CARL

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CARL

• Workshop Ljubljana,
• 10-11/02/2005

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Country Studies (1)

• Arena institutional framework and external
  factors that shape participatory decision making
  in RWM

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Approach

• Listing background information
• Draw picture of context
• Set the scene
• BUT
• Not a static exercise
• Context elements in itself are dynamic

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Key Issues

• Types of waste and their legal status
• Legal framework (inter)national
• RWM and nuclear activity
• Environmental protection, EIA/SEA and Sustainable
  development
• Participatory decision making
• National political context and general practises
  in decision making

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• Familiarity with participatory decision making
  processes
• Key players in RWM
• Their roles and responsibilities
• Relation to other players
• Mobility of personnel between different
  institutional players
• Financing mechanisms for RWM

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Other Elements that Shape Context

• Public confidence in authorities
• Politics and administration
• Science
• Dependence on nuclear energy (NE) and public
  opinion regarding NE
• (Inter)national debate on climate change
• International policy context
• RWM
• Participatory decision making

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Two Questions for this Afternoon

• Formalization of stakeholder involvement a good
  or a bad thing ?
• Expectations from internationalization of
  stakeholdership issues networking, research,
  regulations,

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Country Studies (2)

• Frames and Framing

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Frames

• Bundles of beliefs and values that act as
  frames of reference for making sense of events
• Frames identify what is at issue problems,
  solutions, protagonists and antagonists
• Framing processes may be deliberate and goal
  directed or implicit and unconscious

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Framing

• Frames are not fixed and stable
• More plastic and constantly subject to processes
  of reframing
• Shaped by dynamic social, political and cultural
  influences

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Example framing nuclear power
1. Progress frame Resistance to nuclear energy
development is the latest version of an
irrational fear of progress and change, the
expression of nuclear Luddites. Nuclear energy
development is not problem free, but problems can
be solved as the history of technological
progress shows.
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2. Devils bargain frame Nuclear power turns
out to be a bargain with the devil. There are
clear benefits, such as inexhaustible electricity
and an energy supply that doesnt depend on the
whims of OPEC. But sooner or later, there will
be a terrible price to pay.
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3. Energy independence Nuclear power must be
understood in the context of the larger problem
of energy independence. Nuclear energy, plus
domestic oil, natural gas, and coal remain the
only practical alternatives to a dangerous and
humiliating dependence on foreign, particularly
Middle Eastern sources.
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Types of framing process

• Boundary framing differentiates between good/bad
• Adversarial framing positions actors as
  protagonists and antagonists
• Counter framing refutes the logic or efficacy of
  claims made by opponents

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Frames need to have resonance

• To gain support, framing of the problem and of
  the solution needs to be
• credible
• Consistency of beliefs, claims and actions
• Credibility of the frame articulator (group,
  organisation, etc.)
• meaningful to the target audience
• Consistency with the personal, everyday
  experiences of the targets

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Framing and acceptability

• The framing of a problem is central to the
  acceptability of its management in different
  communities (Wynne and Hunt 2000)
• The framing of issues as scientific to the
  exclusion of moral, political and emotional
  dimensions can be the reason for public
  resistance (House of Lords, 2000)

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Addressing stakeholder conflict

• Conflicting values and perspectives as
  conflicting frames of reference
• Resolving conflict therefore involves reconciling
  differences in framing
• A first step is to identify the ways in which
  different stakeholders frame the issue

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From reflection to reframing

• Reflection on assumptions and frames as a
  possible basis for reframing?
• Reframing as finding common ground?
• Questions we need to ask
• Has there been any reframing and, if so, what has
  caused positions to change?
• Has reframing produced new frames or linked
  elements of existing frames?
• What are the impacts of reframing on the
  resolution of the RWM problem?

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Two Questions for this Afternoon

• How does the framing of the issue of radioactive
  waste management produced by your group or
  organisation differ from that of other key groups
  or organisations involved in the issue?
• Has anything caused your group/other groups to
  reframe the way that you view the issue? If not,
  what might do so?

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Country Studies (3)

• Stakeholder Involvement
• (SI)

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Comparing National Patterns of SI

• Need to achieve analytical distance from domestic
  practices to open up for cross-national
  comparisons
• Need to explore three basic dimensions
• How is SI framed and organized in each national
  context?
• What are the issues currently subject to SI and
  how have they been decided upon?
• Who are the stakeholders and how have they gained
  recognition as such?

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How Framing and Organization of SI in National
Context

• SI may be more or less formalized. May be a legal
  requirement.
• Focus SI may be on developments in RWM in general
  or limited to siting decisions in particular?
• Is SI conceived firstly as national, regional or
  local forum and activity?

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• Different modes of SI may co-exist in same
  national context.
• Does this imply national coordination or
  fragmentation of SI?
• Procedures for SI may also function as
  opportunities to openly abstain and withdraw from
  involvement in RWM issues?

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What Issues Currently Subject to SI

• SI may be initiated around a concrete issue (e.g.
  siting issue) or its particular focus may be
  conceived as something that will emerge out of
  its own pursuit.
• If SI is already focussed, what is it focussed
  on? High level vs low level waste? Siting a final
  repository or an interim facility?

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• Are questions relating to the future of NE
  integrated with or divorced from RWM issues
  throughout process of SI?
• Are siting issues only something of local SI?
• Are broader RWM issues always best discussed
  within national and international forums?
• Is there a clear tendency to separate technical
  issues from social issues in the design of SI
  processes?

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Who Stakeholders and How they Gained Recognition

• How have stakeholders come to recognize
  themselves as stakeholders?
• Do some stakeholders play an important role in
  defining, or even representing, others?
• May SI be understood as dedicated to the
  production of stakeholders involved in RWM
  programmes?

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• Underlying incentives or disincentives that help
  an actor accept or refuse a stakeholder identity?
• Local communities already hosting nuclear
  facilities clearly find it easier to identify
  themselves as stakeholders in the siting of new
  waste facilities. Why are they not more reluctant
  to do so?

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• The role that geology plays in defining
  stakeholders in the siting of waste facilities
  appears to fluctuate over time. When does geology
  make a stakeholder into a stakeholder and when
  does it not?
• What are the expectations that SI in RWM will be
  further broadened in the different national
  contexts? How might such a broadening proceed?

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Two Questions for this Afternoon

• Does hosting a nuclear facility automatically
  make a community into a stakeholder in the siting
  of future waste facilities?
• Is SI only something to be practiced in response
  to concrete issues (e.g. siting decisions) or can
  it serve to set the agenda more broadly for RWM
  programmes in different national contexts?

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Six Questions for this Afternoon

• Are nuclear host communities automatically
  stakeholders in the siting of future waste
  facilities?
• Is SI only something to be practiced in response
  to concrete issues?
• Formalization of stakeholder involvement a good
  or a bad thing?
• Expectations from internationalization?
• Does your framing of the issue of RWM differ from
  that of other key groups/organisations?
• Has anything caused you(r group) to reframe your
  view? What might cause you to reframe?