Meaning and Rationalities of Stake-Holders Relation to Risk. Roger Nifle, Institute Coherences, Soyans - 26400 Crest, telephone 04 75 76 04 18, fax 04 75 76 04 08, e-mail roger.nifle@institut-coherences.fr; and Rolland Fillod and Stéphane Saint-Pierre Nicaya, 5 Rue de la Touloubre - Les Logissons - 13770 Venelles, telephone 04 42 54 20 89, fax 04 42 54 11 56, e-mail nicaya@hol.fr
This paper presents the different possible meanings of human being relation to risk and the inducted risk management logicals of the actors concerned by risk.
The resulting typology of attitudes, behaviors and ways of reasoning enlighten the real situations and the speeches delivered around risk.
A research-action has been performed by Institute COHERENCES and NICAYA for the French Ministry of the Environment (Sub Direction for Natural Disasters Prevention) so as to elaborate a national methodology for the implementation of flood risks prevention plans. This methodology has been successfully tested on several real cases and has led to a change of the concerned actors attitudes and behaviors (stake-holders, State Services, etc.).
Presentation of a few results and explanations:
Risk is at first an imaginary construction, which anticipates possible damages and can induct different kinds of protection (prevention) logicals.
The research-action performed has pointed out two crossed dialogues around risk :
opposed to uncertainty exclusion : to take chances or to refuse risks. In the last case, the fear of any kind of adulteration or damage is turning into the reject of alterity (the other is source of risk),uncertainty acceptance
risk objectivation opposed to risk appraisal. In the first case, risk is a calculable statistical result ; in the second case, risk is a conditional probability relative to every behaviour in front of risk.
These two crossed dialogues set four attitudes, four logicals, four rationalities for risk protection (prevention) :
the compensation logical which combines uncertainty acceptance and risk objectivation. It leads to fatalism and speculative research of compensations such as insurance and indemnities (risk assessment),
the opposed logical of total security presumption which combines uncertainty exclusion and risk appraisal. It leads to evacuate vulnerabilities from risk places or to try to implement absolute protections (over protections),
the responsibility logical which combines uncertainty acceptance and risk appraisal. In this logical, risk tries out human mastery, measure and fertile responsibility taking (the best logical!),
the opposite logical is the denial logical which combines uncertainty exclusion and risk objectivation. It leads to risk prohibition, excessive protection, pathologies, conspiracies, abuses, excesses, etc.
Only the responsabilisation logical is educative and source of progress. The settled transdisciplinary methodology for performing an "active appropriation process" for risk prevention involving all the concerned actors (in a responsible sense) has provided very convincing results.
Some examples will be presented as well as the methodology main components.
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