Abstract
Taking recent scholarship on democratic practices in environmental decision making as a starting point, this article examines the politics of two Superfund sites. The article explores the potential of technical assistance grants to encourage citizen participation and democratic processes in regulatory implementation. The article argues that although such grants can facilitate citizen participation in technically complex decisions, the degree of democracy present depends greatly on the willingness of the legally empowered decision-making agency to allow citizen groups to influence the process. The article also suggests the counterintuitive possibility that effective citizen participation may be more likely at large, technically complex Superfund sites and stresses the need to maintain avenues of citizen influence that operate outside of the normal regulatory public participation mechanisms.
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