Democratizing the Social Risk Management Process: Few Comments on a French Experiment of Neighborhood Committees. Vincent Placer, GRID - Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan, 61, Avenue du Président Wilson, 94230 Cachan - France, telephone 01 47 40 21 39, fax 01 47 40 23 48, e-mail placer@grid.ens-cachan.fr
Depending on the importance given to lay public opinions, preferences, etc., risk management policies vary between two extreme positions: the technocratic model in which social decision making relies only upon expert judgments and the democratic model where lay public opinions are given high consideration throughout the decision process [Fiorino, 1989]. In Europe, and especially in France, the technocratic model has long been the main influence for social risk management. Nevertheless, under the influence of American experiences, social risk management in the recent years cares more and more about lay public opinions.
Since 1995, the 20th ward of Paris has created neighborhood committees which are composed with one third of members of the ward council; one third of citizens that are working in local non-profit societies and one third of citizens randomly selected on the voting list. These committees do not intend to deal exclusively about risk issues but urban violence or other health issues like botulism have been some important matters of concern.
In this paper, we give some preliminary results of a set of interviews we conducted with some of the attendants to these committees. The last part of the paper will be dedicated to a discussion on the extent to which this kind of committees could be a way to improve the democratization of day-to-day risk management processes.
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