The tension between professional expertise and democratic governance has become increasingly significant in Western politics. Environmental politics in particular is a hotbed for citizens who actively challenge the imposition of expert theories that ignore forms of local knowledge that can help to relate technical facts to social values.
Where information ideologues see the modern increase in information as capable of making everyone smarter, others see the emergence of a society divided between those with and those without knowledge. Suggesting realistic strategies to bridge this divide, Fischer calls for meaningful nonexpert involvement in policymaking and shows how the deliberations of ordinary citizens can help solve complex social and environmental problems by contributing local contextual knowledge to the professionals’ expertise. While incorporating theoretical critiques of positivism and methodology, he also offers hard evidence to demonstrate that the ordinary citizen is capable of a great deal more participation than is generally recognized. Popular epidemiology in the United States, the Danish consensus conference, and participatory resource mapping in India serve as examples of the type of inquiry he proposes, showing how the local knowledge of citizens is invaluable to policy formation. In his conclusion Fischer examines the implications of the approach for participatory democracy and the democratization of contemporary deliberative structures.
This study will interest political scientists, public policy practitioners, sociologists, scientists, environmentalists, political activists, urban planners, and public administrators along with those interested in understanding the relationship between democracy and science in a modern technological society.
- Contents
- Preface
- PART I Citizens and Experts in the Risk Society
- 1. Democratic Prospects in an Age of Expertise Confronting the Technocratic Challenge
- 2. Professional Knowledge and Citizen Participation Rethinking Expertise
- 3. Environmental Crisis and the Technocratic Challenge Expertise in the Risk Society
- 4. The Return of the Particular Scientific Inquiry and Local Knowledge in Postpositivist Perspective
- PART II Environmental Politics in the Public Sphere Technical versus Cultural Rationality
- 5. Science and Politics in Environmental Regulation The Politicization of Expertise
- 6. Confronting Experts in the Public Sphere The Environmental Movement as Cultural Politics
- 7. Not in My Backyard Risk Assessment and the Politics of Cultural Rationality
- PART III Local Knowledge and Participatory Inquiry Methodological Practices for Political Empowerment
- 8. Citizens as Local Experts Popular Epidemiology and Participatory Resource Mapping
- 9. Community Inquiry and Local Knowledge The Political and Methodological Foundations of Participatory Research
- 10. Ordinary Local Knowledge From Potato Farming to Environmental Protection
- PART IV Discursive Institutions and Policy Epistemics
- 11. Discursive Institutions for Environmental Policy Making Participatory Inquiry as Civic Discovery
- 12. The Environments of Argument Deliberative Practices and Policy Epistemics
- Appendixes
- Notes
- References
- Index
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