Knowledge and expertising for local policy-making: an application to natural hazards

Abstract

The objective of this empirical work has been a better understanding of the elaboration, the appropriation and the uses of knowledge for local policy-making with a particular glance at the experts and expertising in these processes. It has dealt with the case of natural hazards. Knowledge feeds a social elaborated and shared representation of the hazards which appears as the core of the action. The rationalist approaches which envelop public life lead to a scientific and technical legitimacy. In this context, resorting to expertising is inevitable. Information, expertising conclusions are widely distributed, but public debates lack. Expertising is submitted to many tensions. The more accurate come from the ambiguous place of the experts between the scientific and technical pool and the decision-making pool. They aren't independant from the local community but though, they don't coordinate enough. They work a lot for a good diffusion and appropriation of the information. All these exchanges around knowledge give the opportunity of collective learning and matching, which allow to measure the existing forces and to raise the confidence of the public. At the end, suggestions for a better link between knowledge and policy-making are exposed.