THE POLITICAL-SCIENCE OF RISK PERCEPTION

Psychometric research on risk perception has frequently been invoked a s evidence for a distinction between 'actual' risk as measured by expe rts and 'perceived' risk as experienced by laypersons. According to th is view, perceived risk represents a distorted version of actual risk, shaped by the ignorance, prior beliefs, and subjective personal exper iences of non-experts. The goal of risk perception research, it follow s, is to illuminate the factors that account for deviations between 'a ctual' and 'perceived' risks. By contrast, qualitative social and poli tical analyses of risk perception question the validity of the actual/ perceived dichotomy and suggest that all perceptions of risk, whether lay or expert, represent partial or selective views of the things and situations that threaten us. Drawing on social studies of science and risk, as well as studies of quantitative risk assessment, this paper i dentifies three common models that link risk perception to regulatory policy - labeled for convenience the 'realist', the 'constructivist', and the 'discursive'. It calls attention to the ways in which the assu mptions underlying each model have influenced risk-related research an d decisionmaking in the United States. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Limit ed.