Technological risk, participation and deliberation. Some results from three Italian case studies

Participation is a major issue in environmental research and policy. Public Risk Perception and European Environmental Policy (PRISP), a cross-national inquiry on people’s orientations about chemical risks, offered the opportunity to investigate some aspects. In two Italian case studies, interest was focused on the relation between experts and lay people and the function of participation. A key objective was to explore people’s opinions about deliberative democracy. This is a currently much-debated alternative to the prevailing ‘strategic’ forms of democracy, based on the aggregation of preferences or bargaining among conflicting interests. Is there a role for an open confrontation aimed at reaching the common good? Results show that public interest is highly rated, participation is mainly connected to citizenship and understood as a form of co-operation. In a third case study, interest was focused on the analysis of a specific form of collective action according to the ‘Critical Mass’ rational choice model. In this case, it is argued that a small group of citizens may reduce the costs of starting-up a collective action aimed at pursuing the preferred social goals, i.e. at governing public goods.