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Knowledge, power, and participation are absolutely central to the understanding of any policy. But it is the area of environmental policy issues where, from the 1970s onwards, an impressive knowledge base has become available across various disciplines and research traditions. The process of rethinking scientific and political rationality is evident in developments within converging fields such as political science, including international relations, public administration and implementation studies; the utilization of knowledge tradition in the policy sciences; the sociology of science and technology; technology and integrated environmental assessment; and philosophy of science. The study of environmental policy issues tends to bring about a convergence between research areas in political science that have stood apart for most of the twentieth century. The implications for political theory have drawn attention especially since the nuclear power issue provoked a flow of publications in the 1980s. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.

Hisschemoller and Hoppe hitch on to William N. Dunn's point by stating that, when policymakers stubbornly continue to address such a "wrong" policy problem, there is good chance that "intractable controversies" will arise. In their eagerness to minimize trouble, policymakers seek to contain policy problems by structuring them so that the range of possible solutions can be constricted to existing repertoires. For coping with unstructured problems, they advocate a "learning strategy" which is inspired by Rein and Schon's concept of "frame reflection". The chapter analyzes the co-evolution of the Dutch policy regime regulating the introduction of genetically modified organisms in the lab and in the fields on the one hand, and the raise of an intractable controversy about the same subject on the other. In the emerging regulatory regime, policymakers only addressed the problem of biotechnology in terms of risk, the handling of which they expected to be warranted straightforwardly and appropriately by a preventive statutory framework.

According to mainstream policy wisdom, knowledge utilization is a function of both political and scientific consensus. The substantial technical core in environmental policy, and its wide-ranging impacts on decisions and behaviors of firms, households, and consumers, only underscores this double requirement. This chapter argues that the problematic relationship between knowledge use and political choice can be understood as a particular instance of boundary work at the politics-science nexus, that is, the dialectics between the scientization of politics and the politicization of science. Problem structuring, like the idea of quality control through extended peer review, aims at an escape from the potential dilemma between democratic political choice and technocratic use of scientific knowledge. The problem thus appears to be moderately structured. However, there is evidence that the theory fails to grasp the real life situation with respect to Dutch fisheries.

This chapter presents several scenarios, each one highlighting a particular modality of intermediary sponsorship in relation to changing contexts, and specifies implications for aggregation machines and peer review. It also gives us a better view of possible developments at the science-society interface. The structure of the aggregation machines will not change very much, and area panels or councils will remain important. Special programs, in response to external, political, and societal agendas, are instituted, and sometimes have their own type of review. The concept of "aggregation machine" derives its importance from the possibility to compare across funding agencies at the level of processes and mechanisms and to extrapolate to changed contexts. The spectrum of possibilities for institutional change of funding agencies is not unlimited. In particular, the shift toward relevance of science, and the partial lock-in into the regime of "Strategic Science" must be taken into account.

Between 1972 and 1987, Canada and the United States established a complex regime for the protection of the Great Lakes, the largest body of fresh water on the planet. The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement is an executive agreement that acknowledges that the two countries depend on each other for the well being of the Great Lakes. The agreement has evolved in three phases, each with its own character. The first phase was from 1972 to the renegotiation of a new agreement in 1978. The second phase, from 1978 to the addition of a new protocol in 1987, was dominated by confirmation of the complexity and seriousness of toxic contamination of the ecosystem, and by growing public concern about how this problem could be managed. The third phase, from 1987 to the present, brought major changes in relationships with the International Joint Commissions and in the operations of the agreement's institutions that are still evolving.

Sjoerd Keulen, Monumenten van beleid. De wisselwerking tussen Nederlands rijksoverheidsbeleid, sociale wetenschappen en cultuur, 1945-2002 (Dissertatie Universiteit van Amsterdam; Hilversum: Verloren, 2014, 400 pp., ISBN 978 90 8704 443 5).

Nederland heeft een goed ontwikkeld en uniek, want in de (grond)wet verankerd, adviesstelsel. Naast bijdragen aan probleemoplossing, hebben adviescolleges taken op het gebied van (middel)lange termijn koersbepaling, agendering van nieuwe vraagstukken, en het organiseren van tegenspraak en tegenwicht in de beleidsvoorbereiding van de Rijksoverheid. Tien jaar geleden vond in de zogenoemde 'Woestijnwet' een eerste drastische sanering en afslanking van dit adviesstelsel plaats. Het huidige kabinet heeft in het regeerakkoord ingezet op een tweede afslankingsronde. Door politieke centralisatie van de vraag naar adviezen en een verdere vermindering van het aantal en de diversiteit van adviescolleges krijgt dienstbaar, instrumenteel deskundigenadvies alle nadruk. Juist nu nieuwe, niet-gedomesticeerde problemen en uitdagingen zich aandienen, dreigt een serieuze uitholling van kritisch denken en georganiseerde tegenspraak in de wetenschappelijke beleidsadvisering. Lijdt het huidige kabinet aan 'anorexia consulta'?

Ten tijde van de oprichting van het tijdschrift Beleidswetenschap, negentien jaar geleden, waren de voorwaarden die een wetenschappelijk tijdschrift en studiegebied levensvatbaar maken volop aanwezig. Er was sprake van een (redelijk) gelijkgestemde kring van (inter)nationale wetenschapsbeoefenaren van voldoende omvang, een stroom opdrachten en veel onderzoek, en een niet onaanzienlijk aantal onderzoekers binnen en buiten universiteiten die tot merendeels goede publicaties kwamen, en niet in de laatste plaats een ruime kring van lezers, waaronder vakbeoefenaren. Uitgevers toonden interesse en er was een enthousiaste redactie. In de afgelopen twee decennia zijn er in Nederland veel beleidsstudies verricht, veel nummers van dit tijdschrift verschenen, maar meerdere van de genoemde condities zijn de laatste jaren weggevallen. Wetenschappers gingen meer internationaal publiceren en 'beleidsstudies' werd in academische opleidingen teruggedrongen ten faveure van managementvakken en andere studieonderdelen. En vooral: nieuwe uitgevers wensten na een fusiegolf – Beleidswetenschap ging over van uitgeverij Samsom via Kluwer naar LEMMA, een uitgeverij die vervolgens overging naar Boom – een 'stevig' aantal abonnees. Dit tijdschrift verdwijnt vooral om deze laatste reden, nadat eerder het door het ministerie van Financiën ondersteunde tijdschrift Beleidsanalyse om een andere reden – een tijdschrift subsidiëren werd niet langer als kerntaak beschouwd – al sneuvelde. Tijd dus voor een terugblik op bijna twintig jaar voortgang in de beleidswetenschap in Nederland, alsmede een paar aanduidingen van een mogelijke voortzetting van de beleidswetenschappelijke 'beweging' in Nederland. We baseren ons daarbij onder meer op onderzoeksthema's en raadpleegden meer dan honderd verschenen dissertaties die betrekking hebben op beleid.

This volume probes practical dilemmas and competing research perspectives in environmental policy analysis. Scholars working in different fields, research traditions, societies, and policy domains offer significant insights into the processes and consequences of environmental policy making. Part 1, "Coping with Boundaries," describes present-day conflict between experts and greater public participation in environmental policy. It shows that the institutionalization of increasingly complex environmental problems has led to a conflict between technocracy and democracy. Part 2, "The Transnational Challenge," examines modes of cooperation between grassroots movements, scientists, and regional authorities in the United States and Canada. These and other modes of cooperation laid the foundations for the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, increased the effectiveness of air pollution treaties, and increased climate change. Part 3, "Bio-Hazards: Policies and Paralysis," deals with environmental prob-lems closest to the everyday concerns of the public at large because they have immediate implications for food safety and other values. Part 4, "The Citizens' Perspective," focuses on citizen vis-a-vis environmental policy, noting that in order to make policies work citizens must be willing and able to participate in policy-making and cooperate in implementing environmental choices. Part 5, "Confronting Ordinary and Expert Knowledge," explores opportunities and constraints affecting public participation in evaluation of science. Part 6, "Developments in Research Programming," addresses such questions as whether scientists still have opportunities to do the research they want without being interrupted or disturbed by policy makers and other stakeholders. Part 7, "Policy Sciences' Aspirations," explores different avenues for improving environmental policy. Volume twelve in the PSRA series should inspire further investigations of the relations among knowledge, power, and participation in environmental policy. It will be of timely interest to environmentalists, policy-makers, scholars, and the general public.

This chapter argues that four types of problems can be discerned in the policy process: structured, unstructured, and two types of moderately structured problems. It also argues that policymakers show the inclination to move away from unstructured problems to more structured ones; even at the cost of losing touch with the true complexity and normative volatility of the problems as experienced by other groups. When "containment" efforts fail, problems become unstructured and controversies flare up. This is illustrated in a case study of the so-called "Not In My BackYard"-phenomenon in hazardous waste facility siting. Intractable controversies occur when policymakers stubbornly continue to address the "wrong" policy problem. The chapter shows how these controversies can be transformed into a productive process of learning by problem structuring and problem choice. It discusses political prerequisites for such policy learning and reviews some implications of policy design as well as in policy analysis.