Misunderstanding the risk-notion among diverse stakeholders in consensus building on environmental policies

Since the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, many dialogues among the government, administrations, industries, scientists, experts, victims and general public on information sharing, and public participation in making... [ view full abstract ]

Since the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, many dialogues among the government, administrations, industries, scientists, experts, victims and general public on information sharing, and public participation in making policies associated with the reconstruction of the disaster-stricken areas and the recovery of the victims have been held. However, the opportunities of such dialogues are currently decreasing and the public interest in the accident is decreasing accordingly.
In this study, we focused on the dialogue organized by one of the evacuees resided in a difficult-to-return area where the estimated radiation dose was exceeding 50 mSv/yr.
The purpose of the dialogue was to reflect the diverse situations of victims in the government policies for restoring Fukushima Prefecture through the mitigation of radioactive contamination, and the return of evacuees.
By observing the dialogue, and analyzing the minute of the dialogue, we have revealed that the fundamental problem that is hampering the consensus building between victims and the government is not victims’ lack of scientific understanding of the risk evaluation of the government policies, but the misunderstanding of government officials, administrations, industries, scientists and experts that victims do not understand the risk as they do. Instead, the problem exists in the fact that victims were skeptical about the decision-making process of government policies based on risk evaluation that did not properly account for the diversities of victims’ situations.
As time elapsed since the accident, the risk- notion gap between the victims and the general public is increasing, and accordingly, the general public tends to accept regulations imposed by government policies, while victims have anxieties about the countermeasures conducted according to the policies to mitigate various damages that could be induced by radiation dose.
We also found that a dialogue among stakeholders has potential to bridge the gap of risk notions of different stakeholders. Scientists and experts who maintain a neutral stance between government officials and victims could serve an intermediary role in bridging the gap.
Accordingly, we presented a practical procedure that could promote the common understanding of risk and the sharing of common risk notions associated with the corresponding policy among stakeholders.
We concluded that in order to achieve the consensus among stakeholders, fostering the common understanding of diversified physical and mental situations of victims and risk notions of each of the stakeholders at the venue for dialogues among them in the presence of scientists and experts was important and effective.