Conceptualising Corporate Governance for Hazardous Industries: Public Engagement as a Risk Management Process in Britain’s Nuclear Industry

ABSTRACT

The 1986 catastrophic accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant reflected the strategic risks of hazardous industries and the impact that totalitarian political systems can have on how these risks are managed. Drawing on key events in Britain’s nuclear industry, this article examines how public engagement paradigms may reduce risk in hazardous industries. In addition, a conceptual “demarchic” approach to corporate governance is explored that identifies how societal risks arising from hazardous operations may be reduced. This leads to an outline of how this may be achieved by minimizing the effects of information asymmetry and enhancing effective decision-making by citizens in technologically complex industries.

KEYWORDS:

• Demarchic governance
• hazardous industries
• nuclear
• public-participation
• stakeholders

Notes

1. “High impact low probability” risks are defined as uncertain situations, events, or outcomes that risk assessors at a given time consider are rare but which nonetheless can produce extreme, adverse consequences for a given population, should the evaluated uncertainties actually occur (cf. Blackett Review of High Impact Low Probability Risks, 2011).