For example, the great success of the chemical industry since the Second World War has necessitated the control of many hundreds of potentially hazardous substances in the workplace and in the general environment; the growth in pharmaceutical products has required similar intensive regulation. During this period, concern for the environment has grown, adding to the technical nature of much policy-making. The assumption throughout the literature is that there are very special new problems caused by the need for policy-makers to consider such increasingly technical issues.
But perhaps the problem is one of perception more than of reality. After all, what is the difference between settling a dispute over the control of an industrial chemical (where the workers appeal to scraps of scientific evidence supporting their view that it is poisonous, while management denies it) and making policy on a matter far removed from science—say, subsidies for farmers? Farmers will support ...
