Uncertainty in Policy Making

Values and Evidence in Complex Decisions

Michael Heazle (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

204 Seiten

2016
Routledge (Verlag)
978-1-138-98638-1 (ISBN)

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Uncertainty in Policy Making explores how uncertainty is interpreted and used by policy makers, experts and politicians. It argues that conventional notions of rational, evidence-based policy making - hailed by governments and organisations across the world as the only way to make good policy - is an impossible aim in highly complex and uncertain environments; the blind pursuit of such a 'rational' goal is in fact irrational in a world of competing values and interests.

The book centres around two high-profile and important case studies: the Iraq war and climate change policy in the US, UK and Australia. Based on three years' research, including interviews with experts such as Hans Blix, Paul Pillar, and Brian Jones, these two case studies show that the treatment of uncertainty issues in specialist advice is largely determined by how well the advice fits with or contradicts the policy goals and orientation of the policy elite. Instead of allowing the debates to be side-tracked by arguments over whose science or expert advice is 'more right', we must accept that uncertainty in complex issues is unavoidable and recognise the values and interests that lie at the heart of the issues. The book offers a 'hedging' approach which will enable policy makers to manage rather than eliminate uncertainty.

Michael Heazle is Associate Professor in International Relations with the Griffith Asia Institute and the Department of International Business and Asian Studies at Griffith University

Foreword by Paul Pillar

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

1. Introduction: A Story of (Irrational) Great Expectations

2: Policy Making and Specialist Advice: Concepts and Approaches

3: Empowering Nightmares: Uncertainty and the Precautionary Principle

4: Legitimizing the Iraq Intervention: Threat Inflation versus Precaution

5: Climate Change and the Politics of Precaution

6: Uncertainty, Ideology, and the Politics of Denial

7: Revealing Values and Uncertainty in Policy Debate

8: Alternative Responses to Uncertainty: Bringing Politics Back in

9: Uncertainty as Deus Ex Machina: Some Concluding Remarks

Notes

Bibliography

Erscheinungsdatum	05.02.2016
Reihe/Serie	The Earthscan Science in Society Series
Vorwort	Paul Pillar
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Gewicht	453 g
Themenwelt	Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Ökologie / Naturschutz
	Naturwissenschaften ► Geowissenschaften ► Geologie
	Naturwissenschaften ► Geowissenschaften ► Geophysik
	Recht / Steuern ► EU / Internationales Recht
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
	Technik ► Umwelttechnik / Biotechnologie
ISBN-10	1-138-98638-0 / 1138986380
ISBN-13	978-1-138-98638-1 / 9781138986381
Zustand	Neuware