Standard approaches to defining and evaluating environmental risk tend to reflect
technocratic rather than democratic values. One consequence is that institutional
mechanisms for achieving citizen participation in risk decisions rarely are studied or
evaluated. This article presents a survey of five institutional mechanisms for allowing
the lay public to influence environmental risk decisions: public hearings, initiatives,
public surveys, negotiated rule making, and citizens review panels. It also defines
democratic process criteria for assessing these and other participatory mechanisms.
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