Being deliberative and analytic in environmental policy contexts – An analysis of effectiveness of scientific advice in environmental assessments and management

There is great demand in environmental policy contexts to improve the simultaneous use of analytical tools and deliberative processes needed for good environmental decision making. Due to high degree of complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity in many areas of environmental policy, a combination of thorough analysis and informed deliberation is clearly useful and important for management and policy formulation. In the best cases, there are innovative interdisciplinarity and transacademic collaboration in the process, and scientists and analysts in these cases can be seen as ‘honest brokers’ showing or opening up different views and policy options, or in the worst cases, they end up  to closing down issues, and using ‘black box’ methodology which nobody can understand. This paper discusses theoretical, methodological and empirical challenges applying analytic-deliberative approaches, especially interactive decision analytic approaches, in cases of natural resource governance and impact assessment. It evaluates what additional value this kind of framework can bring to environmental management and assessments. This evaluation is based on the concept of assessment effectiveness. According to that idea assessments and scientific advice is most likely to be effective in influencing decision making to public issues to the extent that they are perceived by their audience and relevant stakeholders as demonstrating credibility (expertise; scientific credentials of assessment), salience (relevancy of assessment; addresses key problems) and legitimacy (assessment perceived as fair).