NAVIGATING A SCIENCE-BASED ORGANIZATION TOWARD JOINT FACT-FINDING Prepared for 11.941: Use of Joint Fact Finding in Science Intensive Policy Disputes (M.I.T., Department of Urban Studies and Planning) Masahiro Matsuura, MCP Ph.D. Candidate Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Urban Studies and Planning 1. Designing an institutional support system for joint fact-finding Currently, a few research institutions seem to be interested in engaging themselves in participatory and collaborative scientific inquiries for several reasons. At least, public relation activities can improve their public image, which might eventually lead to research grants and more funding. However, the introduction of participatory scientific inquiries requires a well-planned strategy to deal with institutional and psychological obstacles that can suddenly bog down such efforts. This paper will discuss how organizations struggling with scientific questions, such as United States Geological Survey (USGS), can successfully achieve an active and permanent supporter’s role in joint fact-finding (JFF) efforts for resolving environmental disputes. 1.1. Environmental Disputes and Scientific Knowledge Social conflicts have existed for almost all the entire human history, and efficient, fair, wise, and stable ways to resolve disputes have been sought for. -1-11.941:Final Paper (2003 Fall) Masahiro Matsuura For example, mediation was practiced even in the biblical times1. The ideas of resolving dispute between the members of the public are nothing new. In modern times, public disputes are more and more concerned with the natural environment and our living conditions. Policy-makers and social scientists investigated systems that could resolve such environmental disputes. In 1973, a regional dispute over the construction of Snoqualmie River Dam in Washington was successfully resolved through mediation. Mediation techniques that had been used in the field of labor negotiation were applied to this Snoqualmie case, and it is generally agreed that this was the first case of environmental mediation2. Since then, mediation has been used in the efforts across the country to resolve environmental disputes. Environmental disputes have become more complex as the field of applied environmental science advanced. Members of the public are more and more cautious about the implications of changing the status quo. Discoveries of negative impacts from chemical substances on human bodies, as well as on fauna and flora, have raised the level of public concerns about potential suffering from industrial developments. For example, Susskind and Cruikshank document a dispute over the implications of human health effects of dioxin3. In the dioxin case, perceptions of the tiniest potential risk triggered an intense environmental dispute even though the risk of suffering cancer from the dioxin emission was not clearly understood. Innovations in social science added another spectrum to the complexity of environmental disputes. Most notably, the methods to valuate environmental goods, such as contingency valuation (CVM) and travel cost 1 Moore, C. W. (1996). The Mediation Process: Practical strategies for resolving conflict. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, p. 20. 2 Dukes, E. F. (1996). Resolving Public Conflict: Transforming community and governance. Manchester: Manchester Univ., pp. 28-32. 3 Susskind, L. and Cruikshank, J. (1987). Breaking the Impasse. New York, NY: Basic Books, pp. 66-70. -2-11.941:Final Paper (2003 Fall) Masahiro Matsuura ) method (TCM), opened a new battlefield for disputants with skills of policy analysis. These methods were used to attach monetary values to intangible goods such as landscape and ecosystems. Cost-benefit analyses, combined with these valuation methods, were conducted as a qualification for public spending. However, the validity and the objectivity of environmental valuation have been repeatedly questioned in controversial situations. Slightly different assumptions could yield completely different valuations of an identical object. What count toward the “environment” has also been a subject of questions: the items to be added as cost or benefit could be chosen subjectively in order to manipulate the cost/benefit (c/b) ratio. Cost-benefit analysis, which was supposed to facilitate more rational decision-making, is being utilized as a tool to justify predetermined decisions. 1.2. Adversarial Science and JFF Unfortunately, additional scientific knowledge has been the source of, rather than the solution for, environmental disputes. In many confrontational disputes in which stakeholders are dichotomized into factions, each side presents different data sets and “scientific” analyses that support its positions—it is adversarial science. Adversarial science is strategically and selectively deployed as an instrument for the advancement of one’s own subjective interests, although it is presented as an objective measure to evaluate alternative plans and their potential outcomes. Disputes become complex as the focus of the conflict moves away from each party’s interests to the construal of scientific information. To deal with the adversary nature of science-intensive disputes, the theory of joint fact-finding (JFF) was developed on the practice of environmental mediation. Joint fact-finding is a process in which “stakeholders with differing viewpoints and interests work together to develop data and information, analyze facts and forecasts, develop common assumptions and informed opinion, and, finally, use the information they -3-11.941:Final Paper (2003 Fall) Masahiro Matsuura have developed to reach decision together4” In most joint fact-finding efforts, scientific advisors are invited so that the stakeholders, often without adequate scientific knowledge, can take advantage of the best available scientific information. Rather than being an advocate for a specific party of a dispute, scientists join as an neutral information source for the deliberation of all stakeholders. Therefore, the stakeholders should agree on the selection of their scientific advisors at the outset in order to prevent adversarial science surfacing in the following discussions. If adversarial science had been a significant source of a deadlock in a dispute, the contending scientists can be invited to the joint fact-finding effort so that their differences in assumptions and methodologies can be