Marjolein B. A. van Asselt’s research while affiliated with Maastricht University and other places

Regulating risks in the face of scientific uncertainty poses a particular challenge to policy-makers. Such problems are amplified when decisions are taken in a multi-level framework of supranational governance. The genetically modified organism (GMO) regulation in the European Union constitutes an especially salient issue of risk governance in a multi-lateral arena, as the topic is politically highly visible and decision-making is slow and contested. Furthermore, as authority is dispersed among multiple actors, European risk governance is in need of adequate mechanisms ensuring that decision-makers justify and account for their behavior. While legitimacy aspects of GMO governance have widely been examined, accountability relations within the field of GMO risk governance have hitherto only weakly been explored. Hence, this paper analyzes the question of who can be held accountable under the complex system of supranational risk governance. This paper claims that mere adherence by actors to the regulatory procedures during the decision-making process does not necessarily imply that overall accountability can be secured, resulting in ‘organized irresponsibility’. Although certain piecemeal accountability may exist, establishing overall accountability is complicated, precisely as a result of the complex system of interwoven rules.

Assessing the future is vital in informing public policy decisions. One of the most widespread approaches is the development of scenarios, which are alternative hypothetical futures. Research has indicated, however, that the reality of how professionals go about employing scenarios is often starkly at odds with the theory - a finding that has important ramifications for how the resulting images of the future should be interpreted. It also shows the need for rewriting and updating theory. This book, based on an intensive five year study of how experts actually go about assessing the future, provides a groundbreaking examination of foresighting in action. Obtained via ethnographic techniques, the results lay bare for the first time the real processes by which scenarios are made. It is also the first book to examine foresighting for public policy, which is so often overlooked in favour of business practice. From handling of discontinuity to historical determinism, the analysis reveals and explains why foresight is difficult and what the major pitfalls are. Each chapter ends with a toolkit of recommendations for practice. The book aims to help readers to reflect on their own practices of public-oriented foresight and thus to foster a deeper understanding of the key principles and challenges. Ultimately, this will lead to better informed decision making.

This chapter aims to understand the role of science and knowledge in the regulation of uncertain risks. In such cases, since scientific knowledge is perceived or portrayed to be limited, experts, stakeholders, or the public have or create doubts about the possibility or severity of hazards. At the same time, regulators habitually turn to science and experts in these cases in order to justify their decisions. This “uncertainty paradox” raises important questions about the role of science, knowledge, and experts in uncertain risk regulation. The analysis reveals that the main challenge for EU risk regulation seems to be as to how to break (out of) the uncertainty paradox. The chapter calls for a systematic comparative research of risk regulation regimes in various domains based on an interdisciplinary approach involving legal and policy sciences as well as STS and risk research. It views that this kind of research has the potential to significantly contribute to risk theory, while at the same time raising new issues and new research questions that would require further interdisciplinary research.

Recently, the notion of risk governance has been introduced in risk theory. This chapter aims to unravel this new concept by exploring its genesis and analytical scope. We understand the term “risk governance” as the various ways in which many actors, individuals, and institutions – public and private – deal with risks surrounded by uncertainty, complexity and/or ambiguity. It includes, but also extends beyond, the three conventionally recognized elements of risk analysis (risk assessment, risk management, and risk communication). Risk governance emphasizes that not all risks can be calculated as a function of probability and effect. We argue that risk governance is more than only the critical study of complex, interacting networks in which choices and decisions are made around risks; it should also be understood as a set of normative principles which can inform all relevant actors of society on how to deal responsibly with risks. In this chapter, we take stock of the current body of scholarly ideas and proposals on the governance of contemporary risks along the lines of three principles: the communication and inclusion principle, the integration principle, and the reflection principle.

The term ‘governance’ has been used in political science to describe the multitude of actors and processes that lead to collective binding decisions. The term ‘risk governance’ involves the translation of the substance and core principles of governance to the context of risk‐related decision‐making. Does it involve a major change on how risks are conceptualized, managed, and communicated, or it is just a new fashion? In this paper, we aim to delineate the genesis and analytical scope of risk governance. In our view, risk governance pertains to the various ways in which many actors, individuals, and institutions, public and private, deal with risks surrounded by uncertainty, complexity, and/or ambiguity. It emphasizes that not all risks are simple; they cannot be calculated as a function of probability and effect. It is more than a descriptive shorthand for a complex, interacting network in which collective binding decisions are taken around a particular set of societal issues. The ambition is that risk governance provides a conceptual as well as normative basis for how to deal responsibly with uncertain, complex, and/or ambiguous risks in particular. We propose to synthesize the body of scholarly ideas and proposals on the governance of systemic risks in a set of principles: the communication and inclusion principle, the integration principle, and the reflection principle. This set of principles should be read as a synthesis of what needs to be seriously considered in organizing structures and processes to govern risks.

Despite the basic idea of scenarios as providing a heuristic for identifying, understanding and responding to changed conditions, many scenario studies are criticized for treating the future as an incremental continuation of the past. To understand this discrepancy between theoretical ambitions and actual practice with regard to accommodating change we followed professional futurists around. We observed that futurist curtail and slice time and we identified two temporal repertoires that inhibit different views on how (academic) knowledge about past and present is used in assessing the future: historic determinism and futuristic difference. Our empirically informed analysis is a story about ambitions in line with the futuristic difference, the re-introduction and rise of historic determinism and finally the fall of futuristic difference. Our analysis of foresight in action and foresight output yields that the retreat to historic determinism is a major pitfall for futurists in general. Our story suggest that the futures studies community needs to develop and encourage more adequate responses to the ‘siren’ of historic determinism. Practitioners who aim to employ futuristic difference throughout the foresight endeavour would then be better equipped to succeed in their ambitions.