Communicating Uncertainty in the Risk Society. Stephen Healy and John Handmer, Middlesex University, Trent Park, Bramley Road, London N14 4XS
INTRODUCTION
Risk communication has been dominated
by 'top-down' technocratic approaches that can be characterised
as expert to public monologues. Such approaches contrast strongly
with the more 'open' approaches based on concepts such as partnership
and consensus that have recently moved to centre stage in risk
communication (Fischhoff 1995). This contrast can be correlated
with the distinction between Industrial Society, in which technical
knowledge is regarded as providing information that is certain
and objective, and the Risk Society in which the uncertain and
indeterminate nature of technical knowledge is widely acknowledged.
This distinction is central to the theoretical framework elaborated
by the German social theorist Ulrich Beck in his work Risk
Society - Towards a New Modernity (Beck, 1992), which is used
in this paper to explore the concept of risk dialogue developed
by the authors (Healy and Handmer, 1996).
Risk dialogue is a concept predicated
on facilitating an effective discourse between all the stakeholders
involved in a risk-related issue, as a way of transcending the
shortcomings of the 'top-down' approaches that have typified the
area. Such approaches have generally been seen as a means of
persuading laypeople to accept imposed views rather than as an
avenue for dialogue. This technocratic approach can be related
to the privileged role traditionally granted to science that renders
it suitable for use as a tool for legitimation, persuasion or
coercion within the policy process. Currently, the paradoxical
role of science as central to both the cause and solution of many
contemporary risks is undermining such technocratic approaches
and fueling the exploration of alternatives. We argue, with others,
that consensus or partnership should mean a process designed to
legitimise all sources of knowledge with the aim of reaching an
outcome satisfactory to, or at least tolerated by, all parties.
In risk dialogue uncertainty is identified as the central mediating
variable that can facilitate dialogue and ultimately agreement
between the various parties to risk disputes. Other dimensions,
such as that of trust, will be critical to the success of this
approach and will be dealt with in future work.
UNCERTAINTY
Uncertainty is a multiple entity
that is inadequately represented by the narrow stochastic characterisation
that typifies expert discourse on it. This characterisation,
motivated by the tradition within natural science to view uncertainty
as a unitary property of the external environment, ignores its
broader social character and provides the foundation for the notion
that it is amenable to objective quantification and management
solely by probabilistic methods (this not only ignores broader
social uncertainties but also the complex interdependencies between
them and the narrowly conceived technical uncertainties). The
fallacy of a fixation with probabilistic efforts can be appreciated
by examining the uncertainty stratagems used in fields such as
politics, law or medicine, which are often intrinsically social
in character, such as the 'burden of proof' concept in law and
the verbal qualifiers used in medicine such as 'reasonable medical
certainty' (Paulo Ricci, 1995). The essentially social nature
of the risk communication process - involving as it does a discourse
between technical experts, decision makers, the corporate world,
and the wider public - underlines how the omission of these broader
dimensions of the nature of uncertainty damages the viability
of the process itself.
A broader characterisation of uncertainty
will allow fundamental value distinctions and divisions at the
heart of many disputes to be discerned and elaborated. Only then
can processes of negotiation and mediation be facilitated effectively.
This will require not only the development of effective means
of representing and communicating these broader uncertainties
but most fundamentally their acknowledgement by all parties and
an associated willingness to negotiate outcomes. The representation
and communication of these broader uncertainties will facilitate
this but cannot overcome, for example, a dispute involving a clash
of worldviews in which the participants refuse to negotiate, although
it may enable them to better understand each others position.
These broader uncertainties have
been described by, amongst others Smithson (1989), Ricci (1995),
Wynne (1993), and Funtowicz and Ravetz (1990) who also develop
a notional system for their description. Here we comment on the
conceptual aspects of risk dialogue and on its potential contribution
to living in the Risk Society.
RISK DIALOGUE AND UNCERTAINTY
Fundamentally, risk dialogue revolves
around the stakeholders to a risk dispute bringing their varying
perceptions and expectations together and melding a common framework
from them via the mediating parameter of broader uncertainty (more
appropriately termed ignorance, Smithson, 1989). This common
framework, predicated on an agreed representation of the broader
uncertainties surrounding a dispute, establishes an agreed format
within which a resolution to that dispute can be facilitated.
Many of the disputants in arriving at this stage will have to
undergo, often radical, critical self-examination and associated
reevaluation of the assumptions and underlying commitments that
they bring with them to the process. This can be characterised
as a reflexive learning process: one in which the participants
are required to critically reflect upon the preconceptions, or
what have been termed 'bounding premises', that they bring with
them to the process. Ultimately a positive resolution will require
that participants readjust their 'bounding premises' to fit the
framework as developed and agreed via broader uncertainties.
It is clear that such disputes often
reflect assumptions of the superiority of one such set of preconceptions
or 'bounding premises' over others. The classic contemporary
case, at the heart of many current disputes, is characterised
by the mandate traditionally given to technocratic preconceptions.
Such preconceptions are based on a number of problematical assumptions
pivotal to which are those that see scientific and technical knowledge
as value-free and objective. These fundamental assumptions are
typically elaborated in ways that privilege the technical knowledge
and marginalise insights from other sources. Fundamental to risk
dialogue is an acknowledgement of the legitimacy of all sources
of knowledge. This should not be taken as an attack on the legitimacy
of technical knowledge in issues of risk, but conversely as a
measure that will reinforce its central and necessary role. Paradoxically,
this role is currently being undermined by the traditional insistence
on its unquestioned superiority. This can be seen today in many
disputes over risk. Perhaps an ideal case in point is provided
by the present British Government's attempts to legitimate their
inept handling of the BSE crisis via an appeal to science. Crucial
to risk-dialogue therefore will be an acknowledgement of the limitations
and weaknesses of technical knowledge in addition to its strengths,
with the same comment applying to all other sources of knowledge.
Broader characterisation, and related
representations, of wider uncertainty can facilitate the acknowledgement
of such weaknesses and limitations. Central to this will be descriptions
that aid understanding of the relationship of expert technical
knowledge to other knowledges. Characterising this relationship
is likely to be of particular relevance for local and/or contextual
knowledge, which can be crucial to determining outcomes on the
ground, but which is often ignored or marginalised by assumptions
such as the technocratic ones described above.
RISK SOCIETY, RISK DIALOGUE AND REFLEXIVITY
The notion of reflexivity - central
to the exercise of risk dialogue as a learning process that challenges
fundamental assumptions, taboos and other "conceptual blinkers"
- is at the core of Beck's thesis of "reflexive modernity",
fundamentally related to the concept of the risk society (Beck,
1992). Reflexive modernisation refers to the sensitivity of all
aspects of modem life, characterised particularly by the ongoing
risk problems created by it, to reappraisal and reevaluation as
a result of constantly emerging new knowledge and information,
and resulting changing values and priorities. To Beck, the reflexive
nature of modernity is exemplified by the developing critical
appreciation of science and technology which is most fundamentally
motivated by the extensive unintended negative consequences of
technical development. This is clearly related to the paradox,
referred to earlier, of the central role of science and technological
development in both the creation of and potential solutions to
these contemporary risks.
The thesis of the risk society rests
on the idea that the logic underlying modem industrial societies
is changing from one based on the distribution of 'goods', in
the form of material products, to one based on the distribution
of 'bads' in the form of risks. In the risk society the primary
focus is on the production and distribution of the risks resulting
from the production and distribution of the material goods and
products on which we are dependent so that: "The place of
eliminating scarcity is taken by [that of] eliminating risk"
(Beck, 1992, p. 47). Beck's work is regarded as increasingly
significant in broader social theory reinforcing the progressive
relevance of issues of risk to more general debates around social
change.
To Beck the continuation of modernity
can only be assured by recognising and facilitating broader reflexivity.
That is by cultivating a critical awareness of the underlying
assumptions that are brought to bear in the application of knowledge
and information and creating mechanisms to facilitate this. Beck
sees broader societal participation in decision making involving
science and technological development as having a central role
writing of, "...interdisciplinary partial public spheres
that would need to be created institutionally" (1992, p.
235). Beck sees the only alternative to democratically informed
reflexivity in the face of the risks generated by modernisation
as a "...totalitarianism of hazard prevention" (1992,
p. 80) underlining his belief that the only way that authoritarian
approaches to dealing with risks can be refuted is by democratically
facilitating broader reflexivity. Risk dialogue can be viewed
as one such process.
It follows from characterising risk
dialogue as a reflexive learning process that technical participants
may ultimately in effect undergo what Beck terms "reflexive
scientization". In "reflexive scientization",
science turns its organised skepticism on itself as a means to
enable effective criticism of science from within. This idea
holds that scientists are the best equipped to critique science
and that such a critique will facilitate the cessation of the
risks associated with technical advance. In risk dialogue reflexivity
is more broadly operationalised via exposure to and interaction
with other knowledges thus extending the conception of "reflexive
scientization" of Beck. Other issues of interest in this
context include the role that risk dialogue may play in developing
other 'reflexive' participative processes and also insights that
might be gained relating to an institutional reform of not only
science itself but also of the mechanisms that mediate between
it and broader society, for instance with regard to policy formation.
As an inherently reflexive and participative
process, risk dialogue, by harnessing the emergent critical appreciation
of science and technology via recent research in broader uncertainty,
should enable more effective management of risk issues. Risk
dialogue can be regarded as a recognition of the emergent reality
of the risk society motivated by the requirement to develop mechanisms
to deal with the necessities that result. Broader recognition
of this will require widespread development and adoption of such
reflexive mechanisms.
CONCLUSION
In summary, risk dialogue characterised
as a reflexive learning process can be regarded as a mechanism
that fulfills Beck's criteria for participative reflexive processes
to deal with risk. Further, the central role played by a critical
appreciation of science and technology underlines not only its
reflexive credentials but also its potential to fulfill what Beck
terms reflexive scientization'. Recognition of the emergent reality
of the risk society will require widespread development of participative
reflexive mechanisms, such as risk dialogue, to deal with the
risks that are now so central to modernity. Risk dialogue indicates
a direction that we must tread if we are to live successfully
in the risk society.
REFERENCES
Beck, U., Risk Society - Towards
a New Modernity. Sage, 1992.
Fischoff, B., 'Risk Perception and
Communication Unplugged: Twenty Years of Process', Risk Analysis,
15 (2), 1995, 137-142.
Funtowicz, S. O., and Ravetz, J.
R., Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy, Kluwer
Academic, Dordrecht, 1990.
Healy, S. and Handmer, J., 'Risk
dialogue and uncertainty', RISKOM (Newsletter of the Risk
Communication Network). 2(l), 1995, 5-6.
Ricci, P, "Uncertainty in human health risk assessment", University of Wollongong, 1995.
Smithson, M, Ignorance and uncertainty:
emerging paradigms, Springer-Verlag, NY, 1989.
Wynne, B., "Uncertainty and
Environmental Learning", in Jackson, T., (ed.), Clean
Production Strategies: developing preventive environmental management
in the industrial economy, Lewis Publishers, Boca Ratan.,
1993.