Paul Stern and Harvey Fineberg: The Analytic-Deliberative Process
Questions of the appropriate role of scientific analysis and of processes for incorporating scientific analysis in policy making are critical to environmental planning and management.
The 1996 National Research Council publication, "Understanding Risk: Informing Decisions in a Democratic Society," edited by Paul Stern and Harvey Fineberg, addresses the science-policy interface through the language of risk characterization:
We propose that it is necessary to reconceive risk characterization in order to increase the likelihood of achieving sound and acceptable decisions. We envision a process in which the characterization of risk emerges from a combination of analysis and deliberation. We offer seven principles for implementing the process.
1. Risk characterization should be a decision-driven activity, directed toward informing choices and solving problems. The view of risk characterization as a translation or summary is seriously deficient. ...
2. Coping with a risk situation requires a broad understanding of the relevant losses, harms, or consequences to the interested and affected parties. …
3. Risk characterization is the outcome of an analytic-deliberative process. Its success depends critically on systematic analysis that is appropriate to the problem, responds to the needs of the interested and affected parties, and treats uncertainties of importance to the decision problem in a comprehensible way. Success also depends on deliberations that formulate the decision problem, guide analysis to improve decision participants' understanding, seek the meaning of analytic findings and uncertainties, and improve the ability of interested and affected parties to participate effectively in the risk decision process. …
4. Those responsible for a risk characterization should begin by developing a provisional diagnosis of the decision situation so that they can better match the analytic-deliberative process leading to the characterization to the needs of the decision, particularly in terms of level and intensity of effort and representation of parties.
5. The analytic-deliberative process leading to a risk characterization should include early and explicit attention to problem formulation; representation of the spectrum of interested and affected parties at this early stage is imperative.
6. The analytic-deliberative process should be mutual and recursive. Analysis and deliberation are complementary and must be integrated throughout the process leading to risk characterization: deliberation frames analysis, analysis informs deliberation, and the process benefits from feedback between the two.
7. Each organization responsible for making risk decisions should work to build organizational capability to conform to the principles of sound risk characterization.
Stern is also coauthor on "The Struggle to Govern the Commons" and the American Psychological Association report on climate change.
