Disclosure Conflicts

Abstract

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

A mobile application to protect groundwater during unconventional oil and gas extraction

“…A lack of transparency in reporting data on water use, wastewater generation and spillages is a concern in many countries, including the US [54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61], the UK [19,39,62], Europe [63][64][65] and China [66,67], and has fuelled conflict situations worldwide [29]. Inadequate data disclosure regulation can mean that an individual landowner has to prove injury or wrongdoing [29].…”

Analysis Of External Conditions Of Functioning Of Russian Oil And Gas Companies

“…Therefore, it is important for enterprises of this industry to respond to challenges of the external environment in a timely and accurate manner. This problem is actively studied by domestic and foreign scientists (Adams, Adams, Ullah, & Ullah, 2019;Al Azeez, Sukoharsono, & Andayani, 2019;Kinchy & Schaffer, 2018;Orekhovsky, 2018;Schmitt & Podar, 1994;Shevchenko, Puchkina, & Tolstov, 2019;Shulus, Doguchaeva, Gukasyan, Bobkov, & Prasolov, 2019) and others.…”

The Sociology of Ignorance and Post‐Truth Politics

“…One form of scientific ignorance identified in the sociology of science literature is "sequestered knowledge" or "unseen science" (Frickel 2014;Richter, Cordner, and Brown 2018). Industry or government sequestering of research and data that could potentially save lives has been recognized in studies of diverse industries such as tobacco, nuclear energy, asbestos, and hydraulic fracturing (Greene 1999;Kinchy and Schaffer 2018). However, it is difficult to keep the science unseen, especially if scientists within an organization have identified risks and are concerned with the ethics of keeping the knowledge from public scrutiny.…”