Article ID: CBB796979408

Disclosure Conflicts: Crude Oil Trains, Fracking Chemicals, and the Politics of Transparency (November 2018)

unapi

Many governments and corporations have embraced information disclosure as an alternative to conventional environmental and public health regulation. Public policy research on transparency has examined the effects of particular disclosure policies, but there is limited research on how the construction of disclosure policies relates to social movements, or how transparency and ignorance are related. As a first step toward filling this theoretical gap, this study seeks to conceptualize disclosure conflicts, the social processes through which secrecy is challenged, defended, and mobilized in public technoscientific controversies. In the case of shale oil and gas development (“fracking”) in the United States, activists and policy makers have demanded information about the contents of fluids used in the extraction process and the routes of oil shipments by rail. Drilling and railroad companies have resisted both demands. Studies of such disputes reveal the dynamic and conflictual nature of information disclosure. In both cases, disclosure conflicts unfold dynamically over time, reflecting power disparities between industry groups and their challengers and requiring coalitions of activists to pursue multiple tactics. When a disclosure policy is established, it does not resolve social conflict but shifts the focus of struggle to the design of information systems, the quality of disclosed data, and the knowledge gaps that are now illuminated.

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Authors & Contributors
Manuel Tironi
Colleen Lanier-Christensen
Valentin Thomas
Maite P. Salazar
Richter, Lauren
Pandey, Poonam
Concepts
Regulation
Technoscience; science and technology studies
Public policy
Controversies and disputes
Science and politics
Expertise
Time Periods
21st century
20th century
Places
India
Patagonia
United States
Germany
Europe
European Union
Institutions
HidroAysén
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
European Commission
United States. Food and Drug Administration
United States. Environmental Protection Agency
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