Integrated risk assessment and risk governance as socio-political phenomena: a synthetic view of the challenges

Abstract

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.