Research project SE/D7/02 (Research action SE)
Expertise plays a growing role in public decision-making, due to the complexity and technicality of problems. The classic response would be to
increase competence, research, and scientific and technical studies. Yet as acknowledged by Knight as early as the twenties, the reason
expertise is needed is to face the uncertainty inherent in modern societies. What's new, and what justifies characterising our societies as
"risk-based societies", is the nature of the uncertainties: the "new" risks are characterised by (a) globalisation processes (spatial and temporal
extensions of scale), (b) the central role of science and techniques as sources and instruments of knowledge and risk management, (c) the
growing interaction between scientific and social uncertainties, and finally (d) the public character of scientific and technical controversies.
While the State seldom possesses all necessary competence, it is increasingly called upon as a guarantor of sound expertise, which becomes a democratic demand, itself subject to the partially contradictory attitudes of a public opinion that oscillates from ignoring a risk
to demanding zero risk, between faith in science and doubts about technology, etc. In this sense, the research goes beyond an approach
limiting expertise to a good dissemination of techniques and knowledge: the issue here is not only appropriating knowledge but defining (by
debate and negotiation) which knowledge is pertinent, which uncertainties should be resolved.
The central hypothesis is that what is important is the institutional mechanisms of expertise (the various ways interests are represented according to the time and space scales, the public character of facts and debates, forms of participation and media coverage): these mechanisms are the subject of the research, which will cover different cases (health, environment, consumer goods, etc.). We compare different cases so as to establish a typology. Furthermore, because public opinion is now an important variable of these mechanisms, we conduct a survey to assess attitudes of the population regarding them.
