Functional‐dynamic public participation in technological decision‐making: site selection processes of nuclear waste repositories

This study employs the ordered lottery selection approach with field experiment to measure risk attitude of two distinct population groups in China – farmers in Wuhan and freelancers in media and advertising in Beijing. A comparative design was used to reveal the cross-population difference in risk attitude and its affecting factors. The results showed that both groups exhibited constant partial risk aversion and decreasing absolute risk aversion, while the farmers were more risk-averse than the freelancers. The farmer and freelancer respondents demonstrated very different sensitivity to the warming-up games types involving ‘gain-only’ or ‘gain-loss’ while extremely risk-averse respondents in the warming-up games possessed the consistent attitudinal behavior in the formal tests. The comparative experiment revealed that gender and income were two statistically significant factors affecting risk attitude and they appeared to be consistent across the two distinct groups. Surprisingly, respondents’ perceived frequency of risk occurrence was not correlated to their risk attitude. Moreover, the factors of leisure and investment behavior were significantly linked to the freelancers’ risk attitude but not the farmers’. The experiment also found a non-linear relationship between risk attitude and education, and receiving college education was found to be a critical switching point that was significantly linked to respondents’ risk choices. While further research is needed to better understand the governing mechanism in risk attitude, perception, and behavior, this paper tried to link the experimental results to the natural disaster insurance practice in China and discussed their implication to the policy design.     

Ethical assessment in radioactive waste management: a proposed reflective equilibrium‐based deliberative approach

Radioactive waste management facility siting has often been surrounded by political controversy. By attempting to overcome accusations of technocracy, radioactive waste management organisations are reframing the problem in terms of socio‐technical issues requiring the integrative assessment of complex scientific, political and ethical issues and establishing analytic‐deliberative decision‐making processes involving public and stakeholder involvement. One important aspect of a publicly supportable radioactive waste management strategy is that adequate ethical assessment is incorporated throughout the process. There are, however, certain incompatibilities between pluralistic public and stakeholder‐led engagement processes and the types of ethical justification stemming from normative ethical theory and the input of ethical expertise. An evaluation of previous work on ethics by the UK Committee on Radioactive Waste Management highlights some of the pitfalls of utilising these types of ‘top‐down’ inputs in a primarily ‘bottom‐up’ decision‐making process. This paper then proposes the development of a new approach inspired by John Rawls's concept of ‘reflective equilibrium’, to better bridge the divide between pluralistic analytic‐deliberative decision‐making and ethical assessment.     

Guest Editorial

This is an empirical and quantitative study of the validity of four kinds of distal explanatory factors in risk perception. In an initial study, personality constructs (Five Factor Model, Myers-Briggs Indicator of Jungian constructs and risk attitudes) were related to risk perception data (26 hazards). A relationship was found between emotional stability and risk perception, but none with Jungian constructs. One risk attitude dimension, 'Macho' risk willingness, was (negatively) related to demand for governmental risk mitigation. In a second study with a different sample, indices were constructed to measure the four World Views according to Cultural Theory (CT) as well as Group/Grid dimensions, New Age beliefs and the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) dimensions of Dunlap et al . Risk perception data were obtained with regard to 37 hazards, both general and personal risk. The respondents were a large representative sample of the Swedish population. Only about 5% of the variance of perceived risk was accounted for by Cultural Theory dimensions, considerably more by New Age beliefs and one of the NEP scales (eco-crisis). In a third study, data from the five Nordic countries were used to analyse the relationships between CT dimensions and risk perception. Only weak relations were found. The results are discussed in relation to other current work on models of risk perception and the question of what should be considered 'strong' evidence for a theory.     

Evaluating an analytic–deliberative risk‐ranking process in a Chinese context

In previous research, a deliberative process for integrating stakeholder perspectives in the ranking of risks was introduced and empirically tested with lay groups composed predominantly of Americans. In this paper, we explore the viability of this process with lay groups of Chinese, because previous research has shown that Americans and Chinese differ substantially along many dimensions of cognition and social organization relevant to decision‐making. Using 10 environmental hazards based on current Chinese environmental regulatory programs as the risk domain, five groups of 8–9 participants ranked hazards using both holistic and multi‐attribute approaches. Results show that (1) risk rankings from the holistic and multi‐attribute approaches are consistent, (2) participants indicate that they are satisfied with the procedures and resulting rankings, and (3) agreement between participants increases over the course of the ranking exercise. Results for Chinese participants were compared with previously reported results for Americans to look for cultural effects involving deference to technical expertise and quantitative analysis, and skepticism toward public participation in policy‐making. Although there were some hints of cultural differences, neither difference significantly affected measures of the method’s validity or replicability. Because this process offers a scientifically sound and measured approach to stakeholder involvement in risk management, it may be attractive to Chinese leaders as they respond to growing demand for public participation in the policy‐making process. Whether Chinese citizens would consider the process described here to be satisfactory in a real policy context remains to be tested.     

Strategic decision quality in Flemish municipalities

Strategic planning (SP) has taken the public sector by storm because it is widely believed that SP’s approach to strategic decision-making strengthens strategic decision quality (SDQ) in public organizations. However, if or how SP relates to SDQ seems to lack empirical evidence. Drawing on survey data from 89 Flemish municipalities, we found that SP does improve SDQ if a systematic approach is taken and if top policy-makers and managers, as well as lower-level staff and external stakeholders, are involved.     

Consumers’ collision insurance decisions: a mental models approach to theory evaluation

Using interviews with 74 drivers, we elicit and analyze how people think about collision insurance coverage and decide whether to buy coverage, and if so, what deductible level to carry. We compare respondents’ judgments and behaviors to predictions of three models: baseline expected utility (EU) theory, which predicts that insurance is an inferior good, meaning more wealthy people buy less; a modified EU model, which incorporates income constraints and suggests that property insurance is a normal good, meaning more wealthy people buy more; and a mental accounting model which predicts that consumers budget income across consumption categories. The results suggest they purchase insurance as a normal good, guided by a cognitive model that emphasizes budget constraints. Verbal reports reveal a desire to balance two conflicting goals in deductible decisions: keeping premiums ‘affordable’ and keeping deductible level ‘affordable.’ Thus, wealth does not distinguish people by risk aversion, but by ability to pay. In other words, the behavior of less wealthy people is not driven by greater risk aversion, but by their lesser ability to pay, both now and later. We find that a simple heuristic using only vehicle value accounts for most decisions of whether to purchase optional collision coverage: out of 45 respondents who did not have loans on their vehicles, 90% of those with vehicles worth more than $1000 carried collision coverage, while less than 30% of those with lower‐valued vehicles did.     

公共服务战略管理中的公众参与：原因、机制与意义

公共服务战略管理是战略管理途径在公共服务领域的运用,是制定公共服务战略并实施和评价战略的过程,以此更好地满足公共需求。公众是公共服务最直接的受众,应该把公众纳入公共服务战略管理的研究框架之中。同时,适当的公众参与对公共服务的有效供给及公共服务战略绩效的提高有着十分重要的作用。