Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), PO Box 140, FI-00251 Helsinki, Finland.
Sci Total Environ. 2010 Aug 15;408(18):3943-53. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2009.11.034.
To call for integration in risk assessment and governance as a self-evident goal is deceptively easy. For more insight, we ask: what level and kind of integration and for what purposes is needed and sufficient? What opportunities and obstacles can be identified for integrative treatment of risks? What causes and impacts are there of developments in risk integration? To answer these questions we investigate the socio-political processes and factors surrounding integrated risk assessment and risk governance through a combination of literature reviews and original research. We emphasize regulatory assessment and governance of risks associated with chemicals in the EU, but we link them with other areas to better grasp options and problems in integration. We relate the problems to political factors and barriers in sector and vertical integration, including deviating interests, and further to conflicting information, concepts and mindsets. Risk assessment and risk governance involve varying notions of risks and knowledge, with tensions between stressor- or impact-oriented, exclusive or inclusive, positivist or relativist, and fixed or reflexive notions and approaches. These tensions influence the trajectories of integration between sectors, actors and regions, constraining the fulfillment of ideals of integrated governance. We conclude that risk assessment and governance can be integrated, harmonized and innovated to a limit only, but this limit is variable and flexible, and provides opportunities especially if attention is paid to the socio-political contexts, value choices and decision structures in each case. Generally, the results underline a reflexive approach whereby the meanings, framings and implications of risk integration are probed in open processes of deliberation and negotiation, as a learning process to transcend the formal and prescriptive modes of regulation and knowledge generation.
呼吁将风险评估和治理的整合作为一个不言而喻的目标看似简单，但实际上却颇具迷惑性。为了深入了解这一问题，我们提出以下疑问：需要和足够的整合程度和类型是什么？为了综合处理风险，我们可以识别哪些机会和障碍？风险整合的发展有哪些原因和影响？为了回答这些问题，我们通过文献综述和原始研究的结合，调查了围绕综合风险评估和风险治理的社会政治过程和因素。我们强调了欧盟对与化学品相关的风险的监管评估和治理，但将其与其他领域联系起来，以更好地把握整合的选择和问题。我们将这些问题与部门和垂直整合中的政治因素和障碍联系起来，包括利益分歧，以及进一步与相互冲突的信息、概念和思维模式联系起来。风险评估和风险治理涉及不同的风险和知识概念，在强调压力源或影响、排他性或包容性、实证主义或相对主义以及固定或反思性概念和方法之间存在紧张关系。这些紧张关系影响了部门、行为体和区域之间的整合轨迹，限制了综合治理理想的实现。我们得出的结论是，风险评估和治理可以进行整合、协调和创新，但这种整合是有限度的，且具有灵活性，尤其是在关注每个案例中的社会政治背景、价值选择和决策结构的情况下，机会会更多。总的来说，这些结果强调了一种反思性的方法，即通过公开的审议和谈判过程来探究风险整合的意义、框架和影响，作为一种超越正式和规范性监管和知识生成模式的学习过程。
