Compromise not consensus: designing a participatory process for landslide risk mitigation

Abstract

With the escalating costs of landslides, the challenge for local authorities is to develop institutional arrangements for landslide risk management that are viewed as efficient, feasible and fair by those affected. For this purpose, the participation of stakeholders in the decision making process is mandated by the European Union as a way of improving its perceived legitimacy and transparency. This paper reports on an analytical-deliberative process for selecting landslide risk mitigation measures in the town of Nocera Inferiore in southern Italy. The process was structured as a series of meetings with a group of selected residents and several parallel activities open to the public. The preparatory work included a literature/media review, semi-structured interviews carried out with key local stakeholders and a survey eliciting residents' views on landslide risk management. The main point of departure in the design of this process was the explicit elicitation and structuring of multiple worldviews (or perspectives) among the participants with respect to the nature of the problem and its solution. Rather than eliciting preferences using decision analytical methods (e.g. utility theory or multi-criteria evaluation), this process built on a body of research -based on the theory of plural rationality -that has teased out the limited number of contending and socially constructed definitions of problem-andsolution that are able to achieve viability. This framing proved effective in structuring participants' views and arriving at a compromise recommendation (not, as is often aimed for, a consensus) on measures for reducing landslide risk. Experts played a unique role in this process by providing a range of policy options that corresponded to the different perspectives held by the participants.

Warning System Options for Landslide Risk: A Case Study in Upper Austria

“…There is growing documentation of discourses reflecting these plural rationalities across policy issues ranging from risk management (e.g., climate risks, landslide risk, seat belts and flood insurance) to public goods and common resource management (e.g., harvesting whales, forest management) and development assistance. e.g., [39,41,[44][45][46][47][48][49].…”

How Marine Protected Areas Are Governed: A Cultural Theory Perspective

“…It has been validated in a great many case studies, including the handling of radioactive materials in hospitals [36], pension reform in Europe [37], development projects in Nepal [38,39], reducing landslide risk in Southern Italy [40], global efforts to combat climate change [29], the WHO's efforts to reduce malaria [41] and contemporary whaling [42], to name but a few examples. The US Environmental Protection Agency currently claims that the notion of clumsy solutions informs its stakeholder dialogues and future policy-making (see: https://www.epa.gov/risk/multi-criteria-integrated-resource-assessment-mira).…”

Comparing Approaches for the Integration of Stakeholder Perspectives in Environmental Decision Making

“…On the basis of the results of the facilitated dialogue, experts drafted a compromise/clumsy solution. In this way, a suitable risk mitigation plan gradually moved from a contested terrain to increasing convergence on a clumsy solution [61].…”