SAMFUNN: Manufacturing legitimacy of environmental policy

This project seeks to explore the relationship between scientific knowledge and political action, aiming to illuminate how scientific knowledge is related to legitimacy of environmental policy. This is done through three empirical case studies. The main c ase study is (a) the development of an environmental management plan for the Barents Sea and the sea areas off the Lofoten islands. The findings will however also be compared with two sub cases; environmental problems relating to (b) overtaxation of fish stocks and (c) production of oil and gas. The project will explore the process of defining an environmental problem, how and by whom relevant scientific knowledge is defined and the related Norwegian parliamentary debates. The aim is both to disentangle how processes of knowledge production and transformation are correlated with the formation of legitimate political alternatives and to map the valuations used by political actors arguing for specific political actions or regulations. The project will ill uminate, in a Norwegian context, the articulation of values in political debates on environmental issues and relate these to the scientific knowledge available to actors involved in elaborating policies. Several key issues in contemporary environmental debates is related to the status of scientific knowledge as certain or uncertain and how to define the limit for a sustainable use of natural resources. Since the project will give a better understanding of the social and political processes related to th ese issues the project is also of public relevance. A critical analysis of contemporary Norwegian environmental policy processes will be relevant for politicians, environmental scientists and the public.