1. Full citation. Vogel, David. The Politics of Precaution: Regulating Health, Safety, and Environmental Risks in Europe and the United States. Princeton [N.J.: Princeton UP, 2012. Print.
2. Where did/does the author work, what else has s/he written about, and what are her/his credentials? David Vogel is professor at the Haas School of Business and in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His books include The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility.
3. What are the topics of the text? This chapter focuses on the dynamics of policy convergence and divergence, the relationship between political institutions and policy styles, and the public perception of risks.
4. What is the main argument of the text?
Mechanisms that promote policy convergence: countries may adopt similar polices because they face similar problems, are pressured to do so by a country or a group of countries that are more economically or politically powerful, countries have agreed to be bound by international treaties, countries may mutually adjust their policies to those of other countries as a response to global economic integration, and because of the international communication or policy learning that takes place in transnational networks of policy
5. Describe at least three ways that the argument is supported.
American firms with substantial investments in or which export to Europe have been affected by the strengthening of European risk regulations; they have been forced to change to retain access to the EU's large market (similar to California effect with car emission regulations)
Citizens are only more likely to worry about risks that are unfamiliar, involuntary, disproportionally affect children/future generations, are man-made, poorly understood, and whose harms are catastrophic (= sometimes too much on some and too little on others) -> serving someone's best interests is the whole reason regulations are made. Convergence can happen when everyone's interests are the same.
In the case of GM products the US has not adopted EU's strict regulations because the costs would be too substantial. How they cope instead: challenge Europe's more stringent regulations as illegal non-tariff trade barriers under the rules of the WTO (using international law to bring about greater policy convergence - negative harmonization) and some American agricultural producers have changed some of their production practices to retain access
6. What three quotes capture the message of the text?
Historically, US states have typically been regulatory laggards, rarely strengthening their health, safety, or environmental standards in the absence of federal requirements that they do so. This explains why during the 1960s and the 1970s, the environmental and consumer movements placed a high priority on shifting the locus of regulatory policy-making from the states to Washington. But more recently, the failure of the federal government to strengthen a wide range of risk regulations has created a policy vacuum which many American states have attempted to fill... since around 1990 states have adopted more stringent risk regulations than the federal government. (p 287)
"The U.S process for making risk decisions impressed all observers as costly, confrontational, litigious, formal and unusually open to participation," while in Europe, "policy decisions about risk, remained, as before, the preserve of experienced bureaucrats and their established advisory networks." (p 289)
When a particular risk emerges matters: identical or similar risks may be perceived differently depending on the broader political context. (p 293)
7. What three questions about environmental risk and precaution does this article leave you with?
How will the environment fare from regulations made today 20 years from now? 50? 100?
What are other ideologies of risk besides the precautionary principle and cost-benefit analysis? What are the pros and cons?
Besides alarm bell hype, how can everyday people be more educated and involved with risk assessment?
8. What three points, details or references from the text did you follow up on to advance your perspective on environmental risk and precaution? (Provide citations, with a brief explanation of what you learned. One of these should be fully annotated, as your second required reading for each week.)
Stephen Breyer's "vicious circle" (p 289)
In Breaking the Vicious Circle, The Honary Stephen Breyer posits that the regulations dealing with human health and safety are largely irrational and supports dergulation via creating a superregulatory federal agency to oversee all regulations that deal with human health
Howard, Margolis, Dealing with Risk: Why the Public and the Experts Disagree on Environmental Issues (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1966), 28.
This compelling account bridges the public policy impasse that has plagued controversial environmental issues by examining the role of intuition, mental habits, and cognitive frameworks in the construction of public opinion, instead of the usual "rival rationalities" explanation proffered by risk analysts to explain the rift between expert and lay opinion.
Crumley, Bruce. "As the Horsemeat Hysteria Spreads, E.U. Opens a Mad-Cow Can of Worms." World As the Horsemeat Hysteria Spreads EU Opens a MadCow Can of Worms Comments. Time, 19 Feb. 2013. Web. 20 Apr. 2013. <http://world.time.com/2013/02/19/as-the-horsemeat-hysteria-spreads-e-u-opens-a-mad-cow-can-of-worms/>.
I looked up mad cow disease and how it affected the EU's perceptions of risk (based on p 292) and came across this news article. It was about how, on Feb. 14, members of the EU.’s executive body took a break from Europe’s horsemeat-impersonating-beef scandal to reauthorize a type of animal feed that was banned in 1997 to battle mad-cow disease — an illness that infected nearly 500,000 animals in Europe and killed around 200 people. This is significant because mad-cow-era precautions are now being rolled back at the very moment the horsemeat flap is raising new concerns about the safety of Europe’s food industry.
Notes
American firms with substantial investments in or which export to Europe have been affected by the strengthening of European risk regulations; they have been forced to change to retain access to the EU's large market (similar to California effect)
Paradoxically, the formal structures of policymaking in the US and the Eu have become more similar: the governance of the EU... more closely resembles the US than it does any European country. But the regulatory policies produced by these similar structures have significantly diverged (similar institutions does not yield similar results)
In the case of GM products the US has not adopted EU's strict regulations because the costs would be too substantial. How they cope instead: challenge Europe's more stringent regulations as illegal non-tariff trade barriers under the rules of the WTO (using international law to bring about greater policy convergence - negative harmonization) and some American agricultural producers have changed some of their proudction practices to retain access
(trading up) Historically, US states have typically been regulatory laggards, rarely strengthening their health, safety, or environmental standards in the absence of federal requirements that they do so. This explains why during the 1960s and the 1970s, the environmental and consumer movements placed a high priority on shifting the locus of regulatory policy-making from the states to Washington. But more recently, the failure of the federal government to strengthen a wide range of risk regulations has created a policy vacuum which many American states have attempted to fill - since around 1990 states have adopted more stringent risk regulations than the federal gov't. (p 287)
There is no relationship between the public's risk perceptions and those of experts. - Citizens are only more likely to worry about risks that are unfamiliar, involuntary, disproportionally affect children/future generations, are man-made, poorly understood, and whose harms are catastrophic (= sometimes too much on some and too little on others) 1970s: Americans cared more about Alar, lead in petrol/gasoline, and ozone depletion that Europeans | Europeans cared more about genetically modified varieties, global climate change, and chemical safety more than many Americans there is no necessary relationship between the public's risk perceptions and the actual risks they face
Past patterns of regulatory policy making do not predict future ones (only pattern is that the more "alarm bells" the stricter the regulations).
Vogel, David. The Politics of Precaution: Regulating Health, Safety, and Environmental Risks in Europe and the United States. Princeton [N.J.: Princeton UP, 2012. Print.
2. Where did/does the author work, what else has s/he written about, and what are her/his credentials?
David Vogel is professor at the Haas School of Business and in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His books include The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility.
3. What are the topics of the text?
This chapter focuses on the dynamics of policy convergence and divergence, the relationship between political institutions and policy styles, and the public perception of risks.
4. What is the main argument of the text?
Mechanisms that promote policy convergence: countries may adopt similar polices because they face similar problems, are pressured to do so by a country or a group of countries that are more economically or politically powerful, countries have agreed to be bound by international treaties, countries may mutually adjust their policies to those of other countries as a response to global economic integration, and because of the international communication or policy learning that takes place in transnational networks of policy
5. Describe at least three ways that the argument is supported.
6. What three quotes capture the message of the text?
7. What three questions about environmental risk and precaution does this article leave you with?
8. What three points, details or references from the text did you follow up on to advance your perspective on environmental risk and precaution? (Provide citations, with a brief explanation of what you learned. One of these should be fully annotated, as your second required reading for each week.)
In Breaking the Vicious Circle, The Honary Stephen Breyer posits that the regulations dealing with human health and safety are largely irrational and supports dergulation via creating a superregulatory federal agency to oversee all regulations that deal with human health
This compelling account bridges the public policy impasse that has plagued controversial environmental issues by examining the role of intuition, mental habits, and cognitive frameworks in the construction of public opinion, instead of the usual "rival rationalities" explanation proffered by risk analysts to explain the rift between expert and lay opinion.
I looked up mad cow disease and how it affected the EU's perceptions of risk (based on p 292) and came across this news article. It was about how, on Feb. 14, members of the EU.’s executive body took a break from Europe’s horsemeat-impersonating-beef scandal to reauthorize a type of animal feed that was banned in 1997 to battle mad-cow disease — an illness that infected nearly 500,000 animals in Europe and killed around 200 people. This is significant because mad-cow-era precautions are now being rolled back at the very moment the horsemeat flap is raising new concerns about the safety of Europe’s food industry.
Notes
American firms with substantial investments in or which export to Europe have been affected by the strengthening of European risk regulations; they have been forced to change to retain access to the EU's large market (similar to California effect)
Paradoxically, the formal structures of policymaking in the US and the Eu have become more similar: the governance of the EU... more closely resembles the US than it does any European country. But the regulatory policies produced by these similar structures have significantly diverged (similar institutions does not yield similar results)
In the case of GM products the US has not adopted EU's strict regulations because the costs would be too substantial. How they cope instead: challenge Europe's more stringent regulations as illegal non-tariff trade barriers under the rules of the WTO (using international law to bring about greater policy convergence - negative harmonization) and some American agricultural producers have changed some of their proudction practices to retain access
(trading up) Historically, US states have typically been regulatory laggards, rarely strengthening their health, safety, or environmental standards in the absence of federal requirements that they do so. This explains why during the 1960s and the 1970s, the environmental and consumer movements placed a high priority on shifting the locus of regulatory policy-making from the states to Washington. But more recently, the failure of the federal government to strengthen a wide range of risk regulations has created a policy vacuum which many American states have attempted to fill - since around 1990 states have adopted more stringent risk regulations than the federal gov't. (p 287)
There is no relationship between the public's risk perceptions and those of experts. - Citizens are only more likely to worry about risks that are unfamiliar, involuntary, disproportionally affect children/future generations, are man-made, poorly understood, and whose harms are catastrophic (= sometimes too much on some and too little on others)
1970s: Americans cared more about Alar, lead in petrol/gasoline, and ozone depletion that Europeans | Europeans cared more about genetically modified varieties, global climate change, and chemical safety more than many Americans
there is no necessary relationship between the public's risk perceptions and the actual risks they face
Past patterns of regulatory policy making do not predict future ones (only pattern is that the more "alarm bells" the stricter the regulations).