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Risk communication: the evolution of attempts Risk communication is at once a very new and a very old field of interest. Risk analysis, as Krimsky and Plough (1988:2) point out, dates back at least to the Babylonians in 3200 BC. Cultures have traditionally utilized a host of mecha nisms for anticipating, responding to, and communicating about hazards - as in food avoidance, taboos, stigma of persons and places, myths, migration, etc. Throughout history, trade between places has necessitated labelling of containers to indicate their contents. Seals at sites of the ninth century BC Harappan civilization of South Asia record the owner and/or contents of the containers (Hadden, 1986:3). The Pure...
Economists, decision analysts, management scientists, and others have long argued that government should take a more scientific approach to decision making. Pointing to various theories for prescribing and rational izing choices, they have maintained that social goals could be achieved more effectively and at lower costs if government decisions were routinely subjected to analysis. Now, government policy makers are putting decision science to the test. Recent government actions encourage and in some cases require government decisions to be evaluated using formally defined principles 01' rationality. Will decision science pass tbis test? The answer depends on whether analysts can quickly and ...
Despite international initiatives such as the Earth Summit in 1992 and ongoing efforts to implement the Kyoto Protocol, human activities continue to register a destructive toll on the planetary environment. At root, research on global environmental risk seeks new pathways for reversing unsustainable trends, curtailing ongoing destructive activities, and creating a life-sustaining planet. This book takes stock of the distinctive challenges posed by global environmental risks, the capacity of knowledge systems to identify and characterize such risks, and the competence of human society to manage the unprecedented complexity. Particular attention trains on engaging, in ways conducive to enhanci...
This volume is the outcome of a recent NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) on "Technology Assessment. Environmental Impact Assessment. and Risk Analysis: Contributions from the Psychological and Decision Sciences." The Institute was held in Les Arcs. France and functioned as a high level teaching activity during which scientific research results were presented in detail by eminent lecturers. Support for the Institute was provided by grants from the NATO Division of Scientific Affairs. the u.S. Office of Naval Research. and the Russell Sage Foundation. The Institute covered several areas of research. including quantitative studies on decision and judgmental processes. studies on human intellectual limitations. studies on risk attitudes and perceptions. studies on factors contributing to conflicts and disputes about hazardous technologies and activities. studies on factors influencing forecasts and judgments by experts. studies on public preferences for decisionmaking processes. studies on public responses to technological hazards. and case studies applying principles and methods from the psychological and decision sciences in specific settings.
"This is an intelligent book about serious issues in public relations: accountability, responsibility, transparency, loyalty, truthtelling, and fairness. It should be required reading in boardrooms, in PR classrooms, and at the Pentagon." - Jay Black, Editor, Journal of Mass Media Ethics "Ethics in Public Relations fills an important need at a time when the credibility of public relations (and some public relations practitioners and public relations firms) is under attack. In a manner that is never preachy or dogmatic, Fitzpatrick and Bronstein have put together a series of essays that have application across the public relations spectrum. They are sure to be informative and instructive both...
The EU is faced with the perpetual challenge of guaranteeing effective enforcement of its law and policies. This book brings together leading EU scholars in law, politics and regulation, to explore the wealth of new legal and regulatory strategies, practices, and actors that are emerging to complement the classic avenues of central and decentralized enforcement. The contributors evaluate the traditional ‘dual vigilance’ framework of enforcement before examining network(ed) enforcement from theoretical, empirical and legal perspectives. They assess innovations in key EU policy fields such as the environment, consumer protection, competition, freedom, security and justice, and economic governance. This multi-disciplinary book will be of use to students and academics in law, political science, regulation and public policy. It will also interest policy-makers in EU institutions, national administrations and courts engaged in the implementation and enforcement of EU law and policy.
In recent years there has been substantial interest in benefits assessment methods, especially as these methods are used to assess health, safety, and environmental issues. At least part of this interest can be traced to Executive Order 12291, issued by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. This Executive Order requires Federal agencies to perform benefits assessments of pro posed major regulations and prohibits them from taking regulatory action unless potential benefits exceed potential costs to society. Heightened interest in benefits assessment methods has in tum given rise to greater recognition of the inherent difficulties in performing such assess ments. For example, many benefits that are...
The Social and Cultural Construction of Risk: Issues, Methods, and Case Studies Vincent T. Covello and Branden B. Johnson Risks to health, safety, and the environment abound in the world and people cope as best they can. But before action can be taken to control, reduce, or eliminate these risks, decisions must be made about which risks are important and which risks can safely be ignored. The challenge for decision makers is that consensus on these matters is often lacking. Risks believed by some individuals and groups to be tolerable or accept able - such as the risks of nuclear power or industrial pollutants - are intolerable and unacceptable to others. This book addresses this issue by ex...
Several individuals noted the potentially important civilian uses of atomic energy shortly after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. That year J. Robert Oppenheimer told a national radio audience that "in the near future" it would be possible to generate profitable electric power from "controlled nuclear chain reaction units" (reactors). It was suggested that, after fIfteen to twenty-five years of development, mature nuclear technology could provide virtually inexhaustible, cheap energy given the abundance of nuclear fuel. Admiral Lewis Strauss, the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, stated that atomic power would generate electricity "too cheap to meter" (A statement that...
This book examines the decade from 2004 to 2013 during which people in China witnessed both a skyrocketing number of food safety crises, and aggregating regulatory initiatives attempting to control these crises. Multiple cycles of “crisis – regulatory efforts” indicated the systemic failure of this food safety regime. The book explains this failure in the “social foundations” for the regulatory governance of food safety. It locates the proximate causes in the regulatory segmentation, which is supported by the differential impacts of the food regulatory regime on various consumer groups. The approach of regulatory segmentation does not only explain the failure of the food safety regime by digging out its social foundation, but is also crucial to the understanding of the regulatory state in China.