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AbstractAdvances in estimating the costs and benefits of climate change policies are a welcome development, but a full‐scale cost/benefit analysis that seeks to reduce complex value trade‐offs to a single metric of net benefit maximization hides many important public policy issues, especially for disasters and catastrophes that are large, discontinuous, irreversible and uncertain. States should obtain public input on such policies. These policies involve value trade‐offs that can be informed by technocratic estimates of costs, benefits and risk. However, such analyses cannot, in principle, be reduced to a single recommendation that 'maximizes net benefits'. Politicians must make value trade‐offs informed both by technocrats and by public input.

The Politics of Precaution by David Vogel, and the edited volume, The Reality of Precaution each compare the United States with Europe over a range of regulatory areas. Vogel claims that the US and Europe changed places in recent years with Europe becoming more precautionary than the US. The edited volume covers a wider range of topics and finds that the results are mixed. The evidence of diversity in the edited volume appears convincing, but this essay argues that both volumes too narrowly focus on the precautionary principle. Rather it argues for a broader context that confronts precaution both with the proportionality principle, which is a mainstay of European Union law, and with the limitations of cost/benefit analysis and Impact Assessment. It unpacks the normative underpinnings of these concepts to suggest a broader frame for policy analysis.

Les études d'impact font désormais partie du processus législatif en France. L'auteure présente à cette occasion plusieurs éléments tirés de l'expérience nord‑américaine en faisant tout d'abord porter son analyse sur les valeurs (économiques et non économiques) prises ou pouvant être prises en compte dans les études d'impact. Elle souligne que ces différentes valeurs peuvent entrer en conflit. Elle aborde également les forces et les faiblesses de l'analyse coûts‑avantages, en tant que source d'inspiration clef pour le mouvement en faveur des études d'impact en Europe.

ABSTRACT**:  Government policymakers need to be accountable to citizens, but much government policymaking occurs in ministries that are imperfectly monitored and controlled by the popularly elected legislature. There are good reasons for such delegation, grounded in the expertise of officials and the scarce time of legislators, but the affirmative justifications for delegation do not vitiate the need for public officials to consult with the public and with organized civil society advocacy groups. This article argues that the new democracies of Central Europe have underemphasized this consultative aspect of the transition to democracy. To illustrate, it concentrates on the case of environmental policymaking in Hungary, one of the more advanced democracies in the region. A handful of voluntary civil society organizations play an important role, but the relative weakness of the organizational landscape and of the groups' legal rights to participate in policymaking limit their impact. The article proposes ways to strengthen the role of civil society advocacy groups in emerging democracies.