Trust, distrust and radioactive waste management in contemporary Russia

Abstract

Trust in public institutions in Russia is notoriously low. Yet trust in nuclear energy is, on the contrary, very high, with two-thirds of the population supporting its continued development. To understand this apparent paradox this article explores the meanings of trust with regard to the recently started process of siting repositories for radioactive waste (RW) in Russia as they are articulated in corporate and social contexts, in particular in the “closed” nuclear cities that will be the sites of repositories. We focus on the ways in which trust is defined by the promoters of the projects and by the residents of the hosting communities during public hearings related to the plans to build nuclear waste disposal facilities at a dozen of newly proposed sites. We argue that the hearings are less about trust building per se as they are about accommodating and neutralizing distrust by emphasizing the absence of better alternatives. Using examples from hearings, we discuss three main dimensions of trust: interpersonal, institutional and ideological, as we show the importance of the ideological component of trust that partially compensates for strong institutional distrust.

Keywords:

• Nuclear energy
• radioactive waste management
• trust
• public hearings
• Russia

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Markku Lehtonen, Eglė Rindzevičiūtė, Paul Josephson and the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading and helpful comments on the earlier versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In order to ensure full anonymity of our respondents we do not quote directly from the interviews, but rely on citations available in the public domain.

2 In 2019, there were 38 ZATOs in Russia. On the Soviet history of the ZATO see Siddiqi (2022).

3 See reports on hearings by the Russian chapter of the Norwegian foundation Bellona at https://bellona.ru/obzor-slushaniy/ and on the website of “Bezopasnost’ RAO” (RW Safety) at http://bezrao.ru/hearings.

4 Given the nature of the increasingly authoritarian Russian polity, and also the secrecy which has surrounded the Russian nuclear enterprise in spite of its efforts to appear more ‘open’ to public scrutiny, it must be noted that it is extremely difficult to locate and access entire transcripts or recordings of public meetings, if any such materials even exist. We believe, however, that the richness of the sources we have located enable us to explore different meanings of ‘trust’ in Russia regarding management of RW in this article.

5 For a critical analysis of the “deficit” approach to “public understanding” of science and technology see Bucchi and Neresini 2008; Rodríguez, Rué and López 2013.

6 On the close relationship between the civilian and military nuclear sectors in Russia see Cooper 2000 and Mukhatzhanova 2007.