THE ACCEPTABILITY DIAMOND: ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF LEGITIMACY AND SOCIAL TRUST

Judith A. Bradbury
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Washington D.C.

Kristi M. Branch
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Seattle, WA

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on the social science literature on social trust and on research conducted by the authors to answer the following questions:

INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

Recent social science literature has paid increasing attention to the concept of trust, albeit with differing definitions of the term, its constituents, and influential factors and also with differing emphases on its societal origins and implications. Thus, while some contributors to the literature have focused on economic or political aspects (in particular, surveys on trends in public trust in institutions), or on the role of trust in hazard management, others have discussed trust more broadly in terms of its role in modern society.

In this paper, we will draw on the theoretical foundation provided by the literature and on our own research in an attempt to answer the following questions:

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ON TRUST AND COMMUNICATION

What is trust?

Trust is a social construct and an abstract. Defining the term and delineating the distinction between trust and related concepts such as confidence and legitimacy have proven difficult for both scholars and laypersons.a Recent discussions of trust have emphasized the need to broaden the definition beyond the traditional dimensions of competency and responsibility. In their review, Lewis and Weigert (1) provide a valuable contribution in delineating trust as a multi-faceted concept that incorporates cognitive, emotional, and behavioral dimensions. These authors emphasize that trust is a social as well as an individual, psychological process -- that trust involves reciprocity and therefore social relationships. Other authors have emphasized the importance of recognizing that trust operates at both an interpersonal and system level (2, 3,4,5).

The social vs. psychological aspects as well as the three dimensions of trust have received differing emphases in the literature. As a cognitive process, trust involves a choice based on reasoning about the available evidence and is based on a degree of cognitive familiarity with the object of trust. This knowledge is necessarily incomplete and incorporates an element of doubt or risk. The affective component involves an emotional bond among participants in a relationship; violation of that bond implies damage to the relationship per se.b The behavioral component reflects the actions undertaken on the belief that others will act in a similar manner. Though analytically separate, the three dimensions are combined in actual human experience and, indeed, serve to reinforce one another. For example, one person's behavioral display of trust may increase both cognitive and affective trust in another, i.e., it helps to create evidence of trustworthy behavior to the other (cognitive aspect of trust), which also reinforces positive sentiments (affective aspect of trust). Misztal (5: 9-10) focuses on bridging the interpersonal and systemic levels of analysis, and conceptualizes trust as a "social mechanism which can be explained by people's beliefs and motivations," with social relations and the obligations inherent in them the principle contributors to trust.

Scholars who have examined the broad role of trust have highlighted several features of the concept that are relevant to our discussion of trust in relation to public participation. These include the distinction between interpersonal and system trust; the element of risk that is involved in trust; the distinction between trust and distrust; and the linkage between trust and public feelings of dependency on technical expertise.

First is the emphasis on system trust, as opposed to trust based on interpersonal relationships, in modern society. Misztal (5), who conducts a detailed historical review and analysis of contributors to the trust literature, attributes the interest in system trust to the conditional and transitional nature of modern society. She points to globalization and the absence of commonly accepted standards related to institutions such as the church, family, and work as having led to "a search for bases for social solidarity, cooperation, and consensus."c Giddens argues that as society has become more complex and differentiated, trust increasingly is required in the form of "faceless commitment, in which faith is sustained in the workings of knowledge of which the lay person is largely ignorant" (6: 87). Though not fully explicated in the literature, this system trust appears to establish the context within which specific social relationships occur.

Second is the recognition that trust involves an element of risk and uncertainty. Misztal, for example, following Luhmann (2,3), emphasizes that to trust is "more than believing" (5: 18); this involves "expectations about something future or contingent" or having "some belief as to how another person will perform on some future occasion" (5: 24)." She defines trust as "believ[ing] that the results of someone's intended action will be appropriate from our point of view," and clearly distinguishes between trust and confidence on the basis of the degree of confidence that is attached to the expectations. Trust is a "matter of individual determination and involves choosing between alternatives (I decide to take a risk and trust my new colleague), while confidence is more habitual expectation (I am habitually confident that my milkman will deliver milk to my doorstep tomorrow) (5: 24)." Luhmann further emphasizes that the distinction between confidence and trust includes a difference in attribution, with trust carrying an internal attribution that leads to the possibility for "disappointment that depends upon your own personal behavior" (3: 97-98). Earle and Cvetkovich understand trust as a "risk judgment that assigns to other persons (agencies, organizations, institutions etc.) the responsibility for working on some necessary task" (4: 105-106).d

Third is the distinction between trust and distrust. Luhmann (2) emphasizes that distrust is not the opposite of trust and that the two concepts should be viewed as functional equivalents in their role of reducing complexity. Earle and Cvetkovich (4) also argue that trust and distrust should not be viewed as falling on a continuum but should be viewed and analyzed as separate items. They criticize past work that has treated distrust as a loss of trust i.e., social trust has been incorrectly treated as if it were "inherent at the beginning" and that "then things go wrong." (4: 4). In their view, distrust has been a core value in American political culture from the very beginning: "In America...we learn to distrust social trust....and [and] are taught to trust distrust" (4: 32).

The final feature of trust highlighted here is the linkage between trust and public feelings of dependency. Similar to Luhmann (2,3), Wynne (7) criticizes the treatment of distrust as loss of trust; however, his criticism is from the perspective of the lay person's distrust of technical expertise. His insights are especially relevant to understanding the relationship of trust to expert and public interpretations of risk in policies involving hazardous technologies and substances. Wynne argues persuasively that an observed lack of overt public opposition or alienation does not necessarily indicate the existence of public trust. He draws on evidence provided by Welsh and McKechnie and Welsh to demonstrate that public concern about excess childhood leukemias near the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing complex in northern England was evident in the earliest days of the nuclear program and is not simply a feature of the more recent, post-1970s era as frequently assumed -- that before the debate among experts occurred, lay people were already challenging the scientists' expertise and also their enforced dependency upon it to control the physical risk in which they were unavoidably situated. This dependency includes dependency on the experts' framework for defining the terms and language of the debate and is frequently exacerbated by economic dependency.

Wynne emphasizes that, when accidents or negative incidents occur, the public is likely to feel more than the betrayal of a trust relationship -- such events make explicit and force recognition of an "implicit and longstanding sense of self-denigration at 'allowing' their own dependency" on an untrustworthy institution (7: 51). As he points out:

Why is Trust Important?

The detailed review and analysis by Misztal (5) of the functions fulfilled by trust provide a useful foundation for examining the relationship between trust and public participation in governmental programs. She identifies three key, social functions of trust in contributing to 1) reduction in complexity -- to the predictability and reliability of interactions (e.g., through roles and routines); 2) cohesion -- to the formation of the basis of self-identity and, hence, relationships with the wider world; and 3) collaboration -- to the fostering of mutual respect and solidarity among persons with different perspectives, a form of social capital that benefits the larger community. Here, we examine two aspects of her work that offer valuable insights into the linkage between trust and public participation.

Misztal supports Luhmann's view of the function of trust in reducing complexity. For Luhmann, trust is required because of two interdependent changes that are occurring in modern society: increasing complexity and contingency ("the increasing replacement of danger by risk") (3: 105). He views trust as a medium of communication such as money or power that reduces the complexity of the world. Earle and Cvetkovich adopt and expand on this viewpoint, arguing that social trust, which is based on shared cultural values, developed "in tandem with complexity in society" (4: 19). They state that "social trust is a simplifying strategy that enables individuals to adapt to complex social environments and thereby benefit from increased social opportunities" (4: 38).

Misztal places particular emphasis on the importance of trust in generating social cooperation in this complex world ---- providing a background sustaining the smooth running of cooperative relations, solving the free-rider problem, helping reconcile different interests, and securing communication and dialogue by keeping minds open to all evidence. She advocates greater attention be given to conditions under which these mutually reinforcing forms of social capital can be created and sustained.

The role of trust in generating social cooperation and collaboration is particularly relevant to our examination of the role of trust in organizations undertaking programs that impact communities and the environment, including agencies such as the DOE or DOD, as well as to the broader societal context. Many of the issues facing these agencies as they make decisions related to site cleanup and the storage or disposal of hazardous wastes reflect the difficulties of modern governments in developing and implementing policy. The difficulties are compounded for these agencies, however, by the need to develop policies that are both technically and socially feasible -- where there is frequently both disagreement about the evidence provided by technical experts and a lack of commonly accepted values and standards. Development of cooperation on matters that are of concern to communities surrounding the sites and along potential transportation routes requires building an adequate level of trust among persons with differing perspectives. Here, communication plays a key role, both in sustaining and being sustained by mutual trust among different groups, or in Misztal's words, "trust is both the fruit of good communication and its necessary precondition" (5: 206). In the terms of Earle and Cvetkovich (4: 102), an important aspect of effective communication is a greater appreciation and more effective use of narratives to create and interpret emergent group values.

What is the Relationship of Trust to Public Participation?

Misztal's view of trust and communication is consistent with Funtowicz and Ravetz's discussion of the need for political debate among different perspectives -- for a "civilized dialogue of risks" -- in science-policy controversies (8: 841) and with Earle and Cvetkovich's discussion about the need for transformational exchange among multiple cultural perspectives. These scholars recommend dialogue as a more appropriate approach than a traditional one based on a view of science "as the facts" for issues involving uncertain facts, disputed values, high stakes, and a need for urgent decisions. This view is consistent, also, with Habermas's concept of communicative rationality as a means of overcoming an over-reliance on technical-scientific knowledge and restoring democracy. In an ideal speech situation envisaged by Habermas, citizens interact through language (what Habermas terms communicative competence) to develop mutual understanding and agreement. The goal is to "provide orientation about right action...the realization of the good, happy, rational life" (9: 253).

Viewing communication as discourse or dialogue and appreciating the importance of shared cultural values to communication and social trust have significant implications for the theory and practice of public participation. As emphasized by Bradbury (10), this view represents a very different approach than the linear view of communication -- as transmission of a message from source to receiver -- that has long been the dominant model underlying much of the discussion in risk management and risk communication.e It shifts the focus from the effect of the transmission on a recipient to a focus on relationships and the mutual nature of the communication process; emphasizes the long-term, interactive nature of communication as a transaction process among groups with different bases of experience and frames of reference and hence differing ways of judging the validity and relevance of knowledge; and shifts the focus from differences between expert and lay person (whose attitudes and behavior have typically been deemed to be in need of change) to differences in expertise and experience among all stakeholders, indicating different contributions that various parties bring to the communication process. Moreover, a convergence rather than a linear view of communication highlights the iterative nature of the process, indicating that the experience and understandings that the participants bring to the process are continually in the process of change.

What is the Relationship Between Communication and Public Participation

The multi-way communication envisaged above is, in effect, the essence of public participation. The challenge is to structure such a process so that it does, in fact, increase trust and provide the social capital needed to address issues of mutual concern. As demonstrated by the recent experience DOE in establishing Site-Specific Advisory Boards at sites around the complex, accommodating a variety of viewpoints (i.e., not simply an "expert" vs. "lay" viewpoints) was a considerable challenge.f Further, structuring the process will inevitably involve addressing issues of dependency and empowerment, which, as Wynne has shown, are closely linked to trust. Earle and Cvetkovich (4) emphasize the challenge posed by the need for public participation to move beyond the prevailing pluralistic, competitive, and defensive framework to one that allows creativity and synthesis.

Renn et al.(11) argue that public participation can be fruitfully examined from a micro-level perspective as a "means to realize critical awareness" by providing opportunities for individuals to enter into social relations that encourage personal development through critical self reflection and engagement (11: 9). Building upon Habermas' critical theory of communicative action, they define public participation as a communicative act, where the emphasis is on providing processes that are fair and competent (11: 10). Webler, in this same publication, defines participation as "interaction among individuals through the medium of language" (12: 40) and sets forth criteria for examining public participation on this basis. As discussed by Webler, the strength of Habermas's normative theory of human interaction lies in its emphasis on the need for a dialogue which permits the participants freedom to define their collective preferences, interests, and values and also enhances their ability to reflect on and develop changing needs and responses. Further, in outlining the conditions under which ideal speech can take place, Habermas addresses the need for fairness in the process.

The authors view this approach as one that avoids one of the primary issues encountered in the theory and practice of public participation, i.e., that discussions of public participation have been influenced, often at the level of assumption, by two competing theories. Although both theories reflect a commonly shared definition of public participation as "forums for exchange that are organized for the purposes of facilitating communication between government, citizens, stakeholders and interest groups, and businesses regarding a specific decision or problem," they hold fundamentally different views of how values are selected, prioritized, and manifest in society. Consensus theories, on the one hand, posit that society is maintained through the development and maintenance of shared norms and values; conflict theories, by contrast, posit that groups or individuals have fundamentally different interests, with the prevailing dynamic one of attempting to impose their values upon others. These competing theories lead to fundamentally different viewpoints about the goals and consequences of public participation: as an activity that stabilizes society (thereby serving the interests of the elite) or as a mechanism to accelerate social change (thereby empowering citizens (11: 9). The presence of these two conflicting theories has provided a basis for confusion and suspicion about public participation and also prevented efforts to develop effective means for evaluation. Renn et al. contend that their approach provides a way out of this impasse and a means also of developing criteria for evaluating public participation.

Earle and Cvetkovich emphasize the difficulty of achieving the necessary forums of communication and participation, pointing out several flaws in the traditional model of public participation: expectation of participation from everyone, lack of acknowledgment of the division of labor, failure to acknowledge the limits of human capacities, and failure to recognize the need for leadership. In their view, "traditional public participation...fails because its public is not sufficiently social and its participants are not fully human" (4: 148-155).

COMMUNICATION AND TRUST: INSIGHTS FROM OUR RESEARCH

Our own and others' research into a variety of environmental issues demonstrates the importance of public participation, in the sense of communication among policy makers, technical experts, and the range of stakeholders affected by a decision. Failure to acknowledge the legitimacy of differing viewpoints and to engage their representatives in meaningful discussion and negotiation contributes to escalating controversy and governmental agencies' inability to build the necessary societal consensus to effectively implement policy. In this section, we first outline some of the key findings from our recent research and subsequently discuss the relevance of this research to the issue of trust.

Research Findings

Research conducted by Bradbury et al. (13) into the U.S. chemical demilitarization program illustrates the importance of trust and communication in policy decisions, in particular the importance of the latter in risk-related issues. The research was designed to identify and analyze the nature of nearby communities' concerns about the risks of incineration and other technologies for disposing of the nation's stockpile of chemical weapons that are currently stored at eight sites in the continental United States. A primary impetus for the U.S. Army's sponsorship of the research was the extensive delay and escalating costs of the program that have been generally attributed to public opposition. Three research findings are of particular significance to the current discussion of trust and the role of communication.

A first finding was the existence of differing viewpoints both among groups of residents and between the Army and its experts and the residents overall. The problem, from the policy maker's perspective, is not simply one of reconciling differences between expert and lay communities, but of finding a way to forge agreement among the various viewpoints and frameworks of stakeholder groups. In the research on community viewpoints on incineration, for example, stakeholders' views on incineration were typically associated with fundamentally different frameworks for judging how the decision process should be structured, of relationships between the Army and the community, and trust in the institutions responsible for ensuring safety. Thus, supporters of incineration were more likely to agree that it was "the Army's decision to make" in the national interest; to believe that the Army's presence had been and continued to be an advantage (both economically and socially) to the community; and to trust the institutional arrangements in place for ensuring safety. Opponents, in contrast, were more likely to complain that "this is not the way decisions should be made," and that the Army should have placed a priority on building consensus for their programs among the diverse populations, rather than assuming agreement on a national interest; that the Army had demonstrated that it could not be trusted to act in the interests of the community; and that governmental institutions, in general, were unwilling to take responsibility for their actions and could not be relied on to regulate the Army's activities. Addressing differences among the range of stakeholders is thus one of the challenges in attempting to structure a process of communication that will build trust.

A second, key finding was the broad, yet consistent, scope of community members' concerns -- indeed, community concerns were much broader than the narrow definition of the problem in terms of concerns about technology that the research had been commissioned to address. Essentially, the Army's failure to address this broad scope of concerns had contributed to their inability to implement their preferred technology.

Residents' concerns consistently incorporated four, inter-related dimensions that we have characterized as an acceptability diamond:

The third finding was the existence of an even more marked difference between the structure of the Army's views and those of citizens. Whereas residents considered a broad range of factors in assessing the acceptability of incineration, Army personnel focussed very narrowly -- and almost exclusively -- on substantive aspects of the decision. They viewed their role solely as one of implementing decisions made by Congress in the national interest and defined the policy problem and their scope of responsibility as one of ensuring that technical analyses were appropriate. They compartmentalized community concerns into two categories, a technical category and a personal/political category: issues in the technical category were viewed as legitimate and should be addressed through additional studies and analyses while other issues were deemed illegitimate, i.e., the program was not able and should not try to address them. In sum, they defined their task as that of implementing the best technical program and then communicating the results of their technical analyses to the public; with very few exceptions, they did not see it to be their job to gain public acceptance of the program, although they would certainly have liked the program to achieve such acceptance.

Relevance of the Research to the Issue of Trust and Communication

Although the research was not designed to examine the issue, trust (or lack of it) was clearly a central issue in the controversy. The acceptability diamond presents the four program elements as separable items for analytical purposes; however, in fact most respondents mixed them together throughout their discussions, using information about one as support for their assessment about another. Distrust of the Army permeated their discussions. In some instances the distrust was system-level, which often extended beyond the Army to government in general, and set the context for the interpersonal relationships; in other instances, the distrust was based on interpersonal relationships with specific Army representatives.

The research confirmed and in some cases expanded the insights of the literature concerning trust. Key findings were the 1) negative effect of the Army's failure to address the full scope of community concerns; 2) inter-relationship of cognitive, affective, behavioral dimensions of trust; 3) variation among citizens viewpoints; 4) dependency and ambivalence of community views of the Army; and 5) lack of opportunity for communication between the Army and community residents.

The most striking finding was the very broad scope of community concerns and the very negative effect on residents' trust when they perceived that the Army excluded their concerns as relevant and legitimate issues for discussion. In their single-minded focus on substantive, technical issues, Army personnel ignored the relevance of the social and political context in which technology is planned and deployed. They discounted residents' concerns about the broader aspects of program management -- concerns about the decision process, accountability, and interpersonal relationships -- and thus ignored questions that were critical to community acceptance. Moreover, these concerns had not been addressed either through the formal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process or by other governmental institutions. In effect, it appeared to many community residents, that since these other aspects were not legitimate issues for discussion, there was no governmental entity that could be trusted to safeguard the community's welfare. This fundamental distrust was pervasive.

The inter-relationship among the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral dimensions of trust were clearly evident in community residents' views of the program. For the residents, previous experience with the Army and its representatives formed the basis for their current level of trust. In judging whether the Army could be trusted to construct and operate an incinerator safely, residents typically drew on their current and previous experience of a range of activities and programs that had impacted -- and continued to impact -- the community. As noted by a resident at one of the sites: "The Army has a history, that they refuse not to admit to making messes and leaving them to pick up. We figured [if they build an incinerator here] we will be that next situation...." For many who were opposed, negative experience of poorly staffed, responsible Federal and State agencies and the inadequate oversight of the community reinforced a belief that no governmental entity had previously demonstrated an ability to safeguard the community's welfare.

This cognitive, experience-based dimension in turn reinforced and was reinforced by the emotional and behavioral dimensions. Positive experiences and beliefs were linked to positive feelings and reflected in actions that displayed trust, while negative beliefs and feelings were reflected in actions that displayed lack of trust. In the latter case, behavior typically took the form of open hostility and opposition or of alienation, and the defensive reactions of Army personnel served to fuel the cycle of distrust.

Feelings of dependency and ambivalence were also very evident among residents whom we interviewed. Many recognized that they were caught in a catch-22 situation: they were dependent on the Army's technical expertise and knowledge of the site, including continued surveillance of the existing stockpile of weapons and commitment to clean up environmental pollution that could affect the community. Frequently, this dependence was reinforced by their economic plight, since the Army provided employment which was critical to the community's survival. In communities where residents perceived themselves as economically dependent, feelings of alienation or ambivalence were especially evident; many who felt uneasy about the Army's plans demonstrated an unwillingness to speak out or a sense of helplessness.

Finally, no mechanism existed to enhance communication among the parties to the controversy. Although citizen advisory boards had been established by Congress, the boards included only state and local representatives and did not provide for dialogue between the Army and community residents. The mandatory, NEPA hearing process provided the primary opportunity for interaction; this formal, adversarial process, which was very different from the ideal speech situation envisaged by Habermas, provided no opportunity for the parties to develop a common understanding of the problem. Indeed, it continued to give priority to technical issues and the Army's narrow definition of the problem, while failing to recognize and address community concerns. Moreover, our interviews showed clearly that the need for communication involved more than attempting to reconcile expert and lay viewpoints; rather, it involved finding a way to forge agreement among the various viewpoints and frameworks of stakeholder groups. Yet, as the chemical weapons program demonstrated, in the absence of effective communication among the parties about the issues of concern to each, the cycle of distrust continued.

CHALLENGES IN ATTEMPTS TO USE PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN TRANSFORMING DISTRUST TO TRUST

Earle and Cvetkovich (4) are blunt in their assessment that the traditional approach to public participation, which they see as reinforcing competitive, pluralistic positions, cannot succeed in transforming distrust to trust, even were it to be implemented vigorously. However, their assessment fails to consider the transforming potential of communication, even when it is initially undertaken without a clear commitment or intent for organizational or personal change. The literature on trust consistently emphasizes the reciprocal relationship between trust and communication, highlighting the critical importance of identifying some starting point, or place to break the self-reinforcing pattern of non-communication and distrust in situations involving technological risk. The opportunity for the communication introduced by public participation to act on the organization is dependent upon the ability of the organization, or the publics, to establish the initial public participation activities. The impetus for the establishment of some form of public participation, even in the most nonfunctional situations, can be created by regulation or by pressure from the public. Indeed, the literature on public involvement indicates that many organizations have initiated their public participation activities under this sort of duress (14,15,16,17).

Initiating public participation, as Earle and Cvetkovich point out, however, does not ensure success in either reducing distrust or enhancing or creating trust. Regulators or representatives of the public attempting to impose public participation on organizations, or organizations attempting to implement public participation effectively and to institutionalize it within their operations, face significant hurdles, not the least of which is internal resistance. Although these challenges are generally not well documented in the public participation literature, there are a few articles that speak specifically to the difficulties experienced in attempting to introduce public participation into federal agencies (17,18,19). These commentators, along with the more general literature on organizational change (20,21) highlight the level of commitment and effort required to implement new programs successfully, the difficulty in securing that commitment, and the frequency of failure. A clear message from this literature is that leadership, resources, management support, and extensive internal communication are critical requirements in the implementation of any significant organizational change. Kotter (20), for example, identifies eight steps that must be performed to successfully implement change:

He takes pains to emphasize both the initial and ongoing level of effort and commitment needed to perform these activities while continuing to attend to the day to day demands of ongoing business.

When attempting to implement public participation, the common challenges of managing organizational change are confounded, according to Kweit and Kweit, by the fundamental characteristics of bureaucracies. They point out that many of the attributes of bureaucracies are inconsistent with the goals of public participation: Bureaucratic decision making implies a cultural milieu disposed to elitist, expert-oriented norms, which are in direct contradiction to the democratic norms broad-based citizen participation is supposed to fostered (15: 666). They conclude that two factors influence the potential for successfully introducing public participation to bureaucracies: the amount and kind of resources the citizens possess and the environmental context -- among other things, the less stable the environment and the more the organization needs support from the citizens, the more responsive they will be to demands for participation (15: 659).

Despite the hurdles, several organizations have successfully introduced public participation and maintained it for a number of years with some sense of success. The Bonneville Power Administration is a notable example. DOE has made considerable progress at implementing public participation across its geographically disperse complex. There are some indications that expressions of public trust and confidence in these organizations increased in the period following introduction of the public participation programs, although it is difficult to make clear attribution of cause and effect. DOE is undertaking an examination of the institutionalization of public participation within the Agency, and has been diligent in conducting evaluations of its public participation initiatives, as well as conducting the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) trend surveys of trust. However, given the emphasis in the literature on trust of the importance of forging a more positive relationship between the organizations responsible for managing natural resources and hazardous technologies and the citizens, additional research on the mechanisms by which that trust and communication can be established is sorely needed.

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  22. For example, responses to a 1992 survey of representatives of organizations that deal with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) radioactive waste program revealed that almost one-third had difficulty articulating an answer to the question. "What does the term trust and confidence mean to you?" (See: Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB), Earning Public Trust and Confidence: Requisites for Managing Radioactive Wastes, U.S. Department of Energy, 1993).
  23. Earle and Cvetkovich (1995: 61) note Annette Baier's observation that the traditional formulation of trust is very male-dominated (focusing on descriptors such as competent, responsible, rational, abstract, distanced form life) and does not include concerns, like caring and shared values, that are associated with power relationships.
  24. Whether these institutions did, indeed, provide a foundation of trust is an open question. Wynne's insights about the relationship of trust and dependency (discussed in a later section of this paper) may be pertinent here.
  25. These definitions of trust and confidence differ from those provided in the SEAB report, op. cit.
  26. Bradbury draws on Roger's work in communication theory to distinguish between the traditional linear model of communication and a convergence model of communication. It should be noted that the National Research Council's recent publication, Understanding Risk (National Academy Press, 1996), represents a change in emphasis away from linear terminology as compared with its previous publications.
  27. The difficulties experienced by some boards in establishing informal processes to enable the Boards to function effectively as a group, was a key finding of the recently completed survey of the DOE's Site-Specific Advisory Boards. The Boards were specifically structured to represent highly diverse groups (Site Specific Advisory Board Initiative Evaluation Survey Results, U.S. Department of Energy, June 1996.

a. For example, responses to a 1992 survey of representatives of organizations that deal with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) radioactive waste program revealed that almost one-third had difficulty articulating an answer to the question. "What does the term trust and confidence mean to you?" (See: Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB), Earning Public Trust and Confidence: Requisites for Managing Radioactive Wastes, U.S. Department of Energy, 1993).
b. Earle and Cvetkovich (1995: 61) note Annette Baier's observation that the traditional formulation of trust is very male-dominated (focusing on descriptors such as competent, responsible, rational, abstract, distanced form life) and does not include concerns, like caring and shared values, that are associated with power relationships.
c. Whether these institutions did, indeed, provide a foundation of trust is an open question. Wynne's insights about the relationship of trust and dependency (discussed in a later section of this paper) may be pertinent here.
d. These definitions of trust and confidence differ from those provided in the SEAB report, op. cit.
e. Bradbury draws on Roger's work in communication theory to distinguish between the traditional linear model of communication and a convergence model of communication. It should be noted that the National Research Council's recent publication, Understanding Risk (National Academy Press, 1996), represents a change in emphasis away from linear terminology as compared with its previous publications.
f. The difficulties experienced by some boards in establishing informal processes to enable the Boards to function effectively as a group, was a key finding of the recently completed survey of the DOE's Site-Specific Advisory Boards. The Boards were specifically structured to represent highly diverse groups (Site Specific Advisory Board Initiative Evaluation Survey Results, U.S. Department of Energy, June 1996.