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By reference to the particular field of multi-criteria assessment, this paper examines some key themes in the general relationship between participatory deliberation and quantitative analysis in the appraisal of environmental performance. The paper builds on Fiorino's distinction between normative, substantive and instrumental approaches to appraisal. Although often contrasted, both analysis and deliberation are found to be similarly sensitive to different kinds of ‘framing conditions’. After Collingridge, it is argued that both approaches are therefore susceptible to various political and institutional pressures for decision justification. Based on this analysis, it is concluded that there exists an important but neglected characteristic of social appraisal that is equally applicable to both participatory and analytic approaches and which in many ways transcends the importance of this distinction. This concerns the difference …