Collaborative Research: Social Learning in the Management of Global Environmental Risks

这一合作研究项目试图了解人类应对全球环境风险能力长期变化的性质和决定因素。它认为这种能力是各种国内、国家和国际行为者--特别是科学界、非政府组织、私营部门利益集团、国家政府、媒体和国际组织--之间可能相互作用的产物。能力变化的特点是六项管理职能的绩效发生变化：风险评估、在环境中放置风险、应对评估、战略制定、政策执行和监测/评价。该项目的主要理论目标是确定发生这种变化的主要过程，这些过程的决定因素，以及两者如何随时间变化。特别注意确定累积学习，而不是改变官僚结构、利益配置或权力结盟，在多大程度上是观察到的管理变化的基础。主要的应用目标是确定制约功能绩效累积改进的最重要因素，并确定有望改善学习如何管理全球环境风险的前景的政策的特征。这些目标是作为更大的国际合作努力的一部分而进行的，其中包括8个国家如何应对气候变化、臭氧消耗和酸雨带来的风险的详细案例研究。这项工作的重点是改变过去30年来一个特别有影响力的国家--美国--与组织大家庭的互动所产生的社会能力。

This collaborative research project seeks to understand the nature and determinants of long term changes in humanity's competence to deal with global environmental risks. It views that competence as a product of possible interactions among various domestic, state, and international actors: in particular the scientific community, non-governmental organizations, private sector interests, national governments, the media, and international organizations. Changing competence is characterized in terms of the changes in the performance of six management functions: risk assessment, the placing or risks in context, response assessment, strategy formulation, policy implementation, and monitoring/evaluation. The principal theoretical goal of the project is to establish the major processes by which such changes occur, the determinants of those processes, and how both change with time. Special attention is paid to determining the extent to which cumulative learning, as opposed to changing bureaucratic structures, interest configurations, or power alignments, underlies observed changes in management. The principal applied goal is to establish the most important factors constraining cumulative improvements in functional performance, and to characterize policies that might be expected to improve prospects for learning how to manage global environmental risks. These goals are pursued as part of a larger international collaborative effort involving detailed case studies of how 8 countries have dealt with the risks posed by climate change, ozone depletion and acid rain. The work focuses on changing social competencies that have emerged from the interactions of one particularly influential country -- the United States -- with the family of organizations over the last 30 years.