Risk, flora and fauna: past, present and future If everyone saw risk the same way, experts, including scientists, could rank risks objectively; leaving politicians to align policies and budgets; the public would sleep more... [ view full abstract ]
Risk, flora and fauna: past, present and future
If everyone saw risk the same way, experts, including scientists, could rank risks objectively; leaving politicians to align policies and budgets; the public would sleep more soundly. Unfortunately, the linear transmission of information about risks from experts to others does not define real-world controversies. Instead, claims and counter-claims about risk are multi-layered and mired in social complexity, drawing variously on historical antecedents, competing theories and scientific uncertainties. Disagreements about the scale of a risk are often overtly normative. However, the allure of a linear approach is strong. The Social Amplification of Risk (SARF) rests on the false assumption that disagreements about risk magnitude are caused by faulty circuitry in an essentially linear model; objective, known risk values are distorted as they are communicated from one social station to another. In contrast, Social Attribution of Risk Amplification (SARA) contends that differences in risk perceptions between different social actors are not reducible to objective distortions in transmission. Instead, cultural factors including political interests, shape real risk controversies influencing all actors including experts. This results in myriad differences in judgement about how risky a given risk really is. Social risk amplification, we argue, is something that people attribute to one another as they try to explain or promote their systematic differences in risk estimation. This explains the normative tenor of many accusations of amplification and accounts for the intersubjective pattern where amplification and attenuation accusations are traded. Following the same relativistic logic, calls for ‘risk-based policy’ promise impossible ‘escape routes to objectivity’ (Douglas 1992). When a socio-technical controversy such as the BSE crisis explodes, quantitative tools may be useful but they cannot and should not try to ‘trump’ the social process in which risk itself shapes and is shaped by social interactions. Policy, in a democratic society (following Douglas, 1992), is and ought to be based in ‘the heat and grime’ of politics, not in risk analysis.
This work shows empirically, through interviews and focus groups, claims that other actors are amplifying animal disease risk to be social attributions. We further show how scientists and risk managers are caught between calling for ‘risk-based policy’ approaches and simultaneously acknowledging a range of fundamental policy drivers that are not risk-based, including their own group interests. Both SARF and calls for ‘risk-based policy’ are presented, following Cultural Theory, as flawed ideals connected to a reductionist epistemology.
Evidence to inform risk relevant policy , Risk policy and regulation
