A Comparison of a Collaborative and Top-Down Approach to the Use of Science in Policy: Establishing Marine Protected Areas in California

The National Research Council has proposed two distinct approaches over the past 20 years for guiding decision making about risk. These two approaches are widely applicable to environmental decision‐making and are exemplified by two attempts to establish Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in California with the implementation of the 1999 Marine Life Protection Act. The first attempt, which parallels the NRC's 1983 linear scientific approach, was a top‐down process that involved a Master Plan Team of scientists who created a proposal before gathering public input. The second attempt, which parallels the NRC's 1996 analytic and deliberative approach, involved a diverse set of stakeholders, including scientists, who worked in a collaborative process to provide a range of recommendations. We apply a three‐tiered model of elite belief systems drawn from the Advocacy Coalition Framework to show that stakeholder preferences for either of these approaches is a function of their deep core beliefs. Stakeholders with strong preferences for scientific management support empirical claims for the benefits of MPAs and are more optimistic about the linear scientific approach compared to the analytic and deliberative approach for protecting major habitats, avoiding adverse fishing effects, and avoiding unfair agency domination. In contrast, stakeholders with pro‐collaborative beliefs respect local knowledge and are more optimistic about the analytic and deliberative approach compared to the linear scientific approach for avoiding adverse fishing effects and unfair agency domination.