Risk Governance Dilemmas and Democratization: Public Trust, Risk Perception and Public Participation in Risk Decision-Making

Abstract

AbstractRisk scholars and practitioners are grappling with how best to govern risk in the face of growing calls and rationales for democratization. The centrality of public trust to effective risk governance, the fragmentation of perceptions of risk and growing expectations for public involvement in risk decision-making, all characterize risk governance in the twenty-first century. This chapter frames challenges to reforming risk decision-making as risk governance dilemmas. Effective risk governance requires confronting differences in expert and public perceptions of risk successfully, engaging the public meaningfully and fostering public trust in decisions. All three objectives can challenge fundamental epistemological, cultural and ontological underpinnings of risk governance. Understanding the reasons why this is the case (and why not), carefully disentangling causes and effects, and providing case studies of real-world efforts to address the dilemmas, lays the groundwork for informed reform of risk governance arrangements. There are no simple answers to the questions raised by the above three dilemmas. There is much to be learned about the strengths—and limitations—of opening risk decision-making processes to public participation. In addition to presenting the risk governance dilemmas running through the volume, this chapter presents @Risk, the research project on which this edited volume is based and provides an overview of the volume’s chapters.