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Risk Perception by Politicians and the Public

Risk perception by local politicians responsible for health and the environment is compared to that of the public in two large, representative samples, and to a group of nuclear waste management experts. Data were collected on many aspects of risk perception with an emphasis on ionizing radiation and nuclear waste issues. It was found that politicians and the public had, on the average, quite similar risk perceptions, which were very different from expert opinion. Politicians had difficulties in estimating what risk perception the public had. Demand for risk mitigation was mostly related to the respondents' ratings of risk, for both politicians and members of the public. Politicians apparently did not consider the public's views to any large degree in forming their policy attitudes. Politicians had less trust in industry than the public did. Both epistemic and social trust were found to be factors in perceived risk, roughly equal in importance. The risk perception models also included Interfering with Nature as an important factor, whereas traditional Psychometric Model factors contributed very little. Frequency of communication with others about a nuclear policy issue was related to attitude; more strongly so if communication was more frequent. The results were interpreted as the outcome of a process of social validation of policy attitudes, a hypothesis which could also explain why experts had so divergent risk assessments as compared to politicians and members of the public. Attitudes to a local high-level nuclear waste repository were quite negative in both groups, positive among the experts.