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The Risk Assessment / Risk Management Boundary Myth Making and Its Implications in the United Kingdom

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The Politics of Chemical Risk: Scenarios for a Regulatory Future

Abstract

In this paper, taking chemical regulation and environmental decision making as an example, we explore the grey area that is the boundary between risk assessment and risk management. In particular, we consider how the lack of clarity in this area reinforces a certain approach to pollution control and how it gives this approach the influential label ‘scientific’, but at the same time limits alternative approaches to pollution control by an implicit (and sometimes explicit) assertion that they are ‘non-scientific’. We also look at how this is integrated into the changing political situation in the UK, where there is a growing lack of trust in institutions, as well as a cynicism about democratic processes.

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© 1998 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Mayer, S., Glegg, G. (1998). The Risk Assessment / Risk Management Boundary Myth Making and Its Implications in the United Kingdom. In: Bal, R., Halffman, W. (eds) The Politics of Chemical Risk: Scenarios for a Regulatory Future. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9101-0_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9101-0_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4973-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-015-9101-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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