Public Deliberation for Technological Risk Policy Making in a Real-World Context

This paper examines the gap between the theoretical premises of, and the ways that public deliberative approaches to decision-making function in application to a specific instance of technological risk policy. An interrogation of a UK nationwide public deliberation case—the CoRWM program (Committee on Radioactive Waste Management)—a real-world instance of public deliberation illuminates some significant contrasts in the ways that public deliberation takes place to those characterized in theory. A public-engaged deliberation on radioactive waste management in reality does not emerge as rational reasoning for the common good. Instead, it was rather a complex mix of various forms of material, social and political interactions, and relationships.