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Publicatie Laka-bibliotheek:
Technological Risk, Policy Theories and Public Perception (1987)

Auteur	Hisschemöller, Midden, ECN
Datum	1987
Classificatie	6.01.3.70/42 (VEILIGHEID - RISICO-ANALYSES & -BELEVING)
Voorkant

TECHNOLOGICAL RISK, POLICY THEORIES AND PUBLIC PERCEPTION.
The case of siting nuclear waste.

Matthijs Hisschemöller & Cees J.H. Midden

Section 1. Introduction

In this chapter we deal with the relation between public policy making and public 
opposition in the case of siting hazardous technologies, especially noxious wastes 
and nuclear power plants. *
Our main purpose is to show that the realisation of a site - or, what might be 
considered to be the opposite, its prevention by local residents and environmental 
protection groups - by no means solely depends on the way 'the public' perceives 
risk and is decided to resist a facility. By and large the outcome of a siting process 
is determined by the way governmental agencies perceive social reality and behave 
according to their perception. Social policy research has sufficiently demonstrated 
that governments' abilities to solve problems start with an adequate understanding 
of what the problem is about, how it must be defined and which causalities must 
be distinguished (Cobb/Elder. 1983; Dery, 1984; Fischer, 1980). Different siting 
strategies used by national, regional and local authorities are not seldom based 
on different policy-theories (Leeuw, 1986; Van de Vall and Ulrich, 1986).

Our line of argument is as follows: first we explore (in section 2) the various 
assumptions underlying public and governmental behavior. We distinguish four 
policy-theories concerning the 'siting problem'. Each of these can be founded in 
normative political philosophy. But in every-day practice policies seem to be 
dominated, by officials' common-sense concerning the relation between 
'government' and 'the public' in general and public reactions to technological hazard 
in particular. In section 3 we point to some relevant findings of public perception 
research. We briefly compare these findings with the implications of the policy 
approaches to the siting problem. Next we examine in more detail how the various 
siting approaches and public perception of risk may become interweaved in siting 
practice.

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