2013
DOI: 10.1080/01442872.2013.804175
|View full text |Cite
|
Sign up to set email alerts
|

What do policy-makers do with scientific uncertainty? The incremental character of Swedish climate change policy-making

Abstract: This article explores how policy-makers are managing scientific uncertainty in policy-making. This is done through a case study of the Swedish climate change policy process from 1975 to 2007, based on interviews and an extensive review of official publications and documents. The study shows that scientific uncertainty played a very marginal role in the development of Swedish climate politics. When faced with scientific uncertainty, policy-makers came to rely more on knowledge of what was politically possible t… Show more

Help me understand this report

Search citation statements

Order By: Relevance

Paper Sections

Select...
2
1
1

Citation Types

0
19
0

Year Published

2013
2013
2023
2023

Publication Types

Select...
7
1

Relationship

0
8

Authors

Journals

citations
Cited by 47 publications
(19 citation statements)
references
References 34 publications
0
19
0
Order By: Relevance
“…Some researchers have referred to this as the “loading dock” approach [ 71 ] to the provision of scientific information for policy development and have expressed the inappropriateness of this method, especially in the case of communicating scientific content that may possess elements of uncertainty [ 72 ]. In a similar vein, Knaggard [ 73 ] highlights the issues associated with evidence-based decision-making in the context of a paradigm of rationality. Despite the best intentions of some of the studies reviewed here, the fact that uncertainty in relation to policy and decision making is not addressed unambiguously raises the possible spectre of unusable science or non-actionable knowledge [ 74 , 75 ].…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Some researchers have referred to this as the “loading dock” approach [ 71 ] to the provision of scientific information for policy development and have expressed the inappropriateness of this method, especially in the case of communicating scientific content that may possess elements of uncertainty [ 72 ]. In a similar vein, Knaggard [ 73 ] highlights the issues associated with evidence-based decision-making in the context of a paradigm of rationality. Despite the best intentions of some of the studies reviewed here, the fact that uncertainty in relation to policy and decision making is not addressed unambiguously raises the possible spectre of unusable science or non-actionable knowledge [ 74 , 75 ].…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Determining the extent to which uncertainty is reflected in the design of policy initiatives for climate change management (the third step above) is challenging. In her assessment of Swedish climate change policies, Knaggård (2014) finds that "scientific uncertainty played a very marginal role in the development of Swedish climate politics". No other comparable assessments appear to have been conducted, in Sweden or elsewhere.…”
Section: Manuscriptmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…A review of Swedish policy-making appears to be the only study of the extent to which uncertainty is being reflected in the design of national-level policy measures for climate change mitigation (Knaggård 2014). Additional research in this area is needed to gain the insights needed to improve the methodological frameworks used to conduct this kind of evaluations, and understand the barriers to increased uptake of uncertainty evidence in national-level policy-planning for climate-change mitigation.…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Uncertainty assessment is also possible with agent-based modelling of mitigation options, as described in Berger and Troost (2014). However, the complexity of incorporating uncertainty in the analysis often hinders knowledge exchange between scientist and policy-makers, and can result in a limited integration of uncertainty information in the decision-making process (Knaggard, 2013). Mutual engagement from both scientists and policy-makers is required to overcome some of the obstacles in communicating and utilising uncertainty information (Smith and Stern, 2011;Milne et al, 2015).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%