Did Water Kill the Cows?: The Distribution and Democratisation of Risk, Responsibility and Liability in a Dutch Agricultural Controversy on Water Pollution and Cattle Sickness (Pallas Proefschriften)

Modern societies are increasingly faced with new risks as a result of the co-evolution of society and technology. From 1975 to the present, more than three hundred Dutch dairy farmers have been confronted with cattle that experienced serious health problems. These problems were allegedly related to polluted surface water but science was not able to establish a causal link between the water pollution and the cattle sickness. Such scientific uncertainty typically accompanies new risks and causes difficulty in scientifically, politically, and judicially determining which party must be held responsible and or accountable for the situation. In this thesis the fierce controversy between the dairy farmers, governmental bodies, scientists and insurance companies is studied to establish how the distribution and democratisation of responsibility and liability occurs, when society is faced with these new risks and the accompanying scientific uncertainty.