Risk Communication Legislation
Wes Jamison PUR 6934 Reaction blog #2 Lundgren and McMakin chapter 3
Chapter 3 is both satisfying and frustrating at the same time in that in states the obvious (e.g. government requires risk communication in certain contexts), provides useful, concise examples (e.g. CERCLA/Superfund risk communication requirements), and yet concludes with a nebulous statement regarding environmental scanning (e.g. check with authorities and your company about what is required) that goes without saying for the experienced practitioner.
The authors conclude that government entities have required risk communications, and a further reading of background materials provides context. Many of the federally mandated requirements emerged in response to previous crises, and the example of the Superfund regulations requiring risk communications is a clear example. Furthermore, a reading of the policy literature related to risk (Douglas and Wildavsky’s Risk and Culture, Clarke and McCool’s Staking Out the Terrain) note that many of the liberal political ideals of the 1960’s and 1970’s became enshrined in legislative and regulatory processes. For example, liberalization of interest group and individual access to previously private, privileged information was a response to the Watergate scandal, The Pentagon Papers, and other exposé’s of the abuse of power and knowledge, which led to the Freedom of Information Act and state-level sunshine laws. Clearly these laws were intended to vest various publics with information regarding potential impacts that affected them, and Lundgren and McMakin do an admirable job of noting the practical outcomes of regulatory legislation---that is, organizations that deal with hazard and risk should anticipate and expect regulation compelling them to disclose and unveil risk information via a variety of processes and venues.
More importantly, the readings provide little insight into the background, history, and presuppositions of the legislation---the context, if you will---and give short shrift to the implications of that legislation. For instance, Wildavsky notes in The Rise of Radical Egalitarianism that the philosophical underpinning of enlightenment humanism fueled the regulatory surge of the 1960’s and 1970’s. He notes that liberal legislators in that era naively assumed that all parties would be good faith actors, that reason and rationalism would carry the day, and that our society would continue to reflect presuppositional value agreement, and thus retain the ability to recognize legislation as legitimate. However, he also notes that a concurrent trend undermined governmental authority: embodied in bumper stickers admonishing citizens to “Question Authority,” the era was marked by a distrust of institutions that would be responsible for implementation of reforms. In other words, Wildavsky argues that the progeny of the 60’s and 70’s not only included reformist legislation regarding risk, but the undermining of institutional credibility and legitimacy. The effect was that the very institutions vested with protecting us came to be seen as increasingly illegitimate!
Hunter and Berger support this observation. Hunter first noted in Culture Wars that epistemological, cosmological and ontological consensus were disintegrating in western culture and America in particularly, and Berger noted in The Limits of Social Cohesion that such levels of consensus were no longer possible given the pervasiveness of pluralism. Indeed, much of Beck’s Risk Society reflected this idea that historical antecedents regarding cultural mediators of risk---those institutions in which we vested trust to help us ‘make sense’ of risk and reality---have collapsed or been delegitimized.
This is all by way of saying that risk communication is built upon a series of questionable presuppositions and ideals, and the book scarcely scratches the surface regarding them. Likewise, the authors’ discussion of the regulatory regime regarding risk communication could have used some reference to the literature on the social and political context of the legislation itself. If the assumptions behind the regulations and legislation are false or no longer hold, then processes to manage risk communication that are built upon those assumptions will likewise fail. In other words, the practitioner’s lack of knowledge regarding social context handicaps their ability to practice: with the proliferation of new media and the fragmentation of social structures and institutions, the ideal of an informed public engaged in rationale debate about risk seems naïve and ill-informed. Indeed, as many risk practitioners will testify, providing information regarding risk, although required by law, does little to ameliorate crisis.
Chapter 3 is both satisfying and frustrating at the same time in that in states the obvious (e.g. government requires risk communication in certain contexts), provides useful, concise examples (e.g. CERCLA/Superfund risk communication requirements), and yet concludes with a nebulous statement regarding environmental scanning (e.g. check with authorities and your company about what is required) that goes without saying for the experienced practitioner.
The authors conclude that government entities have required risk communications, and a further reading of background materials provides context. Many of the federally mandated requirements emerged in response to previous crises, and the example of the Superfund regulations requiring risk communications is a clear example. Furthermore, a reading of the policy literature related to risk (Douglas and Wildavsky’s Risk and Culture, Clarke and McCool’s Staking Out the Terrain) note that many of the liberal political ideals of the 1960’s and 1970’s became enshrined in legislative and regulatory processes. For example, liberalization of interest group and individual access to previously private, privileged information was a response to the Watergate scandal, The Pentagon Papers, and other exposé’s of the abuse of power and knowledge, which led to the Freedom of Information Act and state-level sunshine laws. Clearly these laws were intended to vest various publics with information regarding potential impacts that affected them, and Lundgren and McMakin do an admirable job of noting the practical outcomes of regulatory legislation---that is, organizations that deal with hazard and risk should anticipate and expect regulation compelling them to disclose and unveil risk information via a variety of processes and venues.
More importantly, the readings provide little insight into the background, history, and presuppositions of the legislation---the context, if you will---and give short shrift to the implications of that legislation. For instance, Wildavsky notes in The Rise of Radical Egalitarianism that the philosophical underpinning of enlightenment humanism fueled the regulatory surge of the 1960’s and 1970’s. He notes that liberal legislators in that era naively assumed that all parties would be good faith actors, that reason and rationalism would carry the day, and that our society would continue to reflect presuppositional value agreement, and thus retain the ability to recognize legislation as legitimate. However, he also notes that a concurrent trend undermined governmental authority: embodied in bumper stickers admonishing citizens to “Question Authority,” the era was marked by a distrust of institutions that would be responsible for implementation of reforms. In other words, Wildavsky argues that the progeny of the 60’s and 70’s not only included reformist legislation regarding risk, but the undermining of institutional credibility and legitimacy. The effect was that the very institutions vested with protecting us came to be seen as increasingly illegitimate!
Hunter and Berger support this observation. Hunter first noted in Culture Wars that epistemological, cosmological and ontological consensus were disintegrating in western culture and America in particularly, and Berger noted in The Limits of Social Cohesion that such levels of consensus were no longer possible given the pervasiveness of pluralism. Indeed, much of Beck’s Risk Society reflected this idea that historical antecedents regarding cultural mediators of risk---those institutions in which we vested trust to help us ‘make sense’ of risk and reality---have collapsed or been delegitimized.
This is all by way of saying that risk communication is built upon a series of questionable presuppositions and ideals, and the book scarcely scratches the surface regarding them. Likewise, the authors’ discussion of the regulatory regime regarding risk communication could have used some reference to the literature on the social and political context of the legislation itself. If the assumptions behind the regulations and legislation are false or no longer hold, then processes to manage risk communication that are built upon those assumptions will likewise fail. In other words, the practitioner’s lack of knowledge regarding social context handicaps their ability to practice: with the proliferation of new media and the fragmentation of social structures and institutions, the ideal of an informed public engaged in rationale debate about risk seems naïve and ill-informed. Indeed, as many risk practitioners will testify, providing information regarding risk, although required by law, does little to ameliorate crisis.
posted by Wes Jamison at
1/20/2007 08:49:00 PM
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