The opportunities and challenges of using electronic means for resolving science-intense conflicts
Ortwin Renn

University of Stuttgart
Department of Environmental Sociology
Seidenstr. 36
D-70174 STUTTGART
Tel. +49-711-121-3970, fax +49-711-121-2487

Abstract 
The emphasis on governance in the recent literature on conflict resolution underlines the need for public participation and stakeholder involvement and necessitates a search for cost-effective means to implement expansive decision making procedures without investing too much time and resources. Each decision making process has two major aspects: what and whom to include on the one hand and what and how to select (closure) on the other hand (Hajer and Waagener 2003; Stirling 2004). Inclusion and selection are therefore the two essential parts of any decision or policy making activity. Classic decision analysis such as Multi-Criteria-Analysis has been offering formal methods for generating options and evaluating these options against a set of predefined criteria. With the advent of new participatory methods, the two issues of inclusion and selection have become more complex and sophisticated than purported in these conventional methods.
First and foremost this means that the four major actors in decision making, i.e. political, business, scientific and civil society players, should jointly engage in the process of framing the problem, generating options, evaluating options, and coming to a joint conclusion. It is obvious, that in doing so these actors are guided by particular interests which derive not only from the fact that some of them are problem producers whereas others are suffering from these problems but equally from their individual institutional rationale and perspective. Suchlike vested interests require specific consideration and measures so that they are made transparent and, if at all, can be reconciled. Inclusive governance, as it relates to the inclusion part of decision making, requires that (Webler 1999; Wynne 2002):
•	there has been a major attempt to involve representatives of all four actor groups (if appropriate);
•	there has been a major attempt to empower all actors to participate actively and constructively in the discourse;
•	there has been a major attempt to co-design the framing of the (risk) problem or the issue in a dialogue with these different groups;
•	there has been a major attempt to generate a common understanding of the problems (based on expertise of all participants) as well as the potential options for resolving the problem and to include a plurality of options that represent the different interests and values of all parties involved;
•	there has been a major effort to conduct a forum for decision-making that provides equal and fair opportunities for all parties to voice their opinion and to express their preferences;
•	there has been a clear connection between the participatory bodies of decision-making and the political implementation level.

If these conditions are met, evidence shows that actors, along with developing faith in their own competence, use the opportunity and start to place trust in each other and have confidence in the process of risk management (Kasperson et al. 1999; Viklund 2002). This is particularly true for the local level where the participants are familiar with each other and have more immediate access to the issue (Petts 1997). Reaching consensus and building trust on highly complex and transgressional subjects such as global change is, however, much more difficult. 
Dealing with more transgressional, transboundary and complex issues requires either a major organisational effort demanding expansive resources or the use of electronic media, in particular Internet.  The selection of Internet as a medium of exchange has its drawbacks, however. The forum on the internet does not allow face-to-face interactions; the dynamic of direct discussions is interrupted and mediated through technology, and the electronic climate creates a propensity to use specific forms of language, style and argumentation. Experience shows, however, that hybrid forms such as a combination of initial and final face-to-face meetings and internet exchange sessions in between has the potential to overcome most of these problems. The paper will address these experiences and show how, in particular, science-intense debates can be successfully structured by combing traditional and electronic means of discourse.

References
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Kasperson, R.E.; Golding, D. and Kasperson, J.X., “Risk, Trust and Democratic Theory,” in: Cvetkovich, G. and Löfstedt, R. (eds.): Social Trust and the Management of Risk (Earthscan: London 1999), pp. 22-41
Petts, J., “The Public-Expert Interface in Local Waste Management Decisions: Expertise, Credibility, and Process,” Public Understanding of Science, 6, No. 4 (1997), 359-381
Stirling, A. Opening Up or Closing Down: analysis, participation and power in the social appraisal of technology, in M. Leach, I. Scoones, B. Wynne (eds.): ‘Science, Citizenship and Globalisation’,(Zed: London 2004)
Viklund, M.: Risk Policy: Trust, Risk Perception, and Attitudes. (Stockholm School of Economics: Stockholm 2002)
Webler, Th., “The Craft and Theory of Public Participation: A Dialectical Process,” Risk Research, 2, No. 1 (1999), 55-71
Wynne, B.:  Risk and Environment as Legitimatory Discourses of Technology: reflexivity inside out?, Current Sociology, 50, 30 (2002), 459-477