PLURALITY OF WORLDS, PLURALITY OF RISKS

Risk management decisions are not made only on the basis of expert ris k assessment. In numerous instances, public controversy erupts, questi oning the results of previous risk assessment procedures and shaping t he development of risk management episodes. This article presents a ca se study of risk management in the context of a 1980s controversy over aerial spraying against a spruce budworm epidemic in Quebec and draws some general conclusions concerning the relationship between risk ana lysis and public controversies. Actors in public controversies define risks more broadly than risk assessment experts. Moreover, public cont roversies only partly concern issues of risk. They are first and forem ost debates about social choices in which actors carry with them a mul tidimensional social experience of technology, trust, credibility and decision-making institutions. This experience contributes to the const ruction of a plurality of emergent representations of what is at stake in a controversy, referred to in this paper as ''worlds of relevance. '' Analysis shows that in any given public controversy, there are not just two parties arguing against each other. Rather, several ''worlds of relevance'' can be found that link, in a variety of ways, a variety of entities not necessarily shared by all these worlds. Each ''world of relevance'' presents a different definition of what the issues and the stakes of the controversy are. Risks are only part of the picture, and they are embedded in ''worlds of relevance'' from which they take their significance. The successful management of a controversy entail s the association of entities from different worlds.