Of citizens and experts
Residents can play crucial role in making environmental decisions
Archived article from Jan 26, 2001
By Douglas Frank
Americans have seen recently that their votes do count (even if all the votes are not always counted) and that their electoral democracy is, for the most part, participatory.
But could meaningful citizen participation be extended beyond voting? The question is especially challenging in a complex technological society where the voice of the people is, for the most part, replaced by the opinion of the expert.
Rutgers political scientist Frank Fischer examines the tension between professional expertise and democratic governance in a new book, "Citizens, Experts, and the Environment: The Politics of Local Knowledge" (Duke University Press), published in December.
"Democracy's emphasis on equality of citizenship, public opinion, and freedom of choice exists in an uneasy relationship with the scientific expert's rational, calculating spirit," writes Fischer, professor of political science on the Newark campus.
Environmental politics, in particular, is a hotbed for citizens who actively challenge the imposition of expert theories that ignore local knowledge. Such knowledge can help relate technical facts to social values, according to Fischer.
Fischer explores the often strained interaction between environmental scientists and ordinary citizens. The situation is sometimes portrayed as a dilemma: "Citizens don't have enough knowledge to participate meaningfully in technically oriented policy decisions, but it is difficult in a democracy to legitimately deny citizens a place at the decision-making table."
Even though the citizens' role decreases as the social and technical complexity of modern societies increases, community residents are capable of a great deal more participation than is generally recognized, he asserts.
Fischer shows that the situation is not hopeless, and throughout the book inquires into the realistic possibilities of meaningful citizen participation.
Among other examples around the world, Fischer cites a conflict between citizens and their state government in Woburn, Mass., to show how the local knowledge of residents is invaluable to policy formation.
The discovery of barrels of toxic waste in an abandoned lot, coupled with a noted rise in the incidence of childhood leukemia in the area, caused community members to join together to investigate the problem and to challenge state and local authorities with the data they were able to assemble.
Employing the participatory methods of "popular" epidemiology, "The affected families had confirmed through their own efforts the existence of a leukemia cluster and demonstrated that it was traceable to industrial waste carcinogens that had leached into the drinking water supply," writes Fischer. The case is regarded as a "valuable example of lay detection and communication of risk to scientific experts and government officials."
Central to the book are analyses by Fischer of several examples that point to the kinds of participatory research he proposes and show how the local knowledge of citizens is invaluable to policy formation.
In the state of Kerala, India, for example, participatory and scientific planning was systematically integrated into the process of mapping the local resources. The process brought together local representatives, officials in various departments, governmental and nongovernmental experts relevant to the local planning process and the citizenry. "Civic groups and local representatives, many of whom had heretofore been little more than the passive objects of development planning, were mobilized to work to improve the daily lives of the citizens of Kerala," Fischer writes.
The People's Campaign, as it was called, was able to identify the needs of the people, assess the development problems facing their areas, survey the local resources available, establish feasibility development plans for priority projects, and create a local five-year plan, according to Fischer.
As a result, one of the poorest states in that country has, since the middle to late 1970s, enabled its citizens to enjoy a level of social development that can be compared favorably with more-developed middle-income countries.
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