From government to governance? (Non-) Effects of deliberation on decision-making structures for nuclear waste management in Germany and Switzerland

摘要

In many countries trying to build a deep geological repository for safely storing nuclear waste, different actors involved in the search process struggle over finding a common problem definition. The difficulty in this is that the complexity of the problem is often not acknowledged in nuclear waste governance. Rather, it often only deals with technical aspects, leaving out socially relevant questions. This results in an on-going social conflict over how to best handle nuclear waste. Some countries have tried to calm down the social conflict by integrating the public in decision-making processes to different degrees. In this article, it will be argued that with the introduction of deliberative elements into the decision-making processes on nuclear waste management, actors that were excluded from those processes before could now be included. This could lead to a move from decision-making by government to governance and thus to improved conflict resolution. Using Germany and Switzerland as cases in this cross-country comparison, already implemented deliberative elements will be analysed regarding their integration in traditional decision-making structures and their effects on those structures, respectively. It can be shown that even though both countries make very different use of deliberative elements, both only experience a very slight move away from traditional decision-making by government.