Responsibility in uncertain times: an institutional perspective on precaution

Precaution is a key issue in environmental governance. Variously defined, intensively debated and introduced in many regulations, its meaning, scope and application remain problematic. This article argues that the controversy on precaution is a matter of culturally patterned expectations concerning the production and use of knowledge and the related social positions and responsibilities. The way uncertainty and its role in the policy process are understood is crucial. For some precaution is a flawed concept, to be accommodated to the current expert-based cooperative scheme. For others it is a major innovation requiring a rearrangement of the latter. Precautionary policies may evolve in dif…