A Model for an Analytic−Deliberative Process in Risk Management

Abstract

How can and should risk managers collect public preferences, integrate public input into the management process, and assign the appropriate roles to technical experts, stakeholders, and members of the public? Which concerns are legitimate for being used in decisions that may determine the life or death of many people? There are no simple answers to these questions. This paper discusses the potential and requirements for an analytic-deliberative decision making process in the field of risk management. It articulates the requirements for integrating analytic reasoning with deliberation and interpretation. As a result of these requirements a model of participation is developed that attempts to meet two major objectives: first, to enhance the competence in the decision making process and, second, to assign a fair share of the responsibility of managing risks to those who are or will be affected by the potential consequences. The model, named cooperative discourse, consists of three major steps: elicitation of values and criteria (stakeholder groups); provision of performance profiles for each policy option (experts); and evaluation and design of policies by randomly selected citizens. The paper provides some empirical evidence about the application of this method from experiences in three different countries. The case studies show that analytical thinking and deliberative exchange of arguments cannot be separated but should be'integrated in the decision making process. At the same time, the sequential involvement of stakeholders, experts, and the general public proved to be a productive way of ensuring competence, fairness, and efficiency.

Empowering Engineering Students in Ethical Risk Management

“…Such a deliberative approach is also valuable for risk identification and communication, as the public may have a specific knowledge that experts have not [6], or inversely, that can be distorted by social amplification [24]. As argued by Renn [35], deliberative risk identification and assessment is therefore a "productive way of ensuring competence, fairness, and efficiency. "…”

“…As well, numerous authors have criticized the ethical limits of the traditional deterministic approaches of risk management used in engineering, especially regarding complexity [e. g. 7,16,27], the necessity for collaborative and participative risk identification and assessment [e. g. 11,20,35], as well as the role of emotions [e. g. 37].…”

Effective preservation decision strategies

“…Analytic-deliberative process A combination of technical assessment and dialogue to foster stakeholder participation and involvement in risk management (Renn 1999).…”

Rethinking the role of scenarios: Participatory scripting of low-carbon scenarios for France

“…Greater transparency in the decision-making process is a pre-requisite, through participatory approaches involving the general public and stakeholders. These practices have developed in many fields of environmental protection (Renn, 1999;Van Asselt and Rijkens-Klomp, 2002;Wilcox, 2003;Hulse et al, 2004;Pahl-Wostl, 2002;Patel et al, 2007) particularly energy and climate change (Dorfman et al, 2013).…”