorance,” referring to the case “when there are no 45 parameters, no theories, hardly any guesses, to supply a necessary foundation for policy decisions. Such was the case in the early days of the BSE/neo-CJD crisis” (ibid.). ibid.). But there is another notion of ignorance that Ravetz calls ‘ignorance of ibid ignorance’ and he considers it to be the most dangerous of all. By this, Ravetz means a social construction of false beliefs on the possession of the necessary knowledge or simply unawareness that “there is something out there getting ready to impact on us” (ibid.). ibid.). Ravetz holds that, based on the Cartesian legacy of the “suppression of ibid the tradition of awareness of ignorance” (Ravetz, 2001, p.13), our previous scientific methods were “designed around the achievement of positive knowledge and the fostering of ignorance” (p. 7), i.e., they were built upon the notion of ‘ignorance of ignorance’ (p. 13). Therefore, to come to grips with our ignorance is not a trivial task and Ravetz believes that “this will be a major task of philosophical reconstruction,” which will need to take us back to the thought of Socrates, through a “wholesale reform of philosophy, pedagogy and practice” (p. 13). Brian Wynne (1992) has developed an alternative approach to conceptualize uncertainty from a more diagnostic than prescriptive point of view (Yearley, 2000, p. 111). Instead of locating uncertainty on an “objective scale,” as Wynne considers that Funtowicz and Ravetz have done, he is trying to compose a list of different forms of not-knowing, “overlaid one on the other,” depending on the breadth of “social commitments (‘decision stakes’) which are bet on the knowledge being correct” (Wynne, 1992, p. 116). Thus, Wynne’s taxonomy (1992, 2001), drawn upon a number of previous models of uncertainty – such as the work of Smithson (1989, 1991) – is an attempt to make some key distinctions on the following seven categories of uncertainty: • • • • • • • Risk: system behavior is basically known and chances of different outcomes can be quantified probabilistically – “know the odds.” Uncertainty: important system parameters are known but not the probability distributions – “don’t know the odds.” Ignorance: knowledge about the system and likehoods of its outcomes escape recognition – “don’t know what we don’t know” or “unknown unknowns.” Indeterminacy: issue, conditions and causal chains are all open-ended and “outcomes depend on how intermediate actors will behave” in non-determinate behavioral processes. Complexity: open behavioral systems and emergent, multiplex, ‘non-linear’ and irreducible processes. Disagreement: divergence over observation, framing and interpretation of issues. Ambiguity: contested or unclear meanings of the issues and, hence, of the process key-elements. To depict the first four types of uncertainty, we are going to use a schematization of Brian Wynne’s (1992) categories according to a slightly reworked version of a model proposed by Andy Stirling (1998). In this scheme two are the salient dimensions: (i) 46 public knowledge about outcomes and (ii) technical knowledge about likehoods of outcomes. The first dimension varies between two forms of knowledge of outcomes, uncontested (and well-defined) and contested (or/and poorly-defined, even not defined). The second dimension is expressed by the level of existing or available statistical estimations of outcomes, which may vary between situations of complete lack of any causal inferences and determinations (non-determinacy) and cases when a stochastic (probabilistic) analysis is feasible. Thus, Fig. 1 distributes these four types of uncertainty as follows: Fig. 1. Types of uncertainty (Wynne, 1992; Stirling, 1998). Note that the above schema is nothing more than an indicative representation, in the sense that the types of uncertainty might either fit somewhere in between the poles of social/technical knowledge or even overlap and share possibly common characteristics. This is how Wynne describes the situation: Although “conventional risk assessment methods tend to treat all uncertainties as if they were due to incomplete definition of an essentially determinate cause-effect system … many risk systems embody genuine indeterminacies which are misrepresented by this approach.” Because “the scientific knowledge which we construct … is also pervaded by tacit social judgement which cover indeterminacies in that knowledge itself” (Wynne, 1992, p. 116). Failings as the above of traditional risk management techniques have been elaborated by Wynne (1996a, 1996b) in the context of his case study of how scientists and the government have attempted to deal with the Chernobyl fallout on upland Cumbrian sheep farms. The way Yearley has epitomized Wynne’s main arguments, Wynne 47 appears to claim two things in relation to how experts and the public are dealing with all these types of uncertainty. On the one hand, the weakness of experts is their tendency to treat all forms of not-knowing as quantifiable risk, while the public is deciding whom to trust through her lay contextual insights. On the other hand, in relation to matters of ignorance and indeterminacy, the public is proven to be significantly more expert that the scientists (Yearley, 2000, p. 111). In fact, Wynne’s diagnosis locates an insurmountable predicament on traditional practices of expert-based policy-making: “Through their rationalist discourses, modern expert institutions … tacitly and furtively impose prescriptive models of the human and the social upon lay people, and these are implicitly found wanting in human terms” (Wynne, 1996b, p. 57). As Alan Irwin and Brian Wynne have argued, “science … offers a framework which is unavoidably social as well as technical since in public domains scientific knowledge embodies implicit models or assumptions about the social world” (Irwin & Wynne, 1996, pp. 2-3). Therefore, Wynne expects that sustainable policy decisions, based on broader sociopolitical commitments, may arrive when the public resists this ‘furtive imposition’ and raises questions about the limits of applicability of scientific models or about its underlying social assumptions. In other words, Wynne’s plea is that the broader uncertainty – ignorance and indeterminacy – should be embraced and debated, in open-ended and case-bycase forms of deliberations, by all involved stakeholders, rather than being arbitrarily banished or ignored or routinized/institutionalized, as the dominant tradition of expert policy-making would recommend. Similarly, in an attempt to formulate a theoretical approach to the operationalization of ‘post-normal’ extended peer communities, Stephen Healy (1999) has rediscovered the crucial role that might be played by uncertainty, ignorance and indeterminacy: “If we are to clarify how extended peer communities may be institutionalised we must first understand how they might be configured and extended facts enrolled. A particular opportunity to achieve both these aims is granted by uncertainty … [by] extended multidimensional conceptions that embrace both ignorance … and indeterminacy” (Healy, 1999, p. 656). Uncertainty in Policy Processes We are going now to reflect on another uncertainty-based model of policy-making logic proposed by Claudio Radaelli (1999, pp. 47-49) and also discussed by Luigi Pellizzoni (2001a, pp. 206-208). In this model, policy processes are understood in terms of two dimensions: the salience of the issue at stake and its level of uncertainty (Fig. 2). When both salience and uncertainty are low, the policy process follows a bureaucratic logic, by which the involved actors are competing and bargaining for the control of the issue. When salience is high but uncertainty is low, traditional political conflicts in decision-making are setting up. 48 Fig. 2. Uncertainty and salience in policy processes (Radaelli, 1999, p. 48; Pellizzoni, 2001a, p. 208). When uncertainty is high, then experts turn out to play a prominent role, because in these situations knowledge might be either a scarce and costly resource, which is highly contested, or it might be even controversial (Pellizzoni, 2001a, p. 207). In the former case, only the means to solve a problem are ill-defined, neither the structure nor the goals of the problem: new knowledge is needed to fit into an existing theoretical scheme so that a solution might be found to the problem and this knowledge is uncontested in its description and its rationale. In other words, in this case, uncertainty is reduced to lack of proper scientific knowledge, which should be (or is expected to be) recovered in the future by further scientific research. Pellizzoni identifies this type of uncertainty with the one typically addressed by rational choice theory. Apparently, this is an issue, which can be entrusted to expert advisory bodies, and, thus, its salience remains low. Consequently, when uncertainty is high but salience is low, then the policy process typically follows a technocratic logic. However, high uncertainty of an issue may occur because of other reasons too, such as: (i) when existing knowledge is unsettled yet (either cognitively or normatively) and subject to alternative interpretations or different scientific methods, theories or disciplines; (ii) when there exist persistent disagreement and controversies among experts; (iii) in cases of indeterminacy or ignorance. Note that the first and the last sources of uncertainty are connected, as Silvio Funtowicz and co-workers have so clearly explained: “The framing of the problem also frames our future ignorance, for what is excluded from enquiry also frames our future ignorance” (Funtowicz et al., 2000, p. 333). This is a different type of uncertainty from the previous one of rational choice theory, because now not only the means but also the structure and the ends (goals) of the issue 49 are contested. Pellizzoni calls it ‘radical’ (or deep) uncertainty (ibid.). ibid.). Note that radical ibid uncertainty is a typical case of an ‘intractable controversy’ (Schoen & Rein, 1994), as in a plethora of examples in environmental and techno-scientific issues (for instance, GMOs, BSE, electromagnetic fields, climate change etc.). Intractable controversies differ from simple routine political disagreements in that the latter can be resolved by appealing to facts and using a standard techno-scientific (rational) argumentation. On the contrary, in the former, the parties in a dispute tend to use or emphasize different facts, interpret them differently and resort to conflicting theories. There is no consensus either on the relevant knowledge or on the disputed principles: “facts and values overlap” (Pellizzoni, 2001b, p. 6). Otherwise said, a controversy is intractable when the usual strategies of conflict management cannot apply (Hisschemoeller & Hoppe, 1996). In the case of a radical uncertainty, the structural disagreement on an issue is automatically triggering a generalized conflict around the issue, which is automatically raising up the salience of the issue. Then, in situations of high uncertainty and high salience, Radaelli (1999, p. 48) and Pellizzoni (2001a, p. 208) argue that two (heterogeneous) sets of involved stakeholders may take the lead: epistemic communities and policy entrepreneurs. Epistemic communities, which are playing a key role in international environmental policy, are networks of “professionals with recognized expertise and competence in a particular domain and an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within the domain or issue-area” (Haas, 1992, p. 3). They are defined by shared beliefs, common knowledge and policy experiences and their influence comes from their institutionalization and from the support of organized interests that they receive. Policy entrepreneurs are individual or collective actors who have the power to influence a policy area (King & Roberts, 1987). They are clustered around concrete policy discourses (Hajer, 1995), in which they reframe and process policy issues through ‘narrations’ shared by different actors. Concerning now the policy outcomes of processes involving different levels of uncertainty, Luigi Pellizzoni (2001a, p. 209) suggests that these outcomes can be mapped in terms of two dimensions: knowledge (which essentially amounts to uncertainty) and policy discourse. Knowledge can be assumed to be either uncontested or contested. Policy discourse can be framed either (i) on a unitary or consensual basis or (ii) on a pluralist or dissenting setting; typically, a technocratic framing would favor the former discourse, while a traditional political framing the latter. Then the following four kinds of policy outcomes can result (see Fig. 3). 50 Fig. 3. Uncertainty and discourse in policy processes (Pellizzoni, 2001a, p. 209). When the discourse is unitary, then the outcome is either an established bureaucratic policy, if the knowledge is uncontested, or an expertise-based arrangement, if the knowledge is contested. When the discourse is pluralist but the knowledge is kept uncontested, then the discourse framing of traditional politics is the expected policy outcome. However, the situation is more complicated, when the discourse is pluralist and the knowledge is contested, depending on how much attention is given to the issue outside specialist circles, i.e., the degree of public coverage given to the debated controversy. Typically, in this case, the policy outcome is that of an inclusion of an extended number of involved actors (in accordance with the policy setting of postnormal science) and an orientation to mutual understanding among these actors. Apparently, such an outcome is more flexible than what might have resulted from traditional technocratic authoritarianism or strategic bargaining-negotiation (as suggested by rational choice theory). Questioning Expertise From the discussion of the previous section on how uncertainty might structure various configurations of policy processes, it is evident that expertise plays a prominent role in many cases. But how is expertise defined and usually conceived? Arguing with Claudio Radaelli (2002), it is more convincing to associate experts less with specific intentional or behavioral features of the actors and more with the structure in which they are enacted and operate. In this sense, expertise usually comes from a multiplicity of structures or domains of epistemic, bureaucratic and technocratic policy-making, such as (cf., Radaelli, 2002; EC, 2001a): (i) communities of scientists, ad hoc or ‘independent’ experts, consultancies and scientific advisory committees; 51 (ii) ‘stakeholders’ or various ‘holders’ who possess some quality of resource that entitles them to participate in a governance arrangement (Schmitter, 2002, pp. 62-63; more in the next section); (iii) ‘in-house’ experts, ‘fonctionnaires’ of the European Commission (EC) or other European agencies, including expertise developed through the research policy of the EC, or working within national ministries, diplomats, etc. As Luigi Pellizzoni (2001b, pp. 2 and 7) has argued, there are not a few instances when the two fundamental commitments of the social contract of science with society – disinterestedness and objectivity – become problematic in the ways expertise is trying to implement them. In fact, when policy- or decision-makers are asking experts to provide them with disinterested and objective factual considerations, it is generally assumed the validity of two ideal principles, which should inspire the work of experts. On the one hand, it is expected that experts’ assessment can be either value-free or, otherwise, at least based on value differences, which can be measured univocally (e.g., in economic terms). On the other hand, experts’ conclusions are expected to be either unanimous or, otherwise, at least, in a state of temporary disagreement, which could be later reconciled by means of a closer scrutiny or deeper deliberation among a wider circle of experts. However, in reality, things turn out to be quite different, as Pellizzoni is arguing, in many instances, when these ideal premises are falsified. Examples are abundant in cases of: (i) (ii) (iii) safety, threatened by hazards or accidents as, for instance, in circumstances of environmental risk (Irwin, 1995, 2001) or even risks provoked by business, in particular by multinational enterprises (Ravetz, 2001, p. 2); unintended consequences produced by ‘side effects’ of such developments, as, for instance, in GMOs and GM food, xeno-transplantation, human genome etc. (Ravetz, 2001, p. 3); intractable disagreement or unsettled controversies among experts, who are striving to preserve their authoritative power over science and technology by all means, as, for instance, in the case of the regulatory conflicts in the EU over GM crops (Levidow et al., 2000). What results from all these cases is a growing conviction about the contextual and socially constructed character of knowledge production; this is the perception of what Pellizzoni (ibid.) ibid.) has called ‘plasticity’ of scientific knowledge in order to highlight ibid its subordination to political and economical interests but also its social and cultural malleability. But why do experts possess such a privileged position among institutions and the public in the European conception and architecture of policy-making? According to Andersen and Burns (1996), experts constitute one of the three main forms of representation in the EU (together with interest groups and single countries). However, the fact that from its creation the EU has focused on regulatory (rather than on distributive or re-distributive) policies aiming to efficiency and considering knowledge to be their main asset explains the dominant position given to experts. 52 As many have remarked (cf., Pellizzoni, 2001a), this orientation has some negative consequences in EU policy-making, such as an increasing de-politicization, lack of transparency and low public accountability. Furthermore, expertise might be considered to be suffering from a lack of public legitimacy and, thus, to become problematic in at least two aspects: representation and knowledge (Radaelli, 2002). According to Claudio Radaelli (pp. 198-199), when expertise is represented in a process of public policy, what is in action is a different notion of representation than, say, when a person or an organization is entitled to represent a certain political, social or economic entity. In fact, what is claimed to be represented in the former case is just knowledge as a highly valued resource in the policy-making process. But the concept of knowledge is qualitatively different from that of a political, social or economic identity, which would be expected to participate or to be represented in the former case. This is what Radaelli calls the ‘anthropomorphic’ view of knowledge, i.e., a tendency to define knowledge in relation to certain actors (e.g., experts or knowledge-holders or ‘guardians’ in Schmitter’s terminology – see below). But then, the crucial question to answer is: What makes knowledge a more critical resource in policy-making than, say, money or votes and gives advantages to knowledge ‘guardians’? According to Radaelli, it is what he calls the ‘cognitive structure’ of the policy process the factor, which attributes such a prestige to experts. As Radaelli argues, the ‘cognitive structure’ is a social and cultural construct, which “provides interpretation, representations of political events, learning opportunities and ‘lenses’ that give focus to interests and behavioral codes” (p. 202). This is why Radaelli suggests that to democratize expertise should involve multiple strategies in different dimensions, including civic education, the media and culture.5 Participation & Policy-Making We have seen before that the mandate of the democratization of expertise through an increasing expansion of participatory processes is a commonplace now among policy- and decision-makers due to the extremely dramatic nature of the problems raised up in the context of the present-day knowledge-based society and economy. Thus, the prevailing issue becomes now that of participation, which desperately calls for solution, if viable and sustainable policies are to found to all these problems. To approach the issue of participation, we are going to revolve around five main questions about participation that Philippe Schmitter (2002, pp. 58-67) and Luigi Pellizzoni (2001b, pp. 3-6) have recently raised and discussed: (i) Why and for what purpose are participatory arrangements appropriate (chartering)? (ii) Who is entitled to participate and how is she or he selected (composition)? (iii) How is participation implemented (procedures)? (iv) How are participatory processes connected with decision-making (decision-rules)? (v) How are they connected with the problem setting (agenda-setting)? On the chartering question, Philippe Schmitter has based his analyses around the research of Eleanor Ostrom (1990) on issues of ‘governing the commons’ 53 and the management of ‘self-organized, common-pool resource regimes.’ In this sense, Schmitter (2002, pp. 59-60) highlights the following attributes (originally suggested by Ostrom), which might assure a sustainable performance of participatory arrangements: (1) Feasible improvement, aiming to enhance only resource settings that are not at a point of deterioration (or underutilized). (2) Development of common indicators to measure the flow of information and to establish operational benchmarks of ‘best practice.’ (3) Guarantee of predictability so that resource units do not differ spatially and are not subject to ‘local’ interpretation. (4) Flexible adaptation of the resource system into particular spatial contexts (national and regional).6 On the composition question, Schmitter (2002, pp. 60) suggests the following three attributes that participants (‘appropriators of the resource system’ in Ostrom’s terminology) should exhibit: (1) Salience in the sense that they should possess a significant interest in the issue and they are capable of convincing their ‘followersemployees-clients’ to comply with the decisions derived in the context of the participatory process. (2) Common understanding of how the resource system operates and how participants’ interactions affect it. (3) Low discount rate in relation to future benefits to be achieved from the resource (something which depends on the development of sufficiently high levels of trust so that actors would tend to abstain from short-term ‘opportunistic’ benefits). Moreover, Schmitter (2002, pp. 62-63) identifies seven qualities or resources, which define the entitlement to participate (and the identity of participants): (1) rights (citizens); (2) spatial location (residents); (3) knowledge (experts or guardians); (4) share (owners); (5) stake (beneficiaries-victims); (6) interests (spokespersons); and (7) status (representatives).7 On the procedural question, Schmitter (2002, pp. 67) proposes five very general guidelines that participatory arrangements should follow: (1) The precautionary principle, in cases that the available knowledge is incomplete or uncertain, which would demand calculations according to the worse-case scenarios in order to avoid potential costs than to maximize potential benefits. (2) The forward-regarding principle, which would demand calculations on the basis of the furthest future projection and, thus, necessitate that some participants develop a long time perspective. (3) The subsidiarity principle, which would restrict dealing only with issues that could not be resolved at a lower level decision body. (4) The principle of (partial) transparency, which would allow public dissemination of the proceedings of a process only once a decision has or has not been made but never during the period the process takes place. (5) The principle of proportional externalities, according to which no decision should be taken when its effects in social, economical and political terms are disproportionate either to the original expectations of the charter of the participatory arrangement or to the standards of fairness in society. On the decision-rules question, Schmitter (2002, pp. 65-66) discusses the following eight principles of fair decision-making: (1) The principle of ‘putative’ equality, 54 which would exclude discriminations of any kind in the treatment of participants. (2) The principle of horizontal interaction, which would regulate smoothly and flexibly internal organizational arrangements in participatory processes. (3) The consensus principle, which would necessitate that decisions are taken through deliberation by consensus rather than by vote or imposition. (4) The ‘open door’ principle, which would allow participants’ exit without the imposition of any sanctions against the withdrawing members. (5) The proportionality or reciprocity principle, which would roughly weigh attained outcomes with respect to the assets that the participants are contributing. (6) The principle of shifting alliances, which would guarantee mobility among participants’ positions during the process of consensus formation. (7) The principle of ‘checks and balances,’ which would assure the consistency of decisions taken among decision-making processes at different levels. (8) The reversibility principle, according to which all decisions could potentially be annulled or reversed by citizens either directly through referenda or indirectly by their representatives in higher level decision-making bodies. Through a different perspective, Luigi Pellizzoni (2001b) approaches the entitlement issue, based on a distinction between two fundamental types of participatory schemes: opinion-oriented and position-oriented. An opinion-oriented participatory arrangement is composed of public participants concerned with “highlighting, confronting, and clarifying a constellation of general opinions and ideas, principles and values” (Pellizzoni, 2001b, p. 4). On the other side, an opinion-oriented participatory arrangement is composed of stakeholder participants, who aim to “addressing in a cooperative and dialogical way a dispute among well-defined social positions having a direct stake in an issue” (ibid.). ibid ibid.). Thus, drawing upon concrete case studies of European experiences (EUROpTA, 2000) of Participatory Technology Assessment (PTA), Pellizzoni remarks the following differences with regard to the entitlement issue of participatory arrangements (pp. 45): In a public PTA, participants are defined through their normative competence, as this is expressed by their opinions, preferences, principles and values. No cognitive or intellectual competence is expected in a public PTA. Although the normative competence of a stakeholder PTA is expressed by participants’ interests and stakes, these stakeholders are also expected to possess a cognitive competence too. They participate not only in order to assure their legitimacy but also in order to contribute to processes of both problem-setting and problem-solving using the privileges of their professional, social, economic or spatial (territorial) positioning. The latter privileges are what constitute the ‘positional insight’ of such participants (stakeholders).8 With respect to procedural issues of PTA, Pellizzoni (2001b, p. 5) has distinguished differences again according to the type of the participatory arrangement. For opinionoriented PTA, he argues that the dilemma is to form a general consensus or to follow the majority rule. On the other side, for position-oriented PTA, he claims that the dilemma is to reach consensus through discussion or strategic bargaining. 55 On the decision-rules issue, David Guston (1999) has posed a general framework for evaluating the impact of participatory arrangements according to the following three dimensions of impact: (1) Categories of impact (actual impact, impact of general thinking, on training of knowledgeable personnel, on interaction with lay knowledge). (2) Target of impact (policy, politics and people). (3) Type of impact (substantive, procedural, reflexive). On the decision-rules question, Pellizzoni (2001b, p. 5) again is interested in highlighting differences in decision-making between the two types of PTA. In public PTA, participants are more concerned in the production of indirect effects (for instance, by stimulating political changes for further investigation) than a direct impact of the decisions. In stakeholder PTA, what characterizes participants is that in the decision process they are reluctant to abandon their usual fixed ideas, routines and habits and to adopt an open-minded attitude and criticize existing power relations in favor of a more balanced representation of positions. With regards to the agenda-setting question, Pellizzoni (2001b, pp. 3, 5-6), using idealtypical terms, distinguishes between top-down and bottom-up approaches in relation to whether the agenda is set up and controlled by the promoters or the participants in the process. In public PTA, Pellizzoni claims that a truly bottom-up approach is rather problematic since the average participant is not prepared cognitively, normatively and politically to affect and reorganize the agenda. Thus, in such situations the ‘threat of manipulation’ is present. In stakeholder PTA, the problem is, Pellizzoni thinks, that a top-down approach might not so much raise the problem of manipulation as rather the possible expulsion of some participants from the process. Moreover, in such situations, Pellizzoni argues, the main problem is the ‘threat of strategy,’ depending on how stakeholders are behaving in terms of usual interest negotiation. In a further attempt to formalize a classification of participatory approaches to policymaking, Luigi Pellizzoni (2001a, pp. 215-218) has singled out two dimensions: purpose of participation and agenda-setting. In the first dimension, the purpose of participation is distinguished according to whether it is deliberation- or decisionoriented. In the second dimension, agenda-setting (or issue-definition) is distinguished according to whether it is top-down or bottom-up. Then the following arrangements of four policy approaches result (Fig. 4): (1) Referenda, which may be taken as an example of a decision-oriented and top-down approach. (2) ‘Citizen bills,’ which constitute decision-oriented bottom-up citizen initiatives. (3) Consensus conferences, as typical examples of deliberation-oriented bottom-up approaches. (4) Citizen advisory committees, which constitute small groups of participants-discussants (i.e., discussion-oriented) selected by promoters (thus, obeying a top-down logic). Of course the last two approaches are just two characteristic examples among many others (Rowe & Frewer, 2000). 56 Fig. 4. Approaches to participatory policy-making (Pellizzoni, 2001a, p. 216). Participation & Deliberative Democracy To be able to discern the characteristic attributes of concrete participatory forms and arrangements, one needs to reflect further on the composition question. In particular, from the selection criteria used to answer this question, one could derive some analytical typologies of the inclusive or exclusionary character of participatory arrangements. To do this, we are going to follow again Luigi Pellizzoni’s (2001a, pp. 212-213) distinction between two dimensions of participation: (i) a normative and (ii) a cognitive dimension. Depending on around which issues – related to concerns or knowledge – participation is focused, the resulting arrangements can be either inclusive or exclusionary. Then, taking together these dimensions, four models of policy-making may be distinguished (Fig. 5): (1) The technocratic model, based on a double exclusion: Experts are defining both the problem and the solution and are not allowing any political process of interaction, negotiation or deliberation with laypersons. (2) The model of traditional politics, which is inclusive with respect to values and concerns but exclusionary with respect to the cognitive dimension: Experts are framing unquestionably the technical contents of the issue but all other stakes are permitted to be debated, negotiated and shared among all the participants. (3) The neocorporatist model, which allows debate and negotiation among a limited number of involved stakeholders, representing concrete interest groups and organizations: Only these participants can provide their insights in the cognitive processes of problem formulation and solution – the concerns of any other participants are excluded from the normative process of decision-making too. (4) The model of deliberative democracy, which is inclusive in both dimensions: It acknowledges the relevant insight from every participant and it incorporates the whole range of expressed concerns from the whole society. 57 Fig. 5. Models of participatory policy-making (Pellizzoni, 2001a, p. 213). Clearly, on the composition question, the tradition of deliberative democracy shares the value of ‘popular inclusion’ with participatory liberalism. But there is a difference in the way this inclusiveness is now comprehended. For participatory liberal theorists, inclusion is an end in itself (Barber, 1984). For deliberative democracy, “the ultimate goal is a public sphere in which better ideas prevail over weaker ones because of the strength of these ideas rather than the strength of their proponents” (Ferree et al., 2002, p. 301). In particular, a well functioning public sphere should include actors from the ‘periphery,’ i.e., autonomous (‘autochtone’) actors that Jürgen Habermas (1984) was associating with the ‘life-world’ of citizens. These actors, by their dialogue with the center, might subscribe to an ‘ideal speech situation’ and, thus, contribute to the fostering of more deliberative speech. However, deliberative theory challenges the ideals of democracy supported by representative liberal theorists, which are based on preference-aggregative political processes or on bargaining among conflicting interests or on the elitist restriction of the discussion (March & Olsen, 1989). In the words of Luigi Pellizzoni, “the deliberative perspective admits that political preferences conflict, that modern society is pluralist and cannot be viewed as a community with shared goals and principles … [and] that conflicts can be resolved by means of unconstrained discussion intended to achieve the common good” (Pellizzoni, 2001b, p. 8). Therefore, “deliberativeness is the core value of this perspective, and it involves recognizing, incorporating, and rebutting the arguments of others – dialogue and 58 mutual respect – as well as justifying one’s own” (Ferree et al., 2002, p. 306). This is grounded on the possibility of reaching consensus on the ‘best argument,’ thanks to the fundamental unity of reason and the invariant structure of language, according to Habermas (1996). Since “mutual understanding is the outcome of a process of abstraction or generalization,” the proponents of deliberative democracy try “to find, behind different positions, a common set of principles from which the solution to the problem at stake can be derived” (Pellizzoni, 2001b, p. 9). However, the main criticisms to the arguments of deliberative democracy concern the problem of inequality and the problem of incommensurability (ibid.). ibid.). Inequalities and ibid differences in status, power and the possession of other resources manifest the practical difficulties of the reconciliation between the deliberative democratic ideal and the actual reality of political conflicts. On the other side, incommensurability manifests the difficulties of the rapprochement between different cognitive and axiological positions. Although reason might be a shared quality among humans, its exercise does not always lead to agreement. When there are acute differences in worldviews or problem definition or factual assertions or value assumptions, agreement on the ‘best argument’ cannot always be reached (Pellizzoni, 2001c). In these cases, what is missing is a conceptual framework, which would provide a common measure to compare among different opinions, which is an elementary and necessary condition for deliberation to start. Moreover, beneath the claim of the universalist-rationalist dominant approach, Chantal Mouffe (1999, 2000) has argued, hegemonic pretensions are often hidden.9 Similarly, Lynn Sanders argues that appeals to deliberation “have often been fraught with connotations of rationality, reserve, cautiousness, quietude, community, selflessness, and universalism, connotations which in fact probably undermine deliberation’s democratic claims” (Sanders, 1997, p. 348). Finally, incommensurability also raises the issue of the social situatedness of positions, i.e., the issue of positional objectivity (Sen, 1993). Thus, trans-positional, trans-group and trans-cultural assessments may provide a way out of incommensurability and total relativism (Pellizzoni, 2001b, p. 9). Moreover, the possibility of trans-positional assessments should be in principle open to everybody, who may perform critical, local and contextual observations, taking into account different assumptions and descriptions and trying to filter out the false or senseless ones. Hence, Pellizzoni argues, “the aim of deliberation becomes to confront contextual knowledge, different position insights, looking at similarities, isomorphisms, common features among differently framed descriptions of portions of reality, in order to find a shared ‘local’ solution to a problem” (ibid.). ibid ibid.). Concluding Remarks We started our investigation by pointing out the complexities of modern governance, which necessarily today – in the knowledge-based society – has to deal with the new ways that science, technology and society are related to each other. In this framework, uncertainty becomes the central policy issue and we saw two approaches dealing 59 with it: post-normal science and Wynne’s diagnostic model. However, uncertainty necessitates participation and deliberation and, thus, we discussed the ways participatory arrangements are actuated through modern policy discourses in order to enhance democratic governance. So far, so good, in theory. But what’s happening in practice? Is participation solving problems in the way it is implemented in modern governance and policy-making? Some would be reluctant to sign on the effectiveness of participatory policies in concrete contexts and would rather question the underlying structural and normative assumptions of such policies. To give some characteristic examples, let us discuss two recent criticisms of relevant EU initiatives, which focus (i) on how the latter attain a relegitimization of decision-making in science and governance and (ii) on what kind of conceptions of civic participation and political engagement these policies are based. Examining the case of EU policies on agricultural biotechnology, Les Levidow and Claire Marris (2001) are trying to identify the serious problems and misconceptions in the orientation of the EU policy frameworks of science and governance. Their argument is that, in the dominant models of science and technology, a discourse of technological determinism (stressing particular technological imperatives, closely related to competitiveness) is often invoked in order to “promote and conceal socialpolitical agendas, while pre-empting debate on alternative futures” (Levidow & Marris, 2001, p. 345). They argue that, originally during the 1980s and early 1990s, the official policy discourses had adopted a ‘deficit model’ of how the publics were understanding science and technology, according to which lay people were assumed to base their opposition on fear and ignorance. Thus, the need for ‘better communication’ to be disseminated from experts into society. However, Levidow and Marris hold that subsequently the problem “shifted away from public ignorance to mistrust” and, thereby, the observed crisis of confidence increasingly necessitated ‘better debate’ or ‘stakeholder dialogue’ rather than ‘better communication’ (p. 348). But, they argue, by shifting the issue from ‘how to educate the ignorant people’ to ‘how to regain trust in science,’ essentially the new rhetoric continued to mis-diagnose the problem and to propose inadequate solutions, still drawing upon the same deficient public understanding of science. This explains why, for Levidow and Marris, the proposed ‘new forms of dialogue’ were “sought mainly as a means to restore the legitimacy of science and technology, not as a means to reconsider innovation processes” (ibid.). ibid ibid.). Furthermore, the official discourses and regulatory procedures, Levidow and Marris claim, were often attributing public distrust to science and technology to ‘extrascientific’ concerns – for instance ‘ethical’ issues – “as if value-free scientific knowledge was readily available, as if scientific evidence were separable from values, and as if expert advice could thereby stand separate from ‘other concerns’” (p. 349). At the same time, this systematic reinforcement of the notion of a value-free and 60 neutral science was accompanied by a relegation of the ‘extra-scientific’ concerns to a subjective realm, where they would be evaluated differently by actors according to their vested interests and values (ibid.). ibid ibid.). Levidow and Marris give an example of such a concealment of value-frameworks in regulatory policies in the way the official language and institutional practices distinguish a value-free ‘risk assessment’ from a socially-, politically- or ethicallyladen ‘risk management’ (p. 350). But, from our previous discussion of uncertainty and ignorance, we have seen how ill-founded such a distinction is. Therefore, by continuing “to entertain an artificial boundary between (supposedly objective) ‘science’ and (supposedly subjective) ‘other factors’, which are labeled as ‘societal’ or ‘ethical’, or ‘political’” (ibid.), ibid.), Levidow and Marris argue, “rhetorics of openness ibid have tagged onto the dominant models, rather than superseding them” (p. 345). Thus, Levidow and Marris conclude: “If the aim is to relegitimise decision-making, government will need to ‘un-learn’ many institutional assumptions and to redefine the problem at stake. Rather than seeking ways to change the public, it is necessary to change the institutions responsible for promoting innovation and regulating risks. In particular they need to change their preconceptions of science, technology and public concerns. In such a process, public concerns offer a useful starting point and social resource for organisational learning” (p. 357). In a similar fashion, but this time targeting the official conceptions of participation and politicization, Paul Magnette (2001) has addressed a critical appraisal of the European Commission White Paper on Governance (EC, 2001a). In spite of ambitious objectives, Magnette discerns a limited conception of participation throughout the policies stimulated by this document. He claims that an elitist conception of citizenship restricts participation to already organized groups, just favoring sectoral groups and interested parties, who are in a position to use such procedures as petitions, lobbying, appeals to the European Court of Justice etc. Thus, the white paper fails to encourage ordinary citizens and other general members of civil society to become more active. Given also the low levels of civic participation in western democracies, which are lower at the supranational level, Magnette holds that the mere stimulation of citizens involvement only in specific procedures does not suffice to raise up the general level of civic consciousness and participation. Furthermore, these policies, Magnette argues, confine participation only inside non-binding preliminary procedures of nondecision during the consultative, pre-decision stage. Magnette explains the weakness of civic participation in the European Union in terms of two sets of factors: (i) the clarity of the institutional structures and (ii) the polarity of the party system. With respect to the former, which in principle increases participation, Magnette claims that the existing “large set of channels of representation (Council, EP, CoR, ESC, Cosac) fragments deliberation” (p. 7). With respect to the polarity of the party system, which “simplifies the electoral choice,” he believes that the “Community method hides political conflicts” through the production of a consensus- 61 oriented decision-making. In fact, Magnette holds that “the Community method, based on a long process of informal negotiation and the elaboration of compromise before political discussions take place, is a very powerful disincentive for political deliberation” (ibid.). ibid.). After investigating a variety of possible theoretical solutions to ibid the problem, such as institutional reforms and federal constitutionalism, Magnette proclaims for a politicization of the EU, which could generate public interest and broaden public participation. However, he realizes that this can only happen if and when the Commission changes political attitudes and no longer “considers itself to be a body designed to bypass political conflicts and forge compromise before political deliberation takes place” (p. 12). Thus, we see, though widely contested in its theoretical, normative and institutional dimensions, the concept of participation has already expanded in the realm of ‘political symbolism,’ which plays such an important role in the processes of European integration (Wallace, 2000, p. 56). But this is another territory of uncertainty as the present-day international conflicts and geopolitical stakes of the globalized world manifest. Acknowledgement This essay has been motivated by discussions drawn during the ongoing project STAGE (Science, Technology and Governance in Europe) funded by the European Commission under the Framework Programme V. I have benefited enormously from what I have learned from my partners in this project: Peter Healey, Alan Irwin, João Arriscado Nunes, Marisa Matias, Rob Hagendijk, Margareta Bertilsson, Mark Elam, Hans Glimell, Marja Haeyrinen-Alestalo, Karoliina Snell, Egil Kallerud, Vera Schwach and Dimitris Kalamaras. Notes 1. Michael Gibbons, Helga Nowotny, Peter Scott and their co-workers are talking about the emergence of a mode-2 science and society (Gibbons et al., 1994), taking place within the public arena, which, subsequently, the core of these theorists have preferred to call agora (Nowotny et al., 2001). Bruno Latour (1998, 1999) proclaims the reconfiguration of the world of science into the world of research. Karin Knorr-Cetina (1999) by looking at epistemic cultures epitomizes what she considers to be the basis of the present-day knowledge-based society. Silvio Funtowicz and Jerry Ravetz (1992, 1993) preach for the advent of post-normal science. Arie Rip and Barend van der Meulen (1996) even talk about a post-modern research system and other “higher forms of nonsense” (Rip, 2000). Henry Etzkowitz and Loet Leydesdorff (1997) envisage the co-evolution of science and society through the triple helix paradigm. This new science is what has been already called mandated science (Salter, 1988) or post-academic science (Ziman, 1996) or even academic capitalism (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997). 62 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Of course, there are other ways too of defining the multiplicities and complexities of justice. In their book Les Économies de la Grandeur (1987), Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot prefer to distinguish among ‘styles’ rather than spheres and, thus, to justify actions by the mobilization of multiple styles in every specific situation. In this way, they are able to investigate empirically all kinds of justifications, which are convincing for different people in different settings. It would be more surprising if sometimes we were witnessing the opposite direction of appropriation of representations: ideas, concepts, theories or methodologies first elaborated in the context of social sciences and subsequently migrating or diffusing inside natural or mathematical sciences. Of course, in the present-day conjuncture (the ‘two cultures’ divide, domination of hard sciences etc.) this is rather far from being possible to happen. In the words of Brian Wynne, “science’s greater public legitimation and uptake … would involve, inter alia, recognition of new, socially extended peer groups legitimated to offer criticism of scientific bodies of knowledge from beyond the confines of the immediate exclusive specialist scientific peer group” (Wynne, 1996a, p. 39). Besides all these, the fact is that the democratization of expertise entails finding solutions to some thorny issues and even committing certain compromises or trade-offs. From the point of view of policy-making, Radaelli (2002, p. 203) describes the decisions, which have to be taken in terms of a trilemma among three poles: political legitimacy, policy effectiveness and scientific accuracy. Radaelli argues that all the elements of this trilemma are problematic although they should not be considered always as antithetic. Finally, as the working group of the European Commission has suggested, democratizing expertise necessitates some potential trade-offs, such as between legitimacy and efficiency, simplification and participation (EC, 2001a, p. 7) and between democracy and time (Radaelli, 2002, p. 204). Furthermore, Schmitter (2002, pp. 61-62) considers that the initial establishment of participatory arrangements should be guided by the following six general norms: (1) The principle of ‘mandated authority’ demanding the existence of a clear and well-defined mandate as a necessary precondition for a participatory arrangement to be established. (2) The ‘sunset’ principle imposing an expiration date – known from advance – for any participatory scheme. (3) The principle of ‘functional separability’ defining the borders between tasks accomplished by different participatory arrangements. (4) The principle of ‘supplementarity’ determining that any participatory body should not compete with existing political institutions but just supplement them. (5) The principle of ‘request variety,’ according to which it is up to the participatory arrangement to establish its internal procedures and develop its distinctive format, appropriate for accomplishing its tasks and goals. (6) The ‘high rim’ or ‘anti-spill-over’ principle, which will require that changes in tasks are only permitted if the appropriate changes in mandates are issued by the supervising institution. 63 7. 8. 9. In addition, Schmitter (2002, pp. 63-64) outlines the following four principles that might provide a basis for the justification of the selection of participants: (1) The minimum threshold principle, according to which no participatory arrangement should have more active participants than what is necessary. (2) The stakeholding principle, which would exclude participants without a significant stake in the issue – except knowledge-holders (experts). (3) The principle of ‘European privilege’ – of course, with respect to European governance arrangements – in the sense that all participants should represent Europe-wide constituencies. (4) The adversarial principle, favoring selections of participants who represent constituencies with diverse and opposite interests (including knowledge-holders or experts supporting different or opposing theories and paradigms), so that there might be no preponderance of representatives holding a similar position or forming an alliance for common purpose. In what concerns the selection question, Pellizzoni (2001b, pp. 4-5) again discerns differences between opinion-oriented and position-oriented participatory schemes. In public PTA, the fundamental dilemma is whether selected participants should act as representatives of others with similar characteristics, interests and values or as citizens, who might decide to transform their characteristics through their interaction and deliberations with others. On the contrary, the basic problem of stakeholder PTA arises in circumstances when certain stakeholders’ interests and positions have low visibility or the organization level of these stakeholders is very poor to permit them to convince their constituencies to compile with the decisions taken in the process. This is why, in her criticisms of deliberative democracy, Chantal Mouffe envisages politics through a model of radical or ‘agonistic pluralist’ democracy, which would replace the ‘consensualistic’ approach to public deliberation (1999, pp. 755-756). 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University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press. 69 Participation in Risk Management Decisions: Theoretical, Practical, and Strategic Difficulties in the Evaluation of Public Participation Initiatives Gene Rowe Institute of Food Research NORWICH UK Lynn Frewer University of Wageningen WAGENINGEN NETHERLANDS Abstract A current trend in risk management, and policy setting more generally, is the involvement of members of the public, or other significant stakeholders, in the decision-making process. Such involvement has been argued to have the advantage of increasing the democratic legitimacy of decisions, and allowing the incorporation of lay insight into problems that have a degree of scientific uncertainty (and hence that are based to some extent on value judgments). One significant issue is the quality or validity of such processes, namely, the issue of evaluation. Evaluation is important, not only from a quality control perspective, but because it may indicate potential improvements for the conduct of further exercises, and importantly, may help to assure participants (and the public more widely) that the exercise is more than just a public relations exercise. However, evaluation of public involvement initiatives is relatively rare, and little discussed in the academic literature. It is also beset with a large number of potential problems and uncertainties. In this paper, we will discuss a variety of problems with conducting evaluations of participation initiatives. These problems range from the theoretical (how one defines effectiveness, how one measures this, how one confirms the validity, reliability and utility of one’s measures), to the practical (how one conducts evaluations given limitations in time, space, resources, and possible sources of data), to the strategic/political (how one deals with sponsor/organiser resistance to evaluation). These problems will be discussed from a theoretical point of view, and with reference to practical evaluations that we have conducted with a large variety of governmental and non-governmental organisations, predominantly in the UK. The paper will conclude with a number of recommendations regarding best practice in conducting evaluations. 1. The Trend for Increased Participation in Institutional Decision Making One trend that is readily apparent in contemporary democratic societies is the growth in participatory decision making, in which the public (and/or other stakeholders) are consulted and involved in some manner in the policy setting and decision-making of 70 institutional (e.g. governmental) bodies. This ‘model’ of decision-making contrasts with the predominant model in democracies in which the involvement of the public is limited to voting at election time, with subsequent decisions left to elected representatives in Government, often with recourse to advice from unelected experts (either individual advisors or members of expert committees) [1]. Public or stakeholder ‘participation’ is achieved through various means or mechanisms. In some cases, involvement is enacted through changed institutional forms - such as co-opting public members or stakeholders into advisory committees. In many cases, however, involvement is achieved through one-off events rather than continuous processes. The use of referenda and consultation documents on which interested parties can comment are fairly traditional means of involving the public; more contemporary means include the use of activities such as ‘citizen’s juries’, ‘consensus conferences’ and other innovative forms of conference or meeting. Indeed, the number of mechanisms seems to grow continually - Rowe and Frewer [2] give over one hundred named mechanisms in a list that is certainly not exhaustive. There are a variety of practical and ethical reasons for policy-making bodies to involve lay people in decision-making. Political theorists and ethicists discuss concepts such as democracy, procedural justice, and human rights, in providing the moral basis for involvement. Beyond this issue of ‘fairness’, it is also important to recognise that in many policy setting or risk management situations, a high degree of scientific uncertainty exists, such that decisions are based to a significant extent upon the values of the involved experts, which may have no greater validity than, and which may overlook important insights held by, the relevant public. In any case, making decisions without public support is liable to lead to a number of practical difficulties, such as confrontation, disruption, boycott, , and public distrust. Indeed, a decline in trust in policy makers has been widely noted, and is regarded as having compromised the perceived legitimacy of governance in some areas of policy development [3]. The rationale behind the commissioning and enacting of public participation exercises is important, for this indicates aims that may be taken as targets or benchmarks against which the quality of such exercises may be evaluated - the difficulties of which process are the subject of this paper. 2. The Issue of Evaluation The evaluation of participation exercises is important for all parties involved: the sponsors of the exercise, the organisers that run it, the participants that take part, and the uninvolved-yet-potentially affected public. Evaluation is important for financial reasons (e.g. to ensure the proper use of public or institutional money), practical reasons (e.g. to learn from past mistakes to allow exercises to be run better in future), ethical/moral reasons (e.g. to establish fair representation and ensure that those involved aren’t deceived as to the impact of their contribution), and research/ theoretical reasons (e.g. to increase our understanding of human behaviour) [4]. As such, few would deny that evaluation should be done when possible. In the next section we discuss various difficulties that exist when trying to conduct such evaluations. 71 3. Difficulties in Conducting Evaluations Although evaluation is desirable, it is also difficult. In the bulk of this paper, we discuss a number of these difficulties, which we categorise as ‘theoretical’, ‘practical’ and ‘strategic’, raising issues of significance to both researchers and practitioners. The issues we identify have emerged from our academic considerations of the topic, and from our own practical experiences of conducting evaluations of participation exercises for a large number of UK institutions, of both national and local type. 3.1 Theoretical Difficulties In simple terms, we consider evaluation to entail the measurement of the quality or effectiveness of something - here, participation exercises. By ‘theoretical’ difficulties we broadly mean academic difficulties concerned with defining this concept of ‘effectiveness’, and the subsequent difficulties related to the measurement of effectiveness as defined (measurement being a foundation of academic research). Defining ‘effectiveness’ is not a straightforward process. In the first instance, there is a school of thought that this - given complexities that will shortly be discussed - is impossible or insensible, at least prior to an exercise taking place. The inductive research tradition seeks to first collect data and then to induce hypotheses/theories (and indeed, definitions). Here, stating what is meant by ‘effectiveness’ a priori constrains the data one will collect and imposes a framework upon the data that might not be appropriate. This research tradition, which typically uses qualitative over quantitative research techniques, is particularly apt in new environments where little is previously known, where ‘hard’ (e.g. quantitative) data is difficult to attain [5], and where hypothesies are difficult to generate. We propose that this process, with regards participation exercises, should be termed assessment as opposed to evaluation. Although in some respects the participation environment seems suited to assessment, this process has difficulties exaggerated by the often political nature of participation exercises, perhaps the greatest of which is the different values and perspectives of those involved (from the sponsors and organisers to the various participants themselves) each of whom may have different rationales for involvement. Though differing perspectives are problemic for defining effectiveness a priori, this makes ascertaining it after the event a hugely fraught exercise, in which any party disagreeing with the assessment may (perhaps justifiably) question the conclusions. An analogy may be like a game of football in which invisible goal posts are only revealed at the final whistle. If effectiveness is definied beforehand (the goalposts are evident) then there can be less cause for complaint. Unless there is a clear definition of what it means for a participation exercise to be ‘effective’, there will be no theoretical benchmark against which performance may be compared. The difficulty lies in the fact that ‘effectiveness’ in this domain is not an obvious, uni-dimensional and objective quality (such as ‘speed’ or ‘distance’) that can be easily identified, described, and then measured. Indeed, there are clearly many aspects to the concept of ‘participation exercise effectiveness’ (as there are aims for running such an exercise) that are open to contention [6]. This leads to the question: is it possible to state a single definition of effectiveness for all participation exercises, or is each exercise unique, with specific aims and hence a need for a specific definition 72 of effectiveness in each case? In a review of evaluations in the academic literature, we [6] found that answers to this question have varied. Many evaluations - at least implicitly - have adopted a definition of effectiveness that is ‘universal’ and intended to be relevant for participation exercises generally (or at least a specified subgroup of these). Definitions have varied on a number of dimensions. One concerns whether effectiveness is a subjective aspect (and if so, subjective according to whom) or an objective aspect (that either incorporates no subjective opinions from the involved parties, or perhaps combines all of these in some manner). A second concerns whether effectiveness should relate to aspects of the quality of the exercise process (how the exercise was conducted) or aspects of the outcome (such as whether the exercise has a positive consequence), or indeed, both. Though we found that ‘universal’ definitions of effectiveness have varied [6], certain themes have tended to reoccur, such as the need for the participants to be fairly representative of the affected stakeholders or public, and the need for the exercise to have some genuine impact upon the policy or behaviour of the sponsors of the exercise. Though a number of universalist ‘evaluation frameworks’ (definitions) have been described [7] [8], there is little evidence as yet of any of these being taken up more generally and used/assessed/improved. We have also argued [6] that, though any particular exercise may have a very precise aim, that these should be able to be phrased in terms of more general effectiveness criteria – for example, a specific aim to ‘effect policy in a specific way’ may be cast as the general criterion ‘to have an impact on policy’. Following specification of a definition of effectiveness, there arises a need to develop an instrument to measure this quality. If a theoretically justified definition of ‘effectiveness of (all) participation exercises’ could be derived, then the evaluation process could be eased through development and use of a single tested, validated set of measures (if unique definitions were derived, then clearly a unique set of measures would be needed for each case). Rosener [9] noted, however, that among the problems inherent in conducting evaluations, is that there are no agreed-upon evaluation methods and few reliable measurement tools - and the situation appears to have changed little since she wrote this. Certainly, a variety of social science approaches exist that may be used to gather data for this purpose, from the use of questionnaires (e.g. to ascertain the opinions of participants), to the use of observation (by evaluators, to assess the quality of process), to the stipulation of objectively verifiable outputs that may be logged or counted. Unfortunately, in our review [6] we found little evidence of standardised or validated instruments (indeed, we identified only three cases where this issue was addressed). By validated we mean that the instruments have been assessed to determine whether they measure the concept they are intended to measure, and also that they are reliable, in the sense that they give similar outcomes when used on different occasions. In the absence of such measures, the meaning of one’s evaluation will not only be in doubt, the generalisability to other situations and exercises will also be uncertain. The practical difficulty of conducting evaluations, using measures, and testing the qualities of one’s measures, is addressed in the next section. 73 3.2 Practical Difficulties In our past research, we have encountered a number of difficulties in developing and using instruments during the conduct of evaluations. The main difficulty is that the environment in this area is far from conducive for developing instruments according to standard procedures and criteria (of reliability and validity). That is, methods at assessing reliability (that the instrument will give similar results when used on separate occasions when measuring the same thing) rely upon the use of statistical procedures (e.g. correlations) that need relatively large amounts of data – e.g., large numbers of respondents completing large numbers of questions, over a number of occasions. The typical participation exercise, however, uses relatively few participants. We have also found that restrictions in the collection of adequate data may arise from an unwillingness of sponsors to allow distribution of instruments on more than one occasion - sometimes because of a desire not to over-burden participants, and sometimes because they do not understand the need to reiterate the process. Standard ways of testing validity (i.e. that an instrument actually measures what it is supposed to measure) also tend to require large amounts of data. An additional difficulty arises, however, which is the lack of alternative benchmarks against which validity may be determined. That is, the validity of an instrument is often judged by comparing the results obtained from using it, with results obtained from other instruments that are accepted as having demonstrated validity, or by comparing the results to what might be predicted from some current theory. In public participation research, unfortunately, there are no such instruments or theories to provide alternative benchmarks (yet). We have also experienced an understandable lack of co-operation from sponsors/organisers of exercises that are perceived to have failed, and this also provides a problem, in preventing the instruments from being validated in important circumstances (i.e. of negative evaluation or lack of successful implementation) such that their limits are uncertain. A simple example will illustrate this point. Consider the development of a new type of scale that measures weight, and is found to be highly accurate in measuring the weight of children. It might be that when an adult stands on the scale the untested weight causes the scale to malfunction (or even break!); one cannot be certain of the scale’s limits until one tests it in the range of circumstances in which it might be employed. Aside from difficulties in assessing the quality of one’s instruments, there are practical difficulties in the actual application of such instruments (if we set aside, or assume, the validity/reliability of these). One is the practical difficulty of identifying an end-point to a participation exercise, as institutional and societal responses to a particular exercise may be manifest months or even years after an exercise has finished. This is particularly problemic for instruments that aim to measure outcomes of exercises, as distinct from the quality of the processes within it. Hence, outcome measures may be difficult to ascertain in a timely manner, and in any case, the outcomes themselves may be due to some extent to other factors, such as the occurrence of simultaneous events or externally mediated pressures influencing policy processes [10]. Relatedly, sponsors of exercises that do involve evaluation generally desire rapid appraisal so that this might be included in some report of the activities - again, limiting the scope of the evaluation. Though the evaluation of outcomes is 74 perhaps preferable to processes, because these will correspond more directly to the desired aims of the exercise, evaluation of exercise processes must often serve as surrogate to the outcomes of the exercise [6]. That is, if the exercise process is good (conducted well according to one’s definition) then it would seem more likely that the outcomes will be good than if the process is bad. A further practical problem (which might also be considered ‘strategic’) concerns the timing of an evaluation. Properly, the evaluation process should be initiated at the outset of the exercise. For example, if an evaluator wished to establish the ‘fairness’ of an exercise, they would need access to the decision making body that sets the terms of the exercise and details who will be involved, how they will be recruited, what will be expected of them, and how their involvement will be operationalised. In many cases, however, evaluation is an afterthought, and the exercise may be well underway before the issue is even raised (this is our experience in one major participation exercise in the UK that is currently in process). If accurate documentation of initial decisions is available (e.g. minutes of steering committee meetings), this problem may be partially overcome – but if not, substantial important activities that might have bearing upon the ultimate effectiveness of the exercise will have already passed out of the reach of the evaluator, to the detriment of the evaluation [4]. Restricted access to information and the various involved parties are a further point of difficulty for those conducting evaluations. This problem ranges from the desire of sponsors and organisers to keep various aspects of their activities hidden, to a simple unwillingness of participants to complete questionnaires, leading to bias in sampling. Attempts need to be made (both political and methodological) in order to maximise data available for analysis, and in any evaluation, data gaps need to be properly noted [4]. 3.3 Strategic Difficulties The evaluation of public or stakeholder participation exercises is relatively rare. While a number of the problems previously discussed ensure that the process is a difficult one, and may deter researchers, practitioners, organisers and sponsors from conducting evaluations, it must also be recognised that there are further strategic, or perhaps, political, difficulties that also militate against the conduct of evaluations. At the heart of the problem is this: no one likes to be evaluated. This is particularly the case with sponsors whose motives for conducting exercises are perhaps not as genuine as they would like the public to believe (such tokenism has been much condemned in the past, e.g. [11]). It is also true for organisers who are contracted by sponsors to run such exercises: our experience is that, in this domain, consultancies that undertake participation exercises have in the past been given free reign in their activities, hence the sudden implication that their work might now need to be checked for quality can cause resentment. After all, in the perspectives of such sponsors and organisers there is relatively little to gain from an evaluation, and their recognition of the often experimental and uncertain nature of the participation processes they are using may cause them to expect criticism. This fearful culture militates against the conduct of 75 research, but also against learning by the institutions or organisations running the exercises - a benefit to sponsors often overlooked [4]. Unfortunately, any framework used in an evaluation may seem sub-optimal to such sponsors - and almost certainly will be (for the reasons discussed concerning the lack of universally accepted and validated measures and evaluation criteria). For the unconvinced sponsor (e.g. one who is compelled, perhaps by statute, to conduct a participatory exercise) this realisation might even come as a boon. If the evaluation process is somehow flawed, then need it be conducted, or if conducted, need the results be heeded? Any answers produced may be open to criticism by those against whom criticism is levelled. For example, if the participation process were found to be flawed in some way, the organiser might challenge the evaluation process, and if the process is deemed efficient, then those who do not like the outcome might challenge these conclusions based on evaluation difficulties. The sponsor or organiser might even find a way to influence the manner of evaluation in order to pre-empt discovery of some expected flaw. In several of our evaluations using measurement instruments we have developed [12], sponsors have either attempted to have one or more of the instruments changed because it did not relate to their ‘unique’ situation [13], or placed restrictions in the way of the evaluation process. Ultimately, it is the sponsor who wields most power, and the evaluator, in order to gain a commission/conduct research may need to concede and conduct their evaluation in a way they would not wish. We [4] have argued that, though unfettered evaluator control may not be a good thing for a sponsor, excessive sponsor interference risks biasing the evaluation, and, if discovered by a competing stakeholder, might lead to charges that undermine the whole exercise and lead to more rancour than had the exercise and evaluation not been conducted in the first place. It is also important to note that, even though a sponsor might resist this, it is difficult to stop an evaluation being conducted on an exercise (particularly after the event) by academics or evaluators sponsored by participants or other interested bodies. If conducted outside the control or influence of the sponsor, then there may be bias in the evaluation towards the position or the other parties, and bias may also arise from incomplete knowledge (of the evaluators) of the motives of sponsors and other information related to the exercise. Although such evaluation is unlikely to cost the sponsor financially, it may prove costly in other senses. As such, it is probably best for the sponsor to provide for an evaluation to be conducted at the outset, and ensure that the process will be fair from all perspectives, particularly its own [4]. 4. Discussion: Some Solutions to the Difficulties of Evaluation The purpose of this paper has been to raise some of the main difficulties in evaluation of participation exercises - not necessarily to solve them. Nevertheless, in this final section we propose a number of solutions to some of the problems discussed here, in the form of a checklist. In the conduct of an evaluation, we therefore propose: 76 • • • • • • • Plan the evaluation early, so that it is integral to the exercise and not a delayed bolt-on or afterthought. This should ensure full data is collected from the outset. Produce a clear definition of evaluation criteria. What is the aim of the exercise? Is this aim unique, or is it typical of all participation exercises, or perhaps a sub-class of these? (That is, consider how generalisable your results might be.) Are you assessing the achievement of particular outcomes, or are you focussing upon the process of the exercise (e.g. how well it is run), or aspects of both these things? A clear definition reduces scope for subsequent arguments from the parties involved. If possible, ensure the parties involved understand on what basis the exercise is being evaluated, and even get them to ‘sign-up’ to the process [4]. This should also reduce the potential for criticism and dispute after the evaluation. Develop (and if possible, test or trial) instruments to measure effectiveness according to your criteria. Be aware of good social science methodology, e.g. on questionnaire design, observational processes, and document analysis. This will increase the chance that the instruments will be valid and the data meaningful. Be aware of the limitations of the evaluation, particularly the likelihood that the instruments used may not be ‘valid’ or ‘reliable’ in a strict research sense. If the evaluation is the first of several planned, it may be appropriate to become engaged with the evaluator in developing, testing, and improving the instruments. Produce a clear evaluation schedule: what data will be collected, and when will it be collected? Be aware of difficulties in relying upon rapid impacts of the exercise (which often do not take place), and consider analysis of process indicators instead. If possible, record or document meetings concerning the evaluation, so that it is clear to what extent (if any) there is undue influence on the evaluators and what is being evaluated. This may indicate sources of bias in the evaluation. Finally, we would just like to reiterate that we believe that the evaluation of participation exercises is a crucial process, particularly in the current environment in which the popularity of participation is increasing, along with the number of mechanisms that might be used. Rigorous evaluation is not easy, but through trial and error, by following sound research methodology, and also by recognising the nature of this difficult research environment, including the strategic and political imperatives of those involved, we may hope to create more solid foundations for this discipline and for the researchers and practitioners of the future. One important consequence of this, we hope, will be improved participation, in terms of the appropriate choice of mechanism to use in any particular situation, and their appropriate implementation. The alternative - shunning evaluation in the face of its many difficulties - will only leave this domain in a dark age, where mysticism overshadows science, and is liable to result more generally in cynicism on the part of the public as to the merits and utility of the participation process. 77 References 1. Jasanoff S. The Fifth Branch. Scientific Advisors as Policy Makers, Harvard University Press, Harvard, 1993 2. Rowe G. Frewer L.J. A Typology of Public Engagement Mechanisms, submitted 3. Frewer L.J. Risk Perception, social trust, and public participation into strategic decision-making - implications for emerging technologies, Ambio 28, 569-574, 1999 4. Frewer L.J. Rowe G. Commissioning and Conducting the Evaluation of Participation Exercises: Strategic and Practical Issues, Report to the OECD, 2003 5. Joss S. Evaluating Consensus Conferences: Necessity or Luxury? Public Participation in Science: The Role of Consensus Conferences in Europe, edited by S. Joss and J. Durant, 89-108, The Science Museum, London, 1995 6. Rowe G. Frewer L.J. Evaluating Public Participation Exercises: A Research Agenda, Science, Technology, & Human Values, in press 7. Rowe G. Frewer L.J. Public Participation Methods: A Framework for Evaluation, Science, Technology, & Human Values 25:1, 3-29, 2000 8. Webler T. ‘Right’ Discourse in Citizen Participation: An Evaluative Yardstick, Fairness and Competence in Citizen Participation: Evaluating Models for Environmental Discourse, edited by O. Renn, T. Webler, and P. Wiedemann, 3586, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, Netherlands, 1995 9. Rosener J.B. User-Oriented Evaluation: A New Way to View Citizen Participation, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 17:4, 583-596, 1981 10. Chess C. Purcell K. Public Participation and the Environment: Do We Know what Works?, Environmental Science and Technology 33:16, 2685-2692, 1999 11. Arnstein S.R. A ladder of citizen participation, Journal American Institute of Planners 35, 215-224, 1969 12. Marsh R. Rowe G. Frewer L. An Evaluative Toolkit for assessing Public Participation Exercises, Report to the Department of Health and Health and Safety Executive, Institute of Food Research, Norwich, 2001 13. Rowe G. Marsh R. Frewer L.J. Evaluation of a Deliberative Conference, Science, Technology, & Human Values, in press 78 Robust Decision Making in Radioactive Waste Management is Process-Oriented Thomas Flüeler Chair of Environmental Sciences: Natural and Social Science Interface (UNS) Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich Contact: Umweltrecherchen & -gutachten Münzentalstr. 3 CH–5212 HAUSEN SWITZERLAND 1 Introduction Dealing with a complex sociotechnical system such as the disposition of radioactive waste needs an integrated perspective [26:265]. Much of the widespread blockage faced in this sensitive policy area for decades may be ascribed to the neglect of looking at the various dimensions involved. In the course of the 1990’s the international nuclear community recognised that it is not up to them alone to decide on such complex issues, thus the Nuclear Energy Agency in 1999: “Rather, an informed societal judgement is necessary” [21:23]. A year later, a special NEA committee conceded that “radioactive waste management institutions have become more and more aware that technical expertise and expert confidence in the safety of geologic disposal of radioactive waste are insufficient, on their own, to justify to a wider audience geologic disposal … the decisions, whether, when and how to implement [it] will need a thorough public examination and involvement of all relevant stakeholders” [23:3]. Accordingly, in line with efforts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) [12][13], the NEA established a so-called “Forum on Stakeholder Confidence” whose format is currently being developed [23][16]. 2 The Concept of Integral Robustness: … In 1998, the IAEA stated that “[t]he key principle … is the concept of defence in depth …. One of the important aspects is the evaluation of the robustness of repository systems …. One of the main issues is obtaining a better understanding of the meaning of principles such as defence in depth in the context of waste disposal” [11:244]. Regarding the long hazard potential of radioactive waste and society’s requirement for control the concept of “integral robustness”–technical and societal–has been proposed for radioactive waste management (RWM) [4][5][6][7][8]. This amplification of the decision model is, in fact, an integration of societal aspects into the defence-in- 79 depth strategy familiar to the nuclear community (see Figure 1): The system calls for technical barriers against releases of radioactivity, as well as societal checks to achieve and sustain confidence in technical assessments and, hence, acceptance or at least tolerability in Society. Figure 1: Societal robustness. Stakeholders are to act according to their respective responsibilities. Dependent on their mutual (mis-)trust, their activities serve as institutional barriers and potentially lead to a consistent, i.e., robust decision, backed up by incremental building of confidence in the overall disposal system. Attention to special activities is given in various phases. After Flüeler 2003 [8]. With such an approach, it is attempted to minimise negative side effects resulting from a long-term disposal system. In general, a system is robust if it is not sensitive to significant parameter changes; according to Rip 1987 it is “socially robust” if most arguments, evidence, social alignments, interests, and cultural values lead to a consistent option [28:359]. Therefore, the concerned and deciding stakeholders have to eventually achieve consent on some common interests. The need for involvement of all main stakeholders in the radwaste arena has lately, as shown in 1 Introduction, been realised by the international nuclear community. 80 In the course of this seeming paradigm shift–from a purely technocratic “Decide– Announce–Defend” to a more participatory approach–process aspects have indeed become fashionable. 3 … Inherent Emphasis on Processes This contribution argues that “process-orientation” is not only an issue of involving formerly excluded stakeholders but a productive approach to integrate different aspects and perspectives and to expound the associated problems (see research potential within the European 6th Framework Programme [2]). 3.1 Long-term Safety 3.2 Long-term Project 3.3 Sustainability As a matter of course, robust procedures as defined in a narrow sense can only be achieved if the parameters are clearly defined and if it is assured that the system rests within well-set boundaries [35:33]. Yet, the system characteristics of radioactive–and chemically toxic–waste are unique and technically complex. Once defined, the waste is to be stored in a safe way since it emits hazardous ionising radiation. Depending on the hazard potential of the waste in question its isolation period from the biosphere ranges from 100’s to 100,000 of years. The main mechanism in an underground (geological) site is a low-level but long-term, chronic release into the environment; it is a slow degradation of an open system with concurrent large uncertainties. Such potential impacts are hard to detect with respect to location and time (except for some scenarios of human intrusion). These system characteristics lead to the admission that the required long-term safety “is not intended to imply a rigorous proof of safety, in a mathematical sense, but rather a convincing set of arguments that support a case for safety” [22:11]. Nevertheless, it is precisely the robust control systems that are designed to manage the mentioned uncertainties (an important aspect not dealt with here). “Confidence” in performance assessment is only attained step by step (see also [22]). RWM is not only confronted with the “objective” long-term dimension but also with institutional longevity. From site selection via characterisation, design and operation to surveillance and closure, the various phases will last for decades. And so will the corresponding project management which–necessarily–entails entwined and tangled processes. A (disposal) project laid out for long time periods has to be backed up over decades by the technical community, the political decision makers and the general public [22:11]. It is to be implemented in a phased approach, with feedback for recourse, and interim decisions [19]. The multi-dimensionality of the issue asks for applying the principle of sustainability. Normatively it seems to suggest itself as a reference system: On the one hand it facilitates a stepwise analysis according to various dimensions (see Figure 2), on the other hand it forces us to integrally examine these dimensions–and consequently perspectives, needs and knowledge systems. 81 According to the Brundtland Commission 1987 “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” [36]. Sustainability, therefore, is based on two pillars: protection, i.e., safety, and intervention potential, i.e., the ability of today’s and future generations to control; both objectives have to be weighed against each other [5:789 [5:789passim]. At any rate, examining the dimensions of sustainability is inherently system- but also process-based. Figure 2: Sustainability of disposal systems. Eight dimensions–not “only” the three of the “magic” triangle Environment–Society–Economy–have to be respected: An (ethical) tradeoff takes place via the facility design (technical dimension), along the ecological dimension (protection of the environment), the social and political dimensions (society and balance of power determine acceptance/tolerance) as well as the economical dimension (cost of disposition and institutional control). This decision has eminent spatial and temporal dimensions (location/ situation as well as periods of isolation and concern, respectively). After Flüeler 2003 [8] in developing [5:790]. In view of the objective longevity of the hazard potential, the primary goal of the entire undertaking has to be the long-term safety of humans and the environment whereas the secondary goal is flexibility, defined as intervention potential (controllability, retrievability) (for a prolonged discourse of the reasoning see [5][7][8]). However that may be: The decision has to be taken by society. 3.4 Decisional Issue A decision is more that the preference of an option–it involves the decision making process with problem definition, judgement, choice and implementation [15: 388 388passim ] (so it is not „only process“ that counts ...). „Good“ decisions are always goal-related decisions („good“ with respect to what?, see 3.3). „Good“ decisions imply good processes (which do not necessarily result in good decisions though). A multitude of stakeholders and perspectives are involved. Therefore, particularly due to the complexity of the issue, the process and procedure, not only the result, are vital for the decisions to be taken. It is a stunning interaction to face. 82 The following are attributes of a “good” decision making process: – Stepwise: Planning phases with milestones – Periodic orientation, reviewing and interim decisions: For technical and political back-up – Open and comprehensive option analysis – Iterative, with opportunities for recourse (and mutual learning ...) – Reliable, accountable: Unambiguous rules to be complied with (only modifiable by prior consent) – Consistent, minimising conflicts: Technical and non-technical sets of criteria – Coherent, continuous: For sufficient trust in „the system“ (see below) – Traceable: Arguments and reasoning have to be fully comprehended by interested parties – Transparent: In broad discussion fora aspects may be put up for discussion at early stages – „Fair“ procedure and treatment of the intra- and intergenerational equity issues (taking into account the twofold–spatial and temporal– asymmetry: The benefit of nuclear electricity is distributed whereas the cost/risk of waste disposal is locally concentrated and transferred to future generations) To reach well supported and stable decisions an “informed consent” is needed which, in turn, requires a demonstration of (all, most) possible tracks and consequences of actions [9]. 3.5 Risk Debate 3.6 Technology and Progress Debate 3.7 Integration of Technical and Political Aspects, Learning Process The discourse on risk issues is factual and political bargaining about what is conceived as “risks” by the actors engaged: “Risks … are to be understood as consequences of decisions on conditions of uncertainty, social action and situations of interest”, as the sociologists Nowotny & Eisikovic 1990 describe the negotiation of interests [25, transl. supplied]. It is not assumed that the stakeholders’ belief systems could be changed–certainly not in their core principles, but modifications might be made in their secondary aspects [29:671]–in so far as the actors would identify a “common ground” as Carter put it in 1987 [1:427]. If some common basis can be found, we may speak not only of negotiation but of deliberation. Scope and orientation of technology policy are publicly and politically contentious issues which are continuously and always debated [3:247 [3:247passim]. Assumptions on advances or re-directions of technology directly impact on the choices of disposition (disposal, storage and transmutation) (see [20]). Credible and sustained compromise can only, if at all, be achieved if collective learning takes place, if authorities turn their backs to technocratic planning, stop separating technical from political issues and involve the concerned stakeholders in all relevant planning phases [32]. All stakeholders have to realise that, in the end, effectively sustainable radioactive waste management only results from transdisciplinary “mutual 83 learning”–learning from each other. „Transdisciplinarity aspires to make the change from research for society to research with society” as Scholz 2000 puts it; “... mutual learning sessions ... should be regarded as a tool to establish an efficient transfer of knowledge both from science to society and from problem owners (i.e. from science, industry, politics etc.) to science“ [30:13]. According to Gibbons et al. 1994 problem-driven, dynamic transdisciplinarity is one attribute of the so-called “mode 2” of knowledge production. On top–or beside– “mode 1” of conventional disciplinary scientific knowledge acquisition, this newer strategy to gain insight into the world is produced in the process-oriented context of application; it is marked by new, often transient forms of organisation with members of heterogeneous experience: “The experience gathered in this process creates a competence which becomes highly valued and which is transferred to new contexts” [10:6]. By integrating a number of interests, also so-called concerned groups, mode 2 knowledge gains more social accountability and makes all participants more reflexive. Gibbons et al. even argue that “the individuals themselves cannot function effectively without reflecting–trying to operate from the standpoint of–all the actors involved” (ibid.:6). 3.8 Responsibility, Project Implementation and Mediation 3.9 Trust in the System via Procedure Often authorities put off crucial decisions and break them down into a number of partial decisions; political opposition is forced to obstruct each step, which in turn leads authorities to consider themselves being in the role of defenders [33:216]. Mediation builds on the assumption that consensus is possible and, in the long run, of some use to all involved [34:232]. Procedures symbolise the continuity of similar experience and may add to actors retaining and gaining trust in the political system [17:199]. In the context of laypeople and probabilistic analysis Sowden refers to “process benefits” [31]. 3.10 Performance via Networks Organisational theory assumes that performance in companies is attributed to their system characteristics rather than to interests or intentions of individual actors [27]. Cyert & March 1995 even hold that achievements are generated through intricate networks within and between companies. Networks are characterised largely by interactions and processes (see [18]). 3.11 Modern Management Principles The current ISO 9000:2000 quality management standards are guided by dynamics, stakeholder involvement (from worker to client), system thinking and continual improvement [14]. The insight into the need of involving stakeholders hitherto excluded goes as far as to recognise “Concerned Action groups”, i.e., opponents, as “clients” in the NEA 2001 proposal of a “Quality Management Model” [24:15]. As 84 to a comprehensive quality control, quality is determined by a wider set of criteria than, e.g., peer-reviewing in Gibbons et al.’s ’s mode 1 [10:6 [10:6passim], since additional issues of cost-effectiveness, competitiveness, social acceptance, etc. are raised. Such an approach enhances the openness of the process and the reliability and robustness of the decisions. 4 Conclusions Interdisciplinary convergences regarding processes in complex issues such as radioactive waste management (RWM) allow the conclusion that for the overall decision not only the results are relevant but also the procedure how to reach them. Thereby, RWM may, and does have to, develop a satisfactory degree of maturity. In view of the sustainability goal relation “protection vs. control” and process- vs. outcome-orientation, it is understood that the RWM system has to be dynamic, adaptive, and even experimental in its instruments, but not in its ultimate goal, i.e., the passive protection of present and future generations and environments. References [1] Carter, L. J.: Nuclear Imperatives and Public Trust: Dealing with Radioactive Waste, Resources of the Future, Washington, DC, 1987 [2] European Council: Council Decision of 30 September 2002 Adopting a Specific Programme (Euratom) for Research and Training on Nuclear Energy (2002– 2006). Off. Journal of the Europ. Comm., L294/74-85. 29.10.2002. [3] Evers, A. & H. Nowotny: Über den Umgang mit Unsicherheit. Die Entdeckung der Gestaltbarkeit von Gesellschaft [On How to Deal with Uncertainty. The Discovery of the Designability of Society], Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M., 1987 [4] Flüeler, T.: Decision Anomalies and Institutional Learning in Radioactive Waste Management, 8th Intern. Conf. on High-Level Rad. Waste Mgt., Las Vegas, May 11–14, Am. Nucl. Soc., La Grange Park, IL, 796-799, 1998 [5] Flüeler, T.: Options in Radioactive Waste Management Revisited: A Framework for Robust Decision-Making, Risk Analysis, Vol. 21, No. 4, Aug. 2001, 787-799, 2001a [6] Flüeler, T.: Robustness in Radioactive Waste Management. A Contribution to Decision-Making in Complex Socio-technical Systems. In: E. Zio, M. Demichela & N. Piccinini (Eds.): Safety & Reliability. Towards a Safer World, Proc. European Conf. on Safety and Reliability, ESREL 2001, Torino, Sep 16 – 20, Vol. 1, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy, 317-325, 2001b [7] Flüeler, T.: Radioaktive Abfälle in der Schweiz. Muster der Entscheidungsfindung in komplexen soziotechnischen Systemen [Radioactive Waste Management in Switzerland. Patterns of Decision Making in Complex Socio-technical Systems], Doctoral dissertation, ETHZ, dissertation.de, Berlin, 2002 [8] Flüeler, T.: Robust Long-term Radioactive Waste Management. Decision Making in Complex Socio-technical Systems. Lessons Learnt from a Case Study and International Comparison (tentative title), Series Environment & Policy, Kluwer Acad. Publishers, Dordrecht NL, 2003 85 [9] Fischhoff, B.: Cognitive and Institutional Barriers to “Informed Consent”. In: M. Gibson (Ed.): To Breathe Freely. Risk, Consent, and Air, Rowman & Allanheld Publishers, Totowa, NJ, 169-232, 1985 [10] Gibbons, M., et al..: The New Production of Knowledge. The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies, Sage, London, 1994 [11] IAEA, International Atomic Energy Agency: Proceedings of the International Conference on Topical Issues on Nuclear, Radiation and Radioactive Waste Safety, Vienna, 31 Aug – 4 Sep 1998, IAEA, Vienna, 233-255, 1999 [12] IAEA: Measures to Strengthen International Cooperation in Nuclear, Radiation and Waste Safety, Intern. Conf. on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, Córdoba, 31 May, IAEA, Vienna, 2000 [13] IAEA: Measures to Strengthen International Co-operation in Nuclear, Radiation, Transport and Waste Safety, Waste Safety (Secr. responses to waste safety issues of Member States), Attachm. 1, Rep. on the Safety of RWM, Board of Govs., Gen. Conf., GOV/2001/31-GC(45)/14, 19 July, 2001 [14] ISO, International Organization for Standardization: Quality Management and Quality Assurance, Quality Management Systems – Fundamentals and Vocabulary (ISO 9000:2000), – Requirements (ISO 9001:2000), Guidelines for Performance (ISO 9004:2000), 2000. [15] Kleindorfer, P. R., H. C. Kunreuther & P. J. H. Schoemaker: Decision Sciences. An Integrative Perspective, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK, 1993, 3 1998 [16] LeBars, Y., C. Pescatore & H. Riotte: The NEA/RWMC Forum on Stakeholder Confidence: Overview of 1st Meeting and Workshop. In: NEA (Ed.): Better Integration of Radiation Protection in Modern Society, Workshop Proc., Villigen, 23 – 25 Jan 2001, OECD, Paris, 63-67, 2002 [17] Luhmann, N.: Legitimation durch Verfahren [Legitimacy via Procedures], Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M., [1969], 1975, 1983, 21997 [18] March, J. G. (Ed.): Decisions and Organisations, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1991 (from R. M. Cyert & J. G. March: Eine verhaltenswissenschaftliche Theorie der Unternehmung, Schäffer-Poeschel, Stuttgart, 21995) [19] National Research Council: Principles and Operational Strategies for Staged Repository Systems, Progress Report, 20 March, Committee appointed by the National Research Council, Washington, DC, 2002 [20] NEA, Nuclear Energy Agency: The Environmental and Ethical Basis of Geological Disposal. A Collective Opinion, OECD, Paris, 1995 [21] NEA: Progress Towards Geologic Disposal of Radioactive Waste: Where Do We Stand? An International Assessment, OECD, Paris, 1999a [22] NEA: Confidence in the Long-term Safety of Deep Geological Repositories. Its Development and Communication, OECD, Paris, 1999b [23] NEA: Stakeholder Confidence and Radioactive Waste Disposal, Workshop Proc., Paris, 28 – 31 Aug, OECD, Paris, 2000 [24] NEA: Improving Regulatory Effectiveness, NEA/CNRA/R(2001)3, OECD, Paris, 2001 86 [25] Nowotny, H. & R. Eisikovic: Entstehung, Wahrnehmung und Umgang mit Risiken [Generation, Perception and Management of Risks]. Forschungspol. Früherkennung B/34. Schweiz. Wissenschaftsrat, Bern, 1990 [26] Pearce, D. W.: Social Cost-Benefit Analysis and Nuclear Futures. In: G. T. Goodman & W. D. Rowe (Eds.): Energy Risk Management, Acad. Press, London, 253-267, 1979 [27] Perrow, C.: Normal Accidents. Living with High-risk Technologies, Basic Books, New York, 1984 [28] Rip, A.: Controversies as Informal Technology Assessment, Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion, Utilization, No. 2, Vol. 8, 349-371, 1987 [29] Sabatier, P.: Knowledge, Policy-oriented Learning, and Policy Change, Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion, Utilization, Vol. 8, No. 4, 649-692, 1987 [30] Scholz, R. W.: Mutual Learning as a Basic Principle of Transdisciplinarity. In: R. W. Scholz et al.. (Eds.): Transdisciplinarity: Joint Problem-solving among Science, Technology and Society, Proc. Intern. Transdisciplinarity 2000 Conf., Workbook II: Mutual learning sessions, Vol. 2, Haffmanns Sachbuch, Zurich, 2000 [31] Sowden, L.: The Inadequacy of Bayesian Decision Theory, Philosophical Studies, Vol. 45, 293-313, 1984 [32] Vatter, A.: Qualifiziertes Referendumsrecht für Betroffene. Zum Vorgehen bei der Standortsuche für ein Atommüllager [Qualified Right of Referendum for Concerned Parties. On the Procedure in Siting a Radwaste Repository], Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 21.12., 15, 1995 [33] Wälti, S.: Neue Problemlösungsstrategien in der nuklearen Entsorgung [New Problem-solving Strategies in Nuclear Disposal]. In: Vollzugsprobleme. Schweiz. Jahrbuch für Politische Wissenschaft, Vol. 33, 205-224, 1993 [34] Weidner, H.: Der verhandelnde Staat. Minderung von Vollzugskonflikten durch Mediationsverfahren [The State as a Negotiator. Attenuating Conflicts of Enforcement by Mediation Techniques]. Ibid., 225-244, 1993 [35] Weinmann, A.: Uncertain Models and Robust Control, Springer, Wien, 1991 [36] World Council on Economic Development: Our Common Future, Brundtland Report, Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1987 87 The Meaning of Green: Values and Energy Policy in Sweden Måns Nilsson Stockholm Environment Institute Box 2142 103 14 Stockholm Sweden Email: [email protected] 1. Introduction Values, and the way they are represented, have strong implications for environmental policy. Mapping of how values, perceptions, scientific facts and professional judgments interact and function in the process will contribute to understanding the policy process. However, although a systematic, reasoned and critical examination of values underpinning policy choices and expressions is an essential part of policy analysis, values are rarely scrutinised (Dunn 1994). As a result, their role in environmental policy making is not well understood. This paper addresses this gap by asking: How are values represented in the policy arena and the processes within it? What changes do values undergo over time and as they go through the policy-making process? Value concepts are discussed as a basis to understand and describe the values at play in a process. The paper also draws on theories of the policy process to support the analysis of the empirical material. The analysis is then delimited to a selected set of value issues. The empirical material includes public debate documents such as bills, hearings, motions, presentation, statements and their commentaries. Semi-structured interviews, designed as in-depth interviews with open-ended probing, were held to complement the material. Respondents were identified in the policy committees, career professionals and representatives of important interest groups. 2. Values as an object of analysis Values tend to be an elusive object of analysis, representing both a generic concept and a specific set of issues. Broad and somewhat floating definitions are abundant in the environmental ethics literature (Rolston 1988; Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs 2000). Frequently, expressions of values need to be broken down and analysed to reach the core. Values are also dynamic and constantly changing over time and in social processes. When studying environmental policy, the boundary between environmental values and other societal values cannot be sharply drawn (Jasanoff 2000). Environmental policy is not solely or even primarily based on values towards nature or the environment. More important in the policy arena are probably 88 values about how we organise ourselves, how we allocate resources and rights, and how we make decisions. Values underlie different diagnoses of issues at stake and different prescriptions on how to solve them. Values influencing or being of relevance to environmental policy might include: distributive justice, inter-generational equity, freedom, nature’s integrity, absolute precaution, competitiveness, economic welfare, trust, safety, quality of life, internationalism, stewardship, truth, spiritual life, and ecological co-dependence. It is difficult to draw boundaries between these values. Ultimately, they affect and interact with each other. A simple classification facilitates the analysis of values in policy. (Dunn 1994) presents a hierarchy of three levels that depict the values and the stages of transformation they undergo when entering policy. At the fundamental level, individuals or groups hold certain value systems that are fundamental to worldviews and preferences. Value systems are based on general beliefs of the ways that society and nature work and interact, as well as ethical beliefs. On the basis of these value systems there are value premises; assumptions that, at least in principle, can be shown to be support a certain value system. The value premises, in turn, determine preferences about policy objectives, the more concrete expressions in the discourse. A limited set of value systems judged to be of particular relevance for environmental policy has been selected for analysis; state-market, ecologism-growth, and sciencejudgment. Each of these value systems has value premises attached to them. These value premises, that might also be called policy principles, are possible to connect to a wide range of policy objectives. There are several overlaps between the different types of value systems and value premises. For instance, values concerning economic growth and markets are often linked. It is not always conceptually clear what constitutes systems and what constitutes premises. Some are perhaps closer to decision-making principles than values. Ecologism and growth values concern our relationship with nature: are we acknowledging man as intertwined with nature or is man largely detached from nature? Ecologism tends to see the environment as a restriction on economic activities and growth, and policies should seek to minimise disturbances on the natural systems. This value system is also closely linked to premises such as decentralisation, smallis-beautiful and eco-communalism. In highly simplified terms, nature is normally, and without human interference, in balance. Human activities are seen to disrupt this balance. Ecologism was popularised through the “limits to growth” debate in the 1970s (Meadows and Club of Rome 1972) and survived in the policy arena in new forms. Opposing ecologism is the growth value system that lends much of its perspectives from economics. According to this value system, the exact physical properties of the relationship between man and nature has no interest per se. Through growth and welfare creation, problems will be solved. One emphasises the ability to adjust and that technology will fix problems on the way. Economic value is seen as a natural instrument in political mediation, and then becomes the expression of the environmental, social or economic objective (Vincent and Ali 1997). State tate and market values concern how we organise ourselves to solve environmental issues. Do we prefer political intervention and regulatory measures for protection of the environment rather than market solutions or soft (economic) instruments? 89 Environmentalists are commonly associated with a state value system. However, the relationship between the political views on state and markets and environmentalism is rather complex. (Connelly and Smith 1999) show that environmental values and green movements have relationships with many kinds of political views. Science and judgment values concern on what basis policy is formulated. One can find ambiguous and at times contradictory attitudes. Governments are influenced, but often indirectly and not always rationally, by scientific findings (Caldwell 1990). (Kuhn 1970) demonstrated that science in itself certainly is open for political and sociological analysis and the interdependence between science and policy is quite strong. This is particularly true in environmental sciences, where uncertainties are high and values are at the forefront of the scientific perspective. In many cases, judgment take over as the overriding premise for decision-making (Cothern 1996). Related to science and judgment are value premises on formal and informal decision making; and risk assessment versus a precautionary approach. Concepts and frameworks for studying values in policy making In this study, social relationships rather than individual preferences constitute the basis for values and define the expression of values (Rayner and Malone 1998). This is linked to new institutionalism perspectives where formal and informal rules, routines and procedures bring order to and shape politics (Peters 2000); (Goodin 1996). The normative school in new institutionalism emphasises values as the basis of this construction process (March and Olsen 1989). In this perspective, institutions shape politics through the construction and elaboration of meaning, values and belief systems, which then become central analytical variables. How then do we find theses value systems? (Roe 1994) holds we should analyse the different stories, or policy narratives, that policy makers use to articulate their beliefs and proposals. A similar concept is policy discourses, or the ‘informal logic’ of institutions (Dryzek 1990; Dryzek 1996) and policy frames; i.e. the perspectives that organise, interpret and make sense of a complex situation (Fischer and Forrester 1993). There are stories as well as counter-stories that underwrite the assumptions for policy making. A balance between stories and counter-stories can sometimes paralyse political debate, in which case the search for a meta-narrative takes place. Closely related to narratives, policy positions frequently have myths associated with them; that define the ‘reality’ of a problem characterisation (Thompson et al. 1990). A myth can become a hegemonic myth as it becomes dominant in the policy discourse. The dominance of certain ‘policy frames’ has also been explored in other policy settings (Stone 2002). Hegemonic myths are those myths and associated rhetorical frameworks that dominate the policy discourse (Thompson and Rayner 1998). Political cultures, formed and driven by values, is a strong influence on policy choices (O’Riordan et al. 1998; Rayner and Malone 1998; Jasanoff 2000). There is usually a distinct dominating culture in a particular organisation or policy sector, but it might differ from sector to sector and from country to country. Among the criteria for a policy proposal to survive is the degree to which it resonates with the dominant political culture. One might also talk about an institutional preference for 90 certain policy instruments (O’Riordan et al. 1998). The political culture does not only affect the opportunities for certain policy proposals, but also the process itself. Is the political culture consensus-based or impositional, anticipatory or reactive, top-down, rationalistic and formal or bottom-up, actor-oriented and informal, or perhaps topdown and informal (Dale and English 1998)? In order to understand the actors, their interactions and constraints, the policy network approach assumes that policy actors can be aggregated into networks that engage in coordinated activities. It also holds that these networks are fundamentally glued through values and beliefs concerning issues such as the relative importance of various issues, understanding of causalities involved, and policy preferences (Sabatier 1988). (Marsh 1998) distinguishes between policy networks, closely tied communities with shared values and problem perceptions and frequent interactions, and issue networks, typically larger communities, with less communication and frequently a lack of value consensus. The policy streams model sheds light on the dynamics of the agenda setting process (Kingdon 1995). This model is an adaptation of the Garbage Can model that describes policy-making as a rather chaotic process: “a collection of choices looking for problems, issues and feelings looking for decision situations in which they might be aired, solutions looking for issues to which they might be the answer, and decisionmakers looking for work” (Cohen et al. 1972). The policy streams model focuses on three parallel streams, which develop independently: problems, policies, and politics. At critical junctures, policy windows, the three streams come together, and solutions become joined to problems, and then these are joined with political forces. 3. Values and environment in energy policy The energy policy sector in Sweden highlights how values have played out in and shaped the policy process. Energy is intimately linked to many of the most severe environmental problems, it displays plenty of goal conflicts and trade-offs, and has been a central theme in Swedish political history, coloured by political lock-ins and value conflicts. Many see the sector as a success story of environmental integration in recent years, but the implementation has also been criticised for deviating significantly from its original intentions. In the 1960s, the energy issue started to grow in complexity. Higher prices on imported fuels, the newly established decision not to develop more of the undeveloped rivers for hydropower, and an emerging nuclear resistance lead to the need for major political initiatives (Silveira 2001). The energy sector had so far not been a discreet field of intervention before, but now it became a central part of Swedish politics. Swedish dependency on oil imports had increased rapidly during the remarkable economic growth period of the 1950s-1960s. In order to decrease dependence, the expansion of nuclear power was given high political priority. The first collective energy policy agreement was made in 1975 and focussed on decreasing dependency on imported fuels. In the 1950s and 1960s, hydropower was the major issue (Vedung and Brandel 2001). Since then, the nuclear issue has been at the centre of Swedish politics. Nuclear 91 resistance emerged at a large scale when the first commercial plant opened in 1971. In fact, environmentalists had promoted nuclear power earlier on, as an alternative to hydropower expansion (Anselm 2000; Kaijser 2001). But inspired by increasing resistance and public sentiment, new movements began to pop up. In 1976, the nuclear issue was powerful enough to have a decisive influence on the governmental elections. The Centre party, who brought it to the political agenda, could form the first non Social Democrat government in over fifty years. When the Three Mile Island plant outside of Harrisburg nearly suffered a full meltdown, it became evident that a referendum was the only way to resolve the issue. Because the Social Democrats were divided over the issue, the voters got not two but three options to chose from. Alternative 2 won the referendum, with the recommendation to decommission nuclear power eventually, but only as far as is possible considering the demand for power, employment and welfare (Statens Offentliga Utredningar 1995:139 1995). Note that all three alternatives argued for a phase-out of nuclear power, an example of the importance of agenda setting. Nevertheless, the interpretation of the 1980 referendum is still an issue of debate. In the 1980s, oil and electricity prices fell. The energy and nuclear issues cooled down and lost its rank on the political agenda. This led to inadequate political action for energy efficiency and renewable energy technology development (Kaijser 2001). But the 1980s also saw an explosion in environmental consciousness internationally and in Sweden, fuelled by massive evidence of dying forests, chemical accidents such as in Bhopal and in the Rhine river, the first major nuclear accident in Chernobyl, and more locally, dying seals along the coasts of Scandinavia. This public awareness led to immediate repercussions on the political arena in Sweden as well as in many other countries. Massive attention provided the necessary leverage for the Greens to grow strong and enter the Swedish Parliament in 1988. Public concern, often said to set the boundaries for environmental policy, is constantly changing. First, there has been a declining public interest for environmental issues in general in the 1990s. Second, the resistance against nuclear power is declining. A recent poll show that only 44% want to phase out nuclear power, compared with 77% in 1986 (Michelsen 2001). Third, new issues arise on the public agenda. As governmental plans for wind power expansions along the coasts have received increasing attention, public voices on local and place-based values have been raised. New NGOs have formed to protect landscapes from wind power exploitation. In response, the latest energy bill proclaims that the consequences of wind power must be more carefully examined before major developments can take place (Regeringens proposition 2002). State and market Sweden is by tradition a government-intervention country, with the highest net tax pressure in the world, and internationally renowned for the ‘welfare state’. However, we can from the early 1990s see a value shift in the mainstream of politics with a growing acceptance of seeing the market, rather than the politicians, as the key decision makers. The Social Democrat government has moved to the right both on economic 92 policy and foreign policy matters. International deregulation processes within the EU have been a major driver behind this. This trend is reflected in the 1991 energy bill that abolished the previous energy policy decision and its conflicting goals of nuclear phase-out, non-expansion of hydropower, and reduction of greenhouse gases. On nuclear power, it was decided to postpone the closure of the first nuclear reactor until 1999. The bill establishes that the phase-out is contingent on conservation measures, competitive prices and a supply of alternative technologies (Nordhaus 1997). The market value system also influences the choice of policy instruments. In most bills nowadays we find economics textbook arguments about advantages of market instruments. The principal standpoint that economic instruments are good for the environment and effective measures for the economy as a whole penetrate much of the policy discourse but this was not always the case. Already the French economist (Pigou 1920) wrote about the benefits of using economic instruments but traditions and values in Swedish society actually inhibited using economic instruments. “Noone should be able to buy themselves the right to pollute”, was the common political argument. Not until the late 1960s, can we see any real acknowledgement in Sweden for this type of thinking (Dahmén 1968). The 1997 programme for the “greening” of the energy sector carried with it many features of traditional large-scale programming. The Prime Minister’s, at the time, personal advisor stated: “Up around 150,000 new jobs and better public finances in the next economic down-turn. In the long run, we will have a more competitive industry and a sustainable and at the same time modern welfare state. This is the result if the ideas are realised.” (Eriksson 1996) Conservatives and industrialists argue that the liberal values that penetrate the policy discourse are not reflected in the energy policy, and that the internal value inconsistencies in the bills, with increased political control and a lack of a longterm principle in energy policy, goes against the market-oriented “spirit” of the bill. Governmental spending on subsidising alternative fuels and energy efficiency measures are seen as a waste of taxpayers’ money. In the 2002 energy bill, the use of subsidies for renewable energy and efficiency, are de-emphasised again, as a result of the rather negative evaluations of these schemes (Regeringens proposition). Instead, a new quota-based system of trade-able green certificates has been announced. In this scheme, renewable energy producers are allowed to issue and sell certificates. The distributors are obliged to buy a certain amount of these certificates that will be available on an exchange market. Prices will depend on demand and supply, and so a new type of environmental market is created. Ecologism and growth When Social Democrats became more market-oriented and de-emphasised traditional values, they turned to criteria such as “ecological” and “renewable”, thus to some extent adopting the value system of the Greens. The Social Democratic government launched the “ecological transition” as the new main challenge for the labour movement in the mid 1990s. Prime Minister Göran Persson positioned two rather 93 radical environmentalists as his close personal advisors, Stefan Edman and Olof Erikson. Hence at the time, there was a strong value-driven policy position at the highest possible level. This coincided with the processes of formulating the 1997 energy bill. The bill maintained the ‘traditional’ objectives, but put a larger emphasis on ecologism. The agreement also included closing the nuclear reactors in Barsebäck, with the first one before 1 July 1998, and the second one before 1 July 2001. That ecologism is a powerful value system in Swedish policy is evidenced by the “eco-cycle society” concept (“Kretsloppsamhället”). Based on the principle of having closed material loops in society, it is arguably the most prominent concept in Swedish environmental policy. In particular the Ministry for the Environment and the Environmental Protection Agency assimilated much of the environmentalist value systems in the 1970s and 1980s. Since then prominent environmentalists have moved in and out of public office positions. Arguably, growth-orientation and market values have had a weak basis among Swedish environmental policy networks. While most repeat the growth and market myth, it is not difficult to detect strong planning economy perspectives to policy in general and a bias towards the use of absolute levels and regulatory strategies in environmental policy in particular. The opposite is true in the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Industry, that are much more growth-oriented. The Ministry of Finance performed a macro-analysis of the Swedish economy in terms of a Green Net National Product and they concluded that Sweden is on a sustainable development path. Swedish EPA was of course critical to this conclusion (Statens Offentliga Utredningar 2000:7 2000). However, the strategic change declared by the Prime Minister and expressed in the bill was largely neglected in implementation and Eriksson and Edman left the Prime Minister’s office after a short while. In later years we can see that ecologism has been sliding in prominence. The existence of goal conflicts have made it difficult to agree on and implement policy measures (Nordhaus 1997). One important reason was the lack of political support with the labour unions that act as a restriction on the ecological aspirations. Their influence on policy in Sweden through a close and symbiotic relationship with the Social Democrats can hardly be overestimated. When it comes to environmental policy in general, one usually finds the labour unions backing a growth orientation to ‘save the jobs’. As their power depend on centralised negotiations, they tend to be more in favour of large-scale production solutions, such as nuclear power. Science and judgment The scientific knowledge input to the policy process typically takes place in the commissions that prepare the basis for the bills. There have been several major commissions in the energy sector in the 1990s, the most important one being the 1995 commission that preceded the 1997 bill. These are appointed to prepare for the policy proposals and they can be constituted by political representatives or by experts. The government issues the mandate of the commission. Then the commission does its investigations and the results are presented in a report. Most of the analytical work and discussions in these types of commissions are based on serious analysis and broad-based deliberations but the final recommendations are usually subject 94 to political negotiations. The report is circulated for comment among government authorities, various relevant and interested organisations and municipalities. After this, a government bill is prepared for the parliament. This bill is processed in the parliamentary committee. The parliament then adopts the final suggestion. However, this is not adopted in isolation but is part of the total budget. Since the early 1990s, no single government has held majority in parliament. This means that in order to get majority in the parliament, governments must make a coalition with one or several opposition parties and that the bill is only a partial input. Anything can happen in the pressing negotiations in the days and hours before the budget is presented. ‘Horse-trading’ of political programmes between sectors is frequent. Small coalition parties are able to inject certain issues that they feel strongly about, in exchange for their support to the overall budget. This treatment signals that decisions on the long-term development of our energy system is made more based on political tactics than on scientific knowledge and consideration of all alternatives and their impacts (Löfstedt, 2001). It is very rare to see any elaborated cost-benefit analyses or environmental assessment processes in Swedish policy preparations. A systematic treatment of the dangers of different energy systems has been avoided. Mainstream views among environmentalists of what is good for the environment are rarely challenged, although they are constantly challenged in science. Commonly, arguments are not about the relative risks but about right and wrong. Nuclear opponents feel that nuclear energy violates fundamental laws of nature, and therefore accepts treating nuclear risk different from other risks. Scientific evidence that does not support the common environmentalist perspectives seems to have difficulties penetrating the work. Instead of scientific facts, the ‘Ecocycle Society’ discourse is used to rule out unwanted options. 4. Discussion Long-established networks play key roles in the conception and implementation of energy policy. There seem to be at least two major policy networks operating at the national level, each with relatively clear and distinct value systems, and supporting premises. A green network with a value system based in ecologism and state interventionism was very influential throughout the 1990s, culminating with the 1997 energy bill. This network has a political party basis in the Greens, the Socialists and the Centre, nodes in bureaucracies such as the Ministry for the Environment, the Swedish National Energy Administration and the Swedish EPA, and strong supporters among leading environmental academicians. The network argues for more political action and less market influence, and is in favour of public investment in order to support biomass energy, wind energy and solar power. As a result industrial groups associated with these technologies are part of a wider issue network. It seems to prefer judgment-based decision making to scientific rationalism to get done ‘what has to be done’. A growth network is visible with a political basis among Conservatives, Liberals and, to some extent, Social Democrats, with supporters in bureaucracies of Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Industry. The wider issue network includes 95 industry associations and the labour movements, normally antagonists but here forming a coalition around a particular issue where interests coincide. However, the networks cannot be very sharply distinguished. It is difficult to detect pure expressions of value systems both among stakeholders and political parties. Also, the prominence of the Social Democrats is blurring the picture as they attempt to accommodate both the green and growth networks in the rhetoric. Values underpinning the energy policy in Sweden change over time. The major policy objectives have been rather constant during the last decades; safeguarding industrial competitiveness through low prices, maintaining a secure supply and protecting the environment and natural resources (Silveira 2001). However, their relative importance changes. Supply security and national self-sufficiency were important objectives in the 1970s, whereas environmental and health concerns dominated in later years (Kaijser 2001). Later on, competitiveness and price objectives motivated the deregulation of the electricity market in the 1990s (Midttun 1996). In 1996-1997, the environmental objectives are overriding to: “facilitate the transition to an ecologically sustainable society”. Today, these values are losing their bite, and in recent discussions, the emphasis is on growth and internationalism. The growing international concern, in particular regarding climate change, lead to international action, media attention and public interest in environmental policy. At the same time, the nuclear phase-out had not been dealt with and was becoming a liability for the Social Democrats. In the mid 1990s, problems, solutions and politics converged and the ecological transition became the energy policy agenda. In fact, it also became, for a short while, the overall political agenda of the Swedish government. Prime Minister Göran Persson was quick to pick up the signals and launched the ecological transition campaign. However, moving beyond the agenda setting and into the policy action, this programme gradually faced constraints in the market and among the public. The popular response turned out, perhaps unexpectedly, to be meagre. Göran Persson seemed to overestimate the importance of this policy window. The media and the public as well as key constituencies, such as the labour movement, became alienated. Sweden was not ready for this agenda. References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Anselm, J. 2000. Mellan Frälsning Och Domedag: Om Kärnkraftens Politiska Idéhistoria I Sverige 1945-1999 (between Salvation and Armageddon: On Nuclear Political History in Sweden 1945-1999). Stockholm: Brutus Östlings Bokförlag. Caldwell, L. K. 1990. Between Two Worlds: Science, the Environmental Movement and Policy Choice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs 2000. Consolidated Guidelines: Understanding Values. New York, Unpublished, available from Carnegie Council. Cohen, M., J. March and J. Olsen 1972. ‘A Garbage Can Model of Organisational Choice’ Administrative Science Quarterly 17: 1-25. Connelly, J. and G. Smith 1999. Politics and the Environment: From Theory to Practice. London: Routledge. 96 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. Cothern, R. 1996. Handbook for Environmental Risk Decision Making: Values, Perceptions, and Ethics. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Dahmén, E. 1968. Sätt Pris På Miljön. Stockholm: Studieförbundet Näringsliv och Samhälle. Dale, V. H. and M. R. English, Eds. 1998. Tools to Aid Environmental DecisionMaking. New York, NY: Springer. Dryzek, J. 1996). ‘The Informal Logic of Institutional Design’, in R. E. Goodin. The Theory of Institutional Design. Design Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Dryzek, J. S. 1990. Discursive Democracy: Politics, Policy and Political Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dunn, W. N. 1994. Public Policy Analysis - an Introduction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Eriksson, O. 1996. Bygg Om Sverige Till Bärkraft! Stockholm, ABF’s Idé och Faktabibliotek. Fischer, F. and J. Forrester, Eds. 1993. The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning. London: Duke University Press. Goodin, R. E., Ed. 1996. The Theory of Institutional Design. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jasanoff, S. 2000. Risk, Precaution and Environmental Values. Workshop paper. paper New York, Carnergie Council on Ethics and International Affairs. Kaijser, A. 2001). ‘From Tile Stoves to Nuclear Plants - the History of Swedish Energy Systems’, in S. Silveira. Building Sustainable Energy Systems: Swedish Experiences. Stockholm, AB Svensk Byggtjänst and Swedish National Energy Experiences Administration. Kingdon, J. W. 1995. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. New York: HarperCollins College Publishers. Kuhn, T. 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Löfstedt, R. 2001. Playing Politics with Energy Policy: The Phase-out of Nuclear Power in Sweden. Environment. 43: 20-33. March, J. G. and J. P. Olsen 1989. Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics. New York: Free Press. Marsh, D., Ed. 1998. Comparing Policy Networks. Buckingham: Open University Press. Meadows, D. and Club of Rome 1972. The Limits to Growth. London: Earth Island. Michelsen, T. 2001. Avveckling Som Ständigt Skjuts Upp. Dagens Nyheter. Nyheter Stockholm: 11. Midttun, A. 1996. ‘Electricity Liberalization Policies in Norway and Sweden: Political Trade-Offs under Cognitive Limitations’ Energy Policy 24(1): 53-65. Nordhaus, W. D. 1997. The Swedish Nuclear Dilemma: Energy and the Environment. Washington DC: Resources for the Future. O’Riordan, T., C. L. Cooper, A. Jordan, S. Rayner, K. R. Richards, P. Runci and S. Yoffe 1998). ‘Chapter 5: Institutional Frameworks for Political Action’, in S. Rayner and E. L. Malone. Human Choice and Climate Change Volume 1: The Societal Framework. Columbus, Ohio, Batelle Press. 97 27. Peters, G. 2000. Institutional Theory in Political Sciences: The New Institutionalism. ??: Cassell Academic. 28. Pigou, A. C. 1920. The Economics of Welfare. London: MacMillan. 29. Rayner, S. and E. L. Malone, Eds. 1998. Human Choice and Climate Change Volume 1: The Societal Framework. Columbus, Ohio: Batelle Press. 30. Regeringens proposition 2002. 2001/02:143. Samverkan För En Trygg, Effektiv Och Miljövänlig Energiförsörjning. Stockholm, Regeringskansliet. 31. Roe, E. 1994. Narrative Policy Analysis: Theory and Practice. Durham: Duke University Press. 32. Rolston, H. 1988. Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Values in the Natural World. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 33. Sabatier, P. 1988. ‘An Advocacy Coalition Framework of Policy Change and the Role of Policy-Oriented Learning Therein’ Policy Sciences 21: 129-168. 34. Silveira, S. 2001). ‘Transformation of the Energy Sector’, in S. Silveira. Building Sustainable Energy Systems: Swedish Experiences. Experiences Stockholm, AB Svensk Byggtjänst and Swedish National Energy Administration. 35. Statens Offentliga Utredningar 1995:139 1995. Omställning Av Energisystemet. Stockholm: Swedish Government. 36. Statens Offentliga Utredningar 2000:7 2000. Långtidsutredningen 1999/2000. Stockholm: Swedish Government. 37. Stone, D. 2002. Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision-Making. New York: Norton. 38. Thompson, M., R. Ellis and A. Wildawsky 1990. Cultural Theory. Oxford: Westview Press. 39. Thompson, M. and S. Rayner 1998). ‘Chapter 4: Cultural Discourses’, in S. Rayner and E. L. Malone. Human Choice and Climate Change Volume 1: The Societal Framework. Columbus, Ohio, Batelle Press. 40. Vedung, E. and M. Brandel 2001. Vattenkraften, Staten Och De Politiska Partierna. Dora: Nya Doxa. 41. Vincent, J. R. and R. M. Ali 1997. Environment and Development in a ResourceRich Economy. Malaysia under the New Economic Policy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 98 Predicting Public Acceptability in Controversial Technologies Donald M. Bruce Society, Religion and Technology Project Church of Scotland, John Knox House 45 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1SR SCOTLAND, UK E-mail : [email protected] Keywords: risk, biotechnology, GM food, GM crops, ethics, values, genetic modification, nutraceuticals, safety, policy, environmental risk, consumer perceptions, trust, social contract, shared vision, GM animals, power, control, accountability, consultation. Introduction Technology and society have a synergic relationship, but in recent years the relationship has become increasingly under strain In the UK and in some other parts of Europe the generally favourable climate of public opinion towards technological progress in the decades following the second world war has been challenged by a more sceptical attitude. As public disquiet about controversial technologies has grown, the scientific community can no longer take for granted, in the way that it had been inclined to do, the acceptance by the public of its projects. New technologies may now be greeted with as much concern for their possible risks as enthusiasm for their projected benefits. While the products of information technologies generally attract widespread support, developments in more sensitive areas like agriculture and food biotechnology or environmentally sensitive energy production may have to earn the right to be exploited.[1] Even some medical developments, for example involving embryos, permanent genetic change or genetic information, may be questioned. Broadly speaking, new technologies are a product of the values and aspirations of the culture in which they emerge. Technology arises from its scientific, economic and political life, and also the assumptions the society holds in religious, philosophical and moral spheres, expressed by and embedded in its artefacts and systems. In turn, each new technology shapes and alters these values and aspirations, to a greater or lesser degree. When it is widely accepted, technology permeates economic and political systems, cultural values, attitudes and aspirations, and reshapes them, often largely unnoticed. For example, transportation, preservative and refridgeration technologies have markedly changed our systems of food production and our expectations of variety of diet and quality of food. Modern technology has been encouraged, as long as it produced things which the society regarded as desirable, and did not upset basic values or major interests. The 99 widespread public objection to the use of unlabelled genetically modified foods in Britain in 1999 revealed a situation where this correspondence had broken down. A disjunction had emerged between the aims of the technologists and the wishes of society. This reflected a gap in the public legitimation of non-human biotechnology, in so far as many of its developments had been occurring remote from the population at large. The values which some biotechnologies have expressed did not necessarily have a wide public acceptance, but rather represented the values of certain groups within the society. Another example was the practice of feeding herbivorous animals with bone meal, sometimes even derived from their own species, which came to light through the BSE crisis. The acceptance by society of any certain types of technology would now seem to depend on how far the values embodied in the technology reflect those of the wider society, rather than reflecting only those of some privileged sector like a ruling elite, a group of academic researchers, a commercial company, or a special interest group. It is thus now becoming more important to evaluate in advance the degree of likely mismatch between the aspirations of the technologists and the values of society. Biotechnology as a Social Contract This paper explores one approach to making this evaluation, based on the notion of a conditional social contract between technology and society. [2] A given society may be prepared to embrace a new technology to deliver certain benefits, and may also accept a degree of risk and adaptation of its systems, institutions and life styles, provided certain basic conditions are fulfilled. It is a largely invisible contract as long as the aims correspond. It becomes more apparent when a significant mismatch emerges. When the roots of the mismatch are examined, the acceptance or rejection of novelty and innovation in technology are found to be dependent on a complex mix of factors, which constitute the unwritten terms of the contract. These features are gathered from wider social science insights in the field of risk perception and from experience of engagement with public groups on a range of risky technologies. • • • • • • • • • • Values - does it uphold or challenge our values? Familiarity - is something familiar; is it embedded in the society? Comparison - if it is unfamiliar, with what can we compare it? Did that technology go wrong or prove reliable? Control - how much do we feel in control of the technology? Trust - if we are not in control, how much do we trust those who are? Vision - do we share their motives, vision and goals? Risks - what sort of risks are involved? Are they novel or within existing experience? Choice - do I have any choice over either the technology or over its hazards? If there are significant risks involved, are these voluntary or imposed? Benefits - are there tangible benefits to consumers? Portrayal - how has is it portrayed in the mass media? 100 A primary condition for acceptance is whether the technology in question upholds or challenges basic moral values within contemporary society. These are the underlying values we hold, for instance in medical applications about the nature of human being and human well being, about family relationships and reproduction, embryos and foetuses, genes, cells and body parts. Important factors in non-human biotechnology include basic attitudes and values held about nature, naturalness and innovation, and about particular aspects of the natural world. Which sorts of species are considered of especial value? What distinctions are made amongst humans, animals and plants? What are seen as appropriate and inappropriate uses of different of animals and of different types of animals, or of plants, insects and microbes? Social values may also be relevant in relation to ownership, consent, confidentiality, justice, equity, collective responsibility and individual choice. Secondly, how familiar do people feel with the technology? Coal, were it discovered today, might well be considered too risky and polluting to be a principal source of energy. Yet it has been socially embedded in numerous communities for many generations. It is something people feel they know and understand, notwithstanding the substantial risks which the community is often thoroughly aware that it carries. If a technology is unfamiliar, however, comparison is an important factor. What existing technology is it to be compared with, and has that proved reliable or something that has gone wrong? We are more likely to accept a technology over which we feel a measure of control. For example, we may feel we have a sense of control over using cars, a coal fire or personal computers or having IVF treatment but not about aircraft, nuclear power stations, genetic databases or crop genetic modification. If we are not in control, our acceptance then depends on how far we trust those who are, whether they are seen to have share our values, motivations and goals. Thus most people tend to trust the aircraft pilot, crew and technical systems, because high safety is in everyone’s interest, and the medical staff and technicians dedicated to providing fertility treatment and advice. We might be less certain of the aims and motives of those holding our genetic information or promoting GM crops. Is there a shared overall vision for the way we see the future developing, or a mismatch? In the current climate, there is especial scepticism about commercial or political motives. Capitalism for its own sake is seen as a dubious value when biotechnology is involved, because if there was a conflict of its priorities, it would tend to override safety, environmental or ethical factors. A closely related condition is whether the technology and its risks are voluntary or imposed. If there are uncertainties over health, safety or environment, a technology is less likely to be accepted if we cannot exercise choice over using it or avoiding its risks. Numerous studies on risk perception have identified key attitudes.[3] Certain sorts of risks are also more likely to arouse aversion than others. Typically people tend to be more averse to rare events with carry very high potential consequences, than many frequent events with smaller harms. A technology is more feared if its risks 101 are of this nature, and especially if the potential harmful effects are delayed and would creep up insidiously, rather than being immediate and noticeable. Ionising radiation, radioactive waste and genetic modification are examples of the latter. A technology must offer realistic, tangible benefits to the members of society in general. Repair and enhancement are two qualitatively different elements. There is greater preparedness to favour medical genetic interventions, because disease is considered an aberration to the human condition. It is putting right something that is generally agreed to have gone wrong. The notion of improving or adding something new to the human condition, the environment, or any other aspect of creation may also be desirable. This is problematical in relation to food, however, which is both sensitive and perceived to be satisfactory as it is. Genetic improvements to food may be viewed with suspicion, as if to say “since it isn’t broken, don’t try to mend it.” Finally, acceptance increasingly depends on the context in which one first heard about the technology, and whether it has been given a positive or negative image in the media, or in one’s won peer group. Once Greenpeace’s slogan “Frankenstein foods” became the favoured description by which the media described GM foods, its repetition created and perpetuated a strong negative image. Even though it denoted a gross exaggeration, the connotations of danger, irresponsibility and science out of control were all that was needed, in a climate of plausible food risk, to undermine the credibility of GM foods. On the other hand a generally positive media presentation has been given to GM vitamin-A rice and pharmaceutical products in sheep’s milk. A feature of all innovation is that the full range of outcomes are seldom knowable in advance. Once a dependence has been established on a technology, and the more central the role it plays in society, the more damaging are any failures or unforeseen adverse effects. An alteration of values in the light of the experience. This may work both ways. It may lead to a loss of the trust that was previously given. Alternatively, if good results are seen, previously expressed fears my be discounted. We examine the application of this rationale to the historic cases of importing of GM Soya and maize, and the UK marketing of GM tomato paste, and assess the likely public reaction to a number of future biotechnological innovations and also some energy technologies and radioactive waste disposal. GM Soya and the Failure of the Social Contract If several of these factors are not fulfilled, the technology is unlikely to be accepted. This was dramatically illustrated in the UK public reaction to food products derived from imported US GM soya and maize. These applications failed most of the above conditions, and can be said to have broken the invisible social contract, such that public rejection should have been seen as a foregone conclusion. 102 It was an unfamiliar technology which brought together two very sensitive issues - genetics and food - which challenged basic values, as already shown. Although its risks were largely unproven, they were high consequence, low probability hazards, insidious in nature and probably irreversible, which typically evoke an aversion much greater than their calculated risk. The immediate points of comparison were the recent experience of BSE/CJD, a very remote health risk which nonetheless proved to be real, or the various cases of the unintended spread of an introduced species within a local ecology. The failure to segregate or label meant that no choice was offered for those wishing to avoid GM foods, and therefore any risk, however remote, was unavoidable. The ordinary public had played no role in the introduction of the technology and had little or no trust in those who controlled it. Their goals and values were not shared. The UK Government’s motivations - in reducing input costs in farming and promoting a competitive UK biotechnology industry - were not seen as relevant to consumers. The main benefits were agronomic and accrued to foreign growers, and especially to US-based multi-national corporations. Their perceived arrogance in promoting their own interests by forcing GM soya and maize on to the European market, oblivious of consumer values or choice, provoked a deep antipathy to commercial motivations. Very reasonably, people asked why they should accept foods which might carry an imposed risk, which they did not need, which offered no tangible benefits to them, and which served only the corporate ambitions of powerful foreign companies. Could GM ever Satisfy the Social Contract? It is important now to examine whether the failure of soya and maize products is indicative of all GM technologies involving food, or is related to particular applications and the circumstances of their introduction. Significantly, from 1996 to 1999, Zeneca’s GM tomato paste had sold fairly well in the UK without undue opposition. This case shows certain critical differences over media profile, risk awareness, choice and benefit which are illuminating. In 1996, GM was unfamiliar and potentially problematic, but it had not received exhaustive media coverage and an issue had not been made of its risks. Supermarkets promoted the paste as slightly cheaper and tasting better than the non-GM variety. They only stopped selling it once they saw a market interest in promoting themselves as ‘GM free’. The consumer had a clear choice, because the paste was a single product sold in a GM-labelled tin, whose tomatoes were separately sourced. In contrast GM soya and maize were invisible. They were commodities sold primarily as ingredients to the food processing industry, and no attempt was made to segregate GM from non-GM sources. It was not clear to the consumer which of a wide variety of food products would have had GM-derived ingredients and which would not. As Zeneca’s market research had shown, a near absolute condition for accepting any GM food is that there is visible choice through labelling and segregation. 103 It remains to be seen whether providing choice alone, as in the current draft EC proposals, would now be sufficient to redeem GM food. Alternatively, would the stigma now attached to GM food as a concept irredeemably taint any future applications, regardless of how well they might satisfy the social contract? The question must be seen in the context of strong vested and political interests promoting different images of the technology. The ordinary citizen is caught in the middle, often not knowing who to believe. If GM crop and food applications have any future it lies in focusing on aims which find common cause with these consumers. Three possible GM applications are evaluated below in terms of how well they might or might not fulfill the different conditions of the social contract - nutraceuticals, vaccines produced in crops by GM viruses and extracted chemically, and the possible use of genetic modification in environmentally sustainable crop production. The evaluation is purely qualitative and personal, and is summarised in the table. Values Familiarity Comparison Control Trust Notional Acceptance Scores for Some Real and Potential GM Applications Soya/ Tomato NutraPlant Maize Paste ceutical Vaccine No ? Yes Yes No No No Yes No Yes Yes? Yes/No No No No No No Yes ? Yes ? No Yes No Vision Choice Risk Benefits Media Profile +/- No No No No Yes ? Yes No Yes ? Yes ? Yes ? Yes ? Enhanced Ecology No No No No No ? ? Yes/No Yes? No Foods genetically engineered to add ingredients which give a nutritional or health enhancement compared with non-GM varieties would significantly alter the perception of benefit. The advantages would need to be enough to overcome fears of health risks. Nutrients alone might not suffice, but modifications which enhanced resistance to cancers or heart disease, or which removed allergenic compounds might have a particular attraction, such as a GM wheat which eliminated the source of the gluten reaction. Environmental risks would figure less in this type of application, unless the crops also incorporated GM-based herbicide or insect resistance. Suspicions of commercial motivation and control would remain. Vaccines produced in plants using GM viruses would satisfy most of the criteria, provided vaccines were extracted rather than eaten in situ in the plant. The main doubts would be over risk comparison, with the association of viruses with human disease, and the fear of unforeseen transformations. The application of GM to crops for targeted environmental improvements is supported by some wildlife conservation bodies, but the consumer benefit would 104 be second order. It is not clear if this would overcome perceptions that GM crops are by definition ecologically dangerous face. It would also face being written off by environmental groups as a technical fix. Gene flow might be avoided by making GM crops sterile, but ‘terminator’ technology has gained an ethical stigma. Its use would indeed be a deep injustice in those developing countries where seed is normally resown. This ethical objection would not apply in the UK, where most conventional seeds are hybrid varieties bought fresh each year, but the terminator media image may still discourage acceptance. To overcome perceptual barriers, GM developments would have to offer environmental solutions that were difficult to achieve in other ways, and without posing new risks. Renewable Energy Technologies If the same approach is applied to newer technologies in the energy sector, some different patterns emerge. Apart from hydroelectricity, wind and biomass, they may not be familiar in detail, but in general, renewable forms of energy uphold rather than challenge prevailing beliefs about care for the environment, and would be a goal and vision commanding general support. The main issues in a social contract are less about the technologies as a whole and more about local impacts. In the case of wind farms, which currently may present considerable controversy over siting in the UK, comparisons may be with other sitings which are, or are not, seen as a blight on the landscape. Questions of control, trust and choice would depend on whether local issues had been taken into account adequately. If someone’s objections were overruled, there would be no choice but to live with the installation, and it might be difficult to avoid using the energy it generated. Local media portrayal would also have an impact if it weighed in on one side or the other. Benefits would be in the energy produced, and the environmental gains relative to more polluting technologies, but risks would be rather varied. On-shore wind has presented especial concerns in the invasion of visual amenity, and some questions about turbine blades becoming detached, bird disruption and local noise. Large hydro has often been associated with major disruption of the landscape, communities and habitats in, but the more likely future application of small installations and run-ofriver schemes would cause much less impact. Altered habitats have been a significant objection to some large tidal barrage proposals, like the Severn Estuary. Not all these concerns would necessarily be shared in the local population, however. For example, attitudes may vary to visual effects or the importance of wildlife. Off-shore wind, wave and tidal all carry the personal risks of off-shore installations, but hardly impact the general consumer. Biomass used to generate heat, gas or electricity from waste carries fears of contaminants in the flue gases, and the perceived health risks. Comparison could be made with chemical waste incinerators. Energy crops such as novel fuel oils would be seen more in terms of their biological impact. 105 Radioactive Waste Disposal Radioactive waste disposal has two communities to consider - those in the vicinity of the planned facility and those far away in the general population. For both it could be seen to challenge basic values in the handing on a problem that arose from our activities today, whose burden future generations would bear over unimaginable time scales. The uncertainty of what we were passing on might also be an objection. For the local population, it would be seen as more or less familiar, but as a controversy rather than being comfortable in their familiarity. The wider population may well have heard about the issue of radwaste disposal, but feel it was something basically unfamiliar and not well understood. In this case the comparison would probably be with the indiscriminate radioactive contamination of land and population arising from Chernobyl. It is perhaps less likely that it would be compared with the long term management of permanently toxic wastes from heavy metals, and this might not be seen as a point in its favour. In the local context, control and trust would again depend on the extent to which the utilities, regulators and policy makers had established a rapport with the local community, or whether the community felt alienated. This would also affect vision and choice. This could be a major difference with the general population who would feel less in control and would have little relationship on which to base a sense of trust. Vision and choice would be influenced by basic attitudes to nuclear power and by the local state of affairs. Those opposed would see it as a nuisance imposed on them. Those favouring it might see waste disposal as a necessary consequence, and share the vision of the developers, while probably not wanting it in their back yard. In the locality, much would depend on how involved the community felt with the development and were partners in the decision making process. Risk is likely to be the biggest single factor, and forms the backdrop to all the other issues. Radioactive waste presents a classic example of a remote insidious risk with perceived large consequences, were the containment to be breached, affecting the local water table and land for centuries to come. The overwhelmingly negative aspect of this will be offset for some by the recognition that the risk is already there and has to be addressed somehow, but with the hope that someone else may be able to carry the risk. NIMBY will continue to be a major attitude in the issue which popularised the expression. Waste, seen as the tail end of a process which has already happened, has no obvious benefit to anyone. A ‘double negative’ benefit lies in putting hazardous material away in a safe form somewhere reasonably safe, and well managed. Strictly the user has already obtained the benefit in the same electricity provided, but this may not be perceived as such. Some might argue that the benefit is nil, because it was imposed and because it could have been better supplied by another technology. The media portrayal, generally presumed as negative, is perhaps more mixed towards nuclear power in general. On radwaste, much depends on which viewpoint is seen to be providing the best story or spin on the issues. 106 Changes needed for a Social Contract to Work These are speculative evaluations, but they suggest there are some applications which might succeed. In either biotechnology or future energy technologies an acceptance profile would contain a yes vote to most of the questions which were seen as central. That alone is not sufficient, however. Where trust has been lost, it requires bridging a gulf of perceptions, values and visions, to find common cause with the wider population. In the cases of GM and radwaste this was far from the case. Industry, scientists or governments only have a true mandate if they put a lot of work in to the basic job of listening and are prepared to change their ways, by adapting their goals to society’s views. This is a two-way process, not the ‘information deficit’ model. This will also require imaginative ways of engagement with the wider public on technology issues, as well as contact with the more familiar stakeholders. This also means opening the process of research prioritisation to some level of public scruntiny, as part of strategic planning and management, involving the public to find ways to identify commonly agreed aims for a technology. Each technology needs to regard its ethical dimension as intrinsic, not extrinsic, to its task. It also needs to identify where its own ethical limits lie, and demonstrate this publicly. This requires major changes in how technologists are educated to encompass an understanding of ethics, and trained on the job to continue their awareness. This should include regular engagement with rationalities and disciplines outside the scientific peer group, involving philosophy, theology and social science disciplines, and also non-specialist lay people. Lastly, a common vision for a technology also includes a corresponding transparency by government and regulators. Cultures unused to open discussion need to develop it. The long trend in most industrial countries to switch from public sector funding to private has produced a corresponding decrease in public trust in research. In today’s climate of deep scepticism of private sector biotechnology, the mentality of ‘commercial-in-confidence’ needs rethinking. It is more important to regain the confidence of the public than to keep commercial confidentiality for a product which no one trusts. This paper has analysed the relationship between public acceptance and values in terms of a social contract for biotechnology, identifying a set of conditions necessary to achieve a general acceptance for a novel technology. Evaluation of current and future technologies in biotechnology and energy indicates a complex situation in which some applications might be accepted and others not. A more publicly responsive model of technology planning and outworking is suggested, seeking to find common cause between sensitive technologies and with the wider population. 107 Abstract Technology and society have a synergic relationship. New technologies are a product of the values and aspirations of the culture in which they emerge. In turn, each new technology shapes and alters these values and aspirations, to a greater or lesser degree. The acceptance by society of any particular technology depends, however, on how far the values embodied in the technology reflect those of the wider society, or only those of some privileged sector - perhaps a ruling elite, a group of academic researchers, a commercial company, or even a special interest group. As public disquiet about controversial technologies has grown, their acceptance can no longer be taken for granted. It is now becoming more important to evaluate in advance the degree of likely mismatch between the aspirations of the technologists and the values of society. This paper explores one approach to making this evaluation, based on the notion of a conditional social contract between technology and society. A given society may be prepared to embrace a new technology to deliver certain benefits, and may accept a certain degree of risk and adaptation of life styles, provided certain basic conditions are fulfilled. These conditions include the upholding of basic values, familiarity, how it compares with similar technologies, the degree of control and choice, trust in those in control, the nature of any risks, the tangible benefits, and the media profile given to the new area. If several of these factors are not fulfilled, the technology is unlikely to be accepted. This was dramatically illustrated in the UK public reaction to food products derived from imported US GM soya and maize. These failed nearly all the conditions, so that public rejection should have been seen as a foregone conclusion. In the light of this, the likely public reaction to a number of future biotechnological innovations is assessed, based on the same conditions. Some examples taken from the energy sector are also compared. The notion of an acceptance profile is derived, and suggestions are made how this could be used to find collaborative modes of technology planning. References [1] Bruce, D. M. (1992) Perceptions and Values - Implications of a Changed Public Perception of Science and Technology, A submission to the White Paper on Science and Technology, November 1992, SRT Project, Edinburgh [2] Bruce, D. M. (2002) A Social Contract for Biotechnology - Shared Visions for Risky Technologies? J. Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, vol.15, pp.279289 [3] Adams, J. (1995) Risk, London: UCL Press. 108 Interests, Values and Biotechnological Risk Ann Bruce1 & Joyce Tait Centre for Social and Economic Research on Innovation in Genomics (InnoGen) EDINBURGH UNITED KINGDOM Abstract Interviews with stakeholders in the GM (Genetically Modified) crops debate have been used to develop a framework identifying aspects of the conflicts which are interest-based or value-based. We now report on the first stages of a research project which aims to explore in more detail the criteria which are relevant to distinguishing between these underlying motivations and to develop a more formal methodology for identifying the extent to which stakeholders are making their case on the basis of interests or values. As a first step to this we are looking at debates in a number of genomics-related issues to identify the parameters underlying the interests/values dimension. This paper reports on work-in-progress and outlines our initial ideas on how we might evaluate these complex interacting issues. Introduction The confusion among European policy makers about how to handle the issue of genetically modified (GM) crops has highlighted the difficulties experienced in trying to find an acceptable way forward in a conflict over risks in biotechnology. Earlier research [1] has postulated a model of risk-based conflict which distinguishes between interest-based conflicts and value-based conflicts. The features of these two are shown in table 1. These two types of conflict have involved very different characteristics. Interests based conflicts are likely to be restricted to specific developments and to specific localities. They can usually be resolved by the provision of information or compensation and involving a process of negotiation. Value-based conflicts, however, are likely to spread across all related developments and are likely to be organised on a national and increasingly international basis. These value-based conflicts are difficult to resolve as information is viewed as propaganda, compensation as bribery and negotiation as betrayal. Whereas providing concessions is likely to lead to accommodation if the conflict is interest-based, concessions are more likely to lead to escalation of demand if the conflict is value-based. In practice, of course, individual and group motivations are likely to be a mixture of the two, although rarely in equal proportions. Corresponding author: Ann Bruce, InnoGen, University of Edinburgh, Old Surgeons’ Hall, High School Yards, Edinburgh EH1 1LZ Tel: +44(0)131 650 6397 Fax: +44(0)131 650 6399 1 109 Table Interest-based conflicts Likely to be restricted to specific developments Likely to be location-specific, locally organised Can usually be resolved by the provision of: - information - compensation - negotiation Giving concessions leads to mutual accommodation Value-based conflicts Likely to spread across all related developments Likely to be organised on a national or international basis Very difficult to resolve - information is viewed as propaganda - compensation is viewed as propaganda - negotiation is viewed as betrayal Giving concessions leads to an escalation of demand We have chosen to use the terminology ‘values’ and ‘interests’ which are defined later in the paper. However, we are aware that considerable debate can be had over whether this is the most appropriate terminology and whether ‘ideology’ for example, should be substituted for ‘values’. Ideology refers to a system of thinking (an ‘ism) rather than individual values. The same values may be present in different ideologies. We find that the term ‘ideology’ has negative connotations and as we would want to affirm values as important aspects of social systems, we have chosen to use the term ‘values’ in preference to ‘ideology’. The terminology may have different technical meanings for people coming from different disciplines such as philosophy and ethics and we acknowledge that we may need to change the terminology in future to reflect the concepts which are in our minds but which may not be accurately communicated by use of this terminology. An example of how these interest-based and value-based disputes can influence the overall trajectory of a conflict is found in the UK debate on GM crops, contrasting the situation in the early 1990’s and 1998. Tait [1] considered where various stakeholders (public and consumer organisations, environmental pressure groups, organic and conventional farmers, food companies, multinational chemical companies and scientists) were located on an interests vs. values matrix of motivations and how these positions moved during the debate. For example, a survey carried out in 1990 showed that most members of the public were neutral in their attitude to biotechnology and it did not seem to affect their interests directly, nor did it seem relevant to any of their strongly-held values. However, this survey also indicated that they wanted more information and would be most likely to trust consumer and environmental organisations for this information rather than government or industry. The campaign stance of environmental groups since the early 1990s appears to reflect a value-based opposition to GM crops. Consumer organisations, which initially took a neutral, interest-based stance on the issue of GM crops, announced in 1998 that they were 110 now opposed in principle to intensive farming systems and to GM crops. Whilst it could be argued that the consumer organisations were following rather than leading public opinion, this change in stance may have encouraged the environmental groups to raise the profile of their campaigns and may also have encouraged the press to take a stronger interest in the issue. The combined effect was that both of the major sources of information for the public now held value-based opposition to GM crops. Furthermore, the environmental and consumer groups were joined by nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) with a concern for development issues. Together these formed what has been termed an Advocacy Coalition [2] to oppose GM crops. Whilst this analysis obviously over-simplifies the various factors in the debate, it illustrates the way in which an appreciation of the difference between value-based and interest-based disputes can be helpful in understanding the processes involved in decision making about technological risk. The approach of distinguishing between values and interests in disputes is attracting interest from a range of practitioners and our objective is to develop formal methods of exploring these dimensions with the aim of enabling better decision making. The work reported here is the initial stage of this process and as such the discussion should be considered ‘work in progress’. Definitions of Values and Interests As noted earlier considerable debate can be had over the definition of ‘values’ and ‘interests’ which we are using. Working definitions of ‘values’ and ‘interests’ are given by Burton [4]. Values Ideas, habits, customs and beliefs that are a characteristic of particular social communities. They are features that lead to separate cultures and identity groups. Values are not for trading and changing values is a long process. Interests The occupational, social, political and economic aspirations of the individual, and of identity groups of individuals within a social system. Interests are held in common within groups in a society, but are less likely to he held in common nationally. Interests are transitory, altering with circumstances. They are not in anyway an inherent part of the individuals as are needs and as values might be. They typically relate to material goods or role occupancy. Interests are negotiable. Values and Interests may be congruent or they may be in conflict. For example, in the area of Embryonic Stem (ES) cells it may be that a particular person suffers from a disease such as Multiple Sclerosis and might potentially benefit from therapies based on ES cells but has a fundamental value position against using embryos in this way. Thus, the person may act against their own interests in objecting to the development 111 of ES cell-based therapies or by refusing to accept such therapy for themselves or for their children. Another example is environmentalists who may have an interest in flying around the world to promote their environmental values, but in doing so cause damage to the environment in the cause of which they are travelling. It is likely that the promotion of environmental values is seen as a greater imperative and such groups often attempt to initiate behaviour to ameliorate the environmental damage they are causing (e.g. by funding environmental schemes as a kind of ‘tax’ on their travel). A lack of communication in disputes may arise when one party considers an issue as an interest and the other considers the same issue as a value e.g. environmentalism may be perceived as an interest to be negotiated with other interests or it can be felt as an absolute, non-negotiable value [5]. When one party treats environmentalism as an interest and the other as a fundamental value, it is very difficult to achieve consensus. Once a fundamental value is recognised, then it may be possible to negotiate means of satisfying this which are acceptable to others. A further concept which quickly becomes important is that of ‘needs’. Needs can be understood as including the objectively definable conditions necessary for the physical survival of the organism [3] or may also include more socials aspects such as the need for identity and recognition [4]. Needs can be repressed or suppressed but they never go away. Needs that are frustrated or denied may give rise to behaviour that is against the interests of the individual, for example in the rise of terrorist activity [4]. Values in disputes Values in disputes are often hidden. Sometimes this may be because some values are so deeply held that they appear to require no articulation, the presumption is that they are commonly shared and acknowledged. Society also often lacks formal frameworks for discussing values. Political and regulatory frameworks have actively discouraged discussion of values, partly because they do not have the mechanisms by which to deal with them. Values and intrinsic ethical objections are often seen as ‘irrational’ and therefore discounted. Weber [6] distinguished between ‘value rationality’ and ‘instrumental rationality’ where value rationality is behaviour consistent with a particular value position and instrumental or scientific rationality looks at the consequences of various actions and carries out cost-benefit type calculations. Both are forms of rationality but each uses reason on a different basis [7]. In practice there has been little recognition of value rationality in risk regulation. This distinction can be seen to come to a head in the Precautionary Principle. This can be understood to consist of a risk: benefit calculation (where the precaution is proportionate to the risk) or it can be used as a tool to indicate a value position about which risks are acceptable and which are not. Value positions can be seen as only lying in the domain of environmentalist, NGOs and religious groups. Scientists are often held up as exemplars of rationality whose decisions are based on ‘facts’ rather than ‘values’. But it is clear that scientists themselves hold values which influence 112 their behaviour. For example scientists may make assumptions about the nature of reality and the acceptability of human action within the natural world [7] or they may make assumptions about the way in which science is adopted in society and the acceptability of this. Failure to recognise the different aspects of value-based arguments and interestbased arguments may mean that the root of a dispute and the factors that are really important to protagonists are not uncovered. An example might be taken from farmland biodiversity. A desire to increase the biodiversity of farmland may lead to a push for organic agriculture. However, further discussion on alternative management practices may uncover practices which can improve particularly desirable aspects of biodiversity and which may apparently achieve similar ends. However, these may be less acceptable because the driver for organic agriculture may in fact originate in a desire for the use of a supposedly holistic, systemic paradigm. Many of the processes in mediated disputes are intended to facilitate the discovery of underlying, not immediately obvious motivations, as a precursor for dialogue about issues that really matter. Interests in disputes People who are funded by a vested interest are seen to reflect that interest. However, interests can also encompass factors other than financial interests e.g. where people have a particular health issue in their family or where natural or social scientists use their position as apparently independent academic researchers to promote a particular cause. Individual interests may include aspects such as having more money, more ‘success’, in not having damage to their property or other interests. Company interests are likely to encompass making a profit and in surviving as a successful business venture. NGO groups may have interests related to increasing number of members, increasing power and influence or in maintaining their image. Interests can be tied to our social roles (e.g. teacher, scientist etc.) When we take on a role we take on different social perspectives [3] and this in turn may affect what risks we consider and what attributes of risk we attend to. Tidwell [8] notes that one of the main impediments to effective dispute resolution is articulating a rationale for the resolution. People have to decide when a conflict is constructive and consistent with their aims and when it is destructive. If parties do not wish to engage in resolution then there is little that can be done. Maintaining a conflict may become an interest in itself, for example Tidwell uses the term ‘struggle groups’ to describe groups of people who have shared interests and who begin to identify themselves as a group apart from other groups, whose common aspirations become group norms and pursuit of these aspirations become manifestations of group 113 loyalty. Eventually, the particular group’s identity may reside in the use of adversarial tactics so that it is in the struggle group’s interest to maintain conflict rather than to reach settlement. Democracy in Decision-making The failure so far to achieve public acceptance for GM crops and the distrust of the regulatory systems has resulted in calls for increased public participation in risk-related decision making. The question of how it is possible to have informed consultation with a diverse population of several million people is being extensively researched and a number of practical trials are being carried out, such as the UK public consultation on GM crop trials. This type of consultation may be able to achieve social legitimation for a particular course of action, but it is unlikely to satisfy everyone involved in the debate. It should also be remembered that social legitimation is not the same as ethical acceptability, although it may serve well for pragmatic purposes. In ethics ‘what is’ is not necessarily ‘what ought to be’. The interaction between the normative perspective of philosophers and ethicists with the empirical work of social scientists is one of the dimension we hope to explore further during the course of this work. Values are not necessarily shared in society, which makes any democratic process for decision making in the area of technological risk problematical. Bruce [9] argues that the biotechnology industry made a mistake in the 1990s in assuming a shared value in technological progress whereas the public reaction (in Europe) was an expression of scepticism at technological interventions. The public mood in the USA still seems to be one predominantly of trust in technology. The issues then relate to ways of democratic governance which respect minority views and of international regulatory systems which can take into account different value-bases of different societies. How evidence is used in value-based conflicts One of the defining features of a value-based conflict is the way in which ‘evidence’ is used by protagonists. Arthur Miller [10] in the historic context of witch hunts described: “…the spectacle of perfectly intelligent people giving themselves over to a rapture of such murderous credulity. It was as though the absence of real evidence was itself a release from the burdens of this world…Evidence, in contrast is effort; leaping to conclusions is a wonderful pleasure…” Evidence can be ignored on both sides of the GM debate, although the justification for doing this is different. It is noticeable that ‘seminal’ works demonstrating underlying problems with GM technology are apparently ignored by the scientific community on the basis that these are examples of poor science. They may indeed be poor science, but it is interesting to note that the response is to ignore the evidence rather than to repeat the experiment. Examples are the evidence from Pusztai [11] suggesting health problems with consumption of GM crops and Chapela [12] suggesting that GM constructs are ineherently unstable. Similarly, evidence suggesting that GM technology can offer environmental benefits when managed in particular ways, is rejected on the basis that the scientists have received industry funding and therefore 114 their evidence is ‘tainted’ because the scientists have a vested interest in the GM industry. The destruction of GM crop trials by anti-GM activists could be viewed as a deliberate way of making sure there is no potentially positive evidence about the impact of GM crops. Giving concessions can result in further uncertainty about the interpretation of evidence. For example, during an investigation into the health impacts of GM crops carried out by the Scottish Parliament (details of which are given below), the issue of antibiotic resistance genes was raised. One proponent of GM crops asked the Committee to note that the use of antibiotic resistance genes as markers in food crops is now banned. The response was not, how sensible to be precautionary, but a concern that this ban meant that the previous product had been unsafe and hence invited questions about the safety of the current products. “I am concerned about the fact that the technology was previously considered to be safe, but is now causing enough concern for a government department to advise that we should not be producing genes conferring that marker...why does ACRE2 want those genes to be phased out if it thinks that they are safe?” We have begun some research into how evidence is used in risk debates. Our first example is from a debate in a Scottish Parliament committee concerning the risks from field trials on GM crops. The Scottish Parliament has a system which allows individuals and groups to send in petitions. The UK government has been running a series of farm-scale evaluations (‘crop trials’) during 2000-2003. Herbicide tolerant oilseed rape, sugar beet and maize have been grown on a field-scale to evaluate the impact of the herbicide management regime associated with these crops on farmland biodiversity. A petition was received by the Scottish Parliament to immediately end these farm-scale evaluations for reasons of safety. As a result of this petition, the Health and Community Care Committee of the Scottish Parliament undertook an inquiry into the health impacts of GM crops during the period October 2002 January 2003 (other aspects being reviewed elsewhere, for example the Transport and Environment Committee reported on the environmental implications of GMOs). The Committee invited written evidence from interested parties and oral evidence was taken from selected interested parties. We have started to look at transcripts of the oral evidence presented in order to identify characteristics of the debate. Examination of these transcripts identified some ways in which evidence is used in this debate as outlined below. We should note that the evidence presented is influenced by the questions asked by Committee members and the evidence presented was limited by the time given to the parties to give their evidence. The people giving evidence did not necessarily present themselves as being on one side of the argument or the other. We have therefore tried to distinguish the argument from the person i.e. that where the argument was in support of crop trials it was used as supporting the GM 2 ACRE – the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment – is the UK Government’s advisory body on risks to human health and environment from release and marketing of Genetically Modified Organisms - GMOs. 115 trials protagonists and where the argument was in support of stopping crop trials that it was used as supporting the GM trials antagonists. It would therefore be possible for evidence from one person to appear on both sides of the debate (although this did not happen in practice). What information is left out when presenting evidence Parties on both sides of the debate appeared to be selective in their use of evidence. For example the crop trials protagonists would generally not refer to uncertainties about knowledge. They failed to note for example, that the way in which ‘Substantial Equivalence’ is interpreted varies between different regulatory regimes. The crop trials antagonists failed to mention any of the safety testing which is currently being carried out on GM crops or when mentioning the dangers of antibiotic resistance gene markers, failed to mention that the crops on trial do not carry the antibiotic resistance gene and that these markers are being phased out. Both interests and values may dispose protagonists to be selective about the information they use. What predictions are being made about the future The crop trials protagonists argued for example, that the risks to health from GMOs are tiny. GM crops are as risky (or less risky) than the status quo. Appeal is made to statements by authorities, such as the Food Standards Agency, about the lack of risk of spread of antibiotic resistance from GM crops and ACRE’s conclusions that growing these GM crops does not pose a threat to human health. The crop trials antagonists refer to a high potential for the spread of antibiotic resistance. Appeal is made to evidence based on observations of local people. Evidence from one local person referred to concern about water running from the trial sites into the river where the GM polluted water may be consumed by fish and hence by humans. This recognises the complexities of what happens in practice as compared to what ought to happen in theory. The balance between risks and benefits are perceived differently by the two parties. For people whose values are consistent with the acceptance of GM crops the question is of ‘balancing risks’. For antibiotic resistance the claim was not that there were no risks, but that the risk was minute compared to that from treatment of humans or animals by antibiotics. This also demonstrates an example of where interests may be tied to social roles. For politicians, whose interest should include protection of their constituents the ‘balancing risks’ argument may mean that more rigorous evidence is needed of safety than that which is available at the moment. For example the issue of the extent of toxicological testing was raised and it was clear that the politician concerned was by no means convinced of the adequacy of the testing regime (although it was accepted practice) and the appropriateness of the balance of risks “[feeding trials had been carried out on] tens of birds and ten rabbits and the ten rats. What benefit do you think the people of Scotland, who must live next to those experimental fields, will get in the long term? What financial benefits will Bayer get, as a company, in the future?” 116 It may be that people with value-based positions reject comparative risks all together and argue that if there is any risk, then we should be precautionary and not proceed. Interestingly, one of the GM-trials antagonists was reluctant to say what levels of testing would be satisfactory. The arguments over the adequacy of the concept of ‘substantial equivalence’ may have at root these different concepts of comparative risks. Use of connotations Tidwell [8] describes how perceptions influence decision making, particularly in the presence of uncertainty. He notes that the perceived probability of the occurrence of an event is influenced by the event’s similarity to another event and the ease with which people can recall instances of occurrence of the event. This is clearly understood and appreciated by both sides in these debates in the Committee. The comparators used by GM-trials protagonists are for example, classical breeding in agriculture and the connotation is children (e.g. children playing and ingesting soil which will contain the constituents of the GM construct used in the crops). The GM-trials antagonists used the comparator of pharmaceuticals (for purposes of safety testing) and used connotations of BSE, CJD, Tobacco and use of pesticides in agriculture. In using connotations, each side will choose comparators that favour their position and arguments, although the same will be true for either interest-based or value-based arguments. Interests The recognition that interests influence positions in disputes was well recognised by the Health and Community Care Committee. Scientists giving evidence were extensively interrogated about their involvement in the biotechnology industry and any funding they may have gained from them. An interesting dimension in these debates was disagreement among the medical community about the health aspects of GM crops. The Chief Medical Officer for Scotland (who was a former Secretary of the British Medical Association - BMA) was far less concerned about the safety of GM crops than representatives of the BMA. The Chief Medical Officer was intensively questioned by the Committee as to his interests and whether being a Government employee and adviser he was therefore toeing the Government line, rather than being an independent member of the BMA. Conclusion We are at the very early stages of seeking to understand more about how values and interests interact in disputes and how science interacts with values. Our aims over the next few years is to identify the parameters underlying the interests/values dimension and to understand how these influence how knowledge is used in risk debates and how this understanding can further conflict resolution. 117 References [1] Tait, Joyce, ‘More Faust than Frankenstein: the European debate about the precautionary principle and risk regulation for genetically modified crops’ Journal of Risk Research, 4(2), 175-189, 2001 [2] Sabatier [3] Blomkvist, Anna-Christina ‘Psychological aspects of values and risks’ in Sjöberg, Lennart (ed) Risk and Society, Allen & Unwin, London, pp89-112, 1987 [4] Burton, John Conflict: Resolution and Provention, The Macmillan Press Ltd, Basingstoke & London, 1990 [5] Environment Council, personal communication [6] Weber, Max Economy and Society, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1978 [7] Bruce, Donald & Bruce Ann Engineering Genesis, Earthscan, London, 1998 [8] Tidwell, Alan, C. Conflict Resolved?, Continuum, London, 2001 [9] Bruce, Donald ‘A social contract for biotechnology: shared visions for risky technologies?’, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, xx, 1-1, 2002 [10] Miller, A. The Crucible in History and Other Essays, London, Methuen p47, 2000 [11] Ewen, SWB and Pusztai, A. Lancet, 354, 1353-1354, 1999 [12] Quist, D. and Chapela, IH Nature 416, 602, 2002 118 Ethics of Safety Decisions in the Railway Industry1 Dr Chris Elliott Pitchill Consulting Ltd Magalee, Moon Hall Road Ewhurst GU6 7NP Surrey, UK Tony Taig TTAC Ltd 10 The Avenue Marston CW9 6EU Cheshire, UK Railway managers are faced with a continuing ethical challenge. Society demands that railways are fast, cheap and safe. It is not possible simultaneously to achieve all three. The media attach great significance to railway accidents, leading to demands for massive investment or wide-ranging changes in operational practices that offer little safety benefit. Railways have traditionally used some form of optimising safety for a given budget, although in some countries it is unwise or even illegal to admit it. What ethical principles should railway companies apply when deciding what is “safe enough”? 1. Context Rail is only a small part of the nation’s activities and there is a regulatory framework to manage it. However, in UK rail: • the railway has changed from being an arm of the State to a mixture of public and private ventures, albeit with increasing State involvement; • European law is coming and will bring about change; the UK legal principle that every employer has a duty to reduce risks to a level that is As Low As is Reasonably Practicable (ALARP) does not sit easily with complex hazardous systems so there will be change. Also, the issue of the safety of the railway has attracted a great deal of public comment and hostility to the rail industry that can be considered to be out of all proportion to the level of risk. There are many unresolved debates that might be but rarely are affected by ethical considerations, to which different types of experts offer conflicting views. Regulators and dutyholders need a better rationale for deciding which expert recommendations to accept. • The authors are grateful to Railway Safety for supporting this research and for permission to publish this paper. 1 119 More parochially, the rail industry needs decision criteria for standards, to know how to respond to the European threat/opportunity, and to influence any future changes to legislation to allow for systems. Questions include: • what is the railway expected to deliver? • where in the railway, and/or in government, should decisions be taken? • how ‘good’ are the decisions made in rail when compared with other distributed industries such as food? We usually want to make our own decisions about our own safety, and about our own activities that give rise to risk. This is fine so long as we are the only ones at risk, and when our actions to control our risks do not affect others. However, many people and organisations, both public and private sector, are involved in decisions about railways, with different responsibilities to different groups of people. Organisations cooperate to deliver a transport service to the end customer; no one organisation is responsible for delivering the whole of the service. Decisions about railway safety thus involve risks to many people, and actions to mitigate risk that affect many people – not least through the money spent on safety measures, which can come only from increased fares, additional subsidy or reduced profits. The railway industry in the UK has been particularly active since the Kings Cross and Clapham accidents of the late 1980’s in assessing risks, and developing policies and decision processes which more directly target resources at risk reduction. This process began before, and has carried on through and beyond, railway privatisation, and has succeeded in producing sustained reductions in several important aspects of railway safety risk. Yet many people and politicians remain, or have become more, dissatisfied with railway safety. The aim of this research was to stand back from current railway arrangements and explore the fundamental ethics of decisions about safety. How does current railway policy and practice compare with the expectations reasonable people have of it? Is there a more solid ethical foundation on which railway safety decisions could be built? Would this affect public and political satisfaction with railway safety? 2. Approach We were not expecting to find “the answer” by consulting experts or published works. Rather, we sought ideas and thoughts that might inspire a deliberative process involving the study team and the sponsors of the work (Railway Safety), then bringing in a widening circle of others as the debate develops. The main tool was a series of interviews with a wide cross-section of prominent individuals, chosen because they were believed to have well-formed views on how society should operate and sufficient standing to lend weight to those views, but not necessarily because of any great expertise on the immediate issues. Each was provided with a briefing paper in advance (attached as Annex) and assured that the 120 interview would be under “Chatham House” rules, so that nothing that was said would be attributed to the person being interviewed. 3. Responsible safety decisions Three main themes emerged from this work: 1. There are circumstances in which an organisation may, morally, put others at risk. Society constrains those circumstances, and either explicitly or implicitly licences organisations whose activities give rise to risk for others. 2. The nature and degree of responsibility of an organisation towards people put at risk by its activities depends critically on the relationship between the individual at risk and the organisation creating or managing that risk. 3. Ethics will not help us establish what levels of risk are tolerable, or what values should be applied in weighing safety against other factors, but does point towards principles for organisations whose activities expose others to risk. 3.1. When may we expose others to risk? The first point we wish to make here is that no person or organisation has a moral right to expose another to risk. “Though shalt not kill” is a principle that extends no matter how far the risk is diluted. It cannot be acceptable for someone to be allowed to impose a risk on another simply because the risk is small. There are however many circumstances in which it is morally justifiable for organisations to do things that involve risk for others. The most basic principles identifiable for justification of such risks are that there must be some benefit or legitimacy to the activity giving rise to the risk, that those at risk should where possible give their informed consent, and that those creating or managing risks should be competent in minimising them within reason. We rely on law and regulation to constrain the freedom of people and organisations to create and accept risks, and also to enable people and organisations to get on with legitimate activity without having repeatedly to seek people’s specific consent. 3.2. Context and relationship factors Having identified the broad nature of circumstances in which it is morally acceptable for organisations to do things involving risks for others, we now consider the nature of the obligation organisations have towards people legitimately put at risk by their activities. These range from very limited (e.g. for soldiers expected to kill their enemies in a war) through to extremely high (e.g. for organisations creating risk for people who do not consent to and will not benefit more than anyone else from the associated activity – such as the neighbours of a chlorine plant or a nuclear power station). The context, and in particular the relationship between the organisation creating or managing the risk and the person facing it, is critical. Some particular relationships we have discussed which are relevant to railways are those of: 121 • an organisation whose activities put at risk people who are not direct beneficiaries of those activities and have not consented to the risk; • a supplier organisation to its customers; • an employing organisation to its employees; and • an organisation whose assets may create risk for anyone abusing them, to those who practise such abuse. 3.3. General principles The discussions about the nature and extent of responsibility of organisations towards individuals identified some general principles that run across the whole range of relationships and contexts above. These include: • ensuring openness and transparency about risks and how they are controlled; • continually searching for ways to reduce risk, unless they compromise other desirable outcomes; • using resources competently and effectively to control risks; • involving people in decisions that affect them as far as practicable; and • working across the spectrum of areas for which the organisation is responsible, those for which it shares responsibility with others, and those it can influence but not control. What our exploration of ethics and morality of safety decisions has NOT done is indicate any absolute levels of risk that are more or less tolerable, or weightings and values to be applied to safety in relation to other factors in decisions. Once it is accepted that people should be involved in decisions that affect them, it becomes immediately apparent that how they feel will weigh in any input they make to decisions (or the frameworks and principles on which decisions are to be based), regardless of any fundamental rights, risks or reasons. The marketing rule that “perception is reality” will apply here too. The process by which safety decisions are made is thus critical to the question of ethical acceptability, rather than the specific criteria or values that underlie it. It is the process that determines whether or not the safety decisions are consistent with the requirements implied by the three “general themes” identified at the start of this section: • legitimisation by society; • taking due account of relationships and context; and • following the general principles of corporate responsibility outlined above. 122 3.4. Involving people in decisions Involving people in decisions and gaining their consent is one thing when an individual doctor is talking to an individual patient about a risky treatment to remedy an even riskier medical complaint. It is quite another in a context like that of the railways where there are millions of users, millions of non-users living near a railway line, and an entire population with strong views about how the system should be run. There is no suggestion that there should be widespread involvement of the populace in every safety decision in a large and complex industry, or that uninformed whim and opinion should take the place of considered professional expertise, or that democratic institutions should be over-ridden by unelected groups of the citizenry. What has happened in recent decades is that there has been a shift of public expectations on their place in important decisions about public policy, from: • “They” will take care of it and I don’t need to know, via • “Tell me” what’s going on, to • “Show me” the evidence this is what’s best, and now • “Involve me” and let me have a say. Relying on elected representatives to do this for us is a very blunt instrument; it buries specific issues on which people have strong views and concerns in among many others, and risks simple political polemic over-riding people’s real concerns and preferences. Increasingly, both in government and corporate contexts, samples of the people are involved in processes of active consultation. The participants are selected statistically to be representative of general opinion but are not held to represent anybody but themselves. They are thus different from “pressure groups” and other supposed representatives that may have little or no democratic mandate but claim representative authority. 4. What does this mean for the railway? The messages are: • ethical theory is not very helpful when considering how to take safety decisions – “right” and “wrong” lie in the context of the decision; • there is little criticism of the principles by which the railway takes safety decisions; but • the practice of safety decision taking is unsatisfactory. The overall conclusion is that it is not correct to think in terms solely of a set of ethical principles that may be applied by the railway to take decisions. Rather, the railway has to involve rail users and society in deciding what sort of railway they want. The goal is to establish some form of “social contract” on the basis of which the industry and its funding and regulating organisations can decide how to strike the balance 123 between performance, cost and safety, and distinguish between a) situations requiring explicit consultation and involvement by a wider audience, and b) situations where the industry and its funding and regulatory bodies can make decisions within the established framework, but without requiring specific wider consultation. The historical democratic approach to such issues has been to assume democratically elected representatives (Members of Parliament) were uniquely authorised to speak on behalf of society. Parliament (or Ministers answerable to Parliament) also control the regulatory framework and the funding of the railway and, before privatisation, they also controlled the rail company as shareholders. The railway could thus discharge its duty by responding to what Parliament demanded. The growth of what is often called “civil society” has undermined those certainties. Parliament is still supreme but democracy acts at many levels. The constituency to which the railway must answer is much broader, encompassing passengers, pressure groups; the Press; local, regional, devolved and European government; QUANGOs; unions; and investors and shareholders. Building a social contract with this wider constituency requires more subtle and sensitive techniques than are sufficient to deal with Ministers and Parliament. The UK railway is composed of private companies (or quasi-private in the case of Network Rail). Nothing here differentiates public from private enterprises. The duties are the same. Both have to earn the trust of society – there are examples of public bodies that have lost trust and of private ones that retain it. Furthermore, the costs of accidents to the industry are very high – there is no incentive to take excessive risks. There is no conflict in principle between profit and safety. There is however a strong ethical requirement to be competent. The rail industry owes a duty of care to society not only to seek the balance of safety, performance and cost demanded by society but also to be competent in achieving that balance. The view that has emerged from evidence at accident inquiries, albeit greatly amplified by sensationalist and inaccurate reporting, is that the industry has not always been competent. Not only is this an ethical failure; it contributes strongly to the loss of trust. 124 5. Findings & Conclusion • There is nothing much wrong with the principles currently used by the rail industry and its regulators to make safety decisions, within the limited framing of “industry and government should decide such matters”. • The framing of decisions, as matters for industry and government, is not ethically sound. There needs to be a wider process of active consultation and engagement of rail users and of society more widely, to establish a broader based “social contract” whereby the balance between safety, performance and cost can be established. • The industry has no ethical duty or moral right to make judgements about what society wants. The industry DOES have a moral duty to ensure that the wider debate about such matters is well informed, and also to act competently to ensure that the mix of safety, performance and cost is the best that can be delivered within the agreed “social contract”. We conclude that the railways and their regulators and government funding bodies have failed to recognise the importance of building wider social consent into decisions within the current legal framework. Their only response to safety concerns has been to try harder to reduce safety risks, which has not addressed people’s concerns about industry safety. The industry and government are in effect busy digging a hole; their only response to concerns that it is the wrong sort of hole has been to dig harder. Thomas Jefferson wrote: “I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.” 125 Annex: Briefing paper “The ethics of technological risk” What is risk? Ever since a caveman decided to bring fire into the cave, we’ve been living with risk. That caveman knew that fire was dangerous, but he decided that the benefits of a warm home and cooked food more than compensated for the risk that his home might catch fire. Since then, it is hard to think of any beneficial innovation, social or technical, that didn’t bring with it the possibility of harm. If society were to forbid any activity that might cause harm, we would lose the benefit of electric lighting, surgery, transport, chemotherapy and much else, as well as virtually all sports and entertainment. But equally we cannot allow total freedom to do anything, whatever and whomever it might harm. Society has to find a way of deciding what is acceptable and managing it to prevent catastrophe. It is helpful to distinguish hazard (anything that can cause harm) and risk (the chance that a hazard will cause harm, and the extent of that harm). The objective is then to manage the risk, not the hazard. The caveman knew that fire was a hazard, but he realised that, if he kept it in the hearth and made his children stand back, the risk was low enough to be worth taking to have a warm cave. That argument is enough when the person taking a decision will suffer the harm if the hazard materialises and will receive the benefits if it does not. A serious ethical challenge arises where individuals cannot decide for themselves whether to take a risk, either because they do not have sufficient information or because they do not have sufficient control. This is made even harder when the benefits and potential harm do not fall to the same people, especially if the benefits occur now and the potential harm is to future generations. Someone has to take these risk decisions on behalf of society as a whole (including as yet unborn members of society). “Someone” may mean elected politicians and public servants, or it may mean industry. Whichever it is, they need a process which pays due regard to the interests of everyone, allows for uncertain or inconsistent knowledge of the risks, and reaches a decision – “do nothing” is itself a decision if it denies society the benefits of an innovation. Risk and the railways Risks arising from railways have, especially in the UK, been the object of intense public scrutiny. The facts, that rail is among the safest forms of land transport and that the UK’s railways are safer now than at any time in their history, are sometimes lost in political and journalistic statements. However, railway managers, political leaders 126 and safety regulators still have to make balanced decisions, on behalf of society, to reconcile its demand for fast and affordable transport with the possibility of a train crash. They need to ensure that those decisions reflect proper ethical values. There is a limited amount of money to spend on improving safety. More from public funds means less is available for hospitals, emergency services or education. More from the passenger means that some will switch to using cars, increasing safety risks, congestion and environmental harm. More from the shareholders will make it harder for the companies to raise finance to fund improvements. How should the “safety budget” be set? The rail industry, in line with broader regulatory policy on management of hazardous activities, currently adopts a hybrid approach aiming to minimise overall harms while protecting at-risk individuals. Very high risks to identifiable groups of people are considered intolerable, and activities must be stopped or changed to reduce the risks. So long as the individual risks are small, safety initiatives are evaluated in terms of their effectiveness (the deaths and injuries expected to be avoided) and cost. This enables actions to be prioritised to get the most safety benefit for the budget. It also helps decide how far is far enough in terms of safety; actions and initiatives may be rejected if they involve disproportionate expenditure for only small safety benefit. The railway industry has been particularly open and active in researching and publishing the effective “Value of preventing a fatality” which it uses to underpin decisions about which safety investments to pursue. This approach is endorsed by the law and upheld by the courts as a reasonable and socially acceptable way to operate. But some people object to the use of any explicit “Value of preventing a fatality”, and to the structured and quantitative evaluation of risks and costs, equating it to putting a price on life. The very people who have struggled hardest to maximise safety may then be vilified, or even be found guilty by the press of having failed in their duty, while advocates of ineffective or unaffordable safety solutions are lauded. The railway industry would welcome a wide debate on the ethical basis of its safety decisions, to help it to understand where its moral duties lie. 127 Nuclear Waste and Ethics Herman Damveld Selwerderdwarsstraat 18 9717 GN Groningen Nederland [email protected] 1. Summary In the past years in almost all conferences on storage of nuclear waste, ethics has been considered as an important theme. But what is ethics? We will first give a sketch of this branch of philosophy. We will then give a short explanation of the three principal ethical theories. In the discussion about storage of nuclear waste, the ethical theory of utilitarianism is often implicitly invoked. In this system future generations weigh less heavily than the present generation, so that people of the future are not considered as much as those now living. We reject this form of reasoning. The discussion about nuclear waste is also sometimes pursued from ethical points of departure such as equality and justice. But many loose ends remain in these arguments, which gives rise to the question of whether the production and storage of nuclear waste is responsible. 2. Dictionary definition Ethical considerations pervade discussions of storage of nuclear waste. In the past few years, the discussion about storage of nuclear waste has come to involve not only technical, but also ethical questions. The Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of the OECD, a cooperative venture of the 25 richest countries in the world, dedicated a two-day workshop to ethics in 1994.[1] Following the workshop, the NEA published a joint opinion on ethical and environmental aspects of storage of nuclear waste.[2] A NEA bulletin from 1996 about information to the public about nuclear waste storage covers, among other things, ethical topics.[3] It is noteworthy that ethicists played no part in the discussion. In these NEA publications the question, “What is ethics?” is answered by looking up a definition in a dictionary. The influential American ethicist James Rachels suggests in his book, “The Elements of Moral Philosophy”[4], that it would be convenient to begin with a simple, uncontroversial definition of what ethics is. But, according to him, that is impossible. An overview of a number of ethical theories can, however, be given. In this article we will begin to do this, and we will apply the theories to the storage of nuclear waste. 3. Ethics, morals, norms, and values Ethics is the field that occupies itself with the study of morals. This study can be of a descriptive or of a prescriptive nature. Ethics can also be described as a systematic consideration of responsible action, the systematic study of moral behavior[5]. To be responsible means to give arguments for one’s behavior, to enter into a debate with 128 others as to the reasons for and against a specified way of acting. At that moment ethics is in full stride.[6] The concept ‘moral’, points to the entirety of the rules of behavior that are taken for granted in a society or in a community; morals are an expression of a certain lifestyle, in which the norms and values of a community are reflected. Morals indicate what should be done if one wishes to become or remain a member of a society.[7] In general, with morals we mean the things, material as well as immaterial, which people find truly important: it makes a difference if they are present or not. It has to do with the good life and the good society. The good life, of course, means much more than merely financial well-being. A norm is a rule that says something about the manner in which individuals should behave. Norms are the concrete rules and rights that function as practical guidelines for behavior, and that give substance to values. They are rules to give direction and to make judgements. Norms are mainly formulated negatively; they limit our behavior; they are more likely to show what is forbidden than what is permitted. A value is a point of departure, a view of what someone finds important. Values are abstract ideals or goals towards which people strive by acting in a certain way. Values are in a certain sense vague. They are mainly positively formulated: they indicate something that is important and worth striving for. In order to realize certain values as much as possible, specific norms are formulated. Thus, values in ethics are more basal than norms. Only when we know what is worthwhile, do all the norms and rules in daily life take on meaning for us. Norms must be formulated from values, not values from norms. Norms change; they are dependent on a specific time and culture. Values have a more permanent character. Norms and values hang closely together: from a value, for instance friendship, there arises a norm, for instance honesty. Norms and values form the subject matter of the study of ethics. [8,0] A virtue is a good quality in human character. The moral virtues are the virtues that it would be good for everyone to have.[10] Some examples of virtues are: solidarity, trustworthiness, wisdom, honesty, thriftiness, justice, responsibility, courage, and care.[11] Virtues and important values are closely related. The ethicist Van Tongeren describes it thus: “Virtue is a position in which a value relationship has become concrete and in which a norm has become internalized and related to an orientation of the good life.”[12]An illustration: the 189 member states of the United Nations closed the Millenium Summit on September 8th, 2000 by adopting six ‘basic values’: freedom, equality of individuals and countries, solidarity, tolerance, respect for nature, and shared responsibility.[13] Rachels has developed the concept of a minimal ethics, made up of the common core of the different ethical theories. According to Rachels, ethics is, at least, the attempt to act according to the best reasons, in which the point of departure is that the interests of all people affected by the actions weigh equally. We must be able to support our judgements with good reasons, and explain why these reasons apply. Rachels shows that some moral rules are commonly held in all societies. Without these rules, a society cannot exist. As an example he cites not lying, and not killing. 129 These are rules that are in power in all vital societies.[14] In everyday language, ‘ethics’ stands for something that is good, as in ‘ethical investments’. That is another meaning of the word ‘ethics’. Here the word ‘ethical’ points towards criteria for good business management. We could think, for instance, of norms such as good working conditions, and no environmental pollution. ‘Ethical’ has here a good connotation, but implicitly it makes a judgement about the policies of businesses. ‘Ethics’ serves here as a selling point. Opposite ‘ethical’ stands ‘unethical’. ‘Unethical’ means that the norms set for oneself are not met. ‘Unethical’ has a stronger meaning. Suppose that someone knows that a certain company makes use of child labor in the Third World, and that this person nonetheless buys from that company. Some people call this ‘unethical’, because it is in opposition to norms and values that are considered to be generally valid. 4. Three ethical theories In all sorts of problems, the ethicist is called in. But the ethicist doesn’t exist, as appears from the following classification. There is the subject of meta-ethics, in which ethics as a field is considered. The question is then whether a moral expression is true or can be true. Next we distinguish normative ethics, which theorizes about norms and values, and includes judgements about which norms and values are better. This is the largest sub-division of ethics. The third area is applied ethics. Here existing ethical theories are applied to concrete questions. 4.1 Utilitarianism With a question about nuclear energy, one does not need the help of the meta-ethicist, but someone from one of the other two disciplines. The answer that one receives depends on the theory to which the ethicist adheres. Utilitarianism is an important branch of ethics. We encounter utilitarianism as an elaborated theory with the Englishman Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). He posits that people take account of the benefit or harm that their actions produce. In the first instance, that means benefit or harm for oneself. From experience, a person knows what is beneficial or harmful. According to Bentham, what produces a good is for us beneficial, while what results in bad is harmful. Good, then, is what makes us happy and provides pleasure. Utilitarianism is met with, among other places, in the cost-profit analyses made by the government, or by usefulness and need discussions about expansion of an airport or laying a new rail line. The utilitarian will lay emphasis on economic yields (the degree of increase of happiness) versus damage to nature (deterioration of the perceived value of nature means a decline in well-being, and thereby a decline in happiness). The ethicist makes a sort of cost-profit analysis. 4.2 Kantian ethics A second important branch of ethics was developed by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). The central question is what people should do, what the highest principle of morality is. Much behavior is directed by the terms ‘should’ 130 or ‘ought’. We have a certain wish, and in order to accomplish it, we must perform a certain action. Kant called this the ‘hypothetical imperative’, because it tells us what we must do on condition that we have certain desires.[15] Moral laws, on the other hand are, according to Kant, not dependent on certain desires. The moral law is an objective principle, valid for everyone. It is the principle on the basis of which people ought to act: Kant calls this the ‘categorical imperative’. It is described thus: act only according to the principle you would like to be established as a universal law.[16] The categorical imperative is a recipe for action that is unconditional and binding for everyone, and for all time. Kant calls this a duty. For this reason, Kantian ethics is also called duty ethics. 4.3 Ethics of virtue There is an enormous revival of the ethics of virtue, the third important branch of ethics. In the ethics of virtue Aristotele (384-322 B.C.) is an important figure. He asked himself what the good life was, what made life have meaning. His answer was that it is a question of finding the proper balance between rational and irrational impulses. The community plays an important role in this context. Only in a community can people arrive at full development of their talents. The good life is formed, therefore, in relation with others. The term ‘the good life’ in the ethics of virtue, has nothing to do with a rich individual who spends his time fishing and drinking champagne. Dr. Martin van Hees, professor of ethics in the philosophy department of the University of Groningen, has an explanation for the revival of the ethics of virtue: “I often use the example of a visit to a sick person. Suppose that you are lying in the hospital and your best friend comes to visit. You thank him for his visit and he says: “As a friend I do my moral duty”. You understand then that your friend is acting under the influence of Kantian ethics, and you are deeply disappointed. This makes clear the limitations of acting according to duty. The qualities that make living valuable are missing.”[17] The philosopher Paul van Tongeren writes[18]: “For a long time the idea of ‘virtue’ has been thought almost suspect. It seemed a symptom of a moral idea especially associated with middle-class respectability...Not until our time could a true revival of the ethics of virtue be discussed. An important book for this renewal was MacIntyre’s “After Virtue” (1981)”. 4.4 Choice for continuation After this exposition of some important ethical systems the question remains which one is of relevance for the issue of nuclear waste. We encounter chiefly utilitarianism and Kantian ethics. In Kantian ethics justice is of great importance. Likewise, it is a central virtue in the ethics of virtue, as philosopher Ad Verbrugge writes: “Justice is called the perfect virtue, which contains all the other virtues, and above all in which the rights of one’s fellow men are recognized...This perfect virtue of justice contains, then, not only one’s proper well-being, but that of others as a criterion for action.”[19] In the following we will emphasize justice in our treatment of nuclear waste. This is partly an ethics of virtue line of approach. A further meeting with the ethics of virtue and its application to nuclear waste can be discussed later. 131 5. Ethics and nuclear waste: utilitarianism The environmental ethicist Constantine Hadjilambrinos published an analysis of the debate over the ethical aspects of storage of nuclear waste.[20] She notices a recurring phenomenon: the analyses are not usually performed by ethicists, but by representatives of the government or people in the nuclear industry. These people often adhere tacitly to the ethical system of utilitarianism. The reason for this is that utilitarianism offers an apparently reasonable social goal, namely the maximization of social benefit. This goal can be approached in a rational, methodical, and quantitative manner. There are a number of objections to utilitarianism. Calculations for the distant future assume that people in for example 10,000 or one million years will be as sensitive to radioactivity as the people of today. But there is no basis for this supposition. In fact, it is assumed that future people will show the same behavior as people of today, but this cannot be known. The consequences of the risks for social benefit cannot be calculated with any degree of security. So far the analysis of Constantine Hadjilambrinos takes us. In the Netherlands the environmental philosopher Wim Zweers has criticized the utilitarian manner of thinking about nuclear waste. He analyses the question of what sacrifices (for instance, death from cancer caused by radioactivity) we ought to make for material wealth and economic growth. Zweers is extremely doubtful about utilitarianism. The main problem with utilitarianism is that it does not include attention to human rights. The theory is contrary to the idea of inalienable individual rights concerning life and health and concerning equal protection for all.[21] With this argument Zweers links up to the analysis of the American ethicist Kristin Schrader-Frechette.[22] Because future generations have not profited from the production of nuclear waste- so SchraderFrechette argues- they would probably not agree to be exposed to its risks. With the choice for underground storage this generation is making choices for future generations. In a democracy choices are indeed made for people, but the question is whether that may be also done for future generations. Schrader-Frechette denies this, and gives three reasons why not. First, it is unclear if a majority (figured over a longer time-scale) supports underground storage, and even less clear that such a majority can agree to the requirements which such storage entails. Second she points out that even in this generation a majority does not support underground storage. The third reason that this generation does not have the right to decide over those to come, is the unequal distribution of risks, which fall more heavily on those to come. It is -according to Schrader-Frechette- doubtful whether this generation can act as a representative of future generations.[23] 5.1 The future counts less Utilitarianism is, as we have indicated, an important branch of ethics. There a maximization of benefit is aimed at, a summing up of good minus bad. Utilitarianism is a universal theory: everyone should be counted, thus also people not yet born. But in a study from the ethicist Hilhorst it appears that utilitarianism does not give everyone the same weight: the determining of the happiness and suffering of future 132 generations is more problematic than that of people now living. We are not so sure about future generations as we are about ourselves. This is a reason to give full weight to the people of today and not to those of the future: the importance of future people receives successively less weight as they become more distant in time.[24] With a discounting foot of five percent the victims in the coming year count a thousand times as heavily as those 200 years from now. Still it is not clear that the moral consequences of future happenings, such as the death of people, diminish by x percent per year. Hilhorst concludes that there are limits to what is morally acceptable: “But on this basis to write off the distant future, only because it is far from the present, is unfair.”[26,26] All the more reason, then, to reject utilitarianism as an ethical system when it comes to storage of nuclear waste. 6. Nuclear waste, equality, and justice The NEA considers equality within and between generations an important ethical basis for storage of nuclear waste.[28] By this is meant a just division, which is not further elaborated. The question is now what the reasoning of the NEA is worth. Equality and justice find a place in the Kantian ethics which we considered here as the second main branch of ethics. What they have in common is the so-called golden rule, according to German ethicist Tugendhat.[29] This is found in the saying: “What you do not want done to you, do not do to others.” In the Bible we find: “Always treat others as you would like them to treat you” (Matthew 7,12). The golden rule is not only found in the New Testament, but also, among other places, in Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and the writings of Confucius.[30] This rule does not by itself guarantee moral behavior, but tries to establish minimal conditions that make possible the performance of concrete actions in the long term.[31] The following three points stand central: 1. Do not harm others (this is called ‘negative duty’, the duty not to do certain things); 2. Help others (positive duty); and 3. Arrive at rules for working together, such as: Do not lie and Keep promises. Tugendhat describes his (Kantian) outlook on ethics thus: “Act towards people, including your own person, in such a way that the person is seen always as an end and never as a means.” This means you should never use others as a means to achieve your ends. Another way of saying this is: “Act- towards everyone- as you would like, from the perspective of a random person, everyone to act.” The ethic described here is universal and egalitarian, and considers everyone as having equal value. Everyone has equal rights, and at the same time equal duties, towards everyone else. In this context, Tugendhat refers to human rights. These human rights are set down by the United Nations. These are rights people extend to themselves and to all others. Human rights are not ‘from nature’ or ‘God-given’ but come from people themselves. People give themselves rights. That means that is possible to go to a judge if your rights are overstepped. 6.1 Theory of justice No ethical vision on justice can fail to mention John Rawls’ important book, “A Theory of Justice”[32]; since its first publication more than 3000 books and articles 133 relating to it have appeared.[33] Because the NEA does not discuss it, we will give here some of Rawls’ main arguments. Rawls calls his theory of justice “justice as honesty”. Justice means that the loss of freedom for some cannot be made good by gains for others. Justice does not permit that the sacrifices a small number of people make be compensated by increased advantages for a larger group. In a just society, freedom and equality for everyone is a prerequisite. A society is well-ordered when: 1. Everyone knows and assumes that the others accept the same principles of justice; and 2. The important social institutions fulfil the principles. Rawls distinguishes two principles of justice. According to the first principle, everyone has the same right to as wide as possible a system of basic freedoms. The basic freedoms are political freedom, freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of conscience and thought, integrity of the person, and private property. All these freedoms fall under the first principle. The second principle applies to the division of income and wealth. Social and economic inequality can only be justified if a system exists with equal chances for everyone and the inequalities are to the advantage of the most needy in the society. The two principles are emphatically in this order: the first principle comes before the second. Limitations of the basic freedoms cannot be compensated by greater economic advantages. The principles are universal. Everyone can understand the principles and take part in applying them. A principle will be discarded if an internal contradiction results when everyone acts according to that principle. The principles of justice mean that people do not consider each other as means but as ends in themselves. This is a Kantian interpretation of justice. Kant begins with the proposition that moral principles are the object of rational choice. They define the moral laws that a rational person will use as his or her guideline for behavior. The moral law must be acceptable and available to everyone. People are free and equal. These things hold also for the principles of Rawls. 6.2 Nuclear waste and justice: the present generation The NEA talks about equality and justice within the present generation. This raises many questions, as the work of Schrader-Frechette shows.[34] Nuclear waste storage sites are established in rural areas, far from population centers. Is it fair that someone should be made to run a risk just because he or she lives in the country? Should the local gavernment or the local population be able to exercise a veto, even when it appears that the site chosen is the best one in the whole country? Or should the government be able to designate a site? The third dilemma has to do with the level of protection. When are risks acceptable? For this the government has figured an average risk. But an average risk for the whole population does not necessarily mean that the individual risk is acceptable. In fact, this is a case of a limitation of the basic freedoms in the theory of Rawls. In consequence, application of the theory of Rawls to the discussion about 134 nuclear waste leads to the conclusion that storage of waste is contrary to the first principle, and therefore is unjust. 6.3 Nuclear waste and justice between generations Storage of nuclear waste brings a risk for future generations. Already in 1980 Robert Spaemann made the following analysis: [35] It is in the nature of human actions that they have side effects. Actions are aimed towards goals. All of the other effects of actions, then, are lowered to the level of secondary effects, means, and costs. The difference between means and side effects lies in the fact that means are still wanted, while side effects are unwanted, just added to the sale, so to speak. The secondary effects of human actions can concern people who could not participate in the making of the original decision, because at the time of the decision they were under age or not yet born. With nuclear energy and nuclear waste there is the problem of irreversibility of released radioactivity. In order to make use of nuclear energy for perhaps the next 30 years, we create radioactive waste that will remain dangerous for thousands of generations. The releasing of radioactivity creates a situation that cannot be undone by any later decision. The coming generations must accept this situation as an unchangeable and as such unfruitful part of their lives. This means that a minority (the present generation) makes a decision for which the majority (the future generations) must pay the costs. Therefore the use of nuclear power is not ethically responsible. The state is the body that is responsible for a judgement over long-term results of human actions. And therefore the state must prevent the opening of nuclear power plants, claims Robert Spaemann. 7. Nuclear waste and the greenhouse effect Nuclear energy has been called the solution for the greenhouse effect. The fact that nuclear energy also creates nuclear waste is given. But is nuclear energy the solution for the greenhouse effect? We give here three arguments: 1. Worldwide, 441 nuclear power plants furnish 6% of energy production.[36] Nuclear power plants produced 2544 billion kilowatt hours in 2002. Combating the greenhouse effect demands a steep increase in the number of power plants, but that is not taking place. Between 1988 and January 2003, the number of nuclear power plants worldwide has only increased by 12[37]. The International Energy Association expects that in the next ten to twenty years, except in South Korea and Japan, few or no nuclear plants will be built in OECD countries [38] Strong growth of the nuclear energy will use up the limited supply of uranium. Should predictions made in the seventies about uranium supplies prove correct, supplies would begin to run out in the next five years.[39,40] According to a report from the Dutch government from 2002, the proved uranium supplies are perhaps just enough to fill the expected worldwide demand until 2050.[41] Precisely because of the limited supply of uranium, the nuclear industry wanted to convert to breeding reactors, but that has proved a failure[42]. 135 2. Nuclear energy is not CO2 free, as the Nuclear Energy Agency wrote in 1998[43]; here is meant the indirect CO2 emission caused by the building of the plant itself, and the first step of the fission process, the extraction and the refining of the uranium ore. In the future, the indirect emission will increase; the reason for this is that people will have to seek recourse to poorer ores, and the poorer the ore, the more it must be turned over and processed in order to yield a certain amount of uranium, and the more energy is needed. In a study that appeared in September 2002 by the Dutch writers Storm van Leeuwen and Smith, it appears that the nuclear energy-related CO2 emission is not even much less than that from a gas-powered energy plant. They conclude :[44] “The use of nuclear power causes, at the end of the road and under the most favourable conditions, approximately one-third as much CO2-emission as gas-fired electricity production. The rich uranium ores required to achieve this reduction are, however, so limited that if the entire present world electricity demand were to be provided by nuclear power, they would be exhausted within three years. Use of the remaining poorer ores in nuclear reactors would produce more CO2 emission than burning fossil fuels directly. The remarkable conclusion of this research might prompt one to ask, “How is it possible that an entire energy industry was built up when in fact, using all available resources, it could only provide such a small amount of electrical power?” The full energy content of the 0.71% 235U in natural uranium could be converted into electricity (with essentially no losses, except for the unavoidable loss when heat energy is converted into electrical energy). As our calculations show, this is a far cry from reality. The magnitude of the losses become clear when the energy costs of energy production are taken into account. .. The largest unavoidable energy cost is that of mining and milling the uranium ores. To calculate this we use only the data on these processes provided by the industry itself. The rich ores that are at present exploited need very little energy for exploitation, but the useful energy content of the known rich ores is quite small (under the assumption that only the 235U is “burned”). When they are exhausted the energy needed for the exploitation of leaner ores will require more energy from fossil fuels to be able to function than the nuclear power-plant will provide, so that a nuclear power-plant would become an inefficient gasburner.” So far the study of Smith and Storm van Leeuwen. 3. The nuclear industry counts on a negligible CO2 emission through nuclear energy. The same holds for the Nuclear Energy Agency in Paris. The NEA has a scenario in which by the year 2100, 18 times as much power as now would be produced by nuclear energy. That would require the establishment of, on average, 60 large nuclear power plants per year. But even with the planned expansion of nuclear power plants, the CO2 emissions for the year 2100- the estimate is in fact low- are reckoned at only 4% less than in 1990.[45] 8. Conclusion In conclusion, we propose that justice requires that future generations should not begin life worse off than us. Storage of nuclear waste can result in harm for future 136 generations, while they can obtain no advantage from it. That makes the application of the principle of justice difficult. Justice includes responsibility for the consequences of our actions. With nuclear power, that calls for responsibility for hundreds of thousands of years. This goes beyond our power of reckoning. Justice could be the ethical basis for storage of nuclear waste, in the case of avoiding a still greater damage for future generations, such as the greenhouse effect. However, in the last section we have shown that nuclear energy is no solution to the greenhouse effect. On the basis of the principle of justice, then, dealing with nuclear waste is problematic. References: 1. Nuclear Energy Agency, “Environmental and ethical aspects of long-lived radioactive waste disposal”, Proceedings of an International Workshop organized by the Nuclear Energy Agency in co-operation with the Environment Directorate, Paris, 1-2 September 1994. 2. “The Environmental and Ethical Basis of Geological Disposal”, A Collective Opinion of theRadioactiveWasteManagement Committee of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, Paris 1995. 3. Nuclear Energy Agency, “Informing the Public about Radioactive Waste Management”, Proceedings of an International Seminar, Rauma, Finland, 13-15 June 1995, NEA, Paris 1995. 4. James Rachels, “The Elements of Moral Philosophy”, McGraw-Hill, Third Edition, 1999, p.1. 5. Joosje Buiter-Hamel, “Ethiek basisboek”, Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen, third printing, 1998, p.18. 6. H.A.M.J. ten Have et al., “Medische ethiek”, Bohn Stafleu Van Loghum, Houten/ Diegem, 1998, p.8. 7. H.A.M.J. ten Have et al., op.cit., p.9. 8. H.A.M.J. ten Have et al., op. cit., p. 16, 17, and 18. 9. Joosje Buiter-Hamel, op.cit., p. 35. 10. James Rachels, op. cit., p. 178. 11. Joosje Buiter-Hamel, op. cit., p. 35. 12. Paul van Tongeren, “Waarom deugdenethiek”, in:Wijsgerig Perspectief, 42, 2002, number 1, p.3-10. 13. General Assembly Plenary -1a- Press Release GA/9758, 8th Meeting (P.M.), September 8th, 2000. 14. James Rachels, op. cit., p. 19, 30, and 49. 15. James Rachels, op. cit., p.122-125. 16. Immanuel Kant, “Fundering voor de metafysica van de zeden”, Dutch translation by Th. Mertens, Amsterdam,1997. 17. Interview with Van Hees, November 21, 1999. 18. Paul van Tongeren, op. cit., p.3-10. 19. Ad Verbrugge, “Denken om het eigen goede leven”, in :Filosofisch Perspectief, 42, 2002, number 1, p.22-37. 137 20. Constantine Hadjilambrinos, “An Egalitarian Response to Utilitarian Analysis of Long-Lived Pollution: The Case of High Level Waste”, in: Environmental Ethics, vol.22, Spring 2000, p.43-62. 21. Wim Zweers, “Reactie op samenvatting en vragen van de Stuurgroep”, publication of the Stichting Stichtse Milieufederatie, De Bilt, July 11, 1982. 22. K.S. Schrader-Frechette, “Nuclear Power and Public Policy: The Social and Ethical Problems of Fission Technology”, Dordrecht, Reidel, 1980. 23. K.S. Schrader-Frechette, “Burying Uncertainty: Risk and the Case Against Geological Disposal of Nuclear Waste”, University of California Press, Berkeley/ Los Angeles/ London, 1993, p. 195-199. 24. M. Hilhorst, “Verantwoordelijk voor toekomstige generaties?”, Kampen, 1987, 29-44. 25. M. Hilhorst, op. cit., p. 45. 26. M. Hilhorst, op. cit., p.43-45. 27. K.S. Schrader-Frechette, “Ethical Dilemmas and Radioactive Waste: A Survey of the Issues”, in: Environmental Ethics, vol.13, Winter 1991, p. 327-343. 28. see footnote 2. 29. Ernest Tugendhat, “Vorlesungen uber Ethik”, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1995. 30. Hans Kung, “Weltethos fur Weltpolitiek und Weltwirdschaft”, Piper Verlag, Munchen, third printing, 1998, p. 140. 31. Christof Hubig, “Technik- und Wissenschaftsethik: Ein Leitfaden”, second edition, Springer, Berlin, 1995, p. 116. 32. John Rawls, “A Theory of Justice”, revised edition, Cambridge, Mass., 1999. 33. M.J. Trappenburg, “John Rawls”, in: P.B. Cliteur and G. A. Van der List (eds.), “Filosofen van het hedendaagse liberalisme”, Kampen, 1990, p.91-105. 34. K.S. Schrader-Frechette, “Risk and Rationality”, University of California Press, 1991; same author, “Research in Philosophy and Technology”, in: Frederick Ferre (ed), Technology and the Environment, 12, p. 147-155, University of Georgia, JAI Press Inc., 1992; same author, “Nuclear Energy and Ethics”, Geneva, 1991, World Council of Churches. 35. Robert Spaemann, “Technische Eingriffe in die Natur als Problem der politischen Ethik”, in: Karl Otto Apel et al., Practische Philosophie/Ethik”, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, October 1980, p. 229-248. 36. Nuclear Energy Agency, “Nuclear Energy and the Kyoto Protocol”, Paris, July 2002, p.19. 37. At the end of 1988, there were 429 nuclear power plants worldwide, and 105 under construction. By the end of 1994, the number of nuclear plants reached 432, with a total capacity of 340 Gigawatts (GW; 1 GW= 1000 Megawatts (MW); 1 MW= 1000 kiloWatts); by the end of 1995 there were 437, with a capacity of 343 GW; at the end of 1996, there were 442, producing 350 GW. In January 2003, there were 441 nuclear power plants in operation, with a capacity of 357 GW, and 28 nuclear plants under construction (information from the World Nuclear Association, London). 138 38. Caroline Varley and John Paffenbarger, “Electricity Market Competition and Nuclear Power”, reading given at The Uranium Institute, 23rd Annual Symposium, September 10-11, 1998, London. 39. IAEA, 1974 Annual Report, Vienna; Joop Boer, Steef van Duin, Jan Pieter Wind and Herman Damveld, “Atoomafval in beweging: Een overzicht van de problametiek van het radioactief afval”, De Haktol, Arnhem, 1982, p.7. 40. In 1975 the IAEA estimated that by the year 2000 about 2,300,000 MW would be at the disposal of nuclear plants. In 1997, IAEA made another estimate for 2000, of 368,000 MW, a reduction by a factor of 6.5. In case the estimate from 1975 were correct, the uranium supply now would only be sufficient for 6.5 years, instead of 40 years. 41. Dutch Parliament, 2001-2002 session, 28241, n.2, p.10. 42. Herman Damveld, “De onvervulde belofte van kweekreactoren”, Technisch Weekblad, March 1, 2002. 43. Nuclear Energy Agency, “Nuclear Power and Climate Change”, April 1998, p.11. 44. J.W. Storm van Leeuwen and P.Smith, “Can nuclear power provide electricity for the future; would it solve the CO2 emission problem?”, revised edition, March 28, 2002, on:www.oprit.rug.nl/deenen/ 45. Nuclear Energy Agency, “Nuclear Energy and the Kyoto Protocol”, Paris, July 2002, p.42-44. 139 Questions and Advice to the Swedish Radiation Authority in their Current Work on Radiation Safety from Participants in Focus Group Discussions in the Municipalities of Östhammar and Oskarshamn Britt-Marie Drottz-Sjöberg Department of Psychology Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), N-7491 Trondheim, Norway. [email protected] ABSTRACT In connection to their work on developing a “general advice document”, based on the radiation protection law, the Swedish Radiation Authority (SSI) initiated a process in 2002 that welcomed comments and suggestions from the general public, specifically representatives and interested parties involved in the work related to a Swedish repository for high level nuclear wastes. The authority held a seminar in September, and presented the forthcoming task. The present paper summarises and exemplifies discussions in focus groups in October 2002, when participants from the municipalities of Oskarshamn and Östhammar met to give their input to the authority’s ongoing work. The questions and suggestions emerging from the focus groups are classified into three major areas in this presentation: I. Issues related specifically to radiation and radioactivity. II. Issues of comprehension of terminology, measurements, risk, and safety. III. Issues concerning the information process and the transfer of knowledge. The discussion highlights that issues and comments raised by the public are not constrained to specific knowledge questions, e.g. on radiation or risk, but may relate to legal, strategic and political considerations, as well as the basics of the performed analyses and the related assumptions and evaluations. Ideas for improving public knowledge and for facilitating an exchange of information are outlined below. Keywords Radiation, Radioactive waste, Focus groups, Public participation 1. Introduction In line with previous work related to an intensified dialogue with the public [1,2,3] the Swedish Radiation Authority (SSI) held a seminar in September 2002 and initiated a 140 process in 2002 that welcomed comments and suggestions from the general public. It was connected to their work on developing a “general advice document”, related to the authority’s 1998 Instructions on protection of human health and the environment regarding the final disposal of used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste [4]. Especially representatives of the concerned municipalities, people living in the vicinity of the recently started site investigations, and other interested parties involved in the work regarding a Swedish repository for high level nuclear wastes were invited to participate in the discussions. SSI presented the central themes of the forthcoming work at the seminar in September [5,6], as well as gathered comments from the participants at that time. The project and results presented here relate to discussions in focus groups in October 2002, when interested parties from the municipalities of Oskarshamn and Östhammar met to give their input to the authority’s ongoing work. 2. Method 2.1 Work method, design and participants A focus group usually involves a rather small number of invited persons, e.g. 10±4, and at least one leader of the discussions. The central topic is selected and announced in advance, and often presented with some kind of introductory, written material. The focus group is put together in such a way that it involves the broadest possible range of experience or interests in relation to the selected theme. This work method does not aim at achieving consensus, nor to encourage heated debates. The method often aims solely at clarifying what comments and ideas the participants have in relation to the selected topic. It collects the perspectives the participants want to contribute to the exchange of experiences for achieving a more comprehensive picture of the issue at hand. The design of the present project was simple, and involved two group meetings in each of the two municipalities of Oskarshamn and Östhammar. Each group counted between 8-12 participants (in total > 40 persons) and each discussion lasted 2,5 hours, excluding breaks. The participants were persons active in political or administrative bodies in the municipalities, e.g. in the local security council. Others again had been involved in reference groups, or similar bodies connected to the municipality council when the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co’s (SKB) conducted the feasibility studies. Others were interested land owners, or property owners, who had a specific interest in the newly started site investigations due to the closeness to their properties. All participants took an active part in the discussions. One representative from SSI participated in each meeting. This expert was available for giving immediate responses to questions and for collecting impressions for the forthcoming work at the authority. 2.2 Data collection, organisation and presentation Short, and specific, comments and questions in the discussions were written down 141 verbatim, whereas longer presentations of points of views were summarised. The written material constituted the information from the focus group and is here considered the data. This material was sent (by e-mail or postal service) to all participants for checking and comments before it was categorised and summarised in a report to the authority [7]. The contents of the discussions were categorised into three major themes, within which several topics were identified, as can be seen in the following presentation. 3. Results 3.1 Issues specifically related to radiation and radioactivity Comments and suggestions specifically related to radiation and radioactivity are presented within this categorisation of questions. The respondents asked basic questions about e.g. the nature of radiation, about related risks and health effects. Examples of questions and discussed themes are summarised here under the headings of (a) General and complex issues, and issues related to (b) the repository, (c) to human beings, (d) to the environment, and (e) to time perspectives. (a) General and complex issues. Some respondents asked for explanations of how to understand radiation and radioactivity, the physical properties and the effects on human health and on the natural environment. For example: What is radiation? When does a hazard become dangerous? When does a leakage, a dose or a concentration result in negative health consequences or detrimental environmental effects? Participants also wanted to understand radiation risks in relation to “the total risk picture”, e.g. the construction of a high-level waste repository, and what part of that total risk that could be referred to various sources. There was an interest to know if current knowledge in the scientific field was sufficient for the assessment, and the management, of radiation risks. Some wanted to get an idea of what to expect of future research, e.g. the likelihood of theoretical breakthroughs or major achievements influencing the construction of the repository, or altering risk assessment. Examples of questions and comments: 4How does radioactivity spread from the repository? 4How is the danger transmitted and how does it affect man and the environment? 4Please describe substances, particles and gamma radiation and explain the respective degrees of risk. (b) Issues related to the repository. Exactly what will be placed in the repository? Is it possible that there will be a change over time regarding what could finally be disposed of in the bedrock in relation to what is discussed now? Has the size of the repository, or the depth, any importance for the radiological situation of the surrounding area? What importance could it have, or what problems could be caused, if there are other nuclear installations in the vicinity of the high-level waste repository? The relationship between the design and the safety level of the repository, especially in relation to radiation risk, was thus of interest to the group discussion participants. Questions 142 were also related to the issue of possible future retrieveability of the nuclear material. Often the concern was focused on whether one should expect a trade-off between safety standard and one or several of the mentioned factors related to the repository’s design or localisation. A central issue was whether the safety of the repository could be compromised by retrieveability. The Swedish radiation authority’s focus regarding the “general advice document” was intended to be on the time after the closure of the high-level waste repository. However, several discussants raised questions and asked for information about radiation risks in and around the repository during it’s construction and filling, i.e. before it’s sealing. The discussions highlighted transportation risks, work within and around the repository, as well as the fact that the repository would be open for some time. What about ventilation of the repository during it’s construction and filling? How would the ventilation affect the surroundings? It was also of interest to know how the authority, specifically during the time of an open - or rather not yet closed repository, had considered the handling of intentional intrusions or attacks. Examples of questions and comments from the group discussions: 4How to explain the relationship (the trade-off) between risk and the size of a repository, and possible (additional) new future repositories? 4Are there different risks given different depths of the repository? 4Radiation protection issues and radiation risks related to retrieveability ought to be more highlighted. (c) Issues related to human beings. The questions that directly related to human beings in the discussions concerned the authority’s view on the size of acceptable risk, what effects a radiation dose has, and how radiation accidents during work in the repository were to be managed. The participants were also interested in getting some frames of reference to enable them to better understand risks to health and safety. A number of rather concrete questions had become highlighted among persons residing in the vicinity of the possible, future repository. These concerned the future radiation situation, the availability of measurement instruments, and radiation risks in the current site investigation. It was also of interest to gain knowledge about the potential effects of the work on the planned facility on the private economy. The discussions showed that there were clearly expressed wishes of receiving continuously updated information on the radiological situation in the local environment, and in addition, to make available such historic information for comparison reasons. Examples of questions and comments from the group discussions: 4What exactly can get out of the bedrock from a depth of 500 meters? What happens with those living in the vicinity? 4What would happen (radiation dose) if human beings in some why change their consumer patterns? 4The closeness to the repository area (f. ex. Misterhult) leads to a greater involvement. 4From the perspective of a landowner, a number of issues can arise. Among them (the change of) ground water levels and other water issues. 143 (d) Issues related to the environment. The questions on how radioactivity and radiation affect the environment were similar to the above mentioned knowledge questions. They concerned what phenomena are involved, why, and how effects are detected. What effects would radioactivity have on animals and plants? Some participants even asked about specific animals and plants. There were, however, also more elaborated questions, e.g. on how the changed environment over long times in or around the repository would, or could possibly, have effects on the repository or its functions, and thus in the end influence the radiation situation. One example concerned the change of the ground water level, the effect of this change on the various buffers around the spent nuclear fuel, and the potential radiological effects due to this situation. Selected examples: 4How is radiation or leakage detected in water wells? 4How would berries and mushrooms be affected in the vicinity (of the repository)? 4When the ground water changes, and the level could be going up and down, how is the repository affected? (e) Issues related to time perspectives. The time perspectives of radiation risks and the spread of radioactivity in future times are issues that are very hard to grasp and to discuss. The time perspectives are also among the most fascinating aspects of the nuclear waste management issue. The participants urged the authority to try to elucidate the extreme time perspectives involved, to do this in a comprehensive manner, and to explain the risks and the changes of risk over time. Some people argued that the shorter, and more comprehensible, time perspectives ought to be considered the more important ones. Others underlined that it is the extreme time perspectives that make the authority’s work so important. Also administrative issues were considered across long time perspectives, e.g. how can knowledge be maintained over time? Examples from the group discussions: 4How does the radiation situation change across 10 years, to 100 and to 100.000, etc.? 4It is hard to come to grips with the long time perspectives. What can happen in this total time frame, during this whole process? And if there is an accident during this time, what effect would that have? 3.2 Issues of comprehension of terminology, measurements, risk and safety The second major category emerging from the group discussions presented in some depth the questions and problems that are difficult to understand for non-experts on radiation or nuclear waste issues. It exemplified what type of information and knowledge people asked for in the group discussions. Some of the discussed themes were related to the eternal research questions, such as the quality and validity of current knowledge and of research findings. A number of questions asked what specified phenomena actually are, and where or why demarcation lines are drawn between phenomena, how certain effects can be differentiated, etc. Although not immediately relevant to the authority’s task of publishing the general advice document, the provision of some kind of information related to fundamental research 144 issues could help guide non-experts to a better understanding of the research process and the establishing of relevant facts. Such answers could facilitate a non-expert’s orientation in the world of Science, and in enhancing comprehension and feelings of personal control also provide new perspectives on risks. This section summarises questions and comments of the second major category resulting from the discussions, divided into five themes: (a) terminology and definitions of concepts, (b) estimations and the bases of estimations, (c) about safety, risk and danger, (d) knowledge and values in the safety assessment work, and (e) status of regulations, responsibilities, roles and interests. (a) Terminology and definitions of concepts. Words and concepts used e.g. by the authorities were sometimes unknown to the participants or hard to comprehend. This could even be the case with persons who had quite some experience with nuclear waste issues, i.e. those involved in the previous feasibility studies in the municipalities. Among the difficult concepts are “dose” and “collective dose”, and mathematical expressions of risk. Questions were also asked about the definitions of, and differentiation of, “risk” and “uncertainty”, “biosphere” and “geosphere”, as well as how “final” in final repository should be understood. A few examples: 4Please explain and clarify the concept of “collective dose”, and how it is related to other similar concepts. What is “collective dose”, is it everybody? 4What is the difference between risk and uncertainty? 4Make concrete and simple comparisons of risks. Give information so that one can take a personal stand. (b) Estimations and the bases of estimations. How is a risk assessment made? What is included in the estimation? How can one test large systems (of data)? And, how does one know that very complex estimations are correct? These are some of the questions the participants wanted to have answered. The questions varied considerably in complexity. Some asked for concrete examples of how experts do when they provide a measure, or an estimate, e.g. the dose to a human being or a specified natural environment. Other questions had to do with what parameters, components or systems that constitute the basis for risk estimations or safety assessments. It was of interest to know how different kinds of data are combined into an overall assessment. Furthermore, how one estimates the validity of such combinations, and of the overall assessment. People were also interested in knowing if there are, or might soon be, better or more elaborate estimation models available. And it was of importance to the participants to know how the authority does their evaluation of the correctness of the implementers analyses and results. Examples: 4Dose over time, how is that estimated? Could it vary over various time periods? How will it be reported by SKB, and under later time periods (after closure of the repository)? 4Which parameters are involved in the “danger-risk-equation”? How are inherent relations (trade-offs, amplifications, etc.) estimated? 4Compare different methods and explain shortly their pros and cons. 145 4It would be interesting to see a mathematical model, with all the included parameters, and to understand how one calculates the resulting number material. (c) About safety, risk and danger. A number of questions were related to what should be protected, what safety margins and controls are available or used, and which risks are related to the canisters. Furthermore, the risk of a concentration of nuclear installations to one geographic area, and e.g., the capability of CLAB, and how long the nuclear waste could be stored there. There were also discussions of which scenarios that best represent the worst possible cases or outcomes. Most questions in the discussion sprung from radiation risk aspects. And generally speaking, they reflected a keen interest in the points of departure in analyses work, the relevance of the used scenarios, the concrete procedures in estimations, as well as the reliability and validity of the results. A few selected examples: 4The stipulated margins of safety, are they sufficient? 4What is it that will be protected? Those working, residents in the neighbourhood, the environment? 4What happens when the ground water fills the repository, after the closure? 4With respect to “safety level”, it should be proven (not only estimated) to be valid for those living close by (the repository). 4Put the damages over time in relation to each other; show comparisons, concretise. (d) Knowledge and values in the safety assessment work. This category relates to what one knows with certainty and what must be assumed or inferred in the assessments or the analytic work. Several questions were concerned with how the weighing of various aspects in a model, or into a final result, is conducted, and especially if, and in that case how, economic aspects, costs and benefits, are weighed relative safety aspects. An example was the relationship between the cost and the safety level in the design of the copper canister. The participants asked for explanations of the “optimisation process” in this context, and wanted to know if there were any absolute limits, or criteria, for safety. Selected examples follow: 4How does one differentiate between values, estimates and facts? What is known with certainty, and where must various hypotheses etc. be used? It would be desirable if it was outlined when one bases the conclusions on one or the other, so that it would be clear if that which is stated is something that one knows or something that one believes. Is it possible to require some form of quality assurance in this context? 4With respect to assumptions, which ones has SKB made? Are they trustworthy? 4Is there any trade-off between safety and economy? For example, with respect to the thickness of the canister? 4Describe how the weighing (or optimisation) of influences from various sources is done. (e) Status of regulations, responsibilities, roles and interests. There were a large number of questions about how the authority (SSI), the authority’s regulations, and the general advice document, should be understood within a legal framework. 146 What status and function has the general advice document? What about the legal relations vis-a-vis the environmental court, the county administrative board, and the municipality? It was also of interest to get specifications of which facilities, and which waste products, that were to be included in the authority’s regulations and general advice document. Furthermore, the participants wanted to know if the shaping of the latter document could possible come to influence the future process, for example with respect to guiding the design of the final repository (the KBS-3 method), the process of consultations, or issues related to the closure of the repository. Questions on responsibilities were also expressed as e.g. “Who owns the problem?” Especially the responsibility after the closure of the repository was of interest. It is suggested that the exemplified questions and issues could provide an input to the authority’s presentation of its role and authorities, as well as the legal and administrative framework. A few examples from the discussions: 4What status does SSI’s regulations have? And what role does the authority, or (the nuclear) authorities, have in the overall decision process. 4Which is the relationship between the county board and the municipality? Is the environmental court free to select a consultant other than SSI? 4How is the situation in other countries regarding regulations of the kind that SSI develops? 4Who will be responsible (for it) when the repository is closed? 4It is the authorities that should respond to the decision makers questions. What resources do the authorities have to manage this task? 3.3 Issues concerning the information process and the transfer of knowledge The discussions offered quite a lot of suggestions and advice regarding what is important and interesting facts from the area for non-experts, and how to shape and spread the information. Participants often had extensive experience of information materials related to earlier work with the nuclear waste issue, and thus on what questions are hard to tackle. Information materials, and other kinds of presentations to the public, should use simple language and pedagogically explain key concepts and facts. The use of examples, comparisons and good descriptions of the relevant phenomena was seen as essential. A dictionary or appendix explaining central terms or phenomena could be attached to a report, etc. Ordinary citizens could be invited to proof read the final versions of materials aimed at the general public. The group discussions detected a keen interest in the municipalities to utilise authority experts and other experts in local seminars and study circles. Information to future generations, and maintenance of expertise over time, were other themes discussed. Could youth and children be reached already today with relevant information? What could be successful and adequate strategies in this respect? And how would information be stored over time, across generations, etc? Dialogue and various other forms for exchange of knowledge, experience and thoughts were mentioned, as well as the municipalities’ own utilisation of experts in the future work. Suggestions furthermore included considerations on how information programmes and decision processes could be develop in the future, which geographic regions were 147 considered relevant in decision processes, the future responsibility for the repository, and the future role of nuclear power in Sweden. It was underlined that well presented responses to the public’s questions could successfully inspire local efforts of achieving an insightful public response in the next phase of the siting process, e.g. if there are local referenda on the possible localisation of the final repository. A question that summarised many concerns was “Can we (politicians) be trustworthy if we say that it is completely safe?” A few other examples follow below. 4It is important that information reaches all persons in the neighbourhood. And that safety comes first, not the economy. 4How can one facilitate for people to understand the consequences of various decisions and various decision alternatives? 4It is important to clarify the issue of how information will be preserved over time. 4It is important with a good and open attitude. It’s a matter of long time periods. It’s important with reflection before important decisions. 4. Summary and discussion The questions and comments presented here illuminated what public representatives and other participants believed could guide and advance the authority’s general advice document. The discussed contents stretched from specific knowledge questions to the validity of safety assessment models, and further on to guiding principles of radiation protection work, its relevance to the larger contemporary society and into the future. Figure 1 gives an overview of the different types of considerations that evolved from the discussions. Figure 1. Illustration of main categories of questions emerging from the focus group discussions, their relevance in relation to enhanced understanding of radiation protection criteria, and relevance to information and knowledge. 148 There were questions on risks to humans, to the environment, and on risk development over long times. Questions on how safety and the radiation situation could be affected by various designs of the canister and the repository, including its localisation, and on the reliability of future scenarios. Some questions specifically concerned the radiation situation in relation to retrieval of the spent nuclear fuel, and radiation safety measures in the period before and until the repository is closed. It was suggested that SSI, in the work on developing the general advice document, informs on the current radiation protection regulation for the general population and for radiation related work, and gives information on reasons to, and effects of, radiation doses, as well as their measurement. It was considered desirable that the forthcoming document would explain, and exemplify, how flora and fauna were to be protected. It was of importance to the participants to know more about the basic assumptions in risk analysis and safety assessments. The discussions clearly indicated an interest in a higher degree of transparency regarding what is known with certainty and what is assumed or estimated. Some wanted to know how the authority evaluates the correctness of the implementer’s analyses and results. There was an interest in being informed about the weighing of components utilised in data models, procedures in the optimisation work, as well as in the process of setting priorities, and in the legal framework for decision-making. The participants were furthermore interested in learning if there were pedagogical methods available to better describe the phenomena at hand. They underlined the importance of providing more knowledge to interested non-experts, and that the authorities clarify and exemplify the intended meaning in information texts. In conclusion it will be stated that there still is an active interest in the site investigation municipalities to participate in, and contribute to, the work related to creating a Swedish repository for spent nuclear fuel and high level radioactive wastes. The discussions in the focus groups showed (a) that people have substantial comments with relevance to the general advice document, and that (b) the involved persons’ requirements for knowledge, as well as their comments, stretched far beyond the scope of the planned document. The emerging picture is not one where simple answers will satisfy those who involve themselves in the subject area. In fact, they also provided a number of suggestions of methods and manners by which to improve the processes of information distribution, communication and knowledge acquisition. The focus group method allows time for dialogue and can result in well articulated questions and points of view. References 1. Andersson, K., Espejo, R., and Wene, C.-O. 1998. Building channels for transparent risk assessment, SKI Report 98:5. RISCOM pilot study, Stockholm: SKI. 2. Drottz-Sjöberg, B.-M. (2001). Communication in practice. In K. Andersson (Ed.), VALDOR 2001 (419-427). Stockholm: SKI. 149 3. Drottz-Sjöberg, B.-M. (2001). Utvärdering av utfrågningar. Resultat från genomlysningar av kärnavfallsfrågan i de svenska förstudiekommunerna {Evaluation of hearings. Results from an illumination of the nuclear waste issue in the swedish feasibility municipalities}. SKI Rapport Nr 01:39. 01:39 Stockholm: SKI. 4. The Swedish Radiation Authority’s instructions on protection of human health and the environment regarding the final disposal of used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. SSI FS 1998:1. Stockholm: SSI. 5. Hedberg, B. (2002). Kort sammandrag av gruppdiskussionerna vid SSI:s riskseminarium, den 21/8 2002 {Short summary of the group discussions at SSI’s risk seminar, August 21th, 2002. Stockholm: SSI. 6. Blix, A. (2002). SSI-seminarium om risk och slutförvar {SSI-seminar on risk and final repository}. Stråskyddsnytt, nr 3. Stockholm: SSI. 7. Drottz-Sjöberg, B.-M. (in press). Med fokus på SSI:s risk och strålskyddskriterier. En rapport baserad på diskussioner i fokusgrupper i Östhammars och Oskarshamns kommuner, under oktober 2002. Stockholm: SSI. 150 Value Judgements and Trade-Offs in Management of Nuclear Accidents: Using an Ethical Matrix in Practical Decision-Making Deborah Oughton & Ingrid Bay Agricultural University of Norway Postbox 5026 1432 Ås NORWAY Ellen-Marie Forsberg & Matthias Kaiser. The National Committee for Research Ethics in Science and Technology (NENT) Oslo NORWAY Experience after the Chernobyl accident has shown that restoration strategies need to consider a wide range of different issues to ensure the long-term sustainability of large and varied contaminated areas. Thus, the criteria by which we evaluate countermeasures needs to be extended from simple cost benefit effectiveness and radiological protection standards to a more integrated, holistic approach, including social and ethical aspects. Within the EU STRATEGY project, the applicability of many countermeasures is being critically assessed using a wide range of criteria, such as practicability, environmental side-effects, public perceptions of risk, communication and dialogue, and ethical aspects such as informed consent and the fair distribution of costs and doses. Although such socio-ethical factors are now the subject of a substantial field of research, there has been little attempt to integrate them in a practical context for decision makers. Within this paper, we suggest practical means by which these can be taken into account in the decision making process, proposing use of an ethical matrix to ensure transparent and systematic consideration of values in selection of a restoration strategy. 1. Introduction Over the past decade, people involved in radiation protection policy have shown an increased awareness that risk management needs to take account of social and ethical issues. With respect to nuclear accidents, it is generally accepted that the costs of remediation can be greater than the financial investment required to carry out countermeasures, that the benefits of some actions may extend beyond dose reduction, and that the acceptability of countermeasures can depend on a variety of social and ethical factors [e.g., 1-5]. Acknowledgement of these developments has been an important part of the STRATEGY 5th Framework EU project –Sustainable Restoration and Long-Term Management of Contaminated Rural, Urban and Industrial Ecosystems [www.strategy-eu.org.uk], which includes a number of countermeasure evaluation criteria such as practicality and acceptability, socio-ethical 151 aspects, environmental consequences and indirect side-effect costs [6]. In practice, however, there is a danger that inclusion of these additional assessment criteria will prove problematic. For example, difficulties may arise due to: • • • • • • the many dimensions to the criteria; the fact that different people will be affected in different ways; the complexity of the issues (many countermeasures have both positive and negative social and ethical consequences); the various “trade-offs” that may be required when making choices; a possible lack of agreement within society on what is practical or acceptable, let alone on how to “put a price on” such non-monetary side-effects; and the lack of established procedures, and experience, in systematically incorporating these dimensions in decision-making. If decisions about countermeasure selection are going to be ethically and rationally defendable, decision-makers require advice on what criteria are important to consider and why, and also a methodology to ensure a systematic and transparent procedure for balancing these criteria. The aim of this paper is to offer such advice and to give suggestions for such a methodology (i.e., an ethical matrix). 2. Options, Constraints and Trade-offs Current ICRP recommendations state that, for an action to be justified, the benefits from dose reduction or averted dose should outweigh the costs of implementing the countermeasure [7]. Although more recent recommendations acknowledge that the costs of countermeasure may be both social and economic, and that there may be benefits other than dose reduction [8]. Investing money to reduce exposure to radiation is a trade-off in itself, and even this relatively simple trade-off is not without controversy in radiation protection. Even based on the two criteria of monetary cost and dose, a decision on how to go about reducing exposure to radiation will be an ethical judgement: we are, theoretically, making choices about which health risks to reduce and at what cost. Deciding on a remediation strategy based on a multi-criteria evaluation is going to require a whole suite of trade-offs and value judgements. There are obviously a number of actions or interventions that might be implemented in contaminated areas, ranging from highly disruptive measures such as banning all food production from an agricultural area, to relatively benign actions such as ploughing fields, washing roofs or turning over paving stones. In radiation protection, the primary objective of countermeasure implementation is usually dose reduction. Most countermeasures have ethical, legal and social factors that will bear on their acceptability and effectiveness. These factors may be issues that should be taken into account in the overall balancing and judgement of the negative and positive attributes of a countermeasure; in other instances they as constraints that veto the action outright, irrespective of its potential cost-effectiveness. Previous evaluations of countermeasures have mainly concentrated on technical or economic constraints. 152 For example, that the slope of the hill is too steep to allow ploughing, that there is insufficient labour, or simply that the countermeasure is too expensive. However, legal and ethical constraints may also apply, particularly for those that have an environmental impact. For example, interventions may violate conventions or directives protecting the habitat of wild flora and fauna, or cultural heritage. Other aspects may be associated with implications for labour and human rights (such as worker consent and proper training), animal welfare issues, or social factors such as whether or not the public will comply with the countermeasure, or whether or not the farm will be able to continue to market its produce as “organic”. Stakeholder evaluation of countermeasure templates in STRATEGY suggested that many countermeasures (especially in UK) were as likely to be rejected on socio-ethical grounds as technical and economic grounds [9]. Examples included a strong aversion to any measure that would bring-about contamination of previously uncontaminated foods (e.g., mixing milk from different sources) or environments, and an awareness of the problems of contaminated foodstuffs appearing on the black market. Of course, a rejection of specific countermeasures would be expected to show site, context and national differences. Whatever the reason for deciding that a particular countermeasure is impracticable or unacceptable, it is important that the reasons for rejection are made explicit, transparent and (if necessary) open to revision at a later date. This process in itself needs to be able to survive public scrutiny. 3. Comparison and Selection of Countermeasures for Holistic Strategies Although a countermeasure many be expected to provide a net benefit to society, it can also influence the distribution of costs, risks and benefits. This distribution has obvious links to the fundamental ethical values of equity, justice and fairness. Costs, benefits and risk may vary over both space and time, and between different members of a community. Countermeasures that reduce collective dose (manSv) may change the distribution of dose, for example, from consumers/users/farmers to workers/ consumers/populations around waste facilities. The question of who is paying for the countermeasure and who will receive the benefits must also be addressed. Some countermeasures, and sets of countermeasures, result in an equitable distribution of cost and dose reduction, such as investment by tax payers to reduce activity concentrations in a common food product; others are less equitable, for example, when a reduction of dose to the majority is only possible at the expense of a higher dose, cost or welfare burden, on a minority, e.g., banning all farm production in a small community. In relation to the question of distribution, one needs to consider: Who is being affected? Who is paying? Does the countermeasure have implications for vulnerable or already disadvantaged members of society (children, ethnic or cultural minorities)? When countermeasures are combined into a holistic strategy, the overall impact on a region’s population and environment also needs to be evaluated from an ethical 153 and social viewpoint. Whilst individual countermeasures may be satisfactory, their combined use within a restoration strategy may lead to an unfair distribution of costs, doses and benefits across the population. On the other hand, countermeasures can be combined to ensure a more even distribution, or adjusted to ensure that minority populations have either consented to, and/or been compensated for, any prior inequity. Finally, whether or not a countermeasure is rejected or accepted in practice will also depend on the available alternatives. And a viable countermeasure may become inappropriate if there is a less ethically problematic or socially intrusive alternative. Hence, the eventual selection of a holistic strategy (i.e., the group of countermeasures) will require a holistic evaluation, including a systematic comparison of the available countermeasures. This can, in turn, raise a new set of ethical and social issues, related specifically to the way in which criteria are balanced, the judgements and trade-offs that will be needed when making choices between alternatives, and the process by which this selection is carried out. Both the evaluation and the selection of countermeasures will need to be based on site and context specific data, including guidelines for collecting relevant information on both the site itself and effects of individual countermeasures, procedures for evaluating the decision-making process and recommendations for communication and participation [10]. The way in which countermeasure evaluation and selection is carried out is of utmost relevance for ethical evaluation of a holistic remediation strategy, and will need to build on the assessment of individual countermeasures and their interactions. As a procedure for ensuring transparent and systematic consideration of ethical issues, we suggest the use of an ethical matrix. 4. Making Ethical Decisions on Restoration Strategies Good practical ethical decision-making is built upon three conditions: high quality and relevant information ((facts); ethical argument informed by relevant ethical theories (values); and moral judgement. In pluralistic societies, views on both facts and values typically differ, which makes it difficult to ascertain that all relevant information has been collected and that there is no bias towards particular ethical approaches. An ethical matrix is a tool to ensure the systematic consideration of all affected values and to indicate what facts are needed for making the decision [11]. The matrix derives from principle based ethics. Rather than relying on an overarching ethical theory to evaluate actions (usually resorting to an appeal to either utilitarian or deontological doctrines), a principle-based approach holds that some general moral norms are central in moral reasoning, and that these may be constructed as principles or rules. There is a huge variety of principle-based approaches and, arguably, the most successful in practical ethics are those that adopt a pluralistic view, and start with a selection of principles that are generally acknowledged in society and that can find a broad degree of support from different ethical theories or cultural beliefs. 154 One of the most famous and widely used examples of principle-based ethics is that of Beauchamp and Childress [12], who identified four basic principles that form the foundation of modern medical ethics: 1. Respect for autonomy (a norm of respecting the free-will and decision-making capacities of self-governing persons) 2. Nonmaleficence (a norm of avoiding the causation of harm) 3. Beneficence (a group of norms for providing benefits and balancing benefits against risks and costs) 4. Justice (a group of norms for distributing benefits, risks and costs fairly) Inspired by medical ethics, Ben Mepham transferred Beauchamp and Childress’ approach to a practical scheme for addressing broader policy related problems [1314]. While Beauchamp and Childress addressed issues concerning primarily the relationship between doctor and patient (or the public and the health service), there is a greater complexity in using the approach in societal decision-making, which has to cover a much wider area of concern, often including animals and the environment. Mepham suggested that the various principles, values and stakeholders can be best summarized in an ethical matrix. In this way, a bias towards certain kinds of values may be avoided, and the matrix can be used to address conflicts between values in a systematic way, without, necessarily, having to invoke full-fledged theories. The ethical matrix method we propose takes its starting point in three fundamental principles, namely: 1. To promote well-being and minimise health risks, welfare burdens and other detriments to affected stakeholders 2. To respect the dignity of affected stakeholders 3. To recognise the norm of justice and aim to treat everybody fairly and ensure an equitable distribution of goods among affected stakeholders. The preparatory matrix shown in Table 1 represents a detailed specification of these three general principles as derived by a number of co-operating researchers in STRATEGY. It encompasses all the values that were considered relevant and it may be used as an example by an actual decision making group. Many of the issues can be traced to those identified as relevant for the ethical and social evaluation of individual countermeasures, and will have several relevant further specifications according to the particular case in question [15]. In practice, the matrix can aid a decision-making group by giving an overall picture of the ethical status of the issue at stake. The consequences of both the accident itself and countermeasures can affect different groups in different ways, and the matrix can be used to help identify the relevant information required for decision-making (i.e., the facts, values and stakeholders affected). However, a method for getting a grip on facts and values will not be sufficient. Even with all the relevant information on 155 the table and with a systematic representation of different values, moral judgement must be exercised. A central question for any decision-making process is that of who is to judge? For decisions that concern the whole of society, and for STRATEGY, stakeholder involvement is a central element for ensuring a justified and publicly acceptable conclusion. If follows that matrix evaluation should be performed in a participatory process with stakeholders. Public involvement in decisions is important as different groups will contribute with local knowledge in addition to technical, expert-based knowledge [18]. This will, in the next turn, enhance public and social acceptability of decisions [e.g., 19, 20]. Selection between different countermeasures will require trade-offs and value judgements. The matrix can be used to help in weighting and/or ranking the importance of those values by the affected stakeholders, and making the ethical dimension of decision-making transparent. Neither the final identification of principles and stakeholders nor a final specified matrix can be given here, as this is both case-dependent and the task of a participatory decision-making process. Well-being, dignity and justice have been selected as possible points of departure, but these principles need to be confirmed by the decisionmaking bodies and specified according to case and context. Table 1 illustrates a range of values that might be considered important when making judgements on countermeasures. Any selection of a restoration strategy will have to rank and weight the importance of those values, with or without the aid of an ethical matrix. 156 Table 1. An ethical matrix developed for use in a radiation accident situation. Stakeholder Examples Well-being Dignity Justice/ Distribution Example: Health and economic welfare Example: Choice/consent /(legal) rights Is any sub-group of stakeholders worst-off? Owners/ Employers Government Farmer House dweller Land owner Hotel owner Shop owner Business proprietor Factory owner Local authority Doses to humans Loss/gain in income Loss of property Damage to, or reduction in value of, property Loss of taxes Compensation Self-help Consent Property rights Being allowed to pay their duties Contract fulfilment No disruption No insecurity Liberty Possibility for conflict between different industries or projects Workers/ Employees Tennant farmer Farm workers Factory workers Contractors Immigrant workers Other employees Doses to humans Fear of job loss Gain/loss of income Insecurity Family relationships Compensation Traditional skills and practices Trust and loyalty to local farmers Consent Training Possibility for disputes and social inequity Users/ Community Neighbours Recreational Tourists Public amenity (library, town hall, playground, park) Local community Access Aesthetic value Empathy Isolation Community values Tourism Compensation Respect for public heritage and footpaths Community sense Personal control Self-help Liberty Potential conflict of age/sex/ cultural minorities Availability of alternative amenities Consumers Consumers Secondary food producers Other secondary producers (e.g. timber) Doses to humans More expensive goods Loss of jobs Insecurity Information Choice Self-help Intervention limits Potential conflict concerning diet and possibility of self gathering Future gen. Future food production Future clean air and water Future users of recreational areas, etc Loss of opportunities to use areas, resources, common goods, etc Respect for the right to keep living according to basic human values No one future group be sacrificed for the presumed good of other future groups Environment Farm animals Wild animals Pets Other biota Ecosystems Dose to biota Other toxic/health effects Compensation Endangered species Loss of habitat Right to life consistent with their nature Potential conflict between farm and wild animals, ecosystems Waste location stakeholders (if different from accident location) Including all the above stakeholders connected to the waste site. Uncertainty/risk estimates: Possibilities for monitoring, retrieval and treatment Compensation Consent Self-help Information etc Potential conflict between stakeholders close to disposal site 157 5. Advantages and Disadvantages of the Ethical Matrix— Experience An advantage of the matrix is that it is able to cover most of the relevant values that should be considered in a certain decision area. And although the matrix represents a relatively new methodology, it has been tested within evaluation processes both by Mepham and The Norwegian Research Ethics Committees and has been demonstrated to be an appropriate tool for use in participatory and deliberative decision processes [12, 16, 22]. The conclusion in both Mepham’s and NENT’s studies was that the ethical matrix works relatively well for the purpose of structuring a discussion. There were, however, certain practical problems connected to specifying the principles and weighting the specifications, agreeing on the facts, and undertaking the final evaluation. Also, the ethical matrix is a rather cumbersome tool that takes time to explain to participants. These practical problems are taken up both by Mepham and the NENT project [21]. The general conclusion suggests, however, that the advantages in some cases of complex decision-making may outweigh the practical problems related to the process. 6. Conclusions Rather than seeing the inclusion of ethical and social values as an additional burden on top of what is already a complicated process, our view is that ethics can be a practical tool to aid decision-makers. We suggest that a systematic consideration of ethical and social issues, including an ethical justification of the decision-making procedure itself will eventually make countermeasure selection more transparent and less controversial for society. An ethical matrix is a tool to ensure that all relevant concerns are being taken into consideration and to clarify the ethical basis upon which eventual decisions are made. There is no deduction of the correct ethical answer from the evaluation matrix; the ethical matrix is not a substitute for ethical judgement, it is a way of doing it. As an isolated tool it is not of much help - a tool must necessarily have someone who handles it. But when an ethical matrix is combined with a stakeholder process the real value of both the matrix and the participatory approach appears. Acknowledgements The STRATEGY project is being carried out under a contract (FIKR-CT-2000-00018) within the research and training programme (Euratom) in the field of nuclear energy, key action: nuclear fission and whose support is gratefully acknowledged. The paper is the sole responsibility of the authors and does not reflect Community opinion, and the Community is not responsible for any use that might be made of data appearing in this publication. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of other STRATEGY participants. 158 References 1. Oughton, DH. 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