Cultural Aspects of Risk Assessment in Britain and the United States

Jasanoff, Sheila

doi:10.1007/978-94-009-3395-8_15

Cited by 31 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…( 92 ) An important subset of the psychological literature is risk communication, which is summarized by Leiss. ( 93 ) International and comparative studies are performed, ( 94 ) as well as studies of group dynamics such as the risky shift, which recognize that group decision making has as much peculiarity as that of individuals. ( 95 ) Psychological interest in risk is often complemented with studies from other disciplines in an attempt to rein in risk to a comprehensive assessment and management science.…”

Section: Underlying Epistemological Approach and Review Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

A Disciplinary Perspective on the Epistemological Status of Risk

2005

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A unique multidisciplinary perspective on the risk literature is used to establish a fresh and provocative argument regarding the epistemological understanding and definition of risk. Building on economic conceptualizations that distinguish risk from uncertainty and argue that risk is an ordered application of knowledge to the unknown, the survey identifies each of the disciplines as having a particular knowledge approach with which they confront the unknown so as to order its randomness and convert it into a risk proposition. This epistemological approach suggests the concept of risk can act as a mirror, reflecting the preoccupations, strengths, and weaknesses of each discipline as they grapple with uncertainty. The conclusion suggests that the different disciplines can, and desirably should, act in concert toward a cumulative appreciation of risk that progresses our understanding of the concept. One way in which the article challenges risk experts to join disciplinary forces in a collaborative effort is to holistically appreciate and articulate the concept of political risk calculation.

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Section: Underlying Epistemological Approach and Review Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

A Disciplinary Perspective on the Epistemological Status of Risk

2005

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“…STS scholars and other regulatory analysts have often responded to this kind of analysis, as is our intention in this paper, by 'deconstructing' regulatory science -by identifying indeterminate or empirically under-determined aspects of knowledge claims, making explicit the key choices, assumptions and inferences that have been invoked, and then seeking to explain the selection of those subjective commitments by reference to wider contextual values, interests and cultural norms. (Gillespie et al, 1979;Jasanoff, 1987;Latin, 1988;Wynne, 1992) One strand of this literature has focused on how the social interests of corporate actors contribute to shaping regulatory knowledge, particularly via industrial involvement in the conduct of scientific studies, and in the evaluation of experimental data. (Abraham, 1993;Huff, 2002;Michaels, 2008) In many policy arenas, regulated industries, or commissioned third parties, design and perform experimental studies, interpret and ascribe meaning to study findings, review broader scientific literatures, challenge regulatory institutions' interpretations of data, and even draft the overall assessments that form the basis of regulatory agencies' decisions.…”

Section: Conceptual and Methodological Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Taste and Power: The Flavouring Industry and Flavour Additive Regulation

Zwanenberg

Millstone

2014

SSRN Journal

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The concepts and methods used by regulatory agencies worldwide to assess the safety of flavouring additives were designed by and for the flavouring industry. They embody, and embed in routine regulatory practice, the industry's commercial interests in minimising the costs of regulatory oversight and the risks that the market for its products might be restricted. First sketched out by US flavouring company scientists in the early 1960s, the approach required almost no experimental data, and was highly permissive, relative to both our knowledge (and lack of it) about chemical toxicity, and to the ways other kinds of food additives are regulated. Our distinctive 'realist constructivist' analysis illustrates how the industry's approach was also antiscientific, unscientific because it served to discourage scientific investigation of important aspects of the phenomena it purported to evaluate, and because it relied on hypotheses that lacked any evidential basis. The approach was first used to assess flavourings in the USA, where the industry was allowed to design and run its own regulatory regime. In all other regulatory jurisdictions, the industry's approach was rejected; expert advisors argued that it was incompatible with mandates to protect consumer health. Yet, the approach eventually prevailed everywhere. It did so in large part because of the collective refusal of the flavouring industry over three decades to provide the experimental data that had been requested by the regulatory authorities. This has been a form of regulatory capture, which was triggered by a remarkably effective tactic of non-cooperation with demands for data.

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“…Wynne and Mayer (1993) have argued that this is the case for British governmental experts, who deny uncertainty so as to avoid accountability; a 'greener' environmental science, according to these authors, would explicitly acknowledge the unknown. By contrast, in us regulatory science, uncertainty is both more readily accepted and more rapidly translated into the technical discourse of risk assessment (Jasanoff 1987). We will return to this point below.…”

Section: Socio-technical Hybridsmentioning

confidence: 97%