Environmental policy depends for its success on public participation. However, the scientific construction of environmental issues often means that such participation in policy-making is difficult when the public is not considered scientifically `expert'. Even if the notion of `expertise' is broadened to deal with this problem, this does not ensure truly `public'—i.e. lay—involvement, because lay ideas are still not included but are discounted as `non-scientific'. Further, emphasis on the scientific and environmental education of the general public will not guarantee policy implementation by individuals. Therefore, if we wish to design environmental policy that can be successfully implemented, we must consider other ways in which people relate to their environments as well as through scientific mediation—ways in which people `understand' their environments through culture, morality and social interaction—and build these into environmental policy.
References
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O'Riordan, T. , 1991, Stability and transformation in environmental government. Political Quarterly, 62, 167.
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Beck, U. , 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage).
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`Indeed, there is something unique about the manner in which ecology logically takes its place at the very centre of Beck's social theory' because it is so often ignored by other sociologists. Bronner, S. E., 1995, Ecology, politics, and risk: the social theory of Ulrich Beck. Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 6(1), 67-86.
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Beck, U. , 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage), p. 162.
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Yearley, S. , 1991, Greens and science: a doomed affair. New Scientist, 13 July, 38.
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Beck, U. , 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage), p. 53.
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Beck, U. , 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage), p. 72.
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28.
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and Barnes, B., 1985, About Science (Oxford: Basil Blackwell) for example. I think that two different senses of `politicization' are being referred to. In Beck's case, the implication is clearly, and justifiably, that science is increasingly part of the political process because it processes information, selects key issues for more investigation, is used in justifying policy choices and, in the process, is examined by (non-scientist) others as part of `reflexive modernization'. In these matters, it is hardly apolitical. However, it must sustain an objective image in order to retain any form of `rational' authority in the face of other, possibly morally grounded, arguments. In this sense, it can be connected with more technical solutions to problems, with the weighing, again in technical terms, of a range of possible policy solutions. This would represent a seemingly apolitical methodology which is firmly located in and connected to the political process. Hence, it is possible to argue that science is politicized in terms of its role but apolitical in terms of how its advice is represented. However, I do not think this is helpful and prefer to see science as politicized, while noting that Beck's notion of subpolitics points to this ambiguous relationship.
37.
The three models are also discussed as abstract categories rather than national styles by Habermas, J., 1971, Toward a Rational Society (London: Heinemann), pp. 62-70.
38.
Vogel, D. , 1986, National Styles of Regulation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).
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43.
Also see Barnes, B., 1985, About Science (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).
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Even here, the success of this more publicly exposed policy formulation is dubious, because it militates against definitive and yet adaptable policy decisions through extending the process of contestation and `producing paralysis in the decision-making process': see Jasanoff, S., 1986, Risk Management and Political Culture (New York: Russell Sage Foundation), p. 66.
52.
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Beck, U. , 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage), p. 161.
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72.
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73.
Bronner, S. E. , 1995, Ecology, politics and risk: the social theory of Ulrich Beck. Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 6(1), 67-86.
74.
Funtowicz, S. O. , and Ravetz, J. R., 1990, Global Environmental Issues and the Emergence of Second Order Science, Report EUR 12803 EN (Luxembourg: Commission of the European Communities).
75.
Giddens, A. , 1990, The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity), p. 44.
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But for complications with this notion see Rüdig, W., 1993, Sources of technological controversy: proximity to or alienation from technology?The Politics of Expert Advice, edited by A. Barker and B. G. Peters (Edinburgh University Press).
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These characteristics are particularly drawn from Irwin, A., 1995, Citizen Science (London: Routledge), p. 132.
80.
Also Irwin, A., 1995, Citizen Science (London: Routledge), p. 120.
81.
This is also implied by Yearley, S., 1994, Understanding science from the perspective of the sociology of science: an overview. Public Understanding of Science, 3, 251, in claiming that science is often distrusted unnecessarily by its publics.
82.
Beck, U. , 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage), p. 58; emphasis in original.
83.
Irwin, A. , 1995, Citizen Science (London: Routledge), p. 131.
84.
For example, poetry, art and living styles related to the road protests in the UK in 1994/5. Also see Welsh, I., 1995, Risk, Reflexivity and the Globalisation of Environmental Politics (Bristol: Centre for Social and Economic Research Publications, University of the West of England), p. 11.
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Michael, M. , 1991, Discourses of danger and dangerous discourses: patrolling the borders of science, nature and society. Discourse and Society, 2(1), 23.
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Barrett, S. , 1991, Environmental regulation for competitive advantage. Business Strategy Review, Spring, 1-15.
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British Government Panel on Sustainable Development , 1995, First Report (London: Department of the Environment), p. 13.
90.
O'Riordan, T. , 1991, Stability and transformation in environmental government. The Political Quarterly, 62, 172, emphasis added.
91.
Further, all three elements are essential to the reconstitution of the policy regime. `A scientized society could constitute itself as a rational one only to the extent that science and technology are mediated with the conduct of life through the minds of its citizens': see Habermas, J., 1971, Toward a Rational Society (London: Heinemann), pp. 79-80.
92.
Jasanoff, S. , 1986, Risk Management and Political Culture (New York: Russell Sage Foundation), p. 56.
93.
Beck, U. , 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage), pp. 172-173.
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98.
Funtowicz, S. O. , and Ravetz, J. R., 1990, Global Environmental Issues and the Emergence of Second Order Science, Report EUR 12803 EN (Luxembourg: Commission of the European Communities), p. 16.
