NOMOKRATOS vzw

 

 

 

 

 

 

Het beheer van maatschappelijke risico’s, gegijzeld tussen het algemeen belang en politieke belangen?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Door Manuel Dierickx Visschers

 

 

 

 

 

Gesponsord door:

 DIVI COSMETICS BVBA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inhoudsopgave

 

I. Inleiding

II. De theorievorming omtrent de public interest theorieën van regelgeving

III. Kritieken op de public interest theorieën

IV. De genuanceerde theorieën van algemeen belang

V. De theorievorming omtrent de private interest theorieën van regelgeving

VI. Voorlopige besluiten: de nood aan externe controle

VII. Een eerste illustratie: de analyse van maatschappelijke risico’s

VIII. Een tweede illustratie: het risicomanagement

IX. Enkele beleidsconclusies

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I. Inleiding

 

Risico’s voor en binnen onze samenleving zijn overal. Deze risico’s kunnen gelden voor ons als individuen afzonderlijk of voor de samenleving in haar geheel. Bedreigingen van onze gezondheid vormen wellicht de grootste zorg die we kennen. Daarom staan ze ook hoog op de politieke agenda en leiden ze snel tot politieke initiatieven. Deze laatste vaststelling zorgt ervoor dat het beheer of de beheersing van maatschappelijke risico’s, samengevat het ‘risicomanagement’, aan dezelfde krachten onderhevig is als deze die bij de totstandkoming van wetgeving meer algemeen spelen.

 

In de economische theorievorming over de totstandkoming van wetgeving zijn de dwingende redenen van algemeen belang aangemerkt als de eerste verklaringsgrond voor het ontstaan van wetgeving. Vooreerst rijst de vraag wat we moeten begrijpen onder deze publieke belangen die wetgeving zouden noodzaken. Hierbij onderzoeken we ook of deze aangehaalde redenen van algemeen belang met de werkelijkheid overeenstemmen. Pas later, en vooral als kritiek op deze public interest theorieën, zijn er inzichten ontwikkeld die de klemtoon bij de ontstaansgeschiedenis van wetgeving leggen op het nastreven van het eigenbelang van de wetgevers.

 

Hoewel nog steeds wat onderbelicht in zowel de neo-klassieke welfare economics als in de klassieke rechtsleer en politieke wetenschappen, vormen de politieke factoren een cruciaal onderdeel van de politieke besluitvorming en dus van de vormgeving van wetgeving.  Hoewel de rol en impact van de politieke drijfveren bij de totstandkoming van wetgeving moeilijk te bewijzen valt, gelet op het vaak vertrouwelijke en discrete karakter van de politieke besluitvorming, zijn er toch een aantal belangrijke aanwijzingen waarom deze hypothese als waarschijnlijk te bestempelen valt.

 

Tot slot keren we terug naar de in belang groeiende thematiek als risicobeheer, met een focus op de gezondheidsrisico’s van chemische producten. Hierbij zal blijken dat risico-analyse als normatief kader veel kenmerken deelt met de theorieën van de public interest, maar dat tegelijkertijd het politieke eigenbelang, wat dit ook moge zijn of hoe dit ook tot stand kwam, zwaar doorweegt bij de vormgeving van het uiteindelijke beleid inzake risico-management.

Deze studie pleit dan ook voor een nieuw beleidskader inzake risico-analyse en -management om deze politieke krachten in toom te houden.

II. De theorievorming omtrent de public interest theorieën van regelgeving

 

Voor de economische wetenschap bestaan er in essentie twee grote verklaringen voor de totstandkoming van wetgeving: “There are two broad traditions with respect to the economic theories of regulation. The first tradition assumes that regulators have sufficient information and enforcement powers to effectively promote the public interest. This tradition also assumes that regulators are benevolent and aim to pursue the public interest. Economic theories that proceed from these assumptions are therefore often called ‘public interest theories of regulation’.”[1] Cruciaal hierbij zijn de drie noodzakelijke voorwaarden die cumulatief vervuld moeten zijn: de wetgever moet (1) voldoende kennis van zaken hebben over het maatschappelijk probleem en de wijze waarop dit aangepakt kan worden; (2) over voldoende bestuurskracht beschikken om de wetgeving in te voeren en de gewilde gedragswijziging desnoods af te dwingen en (3) welmenend of te goeder trouw zijn in het bepalen en nastreven van dit algemeen belang.

 

Daartegenover staan de theorieën die het nastreven van eigenbelang als grondslag van regelgeving benadrukken: “Private interest theories explain regulation from interest group behaviour. Transfer of wealth to the more effective interest group often also decrease social welfare. Interest groups can be firms, consumers or consumer groups, regulators or their staff, legislators, unions and more. The private interest theories of regulation therefore overlap with a number of theories in the field of public choice and thus turn effectively into theories of political actions. Depending on the efficiency of the political process, social welfare either increases of decreases.”[2] Volgens deze private interest theories of regulation kan immers slechts zelden tegelijkertijd aan de drie voorwaarden van de public interest theorieën voldaan worden, waardoor deze theorieën realiteitswaarde missen.

 

Uit het voorgaande vloeit nog een tweede groot verschil tussen beide soorten theorieën voort. Cruciaal binnen de public interest theorieën staat de concepten van marktfaling en efficiënte overheidsinterventies. Daarom zou de efficiënte regulering die deze marktfalingen aanpakt, de maatschappelijke welvaart moeten verhogen: “According to these theories, the regulation of firms or other economic actors contributes to the promotion of the public interest. This public interest can further be described as the best possible allocation of scarce resources for individual and collective goods and services in society.”[3] In essentie hebben de public interest theorieën dus vooral allocatieve doeleinden – het verbeteren van de allocatie van goederen en diensten aan zoveel mogelijk consumenten –  terwijl de private interest theorieën vooral wijzen op het herverdelende doelstellingen van wetgeving, waarbij bepaalde groepen die de wetgeving bepalen, de welvaart (proberen) af (te) snoepen van andere groepen.

 

Dit onderscheid leidt er ook toe dat public intrest theorieën vooral een normatief karakter hebben – dus hoe regelgeving er zou moeten uitzien – en de private interest theorieën vooral positief of empirisch van aard zijn, m.a.w. zij verklaren de totstandkoming van regelgeving zoals die daadwerkelijk gebeurt: “[T]he mainstream economic literature is implicitly or explicitly critical of the public interest theories of regulation. These theories are often thought to be ‘normative theories as positive analysis’ (Joskow and Noll, 1981), implying that the evaluative theoretical and empirical analysis of markets has been used to explain actual regulatory institutions in practice. The public interests theories of regulation are described as rationalizing existing regulations, while private interest theories are discussed as theories that explain existing regulation (for example Ogus, 2004). According to some other authors, there even is no such thing as public interest theories of regulation or they are a misinterpretation and have lost validity (Hantke-Domas, 2003; Häg, 1997).”[4] Hoewel de public interest theorieën dus geen echte verklaring voor de totstandkoming van regelgeving kunnen bieden, heeft hun normatief karakter echter ook zijn voordelen, vooral als toetsingskader voor experts bij de opmaak van wetgeving.

 

Laten we nu wat dieper ingaan op de inhoud en draagwijdte van de diverse vormen van algemeen belang. Cruciaal hierbij is te onderkennen dat deze theorieën voortvloeien uit de neoklassieke welvaartseconomie en haar uitgangspunten dat de perfecte mededinging de meest efficiënte of welvaartsverhogende economische situatie vormt: “In western economies, the allocation of scarce resources is to a significant extent coordinated by the market mechanism. In theory, it can even be demonstrated that, under certain circumstances, the allocation of resources by means of the market mechanism is optimal (Arrow, 1985). Because these conditions do frequently not apply in practice, the allocation of resources is not optimal from a theoretical perspective and a quest for methods of improving the resource allocation arises (Bator, 1958). This situation is described as a market failure. A market failure is a situation when scarce resources are not put to their highest valued uses.”[5] Elke afwijking van deze perfecte mededinging binnen de marktwerking wordt dus vrijwel automatisch als een marktfalen beschouwd en heeft dus tot gevolg dat de samenleving in zijn geheel een economisch verlies (of een verspilling van schaarse goederen of diensten) lijdt.

 

De reden waarom de perfecte mededinging als ideaal beschouwd wordt voor de maatschappelijke welvaart, verdient wel nog een woordje uitleg. Volgens de neo-klassieke economie gaat de logica als volgt: “Ideally in a market, the production by a firm should expand until a situation arises where the marginal resource of a cost of an additional unit equals its marginal benefit or price. Equalization of prices and marginal costs characterizes an equilibrium in a competitive market. If costs are lower than the given market price, a firm will profit from a further expansion of production. If costs are higher than price, a firm will increase its profits by curtailing production until price again equals marginal cost. A market equilibrium, and more generally an equilibrium of all markets is thus a situation of an optimal allocation of scarce resources. In this situation supply equals demand and under the given circumstances can market players do no better. A great number of conditions have to be satisfied for an optimal allocation in a competitive market economy to exist, see generally Boadway and Bruce (1984).”[6]

 

Wanneer we deze wat wiskundige beschrijving (op basis van de Cartesiaanse functieleer) in gewone mensentaal vertalen, zorgt de vrije (= ongehinderde) markt ervoor dat het nastreven van het eigenbelang door de diverse marktspelers (wat trouwens verspilling tegengaat en efficiëntie verhoogt) als gevolg van de (perfecte) concurrentie getemperd en met elkaar in evenwicht gebracht wordt. Adam Smith gaf deze marktwerking trouwens de alom bekende benaming van invisible hand waarbij alle individuele efficiëntiewinsten op een optimale wijze zijn samengevoegd tot een maximale welvaart voor de samenleving als verzameling van de individuen. Om de welvaartsverhogende werking van deze invisible hand in stand te houden zou daarom bij marktfalen corrigerende wetgeving ingevoerd worden ten einde deze tekortkomingen in de markt weg te werken: “One of the methods of achieving efficiency in the allocation of resources when a market failure is identified, is government regulation (Arrow, 1970, 1985; Shubik, 1970).”[7]

 

Waaruit bestaat nu dit marktfalen precies of wanneer juist is er sprake van marktfalen? Den Hertog onderscheidt vier situaties waarin sprake is van een marktfaling: “Starting from the allocation of scarce resources by a competitive market mechanism, four types of market failures can be distinguished. Discrepancies between values and resource costs can arise as a result of imperfect competition, unstable markets, missing markets or undesirable market results. Imperfect competition will cause prices to deviate from marginal resource cost. Unstable markets are characterized by dynamic inefficiencies with respect to the speed at which these markets clear or stabilize. These instabilities waste scarce resources. Missing markets imply the demand for socially valuable goods and services for which total value exceeds total cost but where process or markets do not arise. And finally, even if the competitive market mechanism allocates scarce resources efficiently, the outcomes of the market processes might still be considered to be unjust or undesirable from other social perspectives.”[8] Deze indeling verschilt enigszins van de vier klassieke vormen van marktfalen, namelijk monopolievorming, het gebrek aan publieke goederen, informatie-asymmetrieën en (negatieve) externaliteiten, maar is eigenlijk completer en legt de koppeling met het uitgangspunt van perfecte mededinging duidelijk vast, weliswaar met uitzondering van de vierde soort van marktfaling. Laten we nu bekijken welke marktfaling van toepassing kan zijn bij de productie van en handel in chemische producten.

 

Centraal staat het economisch probleem van onbestaande of ontbrekende markten, waardoor er helemaal geen welvaartscreërende transacties of een productie van noodzakelijke goederen en diensten kunnen ontstaan. Het bekendste voorbeeld van ontbrekende markten vloeit voort op informatie-asymmetrieën. Hierbij dienen we vooraf een onderscheid te maken tussen ‘search goods’, waarvan de kwaliteit kan vastgesteld worden vooraleer het goed aangekocht wordt, en ‘experience goods’, waarvan de kwaliteit pas na aankoop of consumptie duidelijk wordt. In een overtreffende trap zijn er nog ‘credence goods or trust goods’ waarvan de intrinsieke eigenschappen pas lang na het verbruik kunnen vastgesteld worden. Het is logisch dat consumenten belang hebben bij correcte informatie over hun aankopen, en in een concurrentiële markt hebben ook de producenten voordeel om de relevante eigenschappen van hun producten openbaar te maken.

 

Maar, en nu komt de marktfaling op de proppen, “the ‘information market’ is characterized by market failures and these failures spill over to the market for goods and services (Hirshleifer and Riley, 1979). On the demand side, information will be searched until the marginal cost equals marginal benefit. However, since search intensifies competition, it produces external benefits for uninformed parties. As a result, information is searched in suboptimal amounts from a social perspective.”[9] Marktverstorende negatieve externaliteiten dus. De marktwerking kan trouwens op nog andere manieren verstoord geraken: “Furthermore, at a general level information will be undersupplied. The production of information is costly, but the dissemination is not. If competition drives prices down to marginal distribution costs, it will be difficult to cover the fixed cost of production. Also, the market will undersupply the optimal amount of information when producers are not able to fully appropriate all the revenues from their investments. Examples are the investments in the knowledge of the health and safety dimensions of chemical substances.”[10]

 

Tot slot is er nog de overbekende marktfaling van Akerlofs bad lemons wanneer “information will not be supplied when it is not in the interest of the sector itself to do so, as is the case in situations of collective ‘bads’ such as smoking hazards. When it is not possible to establish the relevant quality dimensions of particular goods or services in advance, purchasers will be prepared to pay an average price corresponding with the average expected quality. Sellers of high quality products will not be prepared to sell at that asking price, and will withdraw from the market. The end-result is that the quality of goods and services will decline, as will the price buyers are prepared to pay. In this process of adverse selection, high quality goods are driven from the market by low-quality goods. In addition, the asymmetric distribution of information can also give rise to moral hazard in the enforcement of contracts, which means that parties take advantage of their information lead.”[11] Merk hierbij opnieuw ook het speltheoretisch probleem op dat wanneer spelers geen informatie van elkaar verkrijgen, zij keuzes maken die enerzijds vanuit individueel standpunt efficiënt zijn, maar op maatschappelijk vlak suboptimaal zijn.

 

Informatietekorten die de totstandkoming van inter- of transacties belemmeren, ontstaan trouwens ook wanneer mensen keuzes maken op basis van bounded rationality: “Consumers and workers are assumed to make rational, welfare maximizing choices. In this respect, a distinction should be made between the rationality of the outcome and the rationality of the decision making process leading to that outcome. If consumers or workers experience limits in absorbing and evaluating information, they will adapt their preferences and their decision making processes accordingly. Given those limits, the outcome of the decision making process may be defined as ‘boundedly’ rational.”[12] Maar pas nu komt de kat op de koord: “The general implication is that ordinary people make mistakes: they rely on mental shortcuts, they are subject to social influences that lead them astray and they neglect trade-offs […]. The conclusion is that people are only boundedly rational and that consequently the allocation of resources driven by misguided or mistaken decisions will be inefficient. There problems may be exacerbated if regulators act upon such preference to change the allocation of resources.”[13] Daar waar de diagnose van bounded rationality deel uitmaakt van het domein van behavioural economics, moeten de oplossingen die de behavioural law and economics voorstellen met de nodige terughoudendheid bejegend worden.

 

Het risico op minder rationele en dus minder efficiënte keuzes van marktspelers vergen dan ook een eigensoortige regulering: “The problems of bounded rationality, adverse selection and moral hazard may explain the existence of, for example, the introduction of private or public certificates, minimum quality standards for the safety of food, toys, cars etc., licenses and other trading regulations for professional groups such as building contractors, hairdressers and plasterers, and more. By means of these rules, minimum requirements can be set on the commercial knowledge, professional skills and creditworthiness, and more, so that transaction costs decline and the information problems are reduced (Leland, 1979; Shapiro, 1986; Zerbe and Urban, 1988). […] It is a matter of empirical research to determine if those regulations are to be preferred above private solutions, such as developing a reputation, tort liability and self-regulation.”[14] De afweging van alternatieven van en voor afweging blijft dus belangrijk.

 

Maar bij dit alles hoort een grote waarschuwing dat “if preferences are distorted, a vicious circle of public perceptions, parliamentary action and regulatory methods may arise. In economics, revealed or stated preferences are the main explanatory device and evaluative measure of regulatory practices. Justification of regulation or the explanation of regulation from a market failure perspective becomes difficult if preferences are distorted (Adler and Posner, 2001; Sunstein, 2002). Hence, paternalist theories of government intervention become once more the object of debate and scientific research. (Ogus, 2005; Glaeser, 2006; Thaler and Sunstein, 2008)”[15] Sommige van deze economen hebben hiervoor zelfs een nieuw beleidsstrategie ontwikkeld, namelijk nudging of het  (zacht) aanporren of duwen van de marktspelers in de gewenste richting zonder evenwel hen daartoe te verplichten.

 

Een tweede vorm van ontbrekende markten ontstaat wanneer transactiekosten dermate hoog kunnen zijn dat er geen transacties meer kunnen plaatsvinden, wat dus een ontbrekende markt is. En dat vormt een groot probleem wanneer de samenleving (negatieve) externaliteiten wilt internaliseren, d.i. de kost leggen bij hij die ze veroorzaakt of die er winst uit haalt. Wat zijn nu (negatieve) externaliteiten precies? “Externalities are a cost or utility effects for third parties outside the market interactions where these external effects develop. An often cited textbook example concerns the discharge of waste material by a factory such that downstream drinking water companies must incur costs of water purification. Because the private costs for the discharging manufacturer differ from the social costs, production will be increased further than would be desirable from the point of view of efficient allocation of resources.”[16]

 

En nu komen tot transactiekosten naar voor: ‘According to the Coase theorem , an efficient allocation of resources can nonetheless result from a process of negotation in the case of clearly defined property rights and in the absence of transaction costs (Coase, 1960). However, information costs, bargaining costs or enforcement costs may prevent efficient solutions. Negotiation costs can be prohibitively high of several parties are involved in the negotiating process or if elements of strategic behavior are present. Furthermore, there may be situations where the aggregated damage is large, while the damage per person may be too small to organize and participate in any action.  Also, it may not even be known who causes the damage, as for example in the case of secret oil dumping at sea, of it may not be known which substances causes the damage (acid rain). The damage may also manifest itself years after exposure, as in the case of cancer from asbestos, or future generations may be the main victims. In those cases, it will be difficult to prove causality between the negligent act and damages. Finally, even if hold liable, firms may not be able to financially compensate for the damages. In all such cases, the market failure is accompanied by a private law failure and regulation may be the more efficient solution if the costs of regulatory intervention are lower that the benefits in terms of welfare loss control. Examples of such internalization of social costs are safety regulations for items such as automobiles and food, noise levels for aircraft, the obligation to use catalytic converters in automobiles and limits to the emission of hazardous substances in permits.”[17]

 

III. Kritieken op de public interest theorieën

 

Al sinds geruime tijd liggen de public interest theorieën vanuit diverse hoeken onder intens vuur: “Theories explaining regulation as an efficient solution to market failures, have been criticized from different angles. First, the core of the public interest theories of regulation, the market failure theory, has been the object of criticism. Second, the hypothesis that government regulation is efficient or effective, has been claimed to have been invalidated by empirical research. Contrary to this criticism, it has in the third place been argued that it is impossible to test or refute the public interest theories of regulation. Finally, it has been argued that the public interest theories are incomplete: the formulation of public preferences and the translation of these interests into welfare maximizing regulatory measures is lacking from these theories.”[18] Laten we nu deze diverse kritieken achtereenvolgens overlopen.

 

Vooreerst zijn er dus critici die beweren dat het concept van marktfaling zelf niet deugt: “The theory that regulation can be explained as an answer to market failures has been criticized from several points of views (Cowan, 1988; Zerbe and McCurdy, 1999, 2000). First, the conclusion that monopoly power, externalities or any other so-called market failures gives rise to an inefficient allocation of resources, can only be understood by assuming a model in which some of the transaction costs involved are absent. The allocation of resources appears as efficient if transaction costs are included in the analysis (Dahlman, 1979; Toumanoff, 1984). Monopoly power for example only appears to have inefficient outcomes. Once transaction costs such as the inability of the monopolist to price discriminate or to prevent arbitrage or the inability of the consumers to organize and negotiate effectively, is taken into account, the market outcome is efficient. The same reasoning applies to externalities. Marginal cost appear to differ from marginal benefits, but once the transaction costs of the market mechanism are taken into account, the market outcomes turn out to be efficient. The cost-minimizing outcome has been attained.”[19] Vele vaststellingen van marktfaling steunen dus eigenlijk op een verkeerd beeld van de daadwerkelijke marktwerking. Wanneer het toetsingskader van de ideale markt wel rekening zou houden met transactiekosten, dan blijken vele marktfalingen weg te smelten als sneeuw voor de zon.

 

Aansluitend hierop blijkt dat de vrije marktwerking zelf diverse oplossingen voor marktfalingen kan ontwikkelen; de markt kent soms een zelfcorrigerend vermogen: “Second, in practice the market mechanism itself is often able to develop institutions to compensate for any inefficiencies. Firms will devise ways for example to highlight essential quality aspects such as safety or superior performance. Problems of adverse selection are solved by companies themselves by, for example, the issue of guarantees, the use of brand names and extensive advertising campaigns as a signalof quality (Nelson, 1974). The market sector also succeeds in the production of goods that have traditionally been characterized as typical public goods, such as lighthouses (Coase, 1974). So-called externalities have been shown to have been internalized by the market itself (Cheung, 1973, 1978). The assumption of market failure when a dominant firm supplies the market is similarly criticized (Demsetz, 1976). Any significant returns could be the result of superior efficiency of such companies and furthermore, account must be taken of the possibility of competition for the market (Baumol, Panzar and Willig, 1982) as opposed to competition in the market.”[20] Dit dynamische karakter van de marktwerking maakt het gebruik van overheidsdwang dus nodeloos.

 

Bovendien is het vaststellen van een marktfaling op zich nog geen voldoende reden dat de wetgeving effectief werd ingevoerd. M.a.w., er bestaat geen automatische koppeling tussen de vaststelling van een marktfaling en de invoering van de corrigerende regelgeving: “Third, a more general criticism of the theory of market failure is its limited explanatory power. An economist generally needs only 10 minutes to rationalize government intervention by constructing some form of market failure (Peltzman, 1989). The market failure theory is an inconsistent and unnecessary part of the public interest theories of regulation. An adequate explanatory regulatory theory must explain how and why regulation is comparatively the best transaction cost minimizing institution in the efficient allocation of resources for particular goods, services or societal values (Zerbe, 2001). The concept of market failures does not contribute to that task.”[21] Het bestaan van een marktfaling op zich is dus niet voldoende om de meerwaarde van wetgeving aan te tonen bij het oplossen van het vermeende falen van de marktwerking, bijv. door de corrigerende impact van de wetgeving op het problematische gedrag van de betrokken marktactoren te bewijzen.

 

Deze intrinsieke tekortkoming van vele public interest theorieën brengt ons dan ook bij de tweede grote kritiek aan hun adres, namelijk dat zij de effecten van de regulering zelf te weinig diepgaand in kaart brengen en niet voldoende voorafgaand onderzoeken, zelfs als een second-best solution: “In the second place, the original theory assumes that government regulation is effective and can be implemented without great cost (Posner, 1974). So precisely the transaction costs and information costs, which underlie market failure, are assumed to be absent in the case of government regulation. This assumption has been criticized in both empirical and theoretical research. Theoretical research, the theory of second best, has demonstrated that the partial aim for efficient allocation does not make the economy as a whole more efficient if unavoidable inefficiencies persist elsewhere in the economy (Ng, 1990). Unavoidable inefficiencies such as dominance in product markets or taxation distort the allocation in the economy at large. Not only is the good concerned produced in insufficient quantities, but also too many resources are devoted to the production of other goods and services in the economy. These distortions also mean that the allocation in factor markets is suboptimal. […] Furthermore, in reality a great many of these unavoidable inefficiencies exist. They result from external effects, taxation, imperfect competition and flawed information. That renders the achievement of a second-best optimum unfeasible in practice (Utton, 1986), so that even less precise ‘third best’ rules and policies have been suggested (Ng, 1977)”[22] Regulerende overheden onderzoeken te weinig tot helemaal niet of de wetgeving zelf geen (onnodige) verstoringen van de marktwerking veroorzaakt, wat enerzijds het corrigerend effect zelf van de wetgeving kan ondermijnen, of die anderzijds veel schadelijke neveneffecten kan veroorzaken.

 

Aansluitend hierop is er de kritiek dat de public interest theorieën vanuit een te statisch beschouwde economische realiteit vertrekken. Ze houden met andere woorden te weinig rekening met “tweede en derde orde” effecten van regelgeving: “Other theoretical research points to fundamental flaws in policy making. Accurate predictions on how rules will work, can not be made if regulations changes the behavior of regulates and the structures in which they operate. Furthermore, the changes in the original situation by rules and regulations will be anticipated by rational actors (Kydland and Presscott, 1977; Boorsma, 1990). Optimal policies would thus become inconsistent. One effect is the preference for uniform and fixed rules rather than discretion for regulators, but other inefficiencies would then result from the heterogeneity of sectors, regions or firms (Kaplow, 1992, 1995; Latin, 1985). But of course the information to devise optimal policies and regulations is not available nor is enforcement perfect (Sappington and Stiglitz, 1987a, 1987b; Viscusi and Zeckhauser, 1979). The results are inefficient rules, imperfect enforcement and incentives for firms and consumers to behave inefficiently (for a criticism of some of this research, Kelman, 1988).”[23] Door deze grote tekortkoming in de analyse loopt de ingevoerde regelgeving dus vaak achter de feiten aan, of creëert zij onvoorziene of onbedoelde effecten.

 

Public interest theorieën worden dus verweten zich teveel te focussen op de eigenlijke marktfaling, en hierdoor te weinig oog te hebben voor de problemen die hun remedies veroorzaken, namelijk het falen van de overheid: “Theoretical research into the efficiency and effectiveness of government regulation gradually developed into theories of non-market failures equivalent to the theories of market failures (Wolf, 1987, 1993; Tullock, Seldon and Brady, 2002). These theories point to non-market failures such as:

• the lack of information on marginal benefit of regulatory agency and the consequential lack of incentives to equate marginal cost with marginal benefit;
• the lack of output valuation or indicators and the consequential lack of incentives to minimize cost or to end the regulatory activity;
• the lack of a market for regulatory analogues to the market for corporate control, with its consequential failure to discipline managers;
• the inequalities in the distribution of the agency benefits as a result of capture or bargaining;
• the unavoidability of unintended effects, unexpected side-effects and even adverse effects of regulation.”[24]

Herinner u de drie cumulatieve voorwaarden waaruit public interest verklaringen vertrekken!

 

De derde grote vorm van kritiek bestaat erin dat de public interest theorieën geen verklaring kunnen bieden voor het veelvuldig voorkomen van wetgeving omwille van herverdelende of andere niet-economische doeleinden: “Public interest theories usually assume that regulation aims to establish economic efficiency. Interpreted that way, these theories are unable to explain why on occasion other objectives such as procedural fairness or redistribution are aimed for at the expense of economic efficiency (Joskow and Noll, 1981, p. 36). On the other hand, when it is assumed that regulation pursues social efficiency, another problem is encountered. Where there is conflict between efficiency and equity, it is impossible for at least two reasons to establish the social efficiency of regulation (Sen, 1979a, 1979b). […]  Firstly, in such situations the evaluation of social efficiency is difficult because evaluation standards of levels or dimensions of justice are not available. No agreement exists regarding the definition of justice in concrete situations (Dworkin, 1981). Secondly, the establishment of social efficiency of regulation requires that economic efficiency and justice be weighed against each other. A theoretically justified and practically usable scale of values that this calls for is not available (Ng, 1985).”[25] Aangezien de public interest theorieën zich focussen op de (hypothetische) ‘allocatieve’ bestaansredenen van wetgeving, hebben zij dus een geheel andere soort van wetgevingen uit het oog verloren.

 

Dit maakt empirische toetsing van de public interest theorieën zeer moeilijk tot zelfs onmogelijk, en daarom noodgedwongen veel beperkter in draagwijdte: “The absence of generally applicable standards of justice and the lack of insight into the relationship between justice and efficiency renders empirical testing of public interest theories as explanatory theories of regulation impossible. A key problem of the public interest theory is that the evaluating, normative theory of economic welfare is being used as a positive explanatory theory of regulation (Joskow and Noll, 1981). Empirical work of testing the public interest theories relative to the private interest theories has concentrated for the larger part on the effectiveness and not the efficiency of regulations: are prices lower, is price discrimination absent, is there a decrease in costs, did pollution decline, is influence of interest groups detectable, etc.”[26] Dit brengt ons bij de diverse kritieken die heel specifiek voortvloeien uit de analyse van de aanwezigheid van marktfalingen of inzake de gevolgen van wetgeving als remedie voor deze marktfalingen.

 

Hoe zit het vooreerst met informatie-asymmetrieën? Of in de woorden van Winston, “are government regulations or market forces responsible for these types of favourable trends [the incidence of illnesses and injuries caused by certain products has stabilized and that workplace injuries are a declining problem in the United States]? Or is there simply not much of a problem in the first place? The summary finding that I draw from the current state of the available scholarly evidence are: Potential information problems in product markets and workplaces have not led to significant welfare losses to the public. Government actions generally amount to weak solutions in search of a problem because the policies implemented to date have not provided much social benefit.”[27] Ook hier is er dus geen smoking gun van marktfaling te vinden.

 

In de andere gevallen moeten wetgevers dan weer wat meer vertrouwen en geduld hebben in het zelfcorrigerend vermogen van de marktwerking. “Market failure from imperfect information is limited because consumers are able to make informed choices by drawing on various publications, word-of-mouth, and their own experiences to learn about product quality and variety and rationally update their assessment of risk. (Mannering and Winston 1995)”[28] Want “when not impeded by regulation, advertising can enable firms to overcome the inefficiencies created by the lack of property rights to most information. Among the positive externalities associated with advertising are better information about diet and health, opportunities to improve health through drug therapy, and the dangers of smoking.”[29] Opnieuw kunnen incentives voor individuen, weliswaar binnen een algemeen kader (waarover zo dadelijk meer), oplossingen bieden voor informatie-asymmetrieën.

 

Een speciaal reguleringsgeval dat uit de marktfaling van informatie-asymmetrie zou kunnen voortvloeien betreft de alomtegenwoordige beroepserkenningen en andere vergunningen: “Occupational […] licensing may be justified if consumers are likely to be harmed because they are not able or not willing to judge the competence of individuals who provide an important service. But licensing may also have unintended effects such as encouraging do-it-yourself behaviour, wasting overtrained talent, and reducing the quantity of available workers. Carroll and Gaston (1981) argued that by reducing the quantity of available workers, occupational licensing may reduce the quality of services and consumer safety. They presented suggestive evidence that this outcome occurred in several occupations, including electricians (that is, fewer electricians were associated with more accidental deaths by electric shock from nonindustrial activity), dentists, plumbers, and so on. Kleiner and Kudrle (2000) concluded that occupational licensing did not raise the quality of service consumers received. In the case of dentistry, they found that consumer costs increased in states with more stringent licensing but that dental health did not improve and malpractice suits did not decrease.”[30] Dus niet alleen blijken deze vergunningsstelsels ongeschikt maar zelfs schadelijk of contraproductief te zijn.

 

Het beeld inzake de marktfaling van (negatieve) externaliteiten is dan weer genuanceerder: “In contrast to alleged market power abuses or imperfect information, externalities have caused serious social problems justifying government intervention. And government policy has in some cases made progress in curbing social costs. […] The basic research question motivated by these stylized facts is whether government policy has generated significant net benefits in the process of reducing the social cost of externalities. The summary findings that I draw from the current state of the available scholarly evidence are: Some policies have been expensive successes and although their benefits have exceeded costs, the gains could have been achieved at much lower cost. Others have been outright failures because their costs exceeded benefits. In contrast, market-oriented approaches implemented by the government have shown promise of producing large improvements in social welfare by curbing externalities at lower cost than current policies do.”[31] Zelfs al kunnen negatieve externaliteiten ernstige maatschappelijke problemen veroorzaken, dan nog moet de invoering van regelgeving als reactie hierop omzichtig gebeuren.

 

Dit brengt Winston tot het volgende veelzeggende besluit: “Economic theory identifies many situations where a market failure may arise and suggests how the government could correct the failure and improve economic efficiency. In practice, potential market failures such as market power and imperfect information do not appear to create large efficiency losses to the U.S. economy. However, market failures arising from externalities such as air and water pollution, hazardous wastes, and traffic congestion do impose significant social costs that government policy could reduce efficiently. Based on the assessments […], government policy to correct market failures is characterized by two major flaws – that is, government failures – that cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars a year. First, government policy has created economic inefficiencies where significant market failures do not appear to exist, such as antitrust laws and economic regulations that have raised firms’ costs and generated economic rents for various interest groups at the expense of consumer welfare. To be sure, antitrust enforcement may be deterring anticompetitive behaviour, especially collusion, but this potentially important benefit has not been verified empirically. Information policies have also raised consumer prices and firms’ costs. […] Second, in situations where market failures do exist, government policy has either achieved expensive successes by correcting these failures in a way that sacrifices substantial net benefits or in some cases has actually reduced social welfare. Government policy has wasted resources with its application of command-and-control policies to correct externalities, particularly in health, safety, and environmental policy.”[32] Merk hierbij trouwens op dat deze samenvatting aangeeft dat vaak aan twee van de drie noodzakelijke voorwaarden van de public interest theorieën niet voldaan is: (1) de wetgever beschikt over te weinig feitenkennis om op een correcte wijze marktfaling te kunnen inschatten, en (2) de overheid kent grote tekortkomingen in zijn bestuurskracht om wetgeving afdoende uit te voeren of te handhaven,.

 

Ook aan de derde noodzakelijke voorwaarde van de public interest theorieën blijkt trouwens niet voldaan te zijn wanneer we het volgende lezen: “What explains the prevalence of government failure when policymakers are presumably trying to correct market failures? In some situations, government failure arise because government intervention is unnecessary – that is, markets can adequately address their possible failures. Consequently, government intervention may prove to be counterproductive because market failure policies are flawed or poorly implemented and because policymakers, regardless of their intentions, are subject to political forces that enable certain interest groups to benefit at the expense of the public. In other situations, government action is called for but is again compromised by agency shortcomings and political forces. The fundamental underlying problem, as argued by Wolf (1979), is that the existence of government failure suggests the absence of an incentive to reconcile an intervention’s costs and benefits to policymakers with its social costs and benefits. In contrast, it appears that in at least some instances market participants have greater incentives to correct market failures than then government has to correct these failures.”[33] Sommige marktpartijen hebben er dus soms meer belang bij om de marktfaling aan te pakken, dan de overheid zelf die immers niet rechtstreeks door deze marktfaling benadeeld wordt.

 

Meer nog, “it is possible to raise doubts about whether policymakers have sufficient incentives to initiate such major changes in policy. Becker (1983) and Friedman (1999) suggested that efficient reforms may occur only because a deal can be reached that makes everyone better off (or at least leaves some people no worse off). Winston and Maheshri (2006b) argued that inefficient policies are rarely reformed, but they acknowledged that efficient reforms may occur if the inefficiencies become too large.”[34] Groepen uit de bevolking die bij hervormingen nadeel lijden, zullen zich hiertegen hevig verzetten. Daartegenover blijken markten in de praktijk net innovatiever en creatiever te zijn in het bedenken en uitwerkingen van oplossingen dan vele economen zich kunnen indenken: “Market failure is less common and less costly than might be expected because market forces tend to correct certain potential failures. […] The effects of economic deregulation suggest that experience is more instructive than theory about whether effective competition will develop in particular markets.”[35] Het grote voordeel van de vrije marktwerking ligt in haar creatieve ondernemerschap, ook bij de oplossing van maatschappelijke problemen.

 

IV. De genuanceerde theorieën van algemeen belang

 

Welke beleidsaanbevelingen kunnen we uit dit alles trekken? Vooreerst hebben we dus vastgesteld dat de public interest theorieën geen voldoende verklaringsgrond kunnen bieden voor de totstandkoming van wetgeving. Het vaststellen van marktfalingen alleen kan geen voldoende grondslag bieden voor de invoering van wetgeving. De theorieën bieden immers geen voldoende koppeling tussen het probleem (het falen van de marktwerking) en de remedie (de overheidsinterventie, eventueel in de vorm van dwingende wetgeving. Daarnaast hebben we geleerd dat “in those cases where it has been possible to fully assess the effectiveness of government policy to correct a market failure, it appears that such failures could be remedied more efficiently by crafting policies that incorporate market-oriented incentives. […] Additional research is therefore necessary before we can identify the socially desirable mix of government intervention, if any, and market incentives to address these problems.”[36] De maatschappelijke of economische realiteit is dermate complex dat men zeer voorzichtig moet zijn inzake de efficiëntie en effectiviteit van remediërende wetgeving.

 

Onder druk van deze kritieken hebben de public interest theorieën intussen enige aanvulling of nuancering ondergaan: “In the earlier development of the public interest theories of regulation, it was assumed that a market failure was a sufficient condition to explain government regulation (Baumol, 1952). But soon the theory was criticized for its Nirwana approach, implying that it assumed that theoretically efficient institutions could be seen to efficiently replace or correct inefficient real world institutions (Demsetz, 1968). This criticism has led to the development of a more serious public interest theory of regulation by what has been variously referred to as the ‘New Haven’ or ‘Progressive School’ of Law and Economics (Ogus in Jordan and Levi-Faur, 2004, Rose-Ackerman, 1988, 1992; Noll, 1983, 1989a).”[37]

 

Den Hertog legt precies uit wat er veranderd is: “In the original theory, the transaction costs and information costs or regulation were assumed to be zero. By taking account of these costs, more comprehensive public interest theories developed. It could be argued that government regulation is comparatively the more efficient institution to deal with a number of market failures (Whynes and Bowles, 1981). For example, with respect to the public utilities it could be argued that the transaction costs of government regulation to establish fair prices and a fair rate of return are lower than the costs of unrestricted competition (Goldberg 1979). Equivalently, it could be argued that social regulation in some cases would be a more efficient institution to deal with the pollution of the environment or with dealing with accidents in the workplace than private negotiations between affected parties could. Regulators would not be plagued by failures in the information market and they could more easily bundle information to determine the point where the marginal cost of intervention equalizes the marginal social benefits (Leland, 1979; Asch, 1988).”[38] In essentie draait alles uit op de beantwoording van de vraag wie de minste transactiekosten heeft of kent om een marktfaling te remediëren, de overheid of de vrije markt en zijn actoren.

 

Den Hertog besluit dan ook dat de nieuwe public interest theorieën als het ware bescheiden in hun aanspraken geworden zijn: “These more serious versions of the public interest theories do not assume that regulation is perfect. They do assume the presence of a market failure, that regulation is comparatively the more efficient institution and that for example deregulation takes place when more efficient institutions develop. These theories also assume that politicians act in the public interest or that the political process is efficient and that information on the costs and benefits of regulation is widely distributed and available (Noll, 1989a).”[39] Als gevolg hiervan blijkt dat de New Haven School veel genuanceerder over wetgeving en publieke belangen denkt dan zijn voorloper, en dat een aantal inzichten zeker gebruikt kunnen worden als normatief toetsingskader voor wetgeving. Maar de laatste veronderstelling, namelijk de goedwillendheid van de regelgevers en hun vermeende focus op het vooruithelpen van het algemeen belang, zal echter de achilleshiel van de public interest theorieën blijven vormen.

 

Dit alles brengt ons tot de vaststelling dat de public interest theorieën verschoven zijn van (positieve of empirische) verklaringsgrond naar (normatief) toetsingskader van wetgeving. Hierbij rijst nu de vraag wat dit toetsingskader voor beleidsinterventies en de invoering van allerlei wetgeving ter correctie van een vermeende marktfaling dan precies moet inhouden. Winston geeft een aanzet tot antwoord: “On what basis is one to conclude that a policy to correct a market failure is as successful as possible? The first consideration is whether government has any reason to intervene in a market: Is there evidence of a serious market failure to correct? The second is whether government policy is at least improving market performance: Is it reducing the economic inefficiency, or ‘deadweight’ loss, from market failure? Of course, the policy could be an ‘expensive’ success by generating benefits that exceed costs, but incurring excessive costs to obtain the benefits. Hence, the final consideration is whether government policy is optimal: Is it efficiently correcting the market failure and maximizing economic welfare? Government failure, then, arises when government has created inefficiencies because it should not have intervened in the first place or when it could have solved a given problem or set of problems more efficiently, that is, by generating greater net benefits. In other words, the theoretical benchmark of Pareto optimality could be used to assess government performance just as it is used to assess market performance.”[40] De drempel voor overheidsoptreden is hiermee vanuit economisch opzicht dus sterk verhoogd. Het vaststellen van een marktfaling – en die blijken trouwens veel minder voor te komen binnen een dynamische marktwerking dan in een statisch analysemodel – kan dus nooit meer automatisch leiden tot corrigerende reguleringen of andere vormen van dwingende overheidsinterventie. Nu moet zowel de effectiviteit of doelgerichtheid als de efficiëntie van de beleidsmaatregel geanalyseerd worden.

 

Uit het voorgaande zou men de economische wetenschap kunnen verdenken vooroordelen of zelfs afkeer te hebben tegen de rol of functie van de overheid, maar dit klopt niet met de realiteit. Vanuit normatief oogpunt ziet de economische wetenschap wel degelijk belangrijke overheidstaken die nuttig of zelfs noodzakelijk kunnen zijn voor het goed functioneren van de vrijemarkteconomie. Dennis Mueller beschrijft in zijn standaardwerk Public Choice III zeer gevat het belang van een rechtssysteem voor het economisch verkeer en voor het maatschappelijk leven meer in algemeen. Hij begint zijn redenering door te wijzen op de belangrijkste verwezenlijking van de economische wetenschap, namelijk aan te tonen dat eigenbelang nastrevende mensen toch wederzijds voordeel kunnen halen uit handel. Het prijssysteem met zijn signaalfunctie vervult hierin een cruciale rol, zoals mooi beschreven door Adam Smith. Maar nu komt het, “the invisible hand theorem presumes a system of collective choice comparable in sophistication and complexity to the market systems it governs. For the choices facing A and B are not merely to trade or not, as implicitly suggested. A can choose to steal B’s corn, rather than give up his cattle for it; B may do likewise. Unlike trading, which is a positive-sum game benefiting both participants in an exchange, stealing is at best a zero-sum game. What A gains, B loses. If stealing, and guarding against it, detract from A and B’s ability to produce corn and cattle, it becomes a negative-sum game. Although with trading each seeks to improve his position and both end up better off, with stealing the selfish pursuits of each leave them both worse off.”[41] Dit system of collective choice, de overheid , dient er dus voor te zorgen dat individuen voor handel en niet voor diefstal kiezen.

 

Hiermee is het verhaal trouwens nog niet ten einde, wel integendeel zelfs, want de samenleving zit complexer in elkaar dan simpele en dus duidelijke één-op-één relaties. Mueller verwijst hierbij naar de diverse speltheoretische dilemma’s waaraan vele personen deelnemen, die de welvaartscreërende transacties zwaar kunnen belemmeren of bemoeilijken. De vrije marktwerking zelf kan dan immers geen oplossing meer bieden: “When the number of players in a prisoners’ dilemma game is small, it is obviously easier to learn their behavior and predict whether they will respond to cooperative strategy choices in a like manner. It is also easier to detect non-cooperative behavior and, if this possible, single it out for punishment, thereby further encouraging the cooperative strategies. When numbers are large, it is easy for one or a few players to adopt the non-cooperative strategy and either not be detected, since the impact on the rest is small, or not be punished, since they cannot be discovered or it is too costly to the cooperating players to punish them. Thus, voluntary compliance with behavioral sanctions or provision of public goods is more likely in small communities than in large (Coase, 1960; Buchanan, 1965b). Reliance on voluntary compliance in large communities or groups leads to free riding and the under- or non-provision of the public good (Olson, 1965).”[42] Met andere woorden, overheidsdwang wordt dan een relatief effectief en efficiënt instrument om free-riders en hun negatieve gevolgen voor de samenleving tegen te gaan.

 

De logica van Mueller gaat als volgt: “In an experimental setting, cooperators and defectors can only be rewarded and punished through the play of the game, or perhaps if communication is allowed, through the verbal rewards and reprimands of the other players. In the real world, a much richer set or rewards and punishments is available, from the slap on the hand or a pat on the head given to a child, to chopping off a hand or a head, in the case of an adult. In real-world settings, individuals do not need to discover what their behavior should be and what the other ‘players’ are likely to do, as often is the case in experiments; they are usually told directly. In many real-world settings, communication among the players is possible, and, in this regard, the consistent finding in experiments that cooperation increases when communication is allowed is reassuring. Thus, if anything, the results from the many prisoners’ dilemma and voluntary-contribution-public-good experiments underline the need for an institution like the state that announces what behavior is expected of all individuals in these situations, and helps ensure that this behavior is forthcoming.”[43] De overheid biedt dus heel wat mogelijkheden voor individuen om via een versneld leerproces sociaal coöperatief te worden.

 

Wanneer we op deze discussie over de rol van de overheid terugkijken, dat stellen we vast dat “there is no question that many of the policy problems that government agencies face today are far more challenging than the problems they faced in an earlier era. In addition […], policymakers’ performance has improved in some areas. Nonetheless, it is fair to say that although government agencies may strive to solve social problems, they have frequently contributed to policy failures by their short-sightedness, inflexibility, and conflicts. […] The failure of agencies to adjust their policies appropriately to generate socially desirable outcomes occurs in many situations.”[44]

 

Wanneer de regelgevers zo weinig efficiënt te werk blijven gaan, dan zijn er voor Winston wellicht andere niet-economische drijfveren aan het werk: “If it is easy – and it apparently is – to identify flaws in the design and implementation of market failure policies, why don’t policymakers address these flaws and develop more efficient policies? George Stigler’s answer is that the primary intent of government interventions is to redistribute income; thus, it would be unreasonable to expect that governmental favours obtained by competing interests would constitute social improvements. And because the broad base of taxpayers tends to be less aware of or indifferent to specific welfare losses than well-organized interests are of their benefits (Olson 1965), imperfect information may also create an imbalance of political pressure that enables economically inefficient policies to persist. It is therefore not surprising that well-defined interest groups, with the help of the government, are able to use their organizational and informational advantages to accrue economic rents inefficiently.”[45]

 

Bij nader inzien kunnen de public interest theorieën dan ook geen verklarend verband leggen tussen dit normatief nastreven van het algemeen belang en de empirisch vastgestelde eigenbelangen van de eigenlijke beslissers, de politici: “A final point of criticism is that public interest theories are incomplete. In the first place, the theories do not indicate how a given view on the public interest translates into legislative actions that maximize economic welfare (Posner, 1974). The political decision-making process consists of various participants who will aim for their own objectives under different constraints. In contrast to the theoretical model of a fully competitive market economy, it is unclear how the interaction of the participants in the political process will lead to maximum economic welfare. What is lacking is a rational choice theory leading to welfare maximization. Secondly, a theory of regulation should be able to predict which branches of industry or sectors should be regulated, and to whom the advantages and disadvantages are to accrue. The theory should also be able to to predict what form regulation is to take, such as subsidies, restricted entry, or price regulations (Stigler, 1971). Public interest theories appear not to be able to adequately make predictions that are amendable to testing by empirical economic science (Stigler, 1971). Furthermore, facts are observed in social reality which are not well accounted for by public interest theories. Why should companies support and even aim for regulation intended to cream off excess profits?”[46] Hiermee zijn we dan beland bij de grote concurrent van de public interest theorieën: de public choice theorie als de belangrijkste van de private interest theorieën en als de meest waarschijnlijke bestaansreden van regelgeving.

 

V. De theorievorming omtrent de private interest theorieën van regelgeving

 

Om de public choice theorie op een brede maar zeker niet exhaustieve wijze te schetsen, beroepen we ons zo meteen op een uitstekende samenvatting van de hand van Eamonn Butler. Maar we beginnen met een citaat van Nobelprijslaureaat Gary Becker die deze economische theorie duidelijk koppelt aan het eigenbelang van de beleidsmakers: “The economic approach to political behaviour assumes that actual political choices are determined by the efforts of individuals and groups to further their own interests.”[47] Of in de woorden van een andere gezagshebbende stem, namelijk die van Anthony Downs: “The fundamental premise of the theory is that bureaucratic officials, like all other agents in society, are significantly – though not solely – motivated by their own self-interest.” [48] Centraal bij de totstandkoming van overheidsbeleid staat dus het nastreven van het eigenbelang door de politieke spelers, naast of soms zelfs in de plaats van het (ideale) nastreven van ‘het algemeen belang’.

 

Deze inzichten zien de  regelgeving als het resultaat van private drijfveren die in essentie een herverdelend karakter hebben: “Private interest theories explain regulation from interest group behaviour. Transfers of wealth to the more effective interest group often also decrease social welfare. Interest groups can be firms, consumers or consumer groups, regulators or their staff, legislators, unions and more. The private interest theories of regulation therefore overlap with a number of theories in the field of public choice and thus turn effectively into theories of political actions. Depending on the efficiency of the political process, social welfare either increases of decreases.”[49] Dit staat in contrast met de public interest theorieën die dus vooral efficiëntie verhogende doeleinden nastreven – het verbeteren van de allocatie van goederen en diensten aan zoveel mogelijk consumenten –  terwijl de private interest theorieën dus vooral wijzen op de mogelijkheden voor bepaalde groepen die het beleid bepalen, om de welvaart (proberen) af te snoepen van andere groepen.

 

De economische theorieën over politieke besluitvorming steunen op inzichten uit de private interest theorieën over de politieke besluitvorming die een reactie vormen op de klassieke of mainstream welfare economics, de tak binnen de economische wetenschap die vooral onderzoek rond efficiëntie- of welvaartsverhogende beleidsmaatregelen verricht: “It shocked orthodox thinkers when Buchanan, with his co-author Gordon Tullock, applied this ‘economic’ view of human beings systematically through the institutions of government – suggesting that legislators, officials and voters all use the political process to advance their private interests, just as they do in the marketplace. Even more shocking was their conclusion that political decisions, far from being made efficiently and dispassionately in pursuit of the ‘public interest’, could well be less efficient, less rational and more vulnerable to manipulation by vested interests than the supposedly flawed market process.”[50]

 

Of in de woorden van Chicago-econoom Sam Peltzman over één van de grondleggers van de public choice theorie: “What [George] Stigler accomplished in his Theory of Economic Regulation was to crystallize a revisionism in the economic analysis of regulation […]. The revisionism had its genesis in a growing disenchantment with the usefulness of the traditional role of regulation in economic analysis as a deus ex machina which eliminated one or another unfortunate allocative consequence of market failure. The creeping recognition that regulation seemed seldom to actually work this way, and that it may have even engendered more resource misallocation than it cured, forced attention to the influence which the regulatory powers of the state could have on the distribution of wealth as well as on allocative efficiency. Since the political process does not usually provide the dichotomous treatment of resource allocation and wealth distribution so beloved by welfare economists, it was an easy step to seek explanation for the failure of the traditional analysis to predict the allocative effects of regulation in the dominance of political pressure for redistribution on the regulatory process. […] The common role of regulation in this literature is as a fulcrum upon which contending interests seek to exercise leverage in their pursuit of wealth. A common, though not universal, conclusion has become that, as between the two main contending interests in regulatory processes, the producer interest tends to prevail over the consumer interest.”[51]

 

Wanneer we dit alles heel bondig herformuleren, dan wordt het overheidsoptreden niet zozeer verklaard door de wil van de beleidsmakers om marktfalingen te corrigeren en zo meer allocatieve efficiëntie te genereren, maar wel door druk vanuit diverse groepen voor een herverdeling van de maatschappelijke welvaart. Meer nog, “Public Choice, then, looks at how the motivation of individuals affect the outcome of their collective decision-making. It rejects the idea that politics is a process by which we somehow  discover what is truly in the ‘public interest’. For a start, what can ‘public interest’ possibly mean? […] We live in a world of value-pluralism and, as far as economic decisions taken by government are concerned, people value different goods and services differently. Inevitably, the different interests of different people will clash and agreement on what constitutes the ‘public interest’ is impossible.”[52] Dit ontkennen dat er zoiets als het ‘algemeen belang’ bestaat, staat centraal in hun afwijzing van de inzichten en beleidsvoorstellen van de welvaartseconomie: “Public Choice scholars maintain that welfare economics got into the muddle because they forgot that only individuals have motivations – not groups. Individuals have interests and beliefs and values; a group has no interests or beliefs or values of its own – only those of the individuals who comprise it. Likewise, only individuals choose – when they vote at elections, for example. Groups as such do not choose; a group does not go into the polling booth.”[53] Dit alles neemt uiteraard niet weg dat individuen wel degelijk belangen of voorkeuren met anderen gemeenschappelijk kunnen hebben, of dat zij door hun sociale omgeving hierin beïnvloed kunnen worden, maar het blijven wel degelijk individuen die kiezen of stemmen.

 

Tot slot heeft de public choice theorie het belangrijke inzicht ontwikkeld dat het electoraal kader waarbinnen of de wijze waarop individuen hun stem of keus uitbrengen, mede bepalend is voor de uitkomst van deze collectieve besluitvorming: “According to Public Choice, then voting and legislating are processes in which individuals can pursue their own, often conflicting, interests. There is no objective communal ‘public interest’ hovering around, which voting somehow discovers. Indeed, different decision-making systems will produce very different policy choices. […] In other words, each [voting] system produces a different outcome: one cannot hail any of them as discovering the objective and incontrovertible ‘public interest’. Each system just reflects the multiplicity of people’s preferences in different ways. Accordingly, Public Choice does not itself aim to deliver some will-o’-the-wisp ‘social welfare’ or ‘public interest’. It seeks only to inform the political debate by explaining the different dynamics between motivated individuals that emerge under different political institutions, and by outlining the different outcomes that arise as a result.”[54] Wanneer het electorale kader verandert waarbinnen op basis van deze zo uiteenlopende individuele voorkeuren gekozen moet worden, dan zal ook het verloop en de resultaten van de eigenlijke collectieve besluitvorming wijzigen. Deze mechanismen in kaart brengen staat centraal binnen de public choice theorie.

 

Binnen het representatieve democratische bestel staat de rol van de verkozen politici centraal. Representatieve beslissingsstelsels zijn trouwens de enige die binnen democratieën van enige omvang in burgers en beleidsthema’s werkbaar blijken: “Why do we need legislators – all those representatives and parliamentarians that we love to hate so much? The main reason is straightforward – practicality. The sheer number of collective choice facing advanced countries every day would make it far too difficult and exhausting to expect everyone to turn out and vote on every issue. Nor would the general public even have the time and interest to research and form opinions on all those issues. Accordingly, we delegate the business of understanding the issues, forming judgements and taking decisions to a smaller; more manageable group – our professional legislators. We rely on their diligence, and their judgement, to represent our views and to take decisions on our behalf. That means decisions can be made with much less expenditure of time, effort and money.”[55] So far, so good…

 

Maar bij nader toezien draait het voor verkozen politici in hun politiek handelen niet zozeer om zoveel mogelijk individuele preferenties van de burgers te vervullen, maar wel om het vergaren van zoveel mogelijk stemmen om aan politieke macht te winnen: “[O]ne of the key insights of Public Choice, dating back to Black and Downs, is that the ‘vote motive’ is key to the positions that politicians and political parties take on policy issues. Opposition politicians may have some influence on events, but to have any real impact, they need to be in power. And to be in power, they need to be elected. In other words, they have a crucial interest in getting votes. They may seek power so that they can benefit humanity, rather than for any venal reasons, but even so, their key objective must be to gather votes. To garner votes, politicians have to be what the Chicago School describe as ‘brokers’ between competing interests – between, for example, the lobby groups that demand legislation and the taxpayers and consumers who ultimately pay for it. The ‘brokerage fees’ they pull in are votes; but if they are successful in that, they can enjoy many other kinds of ‘political income’ too. There may be generous campaign contributions; the status and perks of office; the deference of civil servants and the public; the public attention that comes from supporting popular causes; and the power to steer spending and employment to one’s own district. There may be cash implications too. With status comes the prospect of lucrative careers after politics.”[56] Of, m.a.w., politici als uitwisselaars van of handelaars in politieke belangen waarbij geven en nemen van belangen centraal staat.

 

In deze uitwisseling van politieke belangen staat het concept van ‘logrolling’ centraal: “An agreement to exchange votes on separate legislative measures, as in the roads example, is called explicit logrolling. It is common in democratic bodies, such as committees and legislatures, where votes are easily traded and – since both partners need to know that the other is delivering the bargain – easily observed. It does not work so well in secret ballots, or between large groups that cannot easily discipline their members. Another mechanism, implicit logrolling, is where the different groups bundle their various proposals into a package before they are voted on. So voters or legislators who feel very strongly about one measure also end up voting for other people’s measures too. This kind of vote trading is common when party election manifestos or legislative proposals are being put together.”[57] Logrolling komt trouwens in meerdere vormen of soorten voor: “Another logrolling has many benefits for legislators. By packaging their special interest measure with those of others, they can attract greater support for it, without accepting responsibility for the whole package. They can simply explain that it was a compromise: to improve the roads in their own locality (say), they were forced to along with the other measures too. […] It is therefore no surprise that logrolling is a significant part of the democratic process. But, unlike in implicit logrolling, where the package to be voted on may be worked out in deals behind closed doors, the vote trading in explicit logrolling is at least transparent: everyone can see how votes are being traded.”[58] Maar logrolling mag niet te brutaal gebeuren, ten einde geen kiezers of collega’s al te zeer af te schrikken. Logrolling gebeurt dan ook best op subtiele wijze.

 

Hoewel de heerschappij van het volk de centrale eigenschap van elke democratie zou moeten zijn, is de rol van het volk binnen een representatieve democratie veeleer beperkt te noemen. Twee belangrijke eigenschappen zijn kenmerkend voor de burgers/kiezers wanneer ze aan collectieve besluitvorming deelnemen, en die blijken net nefast te zijn voor een efficiënte doorstroming van hun individuele voorkeuren in deze collectieve besluitvorming. Enerzijds is er de rationele onwetendheid of de vaststelling dat het rationeel is om weinig kennis van de politieke situatie te hebben wanneer men gaat stemmen. Anderzijds is er de mythe van de rationele kiezer, of het feit dat de kiezer zich door andere dan rationele argumenten, lees emotionele drijfveren, laat leiden.

 

Als verklaring voor de rationele onwetendheid van kiezers geldt de volgende simpele logica: “Voting demands a little time and effort from the elector. It is not just the modest time and effort of making your way to the polling station and filling in the ballot form. There is also the much greater time and effort that is needed to inform yourself about the candidates and their policies so that you can make a choice. Given what is at stake, this is a potentially huge task for electors. After all, they are choosing a government that may run perhaps half of the nation’s economy for the next four or five years. […] Yet any single elector’s choice is unlikely to make a difference to the election outcome. Even if it does, it may not deliver their chosen result: an honest vote for a losing Labour candidate, for example, may deny the Liberal Democrats the one vote that would allow them to beat the Conservatives that the elector hates. Voters face another uncertainty, too. In a marketplace, prices are not always transparent, and the quality of products is not always clear. Generally speaking though, […][y]ou pay the whole cost, and you get the whole benefit. But in politics, the costs and benefits are spread among many people. If you vote for a programme such as public healthcare, you do not necessarily know what it will end up costing you personally, or precisely how much the benefit will come to you. You might get a better job and move into a higher tax bracket and find yourself paying more; or you may never get sick enough to need the service. This uncertainty about costs and benefits, and the minuscule chance that your vote will have a real and predictable effect on election, give rise to the rational ignorance described by Anthony Downs. The thought may be unsettling for democrats but, logically, electors are quite right: it is simply not worth their time and effort to become well informed on the candidates or their policies.”[59]

 

Zelfs al zou de kiezer voldoende van de politieke situatie afweten om een rationele beslissing te nemen, dan worden ook zij vaak gedreven door kortzichtig eigenbelang of door emoties. De inzichten van behavioural economics gelden eigenlijk niet enkel voor het gedrag van marktspelers maar ook voor het stemgedrag van burgers: “Even if the political parties are not such opportunistic vote-casers as Black and other early Public Choice scholars portrayed them, it is still unwise to be too optimistic about the political process. In 2007 the US economist Bryan Caplan challenged the standard view that voters were reasonable people who could be trusted to cast their votes responsibly in elections. On the contrary, he said, they suffer from a number of irrational biases – biases which they can indulge because they know that the cost will not fall on them but will be spread across the whole population. In the first place, voters hate job losses. So they vote for subsidies to farming and other industries, forgetting that technological and productivity improvements mean that this same labour would be better employed elsewhere. Voters are not necessarily good economists, some they do not see the second-round effects of good and bad economic policy. Secondly, says Caplan, voters are biased against foreigners, seeing them as a threat to domestic jobs, rather than welcoming the benefits or free trade. Thirdly, they overestimate the problems in the economy, rather than recognising that, over the long term, things are generally improving. Fourthly, they underestimate the benefits of the market mechanism and overestimate the effectiveness of political initiatives.”[60]

 

Een andere groep politieke spelers die dan weer wel een grote impact op politici heeft, zijn de drukkings- of belangengroepen. Maar hoe gaat deze uitoefening van druk op politici precies in zijn werk? Over de rol van belangen- of drukkingsgroepen binnen de politieke besluitvorming van een samenleving schrijft Mueller: “In every case the driving force behind the formation of an interest group is the belief that its members have common interests and goals […]. The commonality of the goals of an interest group’s members makes the achievement of these goals a public good for the group, and thus gives rise to the same incentives to free-ride as exist in all public good-prisoners’ dilemma situations. […] Two important conclusions can be drawn from this observation: (1) it is easier to form an interest group when the number of potential members is small than when the number is large. An effective interest group can be organized more readily for two dozen steel producers than for two hundred thousand steel workers; and (2) the appearance of organizations that effectively represent large numbers of individuals requires that ‘separate and selective incentives’ be used to curb free-riding behavior. […] Perhaps the best evidence that such selective incentives are needed to avoid free-riding behavior is the importance [pressure group] leaders place in getting legislation and/or contractual stipulations requiring [these incentives].”[61] Heel belangrijk hierbij is de volgende vaststelling: “One of the counterintuitive predictions of Olson’s theory is that small interest groups are much more effective at obtaining favors from government than large groups are. Dramatic support for this hypothesis is provided by the agricultural policies of nations around the world.”[62]

 

Vooreerst rijst de vraag wat de belangengroepen aan de politici kunnen bieden. Zo kunnen drukkingsgroepen een grote rol spelen in de financiering van politieke campagnes. Aangezien dit evenwel niet mogelijk is binnen de Belgische politieke context, laten we dit spoor van politieke beïnvloeding buiten beschouwing. Wel van belang voor ons is de politieke beïnvloeding door middel van lobbying: “Interest groups also appear to devote far more money to lobbying than they contribute to congressional campaigns. Thus, interest group lobbying is yet another factor that can affect how representatives vote. Lobbying is essentially a one-way transmission of information from an interest group to members of the government. This information may pertain to the preferences of the interest group of to ‘states of the world’. Although interest groups have no incentive to falsify information about their preferences – other than perhaps to exaggerate their intensity – they may under certain circumstances have an incentive to distort information in the possession regarding states of the world.”[63]

 

Belangengroepen kunnen hierin evenwel niet overdrijven: “If, however, the industry always distorts the facts, the legislators have no incentive to give weight to the ‘information’ provided by the industry. Since lobbying costs money, the industry has no incentive to lobby the legislature if it is going to be ignored. Thus, the industry has an incentive to lobby the legislature with accurate information at least some of the time, so that the legislature will consider the information provided by the industry. Thus, when facts about the true state of the world are likely the change a legislature’s policies in favor of a particular interest group, it sometimes has an incentive to provide truthful information through lobbying.”[64]

 

Toch schrikken lobbygroepen er niet voor terug hun eigen visie op de werkelijkheid te geven: “Lobby groups know that their particular interests may have little traction with the general voting public or the politicians who represent them. So they dress up their demands in ‘public intrest’ language. Tomato growers might argue that an import ban would save us from low-quality or diseased tomatoes from abroad, and would boost farm employment and prosperity at home; opera companies might argue that a thriving opera culture helps uplift us or makes our country a more attractive destination for tourists. Back in 1776, Adam Smith wisely counselled that such arguments should be ‘long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention’. Nevertheless, the fact that small lobby groups make a disproportionately loud noise in the public debate – and are likely to be better informed on the particular subject than are most other people – means that politicians in turn give their arguments disproportionate attention, and find it easier to give in to their demands even if it harms the less vocal majority. Indeed, since interest groups have an incentive to raise lobbying funds, there is also the enticing prospect of campaign contributions for the politicians who support them. As the Public Choice approach reminds us, politicians have their own interests too. That is one reason why representative systems are so easily and commonly dominated by quite small interest group movements.”[65] Het is deze combinatie van eigenbelangen van zowel politici en drukkingsgroepen die rent-seeking zo succesvol maakt.

 

De tweede vraag die rijst, is wat drukkingsgroepen kunnen terugvragen. Zo komen we bij Gordon Tullock en zijn theorie over ‘rent-seeking’ door belangengroepen terecht. We nemen hier als uitgangspunt “a model of political competition in which politicians provide policies or legislation to win votes, and citizens and interest groups provide votes. From the discussion up to this point, it seems reasonable to think that the legislation consists of either public goods with characteristics that appeal to given groups of voters or income transfers from one sector of the population to another. The latter might be a tax loophole benefiting a particular group coupled with a rise in the average tax rate to make up for the revenue lost through the loophole. Income can be transferred from one group to another by other, more subtle means, however. The government can, for example, help create, increase, or protect a group’s monopoly position. In so doing, the government increases the monopoly rents of the favored groups at the expense of the buyers of the groups’ products or services. The monopoly rents that the government can help provide are a prize worth pursuing, and the pursuit of these rents has been given the name of rent seeking.”[66]

 

Hoewel de achterliggende logica van rent seeking voor het eerst was besproken door Tullock in 1967, was het Anne Krueger die in 1974 de naam rent seeking aan dit gedrag gaf. Het nieuwe aan de inzichten van Tullock was dat overheidstussenkomsten niet alleen efficiëntieverliezen voor de samenleving veroorzaken (de bekende Harberger driehoek met dead weight losses), maar ook allerlei middelen opslokken om de overheid te overtuigen of te “belobby-en” allerlei voordelen of rents in de eigen richting te krijgen (de Tullock rechthoek). Dit kan dan weer tegenmaatregelen oproepen bij de tegenstanders van dit streven, en onbedoelde verliezen voor derden-buitenstanders: “Buchanan (1980a, pp. 12-14) has identified three types of rent-seeking expenditures that may be socially wasteful: 1. The efforts and expenditures of the potential recipients of the monopoly; 2. The efforts of the government officials to obtain or to react to the expenditures of the potential recipients; 3. Third-party distortions induced by the monopoly itself or the government as a consequence of the rent-seeking activity.”[67] Rent seeking brengt dus heel wat (verdoken) kosten voor de samenleving met zich mee.

 

Rent seeking kent trouwens nog andere nadelen voor de samenleving: “Rent seeking also corrupts the political process. The prospect of extracting large benefits through rent seeking encourages groups to trade votes and support in order to make it happen. The deep interest that rent seekers have in the concessions that will benefit them, and the time and energy that they are prepared to invest to capture them, helps explain why lobbying is such a big industry and why politicians end up granting so many monopolies, regulations and concessions. It also explains why such privileges tend to remain in place long after it is plainly obvious that they are inappropriate and inefficient, and that reform is needed. The larger the power of the state, the more opportunities there are for rent seeking and the greater to power enjoyed by politicians as interest groups lobby them for favours. Politicians gain not just from the status that comes for favours. Politicians gain not just from the status that comes from being able to grant privileges to rent seekers who lobby them, but also form their ability to threaten adverse rulings on others. On occasion this power may lead to outright corruption, with politicians and officials granting special privileges to particular interest groups in return to cash or personal favours, and putting legal obstacles in the way of those who do not support them. The huge potential gains of rent seeking, both to rent seekers and to politicians, and the imbalance between the concentrated interest of the minority gainers and the powerlessness of the majority public, might make one wonder why rent seeking has not become endemic in democratic systems. Unfortunately, the evidence is that it probably has.”[68] Rent seeking bedreigt dus de democratische rechtsstaat.

 

Samengevat, “[r]ent seeking is the attempt by particular groups to persuade governments to grant them these sorts of valuable monopolies or legal privileges. If their rent seeking is successful, such benefits could add up to a substantial transfer of wealth to these privileged groups from the general public. Consumers and taxpayers lose financially as a result of the monopoly prices, but also lose in terms of the reduced choice and lower quality that they have to endure too. Tullock pointed out that the potential gains from successful rent seeking are in fact so substantial that it makes perfect sense for groups to spend a great deal of time, effort and money in trying to capture them. […] But as Tullock noted, all this expensive lobbying activity us unproductive, and a pure loss to the economy. The time, effort, money, skill and entrepreneurial activity of many talented people are wasted on it. Rent-seeking activity produces nothing of value to the community. All it does is determine which monopoly privileges will be granted to which interest groups.”[69] In essentie is ‘rent seeking’ één groot herverdelingsproces, waarbij de kosten ervan op de samenleving afgewenteld worden.

 

Als vierde speler binnen het public choice verhaal is er tot slot de overheidsbureaucratie: “Another important part of the political process is the bureaucracy – the civil servants and other public officials who work in ministries, agencies, public bodies and local government. They are all needed to translate the decisions of legislators into practical action, and to apply broad policies appropriately to individual cases. But again, how far can we rely on them to do that dispassionately, rather than to let their own personal interests intervene? Not much, according to many Public Choice scholars. […] This is in stark contrast to the approach of traditional welfare economists, in which officials were simply assumed to be objective and public-spirited, impartially pursuing the intent of the legislation they are charged to administer. In the Public Choice view, rational choice applies as much to bureaucrats as anyone else: within the limits of their powers and institutional structure, they try to maximise their personal ambitions. They may well seek to do a good job and to serve the public diligently; but like the rest of us, they also seek income, wealth, ease, tenure, seniority, leisure and comfort; and in their case, perhaps discretionary power and deference too.”[70]

 

Hoe komt het nu dat bureaucraten deze voordelen kunnen nastreven en ook van de machthebbers kunnen losweken? “In the bureaucracy, there is extensive scope for such self-serving action, partly because the output of public officials can be hard to define. Unlike market production, where success is measured in financial profit or loss, the officials’ performance is hard to monitor, being based on objectives that are often vague – such as the ill-defined ‘public interest’. So it should be no surprise if bureaucrats make time to pursue their own objectives too. Indeed, there is a much-discussed principal-agent problem within private businesses. Ultimately, there are mechanisms for the principals (shareholders) to hold the agents (management) to account – through selling shares, takeovers, appointing new boards, developing new forms of corporate governance, and through competition in the marketplace from better-run firms. Those mechanisms do not work perfectly but they are far more effective than the mechanisms by which principals (electors) are able to hold agents (bureaucrats) to account via […] elections and the actions of political representatives.”[71] Dit gebrek aan afdoende incentives vormt trouwens wellicht de hoofdoorzaak waarom overheden nooit zo efficiënt als private of winst-nastrevende bedrijven kunnen functioneren.

 

Ondanks enkele voorlopers zoals Parkinson[72] en de uiteraard bekendere Downs, is de grondlegger van dit aspect van de public choice theorie William Niskanen. In zijn boek Bureaucracy and Representative Government (1971) creëerde hij een model om het nutsmaximaliserend gedrag van bureaucraten te beschrijven en te verklaren. In tegenstelling tot wat velen denken, beweert Niskanen niet dat ambtenaren steeds voor meer budget an sich gaan; de realiteit is complexer dan dat: “In terms of what bureaucrats actually do pursue, Niskanen suggested that budget maximisation provided a fair measure. It is an approximation to the objective of profit in the market context. And it provides a simple proxy for all the other things that go with a large and growing budget – such as job security, promotion prospects, salary increases and so on. In their pursuit of these benefits, bureaucrats are just as much players in the political process as any other interest group – and they have no free-rider problem because their group is so well defined that they can easily keep the benefits of their lobbying to themselves. They do, of course, rely on the support of politicians for their budgets. But, however the budget is settled, says Niskanen, they are able to maximise their own benefit within it. If budget conditions are easy, they can simply take on new functions and demand more money to deal with the increased output. In tight conditions, they can limit their output and ensure that money stocks with them rather than being spent on projects. Either way, says Niskanen, they manage to expand themselves beyond the size and scale that a median voter or politician would ever want. Bureaucrats have no personal interest in saving money, and every incentive to invent new work-streams and social programmes. And the bureaucrats know that it is hard for politicians to backtrack on a policy they have committed to, even if the bureaucratic cost escalates well beyond their original expectations. This again gives the bureaucracy considerable bargaining power of the legislature. Bureaucrats can also resist budget restrictions by threatening to cut important front-line services […].”[73] Deze logica loopt in zekere zin parallel aan deze van de rent seeking door drukkingsgroepen.

 

Aangezien politici binnen een democratie de hiërarchische meerderen van de bureaucraten zijn, rijst de vraag waarom politici überhaupt in een onderhandelingspositie met de bureaucraten komen te staan. Het antwoord hierop is dat de politici de bureaucraten echt nodig hebben om hun politieke beslissingen uit te voeren: “Bij die onderhandelingen hebben de bureaucraten echter een behoorlijke informatievoorsprong. Ambtenaren zijn immers experts op een klein deelgebied van het beleid, terwijl politici met heel uiteenlopende topics bezig moeten zijn. Daarenboven hebben ambtenaren vaak veel meer ervaring op hun bevoegdheidsdomein omdat ze voor onbepaalde duur benoemd zijn, terwijl politici komen en gaan. Omdat politici over minder informatie beschikken dan ambtenaren, kunnen ze zelf heel moeilijk inschatten of een bepaalde afdeling of dienst een groter budget laat goedkeuren dan strikt noodzakelijk. De politicus hecht een bepaalde waarde aan de dienst die de bureaucraat levert, terwijl de bureaucraat vooral oog heeft voor de kosten die gemaakt worden bij het leveren van de dienst.”^[74]

 

De onderhandelingen tussen ‘politiek’ en ‘bureaucratie’ verlopen in essentie op basis van de volgende belangenafweging: “De bureaucraat zal een voorstel doen aan de politicus m.b.t. het budget dat hij denkt nodig te hebben om de dienst te kunnen leveren. De politicus heeft vooraf een bepaalde limiet in gedachten die hij niet zal overschrijden. Indien het door de bureaucraat gevraagde bedrag deze limiet niet overschrijdt, dan zal de politicus het bedrag toekennen. Een budgetmaximaliserende bureaucraat zal hierop anticiperen door nooit een bedrag te vragen dat hoger ligt dan de limiet, ook al weet die dat de werkelijke kost van de dienstverlening hoger zal liggen. De bureaucraat kan zijn informatievoorsprong gebruiken om voorstellen te doen die ‘te nemen of te laten’ zijn. In hun advies aan de politici zullen bureaucraten dan ook steeds proberen om dat beleid te implementeren dat hun eigen bureaucratische belangen dient en beleid dat hun belangen niet dienst, af te raden. Door de informatie-asymmetrie hebben bureaucraten immers meer macht dan politici en kunnen ze de keuzevrijheid van politici d.m.v. hun advies inperken. Het is voor hen dan ook heel gemakkelijk om zich opportunistisch te gedragen door politici verkeerd te informeren of zelfs te saboteren.”^[75]

 

Bovendien beschikken ambtenaren over nog een andere hefboom: “Bureaucrats are also likely to design, promote and support complex policy initiatives that both increase their scope for discretion and help them conceal how their budget is spent, so adding to the bewilderment of the politicians who are supposed to be controlling them. Since they work so closely with politicians, there is even the unspoken threat that bureaucrats could humble their political masters by leaking damaging information about them, a threat that again might help to resist attempts to cut their budgets. And the larger that government becomes, and the more decisions that politicians have to make, the greater is the chance that they will make bad decisions that could later be used to embarrass them.”[76] Dit alles doet denken aan de hilarische dialogen in de Britse komische serie ‘Yes, minister’, waarin de topambtenaar steeds probeert de (soms wat wilde) beleidsvoorstellen van zijn minister af te blokken met ‘But, minister,…’.

 

Uiteraard zijn Niskanens inzichten niet alleenzaligmakend en zijn er intussen nuanceringen of aanvullingen aangebracht: “Some modern Public Choice scholars argue that politicians do, in fact, have considerable power to control bureaucrats. They can punish them through budget cuts and professional sanctions. They can harass them with enquiries. They can threaten public exposure and humiliation if bureaucratic incompetence or impropriety comes to light: simply punishing a few may be enough to keep others in line. They can threaten legislation to curb agencies that stray outside their legitimate brief. They can also build incentives into new legislation, with the aim of raising standards and performance and preventing bureaucratic excesses. So managing the bureaucracy may not need detailed control. Even so, politicians may be better at detailed control of the bureaucracy than Niskanen and others first thought. Agencies tend to be regulated not by the legislature as a whole, but by specialist committees. The legislators who sit on those committees are likely to be just as expert in the government functions they manage as are the bureaucrats whom they oversee. That again might be quite enough to provide adequate control.”[77]

 

Dit alles neemt niet weg dat de diverse public choice krachten, zoals belangengroepen, irrationele kiezers en bureaucraten, elkaar ook nog eens kunnen versterken: “Bureaucrats can also rely on the political support of the interest groups that depend on the grants and programmes that they administer, and which would almost certainly like to see those budgets increased; and they can rely on the support of the commercial businesses that supply goods and services to the programmes that the agencies administer. Another potential source of bureaucratic power is the voting power of the bureaucrats themselves. If the government employs a quarter or a third of the workforce, as it now does in many countries, public servants and their dependants form a huge voting bloc that is generally likely to favour more government bureaucracy and bigger bureaucratic budgets.”[78] Bij nader toezien blijkt het interne functioneren van een drukkingsgroep in verhouding tot de administratie trouwens nog complexer of veelzijdiger (de bureaucratie vormt bijvoorbeeld niet één monolithisch blok van dezelfde belangen) dan hierboven al beschreven werd, maar dit zou ons hier te ver leiden.

 

In elk geval, “practical attempts to rein back a growing bureaucracy have come to grief in many countries. It is much easier for politicians to create new agencies than to abolish or curb them. And there is more political advantage in expanding than in cutting. A burgeoning bureaucracy, one might argue, is merely a symptom of things that are more fundamentally wrong in the way our democratic system works. And what we need to cure those ills, many Public Choice scholars insist, is much better constitutional controls.”[79] Niet alleen blijken deze public choice krachten op zich dus bijzonder moeilijk te beheersen, zij worden nog eens versterkt door de onzekerheden voor het beleid die met risico’s, risico-inschattingen en risicobeheer gepaard gaan.

 

Dat de uiteenlopende public choice krachten wel degelijk werkzaam zijn in de dagelijkse realiteit, blijkt ook uit een veelzeggend artikel van het gezaghebbende weekblad ‘The Economist’: “America is meant to be the home of laissez-faire. Unlike Europeans, whose lives have long been circumscribed by meddling governments and diktats from Brussels, Americans are supposed to be free to choose, for better or for worse. Yet for some time America has been straying from this ideal. Two forces make American laws too complex. One is hubris. Many lawmakers seem to believe that they can lay down rules to govern every eventuality. Examples range from the merely annoying (e.g., a proposed code for nurseries in Colorado that specifies how many crayons each box must contain) to the delusional (e.g., the conceit of Dodd-Frank that you can anticipate and ban every nasty trick financiers will dream up in the future). Far from preventing abuses, complexity creates loopholes that the shrewd can abuse with impunity. The other force that makes American laws complex is lobbying. The government’s drive to micromanage so many activities creates a huge incentive for interest groups to push for special favours. When a bill is hundreds of pages long, it is not hard for congressmen to slip in clauses that benefit their chums and campaign donors. The health-care bill included tons of favours for the pushy. Congress’s last, failed attempt to regulate greenhouse gases was even worse.”[80] Zowel het suboptimaal functioneren van politici als van drukkingsgroepen blijken cruciaal te zijn voor het gebrek aan wetgevingskwaliteit.

 

Wanneer Radaelli de inzichten van de public choice theorie toepast op de Europese Commissie als de belangrijkste oorsprong van EU wetgeving, dan maakt hij tot de volgende vaststellingen: “In the case of the European Commission, re-election is not the concern (although arguable renewal of their mandates is a concern for individual Commissioners), but its very right to exist as a supranational institution whose power derives primarily from its regulatory functions, is. When it comes to regulating, the EU, and the European Commission as its only institution with the right to initiate legislative proposals, finds itself in a “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” situation. Complaints about European over-regulation are abound, but in many cases member states are only too happy to leave painful regulatory decisions to the EU, which in turn is keen on proving its added value by means of a steady regulatory output. This paradox is related to the problems of regulatory rent-seeking and capture […].”[81] Het lijkt er op dat zelfs technocratische regeringen hun eigen problemen kennen. Aan de vraagzijde merkt Radaelli ook aanzienlijke druk op om meer regelgeving te creëren, wat te wijten zou zijn aan de ‘regulatory capture’ door lobbygroepen: “Excess demand for regulation by pressure groups and regulatory capture of regulators is a common phenomenon. Pressure groups demand regulation because it protects them from competition and produces ‘regulatory rents’ to those who are ‘inside’”[82].

 

VI. Voorlopige besluiten: de nood aan externe controle

 

De vraag wordt nu uiteraard wat tegen deze public choice krachten kan ondernomen worden. In haar doctoraal proefschrift wijst Verlinden op de nood aan zowel interne als externe controle bij de opmaak en totstandkoming van wetgeving. Verlinden verwijst hierbij naar de aanpak binnen bedrijven: “Het uitgangspunt is eenvoudig: bij ieder proces moet men zichzelf de vraag stellen waar het allemaal fout kan gaan. Vanuit die risicoanalyse blijkt de nood aan controle. Externe controle, onder meer door bedrijfsrevisoren, maar ook interne controle binnen het bedrijf zelf. Interne en externe controle vullen elkaar aan.”[83] In die zin oordeelt Verlinden dat de werking van bedrijven en overheden in essentie niet zoveel van elkaar verschillen: beide organisaties dienen hun doelstellingen (die wel verschillend kunnen zijn) zo kwaliteitsvol en efficiënt als mogelijk te realiseren.

 

Verlinden verantwoordt deze nood aan zowel interne als externe controle als gevolg van het soort risico’s die elk productieproces schuilen: “Elke organisatie moet een aangepast systeem van interne controle ontwikkelen, strikt genoeg om de kwaliteit te garanderen en toch voldoende flexibiliteit om kort op de bal te kunnen spelen. Daartoe moet eerst een risicoanalyse plaatsvinden. Er worden drie soorten risico’s onderscheiden: […]

• Het inherente risico betreft het risico dat een bepaalde berekening of verrichting fouten bevat die materieel zijn. Het risico op materiële fouten wordt groter naargelang de transacties ingewikkelder zijn en er moet gewerkt worden op basis van schattingen. Daarom moet een systeem van interne controle opgezet worden.
• Het risico blijft bestaan dat zelfs interne controle bepaalde onjuistheden niet weg filtert: dat is het interne controle risico. Daarom is het belangrijk om steeds een vorm van externe controle te hanteren.
• Maar zelfs na de extra inspanningen van een externe auditor kan het gebeuren dat er nog onjuistheden van materieel belang overblijven. Dat is het detectierisico. Het risico volgt uit het feit dat de externe revisor onmogelijk een volledige controle kan uitvoeren. De externe auditor moet er dus voor zorgen dat hij zijn controles afstemt op de mogelijke risico’s. Hij moet inschatten in welke mate er inherente risico’s en interne controle risico’s bestaan en op basis daarvan beslissen hoe substantieel zijn eigen controle nog moet zijn.”[84]

 

Wanneer we inzoomen op de externe controle, dan stellen we vast: “Een externe expert gaat steekproefsgewijs na of de bedrijfsprocedures juist gevolgd zijn en er geen fouten in de cijfers geslopen zijn. De externe auditor moet noodzakelijkerwijs onafhankelijk staan ten aanzien van het doorgelichte bedrijf. Een externe deskundige kan nooit het integrale proces weer samenstellen dat aan een beslissing voorafgaat. Door zijn onafhankelijkheid heeft hij geen volledig zicht op de situatie die hij moet beoordelen. De externe controle kan zodoende niet op zichzelf zorgen voor voldoende zekerheid met betrekking tot de kwaliteit van het afgeleverde werk. De mate van externe controle hangt af van de kwaliteit van de interne controle: hoe groter de interne controlerisico’s, hoe steviger de externe controle moet zijn.”[85] Een bijkomend aspect, iets dat Verlinden hier wat uit het oog lijkt te verliezen, betreft de slagkracht van de externe controleur. Hoe geloofwaardig is de externe controle of controleur, wanneer hij zijn externe controle niet kan handhaven of afdwingen. Een vraag die dus zeker voorafgaandelijk beantwoord moet worden, is deze naar de bevoegdheid tot sanctioneren vanuit de externe controle.

 

In haar algemene conclusies stelt Verlinden vast dat er wel degelijk inspanningen geleverd worden m.b.t. de interne controle van de wetgevingskwaliteit in België: “Een eerste vaststelling is positief: uit de doorlichting van de Vlaamse en federale institutionele structuur blijkt dat er veel instellingen controle uitoefenen op de kwaliteit van de regelgeving. De onderlinge verschillen zijn groot. De uitgebreide analyse en oplijsting geven aan dat er een mix bestaat van gevestigde waarden zoals de afdeling wetgeving van de Raad van State en meer recente initiatieven zoals de invoering van RIA in Vlaanderen. Er zijn instellingen die opereren binnen het parlement of binnen de administratie en er zijn onafhankelijke instellingen. De gehanteerde criteria variëren ook sterk. De meeste controles zijn juridisch-technisch van aard, maar er zijn ook instellingen die zich met de financiële kant bezighouden, of de socio-economische effecten onderzoeken, of een platform bieden aan belangengroepen. Deze instellingen huisvesten vaak ook gedreven, ervaren en competente mensen.”[86] En: “Nog positief nieuws: er worden ook steeds meer stappen gezet om de besluitvormingsprocedure transparanter en efficiënter te maken. Op Vlaams niveau zijn de RIA, de cellen wetskwaliteit en de hervorming van het adviesradenstelsel uitingen van die wens. Op federaal vlak gaat het een stuk trager, maar ook daar heeft de Kafka-test een plaats veroverd en wordt nu hetzelfde verwacht van de DOEB-test. […] Er zijn dus wel degelijk initiatieven om de opstellers van regelgeving de nodige ondersteuning te bieden.”[87]

 

Toch maakt Verlinden een wat pijnlijke vaststelling: “Er zijn vele instellingen en competente mensen betrokken bij het wetgevingsproces. Toch lijkt het maar niet te lukken om met die bouwstenen de kwaliteit van de regelgeving op te krikken. […] Uit de analyse blijkt dat dit samenhangt met de manier waarop het besluitvormingsproces wordt gestructureerd. De bestaande procedures zijn organisch gegroeid en weerspiegelen het gebrek aan visie van de afgelopen decennia. De maatschappij is veranderd, maar die vaststelling heeft niet geleid tot ingrijpende veranderingen in het besluitvormingsproces. Nochtans is transparantie een van de kernvoorwaarden voor democratie. Die transparantie helaas ver te zoeken; toeval en politieke ratio regeren het besluitvormingsproces. De term black box blijft de beste beschrijving voor de vroegste fase van het besluitvormingsproces.”[88] Hoe komt het dus dat ondanks de vele controlemaatregelen de kwaliteit van de Vlaamse (en Belgische) wetgeving niet drastisch verbeterd? De verklaring hiervan zou kunnen zijn dat de controlemechanismen nog teveel tandeloos zijn en dat is grotendeels te wijten aan de beperkte bevoegdheden tot sanctionering waarover de interne en externe controleurs bevinden. De honden kunnen wel blaffen maar niet bijten, en zo trekt de karavaan verder. Een grotere bereidheid tot toetsing van de kwaliteit van wetgeving (bijvoorbeeld over de vraag of de aantasting van grondrechten door wetgeving wel geoorloofd is) door rechtscolleges zou alvast een grote stap in de juiste richting zijn.

 

Laten we nu deze inzichten over de drijvende krachten achter de totstandkoming van wetgeving (algemeen belang en eigenbelang) toepassen op achtereenvolgens de analyse van en het daaropvolgende management (beheer of beheersing) van risico’s voor de samenleving.

 

VII. Een illustratie: de analyse van maatschappelijke risico’s

 

Steeds meer regeringen (beginnen te) beseffen hoe belangrijk en zelfs hoe noodzakelijk het is om risico’s voor individuen en voor de samenleving in zijn geheel goed in te schatten en vervolgens afdoende te beheersen. Zo schrijft prof. Giandomenico Majone van de Europese Universiteit van Firenze: “Defining an appropriate analytical framework is of critical importance for effective risk policies. Public officials are increasingly facing the need to make decisions about policies where future uncertainties are economically significant and unavoidable. Today the issue of risk, in its multifarious forms, looms so large in public discourse and in popular perceptions that some observers speak of a ‘risk society’, where problems of ‘risk distribution’ replace those of income distribution which characterized industrial society.”[89]

 

Een gelijkaardige vaststelling maakt Gregory Bounds van de OESO: “Public servants deal regularly with risks in many public policy domains – economic, financial, health, safety, environmental and national security. With increasing frequency, officials face decisions about policies, programmes and services when future uncertainties are economically significant and unavoidable. Thus, they need to assess, appraise and manage risk in an overall effort to develop suitable policy responses. Moreover, in a context of growing complexity and interdependence, they need to inform the public about the nature of risks and the inherent tradeoffs between specific policy choices.”[90] Samengevat wordt het overheidsbeleid steeds meer risico-gevoelig en moet zij dus alsmaar meer werk maken van kwaliteitsvolle risico-analyses, -management én –communicatie. Hoewel risico in essentie ongrijpbaar is, wordt zij wel steeds wezenlijker of reëler, of wordt toch als dusdanig gepercipieerd, en moet zij in beleidsafwegingen meegenomen worden.

 

Indien we kwaliteitsvolle analyses van risico’s en vervolgens hun optimale beheersing willen, dan moeten we wel eerst weten wat het concept van risico inhoudt. Majone geeft ons een eerste definitie: “Risk is defined as the probability of an unfavorable event multiplied by the severity of harm, if the event occurs. The connection between risk and probability is clear: Risk is simply an expected loss, which can be calculated once we know the probability distribution of all possible events. Given this definition of risk, it is clear that probability and utility (or loss = negative utility) are the key concepts of risk regulation.”[91] Dit is de klassieke of inhoudelijk objectieve definitie van risico: waarschijnlijkheid vermenigvuldigd met schade.

 

Deze definitie van risico maakt van elke risico-afweging een precaire evenwichtsoefening tussen een inschatting van de kansen versus de analyse van de gevolgen: “One of the critical issues in the design of a risk-based system is the relative role played by assessments of probability and impact or hazard. A bias towards impact means that regulatory attention is focused more on activities or events which have a relatively high impact but low probability; a bias towards probability means the regulator focuses more on high probability but relatively low impact events or activities. The regulators take quite different approaches to how they assess impact, the relative weights given to impact and probability, and the relationship between them. The choice is a political one, and the difference can be significant.”[92] Op deze politieke keuzes komen we zo meteen terug, maar deze vaststelling gelijk sterkt op deze voor het gebruik van de RIA-methodiek: analyses kunnen nooit in de plaats treden van politieke keuzes .

 

Opmerkelijk evenwel is dat Majone aan dit risicoconcept ook een individuele of subjectieve dimensie koppelt die kenmerkend is voor het nieuwe of moderne concept van risico: “These two concepts (probability & utility) are so intimately related that the modern view of probability was developed in an attempt to understand the logic of decision making in the face of incomplete knowledge. According to this view an individual, when faced with the necessity of making a decision that may have different consequences depending on events about which she has incomplete knowledge, can express her preferences and uncertainties in a way consistent with some basic principles of rational behaviour. It can then be deduced that the individual has a ‘utility function’ – which measures the value to her of each course of action when each of the uncertain possibilities is assumed to be the true one – and a ‘subjective probability distribution’, which expresses quantitatively her beliefs about the uncertain events. The individual’s optimal decision is the one that maximizes expected utility (or minimizes expected loss) with respect to this probability distribution.”[93] Wat Majone hiermee dus bedoelt, is dat elke inschatting van risico’s in het economische systeem ook samenvalt met individuele voorkeuren. De inherent persoonlijke en subjectieve inschatting van risico’s maakt dus eigenlijk deel uit van de individuele nutsbeleving.

 

Net in dit subjectieve inschattingselement ligt volgens Majone het grote verschil met de klassieke risico-opvatting: “The modern view of probability as expressing the strength of our knowledge or beliefs, is much broader than the old (‘objective’) view of probability, which only applies to phenomena or experiments that can be indefinitely repeated under essentially the same conditions. But each political, managerial, or regulatory decision is essentially unique – it can never be repeated under the same conditions – and hence may be analyzed only by means of the subjective notion of probability. From this viewpoint, ‘objective probabilities’ represent only a special case […]. What is really important about subjective probabilities is the procedure (known as the Bayes theorem) by which they can be revised in the light of new information. Hence ‘subjective’ in this context, is not at all equivalent to ‘arbitrary’. Both subjective probabilities and utilities are derived according to precisely defined rules that guarantee their internal consistency, and also learning – in the sense of transforming ‘prior’ into ‘posterior’ probabilities in the light of new evidence – follows a well-defined procedure […].”[94] Centraal hier staat het subjectieve en voortdurende leerproces van risico-inschattingen dat pas inhoudelijk objectief en consistent kan worden op grond van precies afgebakende procedureregels.

 

Deze combinatie van het inherent subjectief inschatten van de kansen en de gevolgen van risico’s met het op zich al onzeker want toekomstgericht karakter van het concept risico maakt dat het beleidsstreven naar het objectief of onomstotelijk in kaart brengen van risico’s op een aantal onvermijdelijke obstakels stuit. Gregory Bounds, expert binnen de OESO inzake risicomanagement, ontwaart er alvast zeven.

 

De eerste grote moeilijkheid schuilt in het gebrek aan voldoende empirische gegevens: “A significant constraint on undertaking risk assessment and analysis is the availability of reliable and comprehensive data. Collecting data impose a burden on government. It can be costly and time consuming and may require rare and expensive scientific expertise. Furthermore, even where scientific evidence is available, its conclusions may be contentious within the scientific community making it difficult to use effectively for informing decision making. The literature on risk assessment reflects extensive debate on the technical construction of scientific procedures for assessing risk and uncertainty in particular technical domains, for example: assessing health and safety outcomes, impacts on the environment and applying valuation techniques to the measurement of intangible costs and benefits.”[95] Vaak laat de overheid hier steken vallen.

 

Maar zelfs als deze gegevens voor handen zijn, bestaat er soms onenigheid over de vraag hoe deze gegevens geïnterpreteerd moeten worden om er beleidsbeslissingen op te grondvesten. Analyses van complexe risicodossiers leveren immers per definitie onzekere resultaten op: “Even where data are available, risk analysis may be subject to criticisms of spurious accuracy. Risk analysis that includes significant technical complexity may be subject to the allegation that it obscures important policy issues rather than improving transparency – in effect promoting analytical paralysis. In this regard, risk analysis cannot be taken to provide automatic answers or solutions to regulatory problems but rather has to be constructed as a source of information that informs policy decision making within properly designed institutional arrangements.”[96] Ook deze vaststelling sluit aan bij wat bepleit wordt voor de verbetering van de wetgevingskwaliteit: analyse is een hulpmiddel maar vormt niet het uiteindelijke antwoord op de vraag wat kwaliteitsvolle wetgeving inhoudt.

 

Volgens prof. Majone zijn deze discussies en betwistingen trouwens niet te vermijden: “From the analytical perspective, significant aspects may have complex, and often unintended consequences, as rational decisions have to be taken in an uncertain world, where uncertainty cannot be eliminated. Uncertainty is pervasive in risk regulation, by definition. What seems to be less well understood is that in many cases, uncertainty is not only pervasive but also irreducible, as is illustrated by the example of potential chemical carcinogens. The heterogeneity of human populations, as well as the difficulty in finding the best close animal species for tests leaves public authorities with an almost impossible regulatory task in terms of managing and fully securing the risks associated for potential carcinogens for the overall population, including high risk groups. The difficulty to produce solutions that are entirely and totally logical to the various problems of risk assessment leaves regulators dealing with scientific uncertainty, and with the need to search for various ‘safety factors’ or conservative assumptions, which are nothing else than empirical rules of thumb, which is one reason that explains the origin of the so called ‘precautionary principle’.”[97] Door deze onzekerheid blijven (politieke) keuzes nodig. Op deze wetenschappelijke complexiteit komen we nog terug.

 

Een derde moeilijkheid duikt op wanneer de overheid een beleidskader voor de aanpak van risico’s vastlegt dat de draagwijdte van een risico-analyse, als de eerste stap in het bepalen van concreet risicobeleid, al op voorhand inperkt: “The use of the precautionary principle (which is employed where the risks of actions or a failure to act may result in irreversible damage to the environment or other goods) acts as a rule constraining the conduct of risk assessment because it does not focus on the entire range of possibilities but on losses. It therefore does not incorporate risk decision rules because it places too much weight on the outcomes without considering the costs and benefits.”[98] Aangezien het voorzorgsbeginsel al van bij de start (te) beperkende krijtlijnen trekt, kan dit dus leiden tot een niet te verantwoorden inperking van het aantal mogelijke resultaten van de risico-analyse.

 

Daarnaast zijn er een drietal aandachtspunten die het succes (of het gebrek daaraan) van een risico-analyse koppelen aan de concrete werking van de overheidsorganen, waarbij duidelijk wordt dat een degelijk risicomanagement onverbrekelijk deel uitmaakt van een kwaliteitsvol overheidsmanagement ‘tout court’: (1) “Risk assessment can present significant co-ordination issues. Where risks are required to be managed by more than one department risk identification and the evaluation of priorities for the treatment of risk have to be looked at from a whole-of-government perspective. This is made acute by the potential for risk reduction strategies in one area to increase risks in another. (2) As with all aspects of regulatory impact analysis risk assessment needs to be incorporated early in the policy process if it is to be effective. Once regulatory or policy solutions have been identified and become owned by stakeholders it is extremely difficult for alternative approaches to be given serious consideration even if their merits are supported by robust analysis. (3) While good risk policy processes require ex ante and ex post evaluation of risk assessment and management strategies it is a challenge for governments to undertake this evaluation systematically and in a timely manner. Some explanations for this are that governments may not be willing to accept the conduct of reviews as an appropriate allocation of limited resources, or may be concerned about the political consequences if reviews of responses to risk are highly critical.”[99]

 

Tot slot bestaat de vrees dat de risico-analyse te weinig of helemaal geen rekening houdt met de verdelingseffecten of geen antwoord biedt op de vraag hoe risk-trade-offs gemaakt moeten worden: “Clearly, while it may not be able to direct a certain policy choice particularly in a political context, robust risk assessment is an important tool for assisting with distinguishing and making transparent the consequence for different groups if certain trade-offs are selected over others.”[100] Sommigen politicologen beweren zelfs dat deze problematiek zo belangrijk geworden is dat deze in de plaats van de eigenlijke inkomensverdeling gekomen is.

 

Op grond van deze opsomming rijst dan ook de vraag of en in welke mate overheden momenteel een gezondheidsbeleid voeren op grond van een degelijk risicomanagement. Daar komt trouwens nog dat bij de risico-analyses over de gezondheidsaspecten van chemische stoffen de bevindingen van de klinische studies en hun bijhorende aanbevelingen vaak niet eenduidig en soms zelfs tegenstrijdig zijn. Dit alles brengt ons opnieuw tot de vaststelling dat onzekerheden binnen risico-analyse niet alleen allesbepalend maar vooral niet terug te dringen zijn: “Uncertainty […] shows the boundary between science and ‘trans-science’, for issues over which expert disagreement is most serious, and for which the gap between the available scientific evidence and popular perceptions of risk. ‘Trans-scientific’ issues are beyond strictly scientific or technical issues. […] Trans-scientific issues are questions of fact that can be stated in the language of science but are, in principle or in practice, unanswerable by science.”[101] Of hoe overtuigingen in wetenschap veranderen.

 

Dit ‘transwetenschappelijk’ element is ook aanwezig in klinische tests en hun besluiten over de impacts van chemische stoffen op de menselijke gezondheid: “[A]t present the choice of a particular dose-response function must be treated as a trans-scientific question since […] the relationship can be represented by many different functions, but with the experimental data usually available there is no firm scientific basis for choosing a particular functional representation. However, the choice can have a major effect on risk management. Also mentioned was the unreliability of extrapolations outside the experimental range, in particular downward extrapolation from the very high dose levels used in animal experiments. But why are test animals exposed to levels of toxic substances far in excess of those to which humans would be exposed under normal circumstances, thus making downward extrapolation necessary? The answer is that this is done in order to compensate for the small number of animals usually tested. Thus, if we assume that a chemical agent will cause cancer in 1 out of 10.000 people who are exposed to it, and that humans and test animals do not differ significantly in sensitivity with respect to the given agent, it would be necessary to test 10.000 animals (but preferably something like 30.000 animals) in order to detect one case of cancer. With 1.000 test animals and an unacceptably low confidence level of 90%, the upper confidence limit for a negative experiment (no cancer induced at the given dose level) is 2.3 cancers per 1.000 tests. It has been calculated that to reduce the upper limit of risk to 2 cancers per one million at a confidence level of 99,9% would require a negative result in somewhat more than three million test animals. In practice, no more than 50 or so animals are usually available per dose level, and this explains the use of high doses on small samples of animals. ‘Megamouse’ experiments with extremely large number of animals have been proposed. Such experiments would allow reducing the experimental doses and hence the unreliability of downward extrapolations; but the costs would be prohibitive and the validity of the conclusions still doubtful because of the problems connected with human heterogeneity and extrapolations from animal test to humans.”[102] Men kan zich dus afvragen hoe realistisch of waarheidsgetrouw dergelijke tests dan wel zijn.

 

Daar komen nog andere complicerende factoren bij die in verband staan tot het effectief nemen van een beslissing binnen een onzeker kader: “Another defining feature is the necessity of reaching a decision within a reasonable time. Unlike the academic scientist, the regulatory scientist cannot refuse to decide, or postpone a decision while waiting for better evidence: s/he must come to some definite conclusion, however large the area of subjective uncertainty. How to deal rationally and consistently with such irreducible uncertainty in a limited time frame is the most basic problem of risk regulation. Safety factors, risk classification (‘similar risks should be treated similarly’), worst-case scenarios, least-feasible-risk rule, and the pre-cautionary principle, are all attempts to come to grips with this basic problem. Unfortunately, these and similar attempts are not only ad hoc, but logically flawed, practically misleading (since they create a false sense of security), and prone to be misguided for protectionist or other purposes having nothing to do with risk abatement. The very proliferation of such ad hoc methods of dealing with probabilistic events shows how widespread, even among scientists and regulators, is the ignorance of the logic of decision making under uncertainty.”[103] Merk hier alvast de gelijkenis op met de vaststelling van marktfalingen: die kunnen niet zomaar aanleiding geven tot overheidsoptreden.

 

VIII. Een tweede illustratie: het risicomanagement

 

De vraag die we ons vervolgens moeten stellen, is hoe de onvermijdelijke public choice drijfveren kunnen inwerken op het risico-bewustzijn van de bevolking. Aan het begin van dit mechanisme staan dus de persoonlijke percepties van risico’s: “The problem is the huge gap which often separates the public’s risk perceptions from the assessments of the experts. Studies by […] cognitive psychologists have demonstrated that there is a tendency to overestimate events associated with lower-probability events such as botulism and floods, and to underestimate the risks associated with higher-probability events, such as the risk of being killed in a car accident, or risks of cancer, heart disease and stroke. Also risks associated with toxic waste dumps and nuclear power appear near the bottom of most experts’ lists, while in many countries they appear near the top of the public’s list of concerns.”[104]

 

Door deze verkeerde percepties geraakt het beleid voor het uitvoeren van risico-analyses verstoord: “The overestimation of low-probability events has substantial implications for public policy. Scientific uncertainties and worst-case scenarios produce public pressure which, in turn, may encourage legislators to closely supervise agencies by encouraging strong action in respect to those substances or activities that catch the public eye. The result is random agenda setting. An important policy question, therefore, is how governments should respond, if at all, to public (mis)perceptions of risk. According to many advocates of the precautionary principle, and many of those who would like to see democracy at work at all levels and in all areas of policy making, public perceptions of risk should be considered together with ‘harder’ scientific and economic data. […] Even assuming that public perceptions should be taken into account by risk managers, the crucial, but unanswered, question is which weight should be attached to such social data relative to scientific, technical, and economic data.”[105] Een vrijwel niet te ontwarren kluwen dus.

 

Wat er ook van zij, “biased public perceptions create […] a ‘vicious circle’ – public perceptions influence [the legislators], [these legislators] (in particular, through media reports of its activities) helps to shape public perceptions, and both influence the response of regulatory agencies, distorting regulatory priorities. […] We are faced with a real dilemma: on the one hand, risk regulation, like any other public policy, should be responsive to the preferences of the citizens; on the other hand, the regulator’s task is to issue regulations that are needed to control the ‘real’ risk levels, as indicated by the best available scientific evidence, not to respond to biased perceptions.”[106] Hierdoor kunnen grote welvaartsverliezen voor de samenleving ontstaan, wat we hieronder nog kort zullen bespreken.

 

Public choice krachten hebben trouwens nog een andere grote impact op de risico-analyses, ditmaal door middel van de implementatie van het risicobeleid door de overheid: “Risk-based frameworks enable regulators to channel their resources to those issues which pose the greatest risk to the achievement of their objectives. […] Risk-based frameworks appear technical and mundane, but they contain real choices about what matters to the regulatory agency and what does not. The fundamental question in any risk-based regime is what types and levels of risk is the regulator prepared to tolerate. Regulators do not often articulate what their risk appetite is in public, or even private. Setting that risk tolerance can be an extremely challenging task. Better regulation enthusiasts usually emphasize the positive aspect of risk-based frameworks – that they require regulators to focus on their priorities. But risk-based regulation is a zero-sum game. Resources which are spent in one area are not spent somewhere else. The flip side of focusing on priorities is that regulators have to identify which risks or levels of risk they are not prepared to devote the bulk of their resources to preventing. In making that determination, regulators are bound to make an error. Risk-based regulation therefore requires regulators to take risks. Regulators, and their political supervisors, have choice. Should they err on the side of assuming a firm does pose a risk when it does not (in statistical terms, a Type II error), or err on the side of assuming that a firm does not pose a risk when in fact it does (a Type I error). These choices have always been made implicitly within regulatory bodies. In risk-based systems, they are rendered explicit. The consequences are significant. If regulators err on the side of assuming firms are risky when they are safe, they run the risk of being accused of over-regulation, and of stifling business and innovation. If they err on the side of assuming firms’ activities are safe when they are risky, they run the risk of failure. That failure, as the financial crisis demonstrates, can be far reaching. In practice, a regulator’s risk tolerance is ultimately driven by the political context. All regulators face political risk, the risk that what they consider to be an acceptable level of risk will be higher than that tolerated by politicians, the media and the public. For regulators, minimizing political risk is often the overriding concern. The higher the political salience of a sector or risk, the less will be the regulators’ tolerance of failure in the particular area. The political context is often fickle, however; issues that were not salient suddenly become so, and vice versa. This has consequences for the allocation of resources, which may not always go where the risk model says they should.”[107]

 

Bij nader toezien bestaan er drie manieren waarop bureaucratische krachten onder druk van drijfveren van eigenbelang een kwaliteitsvol risicomanagement in de weg kunnen staan: “The first is that an emphasis on risk management can accentuate existing tendencies for public sector agencies to engage in blame avoidance. ‘Systems that put too much stress on limiting downside business risk at organisational level can trigger risk displacement processes among different organisations that create nil (or negative) public value. Such processes can result in the greatest exposure to risk being borne by organisations that are politically weakest rather than those best placed (through knowledge or resource) to assume responsibility for risk.’ Second, if applied in a mechanistic or token way risk management approaches can disguise policy inaction. Procedural form filling can be a substitute for government taking a proper role as a risk bearer. Thirdly, business risk management approaches that are focused on the organisation may encourage organisations to limit revealing information about mistakes or criminality; this in turn limits transparency and the opportunities for adaptive learning by the organisation.”[108]

 

Om deze negatieve gevolgen van de inwerking van persoonlijke belangen op de bureaucratieën te vermijden moeten deze vormen van eigenbelang dan ook steeds voor ogen gehouden worden: “Considering the potential principle agent problem, an important part of an assessment of the practices of a risk-based approach to regulation is to examine the extent to which the risk management practices of regulatory agencies are aimed at achieving the government’s public value objectives and not just the agency. This is particularly relevant as agencies are given discretion to target scarce resources to reduce the most significant risks through risk-based regulation.”[109]

 

De kostprijs van deze uiteenlopende impacts van de public choice krachten op de risico-analyses en -management kan trouwens groot zijn: “Clearly when governments fail to manage risk appropriately, the costs to society can be politically significant and these costs can impact at many levels, both sensational and prosaic. Governments are blamed when they fail to avert crisis, and will also be criticised for tying up the lives of citizens and business in red tape. Governments are expected to regulate to respond to and prevent the factors which lead to crisis, but should not stifle innovation, entrepreneurism and opportunities for markets and consumers through unnecessary bureaucracy. Another way to classify this is as economic opportunity costs: the opportunity costs which arise from governments failing to anticipate and avert the consequences of emerging risks; and the opportunity costs from governments giving an unnecessary degree of attention to risks that are better managed in another way, or by another part of society. As a matter of principle, regulation should be set at the minimum level necessary to achieve a regulatory objective to reduce unnecessary regulatory costs.”[110]

 

Het OESO-rapport somt een drietal ernstige negatieve effecten voor het algemeen belang op die het gevolg zijn van een verstoorde risicoanalyse en -management:

“- Failing to set risk priorities – not all risks are equally important. A systematic approach is necessary to identify which risks are likely to be of significant magnitude to allow governments to apply sufficient resources to address the most serious risks.

– Over regulating risks – intervening in markets or the lives of citizens in a disproportionate manner to the scale of the risk is wasteful of resources. On the one hand regulating to attempt to insulate persons from risks which are more effectively addressed at an individual level may have the perverse effect of creating a moral hazard. That is it may increase the incentives that individuals have to take risks and therefore increase rather than reduce their public impact. On the other hand, unnecessary government action that is ineffective in removing risks can interfere with the live of citizens, increase the costs to consumers and impose obligations without a net benefit to society.

– Unequal treatment of risks – treating regulatory problems that represent equal risks differently can create barriers to trade between jurisdictions, increasing business compliance costs and reducing welfare of citizens.”[111]

 

De conclusie van dit alles zou dan ook moeten zijn dat meer tegenkrachten nodig zijn om deze public choice krachten in toom te houden. Dit kan door middel van de creatie van processen en instellingen voor een optimaal risicomanagement die we hieronder bespreken. Om deze politieke bedreigingen voor oordeelkundig risicomanagement (enigszins) in te dammen is er dus nood aan een goed uitgewerkt en stabiel systeem van risico-management.

 

Risico-expert professor John D. Graham heeft hieromtrent gelijkaardige inzichten: “Managing risks is as difficult as it is essential. Indeed, there is a large body of scholarly literature suggesting that people (as individuals or businesses) and their governments do not assess or manage risk with a high degree of competence (Baron, 1998; Thaler and Sunstein, 2008) Risks are both over-regulated and under-regulated, reflecting a public syndrome of paranoia and neglect (Viscusi, 1998). Even the technical task of assessing risk, a key input to risk management, is plagued by complexities such as a scientific uncertainty in the vulnerability of different individuals, households, communities, regions and ecosystems. […] The common challenge is to manage risk wisely in settings where risks are often poorly identified and quantified, where enlightened value judgements about optimal risk taking are disputed, and where well-intentioned policies aimed at curbing one risk may inadvertently create other risks (McDaniels and Small, 2004). And since knowledge about risks change over time, often slowly but sometimes rapidly, a common challenge is to make wise decisions in a dynamic context where flexibility is needed to account for new information.”[112]

 

Volgens OESO-expert Gregory Bounds mondt het management van risico’s uiteindelijk in de volgende evenwichtsoefening uit: “The goal of embedding risk management in public governance is to find a balance between the opportunities for greater flexibility and innovation in government service delivery, and limiting the adverse consequences of mistakes. The case for a risk-based approach to regulation can be easily made on efficiency and effectiveness grounds. Regulation should be proportionate to the problem that it seeks to address; therefore a risk-based approach would be underpinned by scientific evidence and a robust decision methodology. This is necessary if governments are to balance the tension towards reactive regulation to public responses to risk.”[113]

 

Bij nader inzien leidt risico-management dus vaak tot ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’: “Governments are blamed when they fail to avert crisis, and will also be criticized for tying up the lives of citizens and business in red tape. Governments are expected to regulate and to respond to and prevent the factors which lead to crisis, but should not stifle innovation, entrepreneurism and opportunities for markets and consumers through unnecessary bureaucracy.”[114]

 

Ondanks de voordelen die in theorie zouden kunnen voortvloeien uit een meer coherente en systematische aanpak van risico’s, bestaat er toch een groot aantal hinderpalen waartegen de overheden zullen moeten opboksen wanneer ze systemen van risicoanalyse en -beheer proberen op te zetten. Deze moeilijkheden vloeien voort uit de hierboven al beschreven inherente complexiteit van de risico’s en hun analyses, en houden ondermeer in:

• Het gegeven dat vele risico’s met elkaar verbonden zijn: “Many risks are so complex as to require a multifaceted treatment, particularly as the suppression of risks in one area of society may give rise to risks elsewhere. However, the otherwise rational and efficient structure and organisation of governments necessarily results in the atomisation and fragmentation of responsibilities. This can work against the identification and development of risk responses across government and incorporating the private sphere that are required to embrace the totality of risk consequences.”
• De wijze waarop overheden met risico’s omgaan en hoe het bewustzijn van risico’s in de beleidscyclus binnen geraakt: “The treatment of significant societal risks is always a political issue. Good risk assessment procedures will anticipate and evaluate emerging risks and have prepared possible responses. However, where risks are identified through a crisis situation an immediate political response will usually be demanded. Hastily prepared responses may fail to address the causes of the problem and have unintended consequences leading to regulatory failure.”
• Het feit dat risico’s niet van bij het begin van het wetgevingsproces op een adequate wijze geanalyseerd worden: “To be of assistance with the development of regulatory responses, risk assessment needs to inform the consideration of the scope and magnitude of the regulatory problem, market failure or policy objective before a regulatory solution is proposed. The timing of the consideration of risks and the extent to which risk assessment informs the regulatory response is therefore of critical importance.”
• De subjectieve perceptie van risico’s die afwijkt van de objectieve analyse: “Many risks are not easily quantified and the subjective perceptions of regulators and of segments of society as to the magnitude of the risk do not always align. Public risk perception can and most likely will vary from that of the experts. The public tends to overestimate lower probability events (floods, etc.) and underestimate higher probability events (car accidents). Risk perceptions can also vary among neighbouring countries resulting in the irregular treatment of risk across national boundaries.”
• Problemen inzake het communiceren van risico’s en het beantwoorden van vragen uit de samenleving inzake risico’s: “Even when risks are able to be measured and quantified and appropriate risk assessment procedures are in place there can remain a deep distrust of formalised risk assessment and the risk management process. This is particularly the case if cost benefit analysis is not believed to be a politically neutral tool or that it is not capable of delivering a solution that is able to adequately address the risk. There is the further problem of governments being expected to respond to the public perception of risks and to reduce risks to zero, which is not always possible and may not be cost effective. Demands for a certain reduction in risk may not be made if the associated economic costs are known.”
• Moeilijkheden bij het scheiden van risico-analyse en -management: “As a matter of principle risk assessment and risk management are two distinct exercises, which should be undertaken separately to ensure that the assessment is objective and informs the risk management decisions. In a practical context, risk assessment may need to be appraised of risk management options an be institutionally joined to be effective.”[115]

 

IX. Enkele beleidsconclusies

 

IX.1. Een kwaliteitsvol beheer van maatschappelijke risico’s

 

Dit brengt professor Graham ertoe te pleiten voor de invoering van algemene richtlijnen voor de uitbouw van een systematisch risicobeheer: “It may be useful for governments around the world to develop, debate, adopt and implement official guidelines in this area. The potential benefits of formal guidelines include improved protection of the public from risk, lower costs of risk-management measures, and increased public confidence in government’s capability to manage risk. The guidelines should not be highly prescriptive or detailed because the nature of risks vary enormously and the proper management strategies will vary tremendously depending on case-specific circumstances. […] Nevertheless, there are areas of controversy. Indeed, some well-considered guidelines may fly in the face of the basic instincts of politicians and the staffs that advise them on these issues.”[116]

 

Deze richtlijnen zijn ook interessant en zelfs noodzakelijk om de werking van de public choice krachten en hun gevolgen te matigen of zelfs uit te schakelen:

• Geen enkel risico nastreven is geen optie voor een optimaal risicobeheer, of met andere woorden de nood aan een zo goed mogelijke spreiding van risico’s: “The goal of risk management is not zero risk but an optimal portfolio of risks. Regulators often tackle risks with ‘tunnel vision’ that leads to zero-risk thinking. In some cases this reaction may be appropriate. But the literature on risk management suggests that reducing a ‘target risk’ to zero is rarely the optimal result since the quest for zero risk may be fruitless, may be too expensive, may discourage valuable innovation, may create other risks, or may simply divert the policy maker’s attention and resources from the management of more serious risks (Viscusi, 1998). The proper framing of the regulator’s dilemma is to achieve an optimal portfolio of risks. Multiple risks are almost always at issue because: i) there is a priority setting question as to which risks should be of concern to policy makers; and ii) efforts to reduce a ‘target’ risk frequently create ‘countervailing’ risks. Zero risk is an unattainable goal and, even if it is attainable with respect to one risk, numerous risks would remain. […] In settings where technological innovation is at stake, a quest for zero risk is particularly inappropriate.”[117] Wanneer deze richtlijn gevolgd wordt, zullen drukkingsgroepen niet langer in staat zijn om op grond van een emotionele beïnvloeding van risicopercepties bij burgers de over- en afweging van belangen door de overheid die steeds met risicobeheer gepaard gaat, in hun richting te doen kantelen.
• Voer de verplichting in tot opmaak van risico-analyses op een formele en expliciete wijze: “The question of how much priority should be assigned to a potential risk is difficult to determine if a risk assessment is not undertaken. Governments have a tendency to succumb to the ‘risk of the month’ syndrome, where governmental activity is driven by media reports and pressures from stakeholders (Renn, 2008). Sometimes it is valuable for governments to engage in formal risk-ranking exercises where agency staff, independent scientist, and stakeholders are asked to compare and rank diverse risks as an input to priority setting (Davies, 1996). Moreover, a sensible management strategy can be tailored to the nature and seriousness of the risk only if the risk has been assessed. When reducing a risk is costly, it is useful for managers to appreciate how bad the risk is likely to be, and the marginal benefits of risk reduction can be considered only if a risk assessment has been prepared. An official risk assessment report examines the weight of the evidence as to whether a risk exists and often provides a quantitative indication of the probability of various outcomes, including a characterisation of the severity of the various outcomes (Wilson and Crouch, 2001). […] A risk assessment report is not complete if it does not consider the potential impacts on disadvantaged populations (e.g. the poor), vulnerable subgroups (e.g. Children) and highly sensitive species and ecosystems. Policy makers need to consider these impacts both for the purpose of designing efficient risk management measures and for considering fairness in risk management. When a possible risk is quite serious and politically sensitive, it is often appropriate to insist that a draft risk assessment report be subject to independent peer review by qualified experts outside the government.[118] Door te verplichten de feiten over risico’s naar boven te halen wordt het moeilijker voor drukkingsgroepen en de door hen gecapteerde politici om op basis van subjectieve risicopercepties de politieke besluitvormingsprocessen over risico’s in hun voordeel te doen kantelen. Op grond van objectieve vaststellingen kan er tegengewicht tegen hun aanspraken geboden worden.
• Neem de volledige verdeling van de analyseresultaten en van de controverses inzake bewijsvoering in overweging: “When an uncertain risk is assessed, policy makers should not rely entirely on the worst-case or most optimistic estimates of risk. They should also consider the entire probability distribution of outcomes, including key summary statistics. […] The flaw in presenting only the worst-case and most-optimistic estimates of risk is that these estimates are the least likely to be correct and, for that reason, are not very informative (Sunstein, 2007). A full distribution of the possible outcomes is the most informative, though policy makers may need assistance in the proper interpretation of a probability distribution.”[119] Deze neutrale oplijsting van de verdelingseffecten maakt het voor de overheid mogelijk excessieve rent seeking door drukkingsgroepen en de aan hen gelieerde politici tegen te gaan.
• Pak de tekortkomingen in de empirische onderbouwing van risico-analyses aan: “When considering a possible risk that is poorly understood, a key question is whether to take protective action promptly, before additional knowledge is obtained, or whether to gather additional information about the risk before deciding whether of how to take protective action. One of the most challenging aspects of risk assessment and management occurs when there are clear gaps in scientific knowledge relevant to the completion of the assessment. In some cases, the gaps can be filled with plausible assumptions or judgmental probabilities that are supplied by relevant experts in the field. But the resulting risk assessment may seem quite fragile, or it may not be credible to key stakeholders and policy makers. A tool called ‘valued of information’ (VOI) analysis can be employed to determine type of precautionary response is appropriate. VOI is a form of decision analysis or benefit-cost analysis that treats ‘additional data collection’ prior to making a decision as a formal decision alternative (Clemen, 1996). The costs of ‘additional data collection’ include not only the financial costs of collecting and analysing data but also the human health or environmental damages that may result from the delay of protective actions. The benefits of ‘additional data collection’ are treated probabilistically because the results of the data collection are not known until the data are actually collected.”[120] Door te ijveren voor een bijkomende gegevensverzameling wordt het te risico-averse voorzorgsbeginsel in zijn gevolgen afgezwakt aangezien het zolang wordt toegepast tot de vereiste extra gegevens voorhanden zijn.
• Weeg zoveel mogelijk kosten en opbrengsten van risicobeheer af: “A crucial yet challenging task for policy makers is to weigh the benefits of risk management (direct and ancillary) against the costs and unintended risks. […] Policy makers must recognise that the staff members and scientific advisors who are knowledgeable about the target risk of concern may not be knowledgeable about ancillary benefits, costs, or unintended risks. For high-stakes decisions, it may be appropriate for policy makers to assemble multiple teams of experts to work in different aspects of a complex risk management problem.”[121] Een beter inzicht in de daadwerkelijke kosten en baten van het risicobeheer belemmert automatisch alle public choice krachten (zowel politici als drukkingsgroepen en bureaucratie) in hun streven de kosten van hun preferenties af te schuiven op andere groepen. Het biedt de burgers tevens de kans hun verkozen vertegenwoordigers beter onder controle te houden en zo het democratische agent-principaal probleem wat in te perken. Wel moet erover gewaakt worden dat deze public choice spelers de inschatting van de kosten en opbrengsten zelf niet (kunnen) beïnvloeden voor of in eigen voordeel.
• Zorg voor een transparante besluitvorming, gebaseerd op consultatie: “The analytical results used to inform risk-management decisions should be transparent, replicable, and subject to public comment and revision prior to their final use by policy makers. The process of risk analysis and management will be error-prone and mistrusted if it is not transparent. Data and models used by assessors and policy makers should, whenever feasible, be replicable by qualified experts in the field. Before an analytic document is used by policy makers, it should be subjected to a period of public comment and revision. Stakeholders are often particularly effective in discovering errors, submitting overlooked data, and pinpointing ambiguities in the work of agency analysts (Rehn, 2008). No agency analyst is perfect. Indeed, agency analysts need to be protected by open review processes that ensure that analytic results are valid and properly explained before they are used by policy makers.”[122] Door deze inbreng uit de grote verscheidenheid aan middenveldorganisaties worden de bureaucratische krachten die een monopolie op de beleidsvorming wensen, wat meer ingesnoerd.
• Vertrek voor het risicobeheer vanuit een volledige overheidsaanpak: “When managing risks of interest to more than one department of government, it is essential for governments to devise mechanisms for participation by multiple departments, including procedures for co-ordination and dispute resolution. […] In order to ensure informed and co-ordinated management of risk, the leadership of national governments need to put into place procedures to ensure that information and views are elicited from all affected departments. When departments suggest different policies (which is quite common on risk issues), a central unit in national governments needs to take responsibility for dispute resolution and co-ordination of all resulting policies. Although the need for cross-department co-ordination is evident in many policy arenas, the challenge is more complex on risk issues because of the wide range of scientific disciplines and departmental constituencies that may be involved.”[123] Wellicht de beste manier om bureaucratische monopolisering tegen te gaan, is het aanmoedigen van onderlinge concurrentie tussen de diverse beleidsdepartementen.
• Bouw aan vertrouwen bij de samenleving door middel van een transparante beleidsaanpak: “In order to justify and sustain public trust in the management or risk, national governments need to develop a climate of openness and transparency about risk prioritisation, assessment, management and communication. If the public does not trust government to manage risk, then the policies of government cannot possibly work. […] In order to earn trust, governments must develop climates of openness that instill confidence in the stakeholders who are potentially impacted by risk-management decisions. At a minimum, this climate of openness needs to include public access to key data and reports that are used to inform and justify decisions. In some cases, openness entails release of information about the activities of government officials such as where they obtained key information and which stakeholders were consulted on a specific matter.”[124] Door de belanghebbende partijen meer in het besluitvormingsproces te betrekken, wordt het mogelijk hun potentieel negatieve krachten in het beïnvloeden van de besluitvorming (via media en straatprotesten) te kanaliseren naar een meer opbouwende houding daar ze hun nieuwe mogelijkheden tot beleidsbeïnvloeding niet willen kwijtspelen.
• Laat de betrokken partijen deelnemen aan het risicobeheer, zeker wanneer aspecten van innovatie in het plaatje voorkomen: “In order to ensure public trust in how governments handle complex, sensitive risk issues, governments need to go beyond risk-analytic efforts and include well-designed deliberative exercises that entail broad stakeholder and public participation. If lack of scientific and technical information was the only cause of poor management or risk, then the remedies for government would reside primarily in the acquisition of more authoritative information about risk. However, the problems in risk management are deep and varied. Sometimes the challenge of risk management arises because a new technology poses risks for one group of citizens yet benefit others. […] How risks and benefits are distributed in a society are issues of fairness and ethics that cannot be fully resolved even with the best scientific information. Moreover, when scientific data about risk and benefit are highly uncertain (which is common), policy disagreements will arise about how the scientific uncertainty should be resolved and which parties should bear the burdens of uncertainty or the costs of resolving uncertainty. [..] Answers to these ‘burden of proof’ questions are matters of law and policy as they are matters of sound science. Given the deep and varied nature of risk management controversies, governments need to be adept at devising and implementing deliberative strategies that ensure meaningful participation by stakeholders and the public. The precise deliberative approach may vary enormously from case to case. […] The key point is that good management requires deliberation as well as scientific analysis (National Research Council, 1996; Rehn, 2008).”[125] Hier geldt dezelfde opmerking als hierboven.
• Verhoog de capaciteiten van de overheid om op een systematische wijze aan risico-analyse, -beheer en -communicatie te doen: “The research arms of national governments and international agencies need to consider larger investments in research and development to provide better knowledge of risks, including ways to manage them and communicate about them. In addition, government officials responsible for risk management – both new recruits and veterans – require training in the modern tools of risk assessment, management and communication. They also need to learn the lessons of case studies in the historical efforts of governments to respond to risk. […] Stakeholders from industry, labour, and NGOs can play a useful role by urging national governments to develop more systematic policies and guidelines for the management of risk.”[126] Deze versterking van de analysekracht biedt de bureaucratie de kans om een tegengewicht te bieden aan drukkingsgroepen en de aan hen gelieerde politici om louter aan electoraal gemotiveerd risicobeheer te doen. Anderzijds kan de wisselwerking met het technisch beslagen middenveld een monopolisering van de expertise door de administratie vermijden.

 

Hiermee is al enigszins aangetoond dat deze richlijnen niet alleen positief zijn voor een optimaal risicobeheer in de strikte zin, maar ook kunnen (helpen) vermijden dat het risicobeheer ten prooi valt aan de public choice drijfveren. Ook OESO-expert Bounds heeft een lijst klaar met aanbevelingen voor de uitwerking van een optimaal risicomanagement. Maar het verschil met de algemene richtlijnen van Graham is dat de aanbevelingen van Bounds zich focussen op een cruciaal onderdeel van het risicobeheer, namelijk de versterking van empirische basis waarop de analyse en het beheer van de risico’s is gevestigd. Want “the key regulatory management challenge for governments seeking to improve the governance of risk is to improve the evidentiary basis on which regulatory decisions are made and regulatory programs are delivered.”[127]

 

Samengevat is het cruciaal voor een kwaliteitsvol risicobeleid om zo open en volledig mogelijk te zijn in zijn analyses, beslissingen, keuzes en communicatie. Wanneer men informatie en andere inschattingselementen onbewust weglaat of bewust wegmoffelt, ontstaan er mogelijkheden voor public choice krachten om hierop in te spelen voor eigen voordeel. Een risico-aanpak die risicodragende activiteiten blind verbiedt of angstvallig ontwijkt, zoals met een te ruime toepassing van het voorzorgsbeginsel, vormt hiervan een treffende illustratie. In vergelijking hiermee bespreken we in het volgende hoofdstuk waarom andere en vooral meer afge- en overwogen vormen van risicobeheer wenselijker zou zijn en betere resultaten zou opleveren.

 

IX.2. Wat met het voorzorgsbeginsel?

 

Volgens prof. Majone moet het uitgangspunt van elk optimaal risicobeheer gaan als volgt: “The only consistent rule when deciding under uncertainty is to choose the alternative risk which minimises the expected loss (or maximises the expected utility) or the decision maker. Any other decision rule – and in particular any rule which does not take into account both the losses and the probabilities of all possible events – can lead to inconsistent decisions. One such potentially inconsistent decision rule is the minimax, which formalises the worst-case approach often used in risk analysis and risk management: the minimax decision rule uses losses but not probabilities, either denying the existence of the latter, or claiming that the method is to be used when they are ‘unknown’ (and perhaps unknowable). […] In short, the problem with the minimax rule is that it does not take into account all the information available to the decision maker, by considering only the worst possible case and disregarding probabilities. The advantage of the expected-loss (or expected-utility) rule is that takes account of both losses/utilities and probabilities.”[128] Majone pleit dus eerst en vooral voor (meer) volledigheid bij het uitvoeren van (risico-)analyses.

 

Dit brengt voor Majone dan ook mee dat “anybody familiar with the decision-theoretic approach will immediately see that the precautionary principle, like the minimax decision rule, tends to focus the attention of regulators on some particular events and corresponding losses, rather than on the entire range of possibilities. As a consequence, regulators will base their determinations on worst case, rather than on the weighted average (expected value) of all potential losses and benefits.”[129] Of hoe private interests de public interests opzij schuiven. De toepassing van het voorzorgsbeginsel is daarom vanuit politiek oogpunt begrijpelijk, maar helemaal niet optimaal voor de samenleving en daarom zelfs te vermijden.

 

Als gevolg hiervan beschouwt Majone “the precautionary principle as an ill-defined principle, that may lead to attempts to control poorly  understood, low-level risks, using up resources that in many cases could be directed more effectively towards the reduction of well-known, large-scale risks. Therefore, the use of the precautionary principle entails significant opportunity costs, which ought to be considered, as part of full impact assessment under uncertainty. A rational allocation of resources and consistency in policy making requires identifying which risks to regulate, and when to regulate them. Precautionary measures – taken on an ad hoc basis, often in response to political pressures – tend to distort priorities and compromise the consistency of regulatory policies.”[130] Wat Majone in zijn kritiek op het gebruik van het voorzorgsbeginsel ook benadrukt, is de inherente of zelfs onontkoombare vaagheid van het concept van voorzorg: “The precautionary principle is an idea (perhaps a state of mind) rather than a clearly defined concept, much less a decision rule or a guide to consistent policy making. In fact, there are logical reasons for its intrinsic vagueness.”[131]

 

Meer algemeen blijkt het voorzorgsbeginsel nog andere ernstige gebreken te hebben als hulpmiddel voor het nemen van beslissingen onder onzekerheid: “The critique of the minimax rule […] applies a fortiori to the precautionary principle, which does not even have the advantage of being a clear-cut decision rule. Like the minimax rule, the precautionary principle tends to focus the attention of regulators on some particular events and corresponding losses, rather than on the entire range of possibilities. As a consequence, regulators will base their determinations on worst cases, rather than on the weighted average of all potential losses and benefits. The most basic conceptual flaw, however, is the artificial distinction between situations where the level of scientific information is sufficient to permit a formal risk assessment, and those where ‘scientific’ information is insufficient, inconclusive or uncertain’. In reality, these are two points on a knowledge-ignorance continuum rather than two qualitatively distinct situations. […] Moreover, the continuous progress of technology produces increasingly precise measurements of toxicity (e.g. parts per billion or even per trillion) so that the search for safety becomes ever more elusive.”[132]

 

Daarnaast creëert het voorzorgsbeginsel ook “potentially negative consequences for scientific research and technological development; recurrent temptations to use the principle as a protectionist device; [and] perverse distributional consequences of some precautionary measures.”[133] Meer concreet, “the attempt to control poorly understood, low-level risks necessarily uses up resources that in many cases could be directed more effectively towards the reduction of well-known, large-scale risks. Unfortunately the opportunity costs of precautionary measures are seldom, if ever, considered. Hence one of the unanticipated consequences of the advocacy of the precautionary principle is to raise the issue of a rational setting of regulatory priorities. Since resources are always limited it is impossible to control all actual and potential risks. Even if a society is willing to pay a higher cost to protect an interest, such as the environment or health, to which is attaches a priority, it is still the case that some environmental or risk regulations might be too expensive. Therefore, a rational decision needs to assess both the costs and the benefits of dealing with risks, as well as the need to prioritize public policy efforts.”[134]

 

Daarom is het gebruik van het voorzorgsbeginsel slechts een tussenstap binnen het grotere groeiproces naar een optimaal risicobeheer: “It is convenient to trace this development through a consequence of four regulatory principles: prohibitions; lowest feasible risk; elimination of significant risk; balancing the costs and benefits of risk reduction. […] In spite of [these regressive moves] and other lapses, however, a trend is clearly discernible in the direction of a broader inclusion of relevant factors, and of greater consistency in putting together the various elements of the regulatory problem in a consistent regulatory management system.”[135]

 

Het eerste stadium slaat dus op verbodsbepalingen: “Bans represent one of the earliest and least sophisticated approaches to risk regulation. To say this is not to deny that in some cases an outright ban may be the most appropriate regulatory response.”[136] Enkel voor overduidelijke en grote risico’s is een verbod nodig, maar “generally speaking, however, the appropriateness of such radical measures has to be proved rather than simply assumed.”[137] Zo blijken verboden trouwens vaker meer schade dan verbetering in te houden.

 

Vervolgens is er de aanpak van de ‘least feasible risk’: “According to this principle, human exposure to health risks should be reduced to the lowest possible level. This is a sort of second-best rule. The first-best regulatory policy would be one that ensures a risk-free working and living environment, but because of technical and economic constraints a risk-free environment is unattainable; hence the need of a second-best rule.”[138]

 

Maar ook deze aanpak kent voor Majone nog heel wat tekortkomingen: “It is clear that the least-feasible-risk approach is far from any sort of balancing of marginal costs and benefits. In fact, marginal considerations are rejected on the ground that the two sides of the basic relationship are incommensurable. […] Health benefits have to be considered ‘above all other considerations’. Even if one accepts this value judgment, however, serious conceptual problems remain. First, the approach fails to consider possible alternatives to standards, such as information disclosure or greater reliance on liability rules. It also omits any consideration of probabilities of possible events, so that standards are set without any knowledge of the expected number of deaths or accidents prevented. Second, setting standards strictly is an significant cause of the slow pace of the standard-setting process. This means that relatively new standards can be set, so that many hazards remain unregulated; hence over-regulation leads to under-regulation. […] Finally, by ignoring one of the key lessons of economics and policy analysis – that decisions should be based on marginal costs and benefits – the approach wastes resources that could have been used to control more risks.”[139]

 

Als een reactie op deze tekortkomingen werd de ‘significant-risk doctrine’ ingevoerd, dat staat voor “’safe’ is not the same as risk-free, pointing to a variety of risks in daily life – ranging from driving a car to ‘breathing city air’ – that people find acceptable. […] The significant-risk doctrine places a higher analytical burden on regulators than the lowest-feasible-risk approach, or the precautionary principle. Not all potential risks are treated equally; only those substances shown to pose a significant risk of cancer will be regulated, focusing limited regulatory resources on the most important health risks. In addition, the doctrine, without requiring a formal analysis of benefits and costs, does place a constraint on the stringency of standards. If exposure to a carcinogen is reduced to the point that the residual risk is insignificant, then no further tightening of the standard is appropriate.”[140]

 

Majone ziet het grootste voordeel van deze aanpak van risicomanagement dan ook net in de inperking van de private interests: “The great merit of the significant-risk doctrine is to have raised the crucial issue of regulatory priorities. Most risks are regulated in response to petitions or pressures from labour unions, public-health groups, environmentalists, and other political activists, with little analysis by the agency of other possible regulatory targets. Given that resources are always limited, the real (opportunity) cost of a regulation is the number of lives that could be saved by using the same resources to control other, more significant, risks. By requiring the agency to show significant risk as a prelude to standard setting, the justices were insisting on some analysis in priority setting: regulatory priorities should be directed toward the most important risks – which are not necessarily those that are politically most salient.”[141] Of hoe de rechtspraak heeft geleid tot een risicobeheer dat meer door public dan door private interests bepaald wordt.

 

Als vierde en meest geavanceerde methode van risicomanagement is er dus de afweging van kosten en opbrengsten: “Instead of simply imposing a cost-effectiveness requirement, […] Reagan moved to a full-fledged cost-benefit test […]: regulatory action is not to be undertaken unless the potential benefits to society outweigh the potential costs; among alternative approaches to any given regulatory objective, the alternative involving the least nest cost to society has to be chosen; finally, agencies are required to set regulatory priorities with the aim of maximizing the aggregate net benefits, taking into account the condition of the particular industries affected by regulations, the condition of the national economy, and other regulatory measures contemplated for the future. As a result of this and subsequent reforms, the quality of rulemaking has improved significantly over the last two decades.”[142] .

 

Deze aanpak loopt opnieuw gelijk met de aanbevelingen omtrent de verbetering van de wetgevingskwaliteit. Hiermee is dan ook aangetoond dat het risico-beheer volledig ingebed kan worden in het meer overkoepelde reguleringsmanagement, met als doel de stromen en gevolgen van wetgeving in functie van het algemeen belang te beheren en te beheersen. Maar of “de politiek” hier oren naar zal hebben, is een andere vraag…

 

__________________________________

[1] Den Hertog J., “Review of Economic Theories of Regulation”, Utrecht School of Economics – Tjalling C. Koopmans Research Institute, Discussion Paper Series 10-18, December 2010 , p.2

[2] Ibidem

[3] Ibidem

[4] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 4

[5] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 5

[6] Ibidem

[7] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 5

[8] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 8

[9] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 12

[10] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 12

[11] Ibidem

[12] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 12-13

[13] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 15

[14] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 15

[15] Ibidem

[16] Den Hertog J., o.c. p. 16

[17] Ibidem

[18] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 18

[19] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 18

[20] Ibidem

[21] Ibidem

[22] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 19

[23] Ibidem

[24] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 19-20

[25] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 20-21

[26] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 21

[27] Winston C., o.c., p. 28

[28] Winston C., o.c., p. 75

[29] Winston C., o.c., p. 70

[30] Winston C., o.c., p. 40

[31] Winston C., o.c., p. 42-43

[32] Winston C., o.c., p. 73-75

[33] Winston C., o.c., p. 75-76

[34] Winston C., o.c., p. 101

[35] Winston C., o.c., p. 76

[36] Winston C., o.c., p. 101

[37] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 5

[38] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 5-6

[39] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 6

[40] Winston C., o.c., p. 2-3

[41] Mueller D., Public Choice III, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 9

[42] Mueller D., o.c. p. 12-13

[43] Mueller D., o.c., p. 42

[44] Winston C., o.c., p. 79-80

[45] Winston C., o.c., p. 81-82

[46] Den Hertog J., o.c., p. 21

[47] Gary Becker, “A theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence”, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 98, August 1983, no. 3, p. 371

[48] Anthony Downs, Inside Bureaucracy, Little, Brown, Boston 1967, p. 2

[49] Johan den Hertog, “Review of Economic Theories of Regulation”, Discussion Paper Series 10-18, Utrecht School of Economics – Tjalling C. Koopmans Rsearch Institute, December 2010, p. 2

[50] Eamonn Butler, Public Choice – A Primer, The Institute of Economic Affairs, Londen, 2012, p. 25

[51] Sam Peltzman, “Toward a more general theory of regulation”, Working paper nr. 133, NBER Working Paper Series, April 1976, p. 1-2

[52] Eamonn Butler, o.c., p. 26

[53] Ibidem

[54] Ibidem

[55] Eamonn Butler, o.c., p. 82

[56] Eamonn Butler, o.c. p. 84

[57] Eamonn Butler, o.c., p. 66-67

[58] Eamonn Butler, o.c., p. 67

[59] Eamonn Butler, o.c., p. 53

[60] Eamonn Butler, o.c., p. 56-57

[61] Dennis C. Mueller, Public Choice III, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, p. 473-474

[62] Dennis C. Mueller, o.c., p. 475

[63] Dennis C. Mueller, o.c., p. 496

[64] Ibidem

[65] Eamonn Butler, o.c., p. 60

[66] Dennis C. Mueller, o.c., p. 333

[67] Dennis C. Mueller, o.c., p. 334

[68] Eamonn Butler, o.c., p. 80-81

[69] Eamonn Butler, o.c., p. 76-77

[70] Eamonn Butler, o.c., p. 88-89

[71] Eamonn Butler, o.c., p. 89

[72] C.N. Parkinson, Parkinson’s Law: The Pursuit of Progress, London, 1958

[73] Eamonn Butler, o.c., p. 90

[74] Carl Devos e.a., Besluiten tot beleid: Inleiding in het politieke besluitvormingsproces, Academia Press, Gent, 2012, p. 220

[75] Carl Devos e.a., o.c., p. 220-221

[76] Eamonn Butler, o.c., p. 91

[77] Eamonn Butler, o.c., p. 93

[78] Eamonn Butler, o.c., p. 92

[79] Eamonn Butler, o.c., p. 94

[80] The Economist, February 18th, 2012, editorial, p. 8

[81] Claudio Radaelli & Anne Meuwese, Better Regulation in the European Union – the political economy of impact assessment, zie http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc, p. 2-3

[82] Claudio Radaelli & Anne Meuwese, o.c., p. 3

[83] Victoria Verlinden, De Hoeders van de wet. De rol van instellingen in het wetgevingsproces, Brugge, Die Keure, 2010, nr. 85

[84] Victoria Verlinden, o.c., nr. 86

[85] Victoria Verlinden, o.c., nr. 88

[86] Victoria Verlinden, o.c., nr. 1198

[87] Victora Verlinden, o.c., nr. 1199

[88] Victoria Verlinden, o.c., nr. 1201

[89] Majone G., “Strategic Issues in Risk Regulation and Risk Management”, in Risk and Regulatory Policy – Improving the Governance of Risks, OECD, 2010, p. 94

[90] Bounds G.., “Challenges to Designing Regulatory Policy Frameworks to Manage Risks”, in Risk and Regulatory Policy – Improving the Governance of Risks, OECD, 2010, p. 16

[91] Majone G., o.c., p. 102

[92] Black J., “Risk-based Regulation: Choices, Practices and Lessons Being Learnt”, in Risk and Regulatory Policy – Improving the Governance of Risks, OECD, 2010,  p. 196

[93] Majone G., o.c., p. 102

[94] Majone G., o.c., p. 102-103

[95] Bounds G., o.c., p. 21-22

[96] Bounds G., o.c., p. 22

[97] Majone G., o.c., p. 96

[98] Bounds G., o.c., p. 22

[99] Ibidem

[100] Bounds G., o.c., p. 23

[101] Majone G., o.c., p. 99

[102] Majone G., o.c., p. 99-100

[103] Majone G., o.c., p. 100

[104] Giandomenico Majone, “Strategic Issues in Risk Regulation and Risk Management”, in Risk and Regulatory Policy – Improving the Governance of Risks, OECD, 2010, p. 121

[105] Giandomenico Majone, o.c., p. 122

[106] Giandomenico Majone, o.c., p. 122-123

[107] Julia Black, “Risk-based Regulation: Choices, Practices and Lessons Being Learnt”, in Risk and Regulatory Policy – Improving the Governance of Risks, OECD, 2010,, p. 186

[108] Gregory Bounds, “Challenges to Designing Regulatory Policy Frameworks to Manage Risks”, in Risk and Regulatory Policy – Improving the Governance of Risks, OECD, 2010, p. 28

[109] Ibidem

[110] Gregory Bounds, o.c., p. 17-18

[111] Gregory Bounds, o.c., p. 18

[112] D. John Graham, “Why Governments Need Guidelines for Risk Assessment and Management”, in Risk and Regulatory Policy – Improving the Governance of Risk, OECD, 2010, p.238

[113] Gregory Bounds, o.c., p. 23

[114] Gregory Bounds, o.c., p. 17

[115] Gregory Bounds, o.c., p. 20-21

[116] D. John Graham, o.c., p. 239

[117] D. John Graham, o.c., p. 239

[118] D. John Graham, o.c., p. 240

[119] D. John Graham, o.c., p. 241

[120] D. John Graham, o.c., p. 242

[121] D. John Graham, o.c., p. 243

[122] D. John Graham, o.c., p. 243-244

[123] D. John Graham, o.c., p. 244

[124] Ibidem

[125] D. John Graham, o.c., p. 245

[126] D. John Graham, o.c., p. 245-246

[127] Gregory Bounds, o.c., p. 32-33

[128] Majone G., o.c., p. 104

[129] Majone G., o.c., p. 106

[130] Ibidem

[131] Ibidem

[132] Majone G., o.c., p. 108

[133] Majone G., o.c., p. 109

[134] Majone G., o.c., p. 109

[135] Majone G.., o.c., p.112

[136] Ibidem

[137] Ibidem

[138] Majone G., o.c., p.114-115

[139] Majone G., o.c., p. 116

[140] Majone G., o.c., p. 117

[141] Majone G., o.c., p. 117

[142] Ibidem