Practising Objectivity in Environmental Expertise: Bounded creativity in a Dutch Government Expert Organisation

The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency is an advisory body integrated in – be it operating independently from – the Dutch government. Its reputation of authority builds on its (and its predecessors’) long tradition of ‘speaking truth to power’ in the realm of environmental policy. Yet PBL practitioners have come to acknowledge, partly because of various incidents that challenged the institution’s credibility, that serving the Dutch government with appropriate knowledge in a 21st century critical society inevitably requires them to explore the added value of deliberative modes of assessment. This has led the agency to develop an open assessment methodology programme to reflect on cognitive assumptions, the role of uncertainty and the plurality of knowledge practices. While the focus has been on epistemic reflection, the programme triggered ‘deeper’ reflection at the level of PBL’s organisational identity as well, such as its innovative potential, its environmental activist image and the strong alliances with government officials. This paper reflects on the agency’s experimenting with deliberative approaches to environmental assessment, by focussing on the involved practitioners’ perceptions of how such experimentation might impact the organisation’s authoritativeness. A major question that is triggering reflection is whether deliberative knowledge production may result in new ways of demonstrating its authority, given that they might infringe on its public image of objectivity. In this paper we discuss how practical concerns about the quality of knowledge, the role of values and the legitimacy of assessment processes shared in interviews and discussions reflect internalised notions of objectivity, and how these were challenged by the very initiative of merely discussing assessment methods. Seen through the lens of practice, we show how the objectivity norm of what is deemed as independent, rigorous and legitimate knowledge was situationally interpreted. New meanings of objectivity were added in circumstances where this served to increase relevance and credibility. Engagement with policy actors was considered necessary to facilitate policy learning in an independent – in the sense of value-neutral – manner. Extended peer review improved the rigour of the assessment outcomes as it prevented bias or normative framings to go unnoticed. New roles centred on interaction and discussion among participants to improve the legitimacy of the assessment process. Conversely, PBL practitioners still often interpreted objectivity conform the prominent 19th century representation of objectivity as scientific truth. Practitioners emphasised on independence to distance themselves from points of view advocated in political and governance processes; and on scientific rigour to control the quality of stakeholders’ contributions in order to generate reliable knowledge. The practice view in this paper, explains, in our view, why institutional representations of the objectivity norm cannot be changed overnight, while at the same time, when experts experiment they tend to stretch the boundaries of what is ‘appropriate’. PBL practitioners creatively engaged with the dilemmas they raised within the limits imposed by the institutional setting, which were challenged at the same time through the very act of experimenting and reflecting on experimenting. This leads to a diversification of approaches and identities in government science advising.