On the dilemma of high-level decision-makers in their handling of risks in political contexts

Reliability Engineering and System Safety 25 (1989) 315-332

On the D i l e m m a of High-Level Decis ion-Makers in their Handling of Risks in Political Contexts

Gustaf 0stberg

Engineering Materials, University of Lund, PO Box 118, 221 00 Lund, Sweden

(Received 4 April 1988; accepted 15 November 1988)

ABSTRACT

The handling of risks at high levels in government organizations as well as in private, commercial companies is usually based on reviews and judgements characterized to a considerable extent by uncertainties. The quality of decisions made about risks therefore depends on the decision-maker's understanding of the nature and background of such decision support. Important issues among decision-makers' problems in this respect are, for instance, the balance between measurable, hard facts and estimates of soft factors, systems incompatibilities, the influence of values in judgements at all stages of the preparation of the decision support, etc. In most cases a high- level decision-maker finds it difficult to understand and utilize the decision support provided because his point of view is different from those of the specialists who have reviewed the case. To facilitate the decision-maker's task a particular effort is therefore called for in order to elicit hidden or omitted aspects of the handling of the risk in question. This task will require access to specialists in disciplines like philosophy, political science, business administration, organization theory and practice, etc. The main role of such an ad hoc team is to interpret and express the meaning of the decision support in terms that can make it more understandable and useful for the decision- maker. As a result the decision-maker will become less constrained by the unknown and hence be in a better position to make judgements that he can defend in various situations.

1 A P A R T I C U L A R I S S U E

Decision-making is a subject for research in several scientific disciplines. In each discipline, decision-making is treated according to the prevailing

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paradigm. While a comprehensive treatment is often aimed at, the focus is naturally on different aspects of the phenomenon called decision-making. The application of findings and reports to a particular decision-making situation is, therefore, often difficult. In practice, the generalized picture of a decision-maker corresponds only partly to the views of the individuals or the categories of interest involved.

The case considered in this paper is the final decision-making about societal risks on levels just below that of government ministers. The issue is the situation when the final decision-maker is left with a conglomerate of incompatible and incongruous arguments. Although these arguments may have been the result of reviews and analyses of the risks in question, the making of a final decision is not like a judgement based on a balance sheet of the interests of different parties and stakeholders. Any conscientious decision-maker on the level considered needs comprehensive and clearly stated information in order to make a decision that is, at least, not in disagreement with the societal and national policies concerned.

Obviously, the context of such high-level decision-making is political. This does not mean that political considerations are absent in the analyses and judgements of risks that precede the final decision. Nevertheless, it is at the highest level next to the government that national and societal interests quite naturally will become critical and decisive. In the dynamics of this final making of decisions, factors like public opinion, experts' judgements and other related phenomena are mobilized far beyond the more static or neutral roles which they are usually given otherwise. One reason for this activation is the fact that the final decision-making process involves the exertion of power to a much higher degree than at lower levels.

The remarks made above about generalized pictures of decision-making should also apply to the present characterization of high-level decision- makers. Their activities, of course, differ according to culture and tradition. The differences are most striking in comparisons between East and West, but even in seemingly closely related civilizations the modes of making decisions may be quite different. It is believed, however, that there are enough similarities to warrant a treatise like the one in this paper, if for no other reason than providing an account of some didactic value as an ethnological report.

The political aspects of decision-making have, of course, been dealt with previously. For instance, several conferences on risks at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis have brought up issues related to politics.i-5 The subject of most of the discussions has been the roles and functions of political institutions. The actual processes and procedures taking place during decision-making, and the behaviour of decision-makers,

Dilemmas of high-level decision-makers 317

have usually been touched upon briefly or in passing. Less attention has been paid to the dynamics of decision-making, let alone the exertion of power.

The same can be said to be true for some more recent papers on relationships between the public, experts and government. 6-9 The publication that comes closest to the problem to be discussed in the present paper is a textbook on acceptable risks, 1° to which reference is made for a more thorough treatment of some issues not covered in detail in this paper.

2 A DECISION-MAKERS' D I L E M M A

Editors of encyclopedias sometimes run into difficulties with words belonging to several disciplines. Controversies arise between the different disciplines about priorities and space. In order to manage the subject the editor subdivides it into fragments under separate headings. For a reader who is interested in more than one aspect and in relationships between them, however, this fragmentation is confusing and annoying.

Risk appears to be such a word with roots in various disciplines. It is usually looked upon from quite different points of view by, for instance, mathematical statisticians and psychologists. While they all share some common concepts about risks they focus on different aspects into which the phenomenon is subdivided: risk awareness, risk perception, risk analysis, risk assessment, risk evaluation, risk selection and distribution, risk acceptance, risk management, etc.

The effort that has been spent over the years on studies of these different aspects has been determined on the one hand by the need for knowledge and on the other hand by the interests and prospects of research as such. These two driving forces are not always in balance. Hence the state of the art with respect to usefulness may differ considerably between the various disciplines engaged in research on risk. The topography of this field of knowledge is rather uneven with some high-level areas and, in between them, extensive and deep depressions. One can also speak of a few white spots in the map of the world of risk.

What is particularly disturbing for anyone who wants to find his way through this field is the lack of relationships and interconnections between the different areas of risk research. A major reason for this can be found in the codes and rules of scientific practice, its paradigms, telling that a scientist should stay within his own discipline, not pretending to understand other sciences. Anyone who attempts to bridge the gaps between disciplines is thus primarily criticized for mistakes and faults rather than being rewarded for his achievements.

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The fragmentation of the picture of risk made up of separate contributions from different scientific disciplines is disturbing for everyone who thinks of science as a mirror of real life, something unified and comprehensive. For those who take the view that science can only describe and interpret phenomena on its own terms the presence of inconsistencies would probably be less astonishing. What may nevertheless justify a certain disappointment with the disparity of treatments of risk by various disciplines, however, is the need of people in real life, outside science, for means to make practical use of the different pieces of knowledge.

There is one realistic situation when a more or less holistic view of risk would be desirable, namely at the moment a decision is to be taken about a particular risk involving considerations of a number of incompatible factors which, in addition, may be known only to a limited extent and with limited accuracy. This situation is, of course, familiar to decision-makers on high levels of government agencies as well as in the management and boards of private companies. They all have to make such decisions almost every day as one of their most important tasks.

Reviews of decision-making about risk on the basis of uncertainty too often describe this as an undertaking which, at least when seen at a distance, and from the outside, may appear to be solidly founded on the basis of principles developed by various disciplines dealing with risks as a subject of scientific study. A closer look will reveal that the decision-maker's basis is only seldom the solid ground one would expect: it is more often a number of separate stones, wide apart, again supported by foundations with only quite uncertain stability. The actual operations and moves when followed from the inside would often look like a game.

This description of the situation of high-level decision-makers, when dealing with risks on the basis of uncertainty, leads to the following conclusion about the background and support: there are gaps between, on the one hand, the pieces of knowledge made available to these decision- makers and, on the other hand, their ability to stress the quality and value of the support from the point of view of the interests of all parties involved. Decision-makers are provided with information and statements about risks based, in principle, on scientific examination and judgement which they are supposed to accept at their face value from a scientific point of view. For the decision-makers the dilemma is that they do not know on what grounds they can trust the support as a whole. They can only occasionally have sufficient knowledge of the nature and quality of the information they receive to be able to assess its implications for the decisions in question. The scientific statements may be justified and acceptable from the scientific point of view but this does not necessarily relate to the overall considerations that have to be taken into account in the final, high-level decisions.


Sometimes this lack of correspondence between scientists and decision- makers may lead beyond misunderstanding. The mere feeling on the part of decision-makers of a danger that they can be, unintentionally, misled means that trustworthiness and confidence become important in the decision- making activities. 11 The decision-makers' dilemma with respect to the value of the support provided for dealing with risk issues therefore cannot be solved by simply adding more of the same kind of information. A solution has to be found that considers fundamental problems related to the management of incompatibilities of different kinds.

The approach to a solution to this dilemma to be presented in this paper should not be considered as an expression of a belief in an ideal decision- making process as something completely logical and rational, excluding all uncertainties by using some superior rules for coping with inconsistencies and incompatibilities. The main idea is that decision-makers can reduce an important part of the uncertainty, namely that which is due to lack of understanding of the nature of the support they are provided with.

It appears that too little has been done in the past to assist decision- makers in their efforts to really understand the support provided to them in the form of information and judgements. Very few of those who may be able to interpret and evaluate the so-called decision support have given much thought to the people who will be responsible for making the actual decision. Therefore in the following a plea is made to the several disciplines involved to join forces in an effort to make the decision support more useful.

3 A QUESTION OF M A N A G E M E N T

In some quarters the word management has a negative connotation. Management is thought to be a synonym of manipulation. The kind of management performed in private commercial enterprises is considered a threat to democratic principles.

In the present context management is only a neutral term to make possible a discussion of the operation and functioning of systems. An exception to this neutrality is made at the end of this section by a reference to the need for caring in the management of complex systems involving people.

Systems is another key word to be used here with the same kind of reservations as for management with regard to possible negative associa- tions. Systems is not such a modern term as one might think in view of its present usage in technical and economic contexts. More than a century ago a well-known philosopher expressed himself in terms of systems when discussing problems similar to the one dealt with in the present paper. It may not be inappropriate to quote him, calling attention to the difference

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between scientific, logical systems and real, human life: 'A logical system is possible; an existential system is not possible'. 12

This remark on systems involving humans is a suitable starting point for the present treatment of risk as a phenomenon related to systems. It is true that there do exist logical systems in technology which may suffer from malfunctioning with a certain probability, for instance in electronically controlled devices. This risk can be assessed using probabilistics to an accuracy which appears satisfactory for most practical purposes; however, this method disregards the influence of the so-called human factor.

The risks considered in this discussion are more complex, involving factors of quite different natures and even incompatibilities, for instance machines designed by and coupled to humans. Then the assessment of the functioning of the system becomes a delicate matter. Management has to be employed as a means of overcoming incompatibilities between physical, mechanical, chemical, biological, social, etc., factors. 13,14

In order to illustrate the role of management in general an analogy might for a moment be made with the management of commercial enterprises. In a company the sometimes diverging interests of different departments can be harmonized by the general manager employing various concepts like business ideas. The same is true, of course, also for government organizations with departments working according to some common goal. While reference to a business idea or a common goal may be the leading principle of management by objectives this does not, unfortunately, always lead to harmony. The manager then has to exert power in order to make the system function.

There are two features of the management of complex systems involving humans that will be pointed out as a conclusion of this brief review. With respect to risk it is essential for the discussion in the following to recognize that a business idea for risk management is usually not the sole idea that the management and its personnel have to look for as a guide for its activities. There are often several goals and demands for people at lower levels to keep in mind and sometimes these objectives are contradictory. For instance, safety may mean lower efficiency and higher costs.

Many managers trying to cope with such contradictions in their everyday work are quite justified when relating this problem to bureaucracy. The organization and its personnel may react to management by referring to the rules and regulations set up in order to make the organization function smoothly and efficiently without too much intervention by the management. This particular problem is dealt with in more detail in the next section of the paper.

The second feature to be recognized in the pattern of problems with handling risks in organizations is associated with the first one, i.e. with the


conflict between management by objectives and management by rules. Although the ultimate, formal decision is to be taken by the manager, risk is not the responsibility of the manager in isolation. The risks that have to be dealt with at the general management level have their origin at various earlier stages in the development of the case in question. In order to really manage risks in an organization of any kind one therefore has to approach this task both from the bot tom upwards and from the top downwards. Merely issuing objectives, business ideas and principles is not enough. Intervention has to be made at all levels. Conversely the shop floor may sometimes be the critical level with respect to reliability and safety, as was once found in a study of the infrastructure of quality assurance in a heavy machinery industry. 1s'16 Independently of the formal quality assurance system the workers had developed a philosophy and practice of their own which, in fact, took care of the real risks.

The case referred to is an example also of caring, a concept that was mentioned earlier and will reappear at the end of the paper. In order to amplify this issue another example will be given. Consider a doctor who is supposed to remove an appendix. He does so but notices at the same time a cancer. If he does not care about the patient he leaves it at that, saying that his task was only to remove the appendix. When told like that this seems an unlikely story. In practice in technology similar cases unfortunately appear not to be unique.~ 7

Obviously, the task of a decision-maker at a general management level when dealing with risks in complex systems subjected to influences of the systems effects mentioned is not an easy one. The dilemma caused by the nature of the decision support, described in a previous section, cannot be solved by following a certain prescribed, generally valid order of actions or a check-list. A solution can only be found by both applying knowledge about risks from the point of view of different disciplines, and understanding how organizations and people can be managed in this respect.

4 A CIVIL SERVANTS' SYNDROME

On its way from perception to decisions and actions a risk passes several processes and procedures affecting both its substance and its formal aspects. At some stage following its perception, assessment, evaluation etc. the risk has to be formally expressed in terms which fit the ruling administrative paradigm in order to become manageable with respect to a final decision. This formalization is similar to the process at the court when the defendant's case is being considered for judgement according to the law.

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At this stage the fate of the risk is in the hands of civil servants. It is their task to prepare for a judgement that does--a t least--not violate confidence in the authority in question. In a well developed bureaucracy there are instructions and routines which define the responsibilities and powers of different actors in order to ensure correct and efficient procedures for handling risks. What calls for attention in the present context is, however, those cases of risks that should not be dealt with by simply following rules or usage.

In some areas of the civil service the judgement is delegated to the operational level by means of strict and detailed instructions. Customs officials, for instance, are allowed to decide if certain goods are to be registered as pieces of art or not. A patrolling policeman is entitled to decide whether a particular sound should be classified as music or noise. When it comes to societal risks of the kinds considered in this paper the application of rules is a more delicate matter. Much is left to the individual's judgement based on professional competence, experience and ethics. In view of the serious consequences of judgements at this level the delegation of responsibilities and authority has to be made with due regard to the delicate nature of the risk-formalization and risk-handling process.

The situation of a civil servant faced with a risk case outside of his previous experience may be difficult not only because of the unusual features of the substance of the risk. The main problem is the evaluation of the validity of the routines for the case in question. Paradoxically, for a civil servant in this situation his education in the field of technology or science concerned may not necessarily be an asset. He might have been knowledgeable in this field some time during his career but he has rarely been able to retain this competence and keep up with recent developments. Therefore his judgement should not be based primarily on a technical analysis but rather ori general aspects of the case considered. Hence, his criteria for formalizing the risk in question should reflect the main policy of the agency, with reference to rules only when appropriate with regard to the agency's decisions about final actions.

In his role thus described, a civil servant needs a work relationship not only with his decision-making superiors but also with those so-called experts who provide him with information and knowledge about risks. Again much depends on the individuals involved. Sometimes the civil servant takes on a leading role, demanding from the experts that they formulate their contributions in terms that can be directly used as arguments during the decision-making process. In most cases a tripartite relationship between civil servant, final decision-maker and expert would be desirable in order to avoid misunderstanding and bias. Too close a collaboration might, however, require a definition of the responsibilities of the respective parties in order to


protect, in particular, the civil servants whose position is very delicate from this point of view.

5 POINTS OF VIEW ON RISK H A N D L I N G

The previous sections of this paper have outlined a dilemma of high-level decision-makers when faced with risks, and some general problems associated with managing risks in complex systems. As indicated in passing, there do exist potential means to handle the dilemma considered. To begin with, specialists in various disciplines have examined risk awareness, risk perception, risk analysis, risk evaluation, risk acceptance, risk selection and distribution, risk management etc. from their particular points of view. It is assumed that their contributions will, in principle, form a basis for solving problems associated with decision-makers' handling of risks. In the following a characterization will be given of these contributions from different disciplines with the aim of eventually arriving at suggestions for efforts to make so-called decision support concerning risks more effective.

The classical, scientific way of analyzing risks is to divide them into probabilities and consequences. The present theory of probability dates back to Pascal in the 17th Century. Despite its long tradition, probability does not seem to have become familiar to most people as a mathematical concept for everyday use except in simple games. Even trained statisticians appear to cultivate a mental model of risks which is in contradition to the classical theory of probabilities. They do sometimes, for instance, try their luck in lotteries.

A recent study of experienced decision-makers' way of reasoning, given the task of deciding about a case of a risk with low probability and large consequences, has shown that this discrepancy between practice and classical theory is significant enough to warrant serious consideration. 1 s One interpretation of the observations in this study would lead to the conclusion that most people do not seem to be able to reason about risks in a straightforward way as probability multiplied by consequence. They appear to focus their attention on only one of these two factors at a time with no integration whatsoever.

The logic followed by risk assessors should therefore not be described in terms of mathematical statistics only. Furthermore, other kinds of arguments than those based on available statistics can often be preferred, so- called secondary probabilities. 19 This is common not only in the quick decisions in small matters we have to make every day b u t also in court procedures. There is evidently a strong influence of psychology on the use of logic in decision-making about risks, a fact that has been known for a long

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time and studied extensively. Philosophers with an inclination towards psychology and psychologists with a philosophical attitude have developed useful concepts for understanding decision-making based on logics in conjunction with knowledge about people's ways of reasoning in practice. Psychologists are then naturally a very useful and important category among humanists to consult for the purpose of solving the dilemma and problems considered in this discussion. In addition, historians have much to provide with their experience from the past.

For the sake of completeness it may be added that not only theoretical but also moral philosophers have to be engaged. Governing risk assessment and risk evaluation there are often values, moral and ethics. Responsibility is also to a large extent a moral question. This is true not only at higher levels in the hierarchy of private companies and public agencies but throughout whole organizations. The case quoted above of workers on the shop floor having developed an informal quality assurance system is an illustration of this point.~5'16 It is interesting to note that in this respect moral considerations are nowadays also accepted as a critical element in management, as will be emphasized in the conclusions of this paper.

Turning to the managerial aspects of decision-making about risks, points of view can be found in both the theory and the practice of the science of management, in particular service management and business administration as well as political science. A number of studies have been made by researchers in these disciplines relating to decision-making about risks. Illustrations of the attention that should be paid to organizational and managerial aspects of risks handling have been given in the previous section on management. In the concluding section the recommended efforts for improvement of processes and procedures are outlined against the background of present views on this subject in the respective disciplines.

Thus, several disciplines in addition to science and technology can be identified as important resources in making decision-support about risk understandable and lucid. The issue is then how to engage and activate all these specialists so as to achieve a collaboration between them. Simply asking each of them to give his view may help a decision-maker to some extent but it may also end in confusion. An effort has to be organized in order to meet the need for interconnection and communication.

6 SOME TYPES OF PROBLEMS

The background of the present discussion is made up of an array o f different problems that have been observed and analyzed by specialists in the disciplines just mentioned. This experience cannot be properly summarized


in a balanced review within the limits of a single paper. Nevertheless a brief sampling might serve to illustrate what the work of ad hoc teams of specialists in political science, philosophy, psychology, etc. would contribute.

In the literature on the trustworthiness of risk assessments some attention is given to the problem that future developments may take directions which are very difficult or even impossible to predict. A classic, warning example is the substitution of horses by gasoline engines for transport vehicles at the turn of the last century. One kind of pollution was eventually replaced by another. There may be other, less extreme cases where farsightedness could have been applied with more success.

To a large extent, awareness of risks has to do with our ability to elicit them by means that permit us to take them into account in the true sense of this word. The particular way in which we perceive risks appearing within our pictures of the world and our existence may prove critical. In history a recent case is the Yom Kippur war in 1973 when Israel was taken by surprise by Egypt despite its intensive surveillance effort. There are numerous analogous examples in social medicine, economy, business, environmental protection, and other areas of interest from a risk handling point of view where the sensory system is not adapted to notice signals of the development of critical events.

When it comes to transforming signals into interpretable signs and expressions, language is, of course, a source of risk in itself. First it should be realized that some risks cannot necessarily be sufficiently well represented verbally but need other means to become fully evident. Casualities expressed in figures elicit a different response than does a visual representation, for instance. More common as a disturbing influence is the unequivocal use of terminology. 'Improbable' is one example of a word that has a meaning with such a large variation that it is misleading in most contexts.

A problem familiar to most people concerned with risk handling is that of using expert advice. Apart from differences of opinion and contradictions among experts the fact that even when experts agree their judgements may worry high-level decision-makers in cases of uncertainty. Sometimes the expert's judgement is hampered by the condition that he must confine himself to what are considered to be hard, measurable facts, excluding soft factors of less scientific quality. This is a problem in cases where the situation or the system is more complicated, involving influences that cannot be dealt with using only strict, first order rationality.

An examination of the judgements of experts in a number of cases related to a certain technical risk has shown 18 that what might appear to be objective, rational statements about this risk may better be called expressions of attitudes and mentalities. Measurements, observations, data

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and facts are usually only parts of the information to be used in technical assessments of risk. A considerable number of judgements based on professional experience and skill have to be added to make it possible to make a pronouncement on the issue of reliability and safety. In collecting and using these complementary ingredients most scientists and engineers are affected by moral influences. At the bot tom of all this are values, personal and professional, which take the forms of attitudes and mentalities. The problem from the point of view of high-level decision-making is that usually very little of this background is evident in the final statements.

Not even strictly technical and scientific arguments are always free of rationalizations which may pass unnoticed. For the sake of illustration a simplified example will be briefly referred to. Consider a town square in the form of a quadrate. In principle the corners may be defined as fixed points at a distance of, say 100 m from each other along the sides of the square. If, however, we want to know the distance between two corner points along the diagonal by calculation we will obtain a figure which is irrational, x f2 × 100 m. In practice we are seldom disturbed by the irrationality of the mathematical description. The same is true for the calculation of the circumference of a circle using n.

These and other numerous similar cases seem to make most engineers and scientists insensitive to the gaps between physical features and mathematical descriptions. Whenever different entities are to be coupled to each other, coefficients or factors like n are introduced. Sometimes this is done to an extent that may obscure the physical relationships. In the present age of computers there is an additional danger that lucidity may be lost through lack of analysis of underlying connections. 2°

These few eclectically selected problems all have to do with restraints limiting the validity and relevance of risk assessments made with reference only to science and technology. In practice a considerable number of failures occur due to causes that were, intentionally or not, excluded from consideration during the process of risk handling. Such failures are sometimes called 'inconceivable accidents', 16 a classic example of which is the collision of two jumbo jet aircrafts on Tenerife in 1977 killing 583 persons. The saddening epilogue of this is that a similar incident, which fortunately did not develop into a disaster, later occurred in Sweden.

Related to this type of problem are surprises. Again, there is a certain background of experience available to cope with this phenomenon too. It appears that an important part of the ability to deal with surprises is connected with imaging, 21 to be elaborated further in the next section.

Another process-related aspect of such events is 'intelligence' which may enable us to avoid unnecessary surprises. By intelligence in this context is meant neither espionage nor simply the ability of problem solving but the


collection and interpretation of information and knowledge by all means, not relying only on conventional sources. In recent years such intelligence has developed into a methodology of its own. 22

What one could do in order to improve the handling of risks in this respect is, among other things, to employ a team of external specialists on various aspects of risk awareness, risk perception, etc. Their task should not be to make another expert review of the risk situation but rather to examine the processes of risk handling.

7 PROBLEMS OF I M A G I N G

The difficulties faced by decision-makers when trying to make use of analyses of risks provided by experts are not only due to differences in concepts and models. In the back of the minds of the parties involved there are images of the risks in question which may differ to a degree that renders communication virtually impossible. By 'image' is meant not a picture that can be perceived and reproduced visually, but any representation of a risk, be it an image in the narrow sense, a verbal account or something perceived by tactile means.

Individual differences in imaging behaviour need more attention than is commonly assumed. This appears to be true in particular with respect to constraints and limitations of the imaging process. Imagination alone is not enough. The ways in which impressions or stimuli are perceived, systematized, rationalized, selected and amplified determine the image that the respective parties suppose they share.

An illustration of a difficulty caused by imaging problems is the behaviour sometimes exhibited by civil servants in government agencies when faced with a report on a situation associated with risks. While probably recognizing the risk issue, they often do not want to take a standpoint or express themselves in terms of risks until they have received a clearcut statement from the person who has provided the decision support. Decision- makers of this category seem to need an interpretation given by some independent person before daring to perceive what in fact they are supposed to deal with. As civil servants they do not want to see the risk with their own eyes but prefer to receive an image from someone else to be dealt with in a formal way.

Another professional deformation which may govern the imaging of risks is the adaptation to a particular image as a result of previous exposure. It is well known that we perceive a painting differently the first time we look upon it than on later occasions. The second time we see the picture the spontaneity

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is reduced at the same time as new aspects may appear. In the long run repeated exposure makes us less sensitive.

This adaptation is a phenomenon that occurs also with other sensations. If we are used to carrying heavy loads we feel the weight of a new object as being less than if we were not conditioned by having carried heavy loads. The conclusion of these analogies as far as perceiving and imaging risks is concerned with, of course, that regular frequent exposure to accounts of risks makes it difficult for both reviewers of risks and decision-makers to form a clear and obvious image of a particular risk.

Imaging is a problem also at the stage when the image is to be utilized in the process of communicating a decision support to a decision-maker, who in turn is governed by his own imaging constraints and limitations. This process involves a number of operations which may distort the image such as rationalization, generalization, selection, systematization, aggregation, amplification, etc.

Unfortunately, on this crucial point current views are rather vague. Decision-makers' treatment of facts, patterns, impressions and arguments contained in images of risks follow rules and practices that seem both obscure and incoherent. What is fairly well known, however, is the bias towards focussing on 'hard' facts at the expense of 'soft' factors. Another tendency is to anchor perceptions in previously known phenomena. A personal interest has been suggested by philosophers as a not altogether rational reason for the selection of certain arguments as an alternative to other, logical rules. 23

8 THE PROCESS

In text-books risk handling is usually subdivided into risk awareness, risk perception, etc. as mentioned in the introduction. This is a useful systematization for bringing the subject into order. When applying such an order in practice it is assumed, more or less implicitly, that the result of each operation--analysis, evaluation, etc.--is independent and final. The result in each step is sometimes literally delivered from one department or specialist to the next with no mental contact in any other form than the written statement.

This mechanistic way of handling risks is also often typical of the last step towards the final decision-making. High-level decision-makers in many risk cases receive the so-called basis for their judgement in the form of a review with only a few comments relating to the underlying conditions and aspects highlighted in the previous sections. There is no real communication in the true sense of this word.


It is this stage of the handling of risks in complex systems involving humans that is the target of the present paper. This is the moment of truth. The aim of the suggestions made about the decision-makers' dilemma and problems is to assist them in turning the procedure of risk handling into a process of communication rather than the remote collecting of separate pieces of evidence typical of today's risk handling.

The emphasis is therefore on the process rather than on the decision support in the form of information and reviews. This means that participation is a key word. This participation has to include not only the different specialists referred to in the previous section. There must be participation also on the part of the decision-maker. In order to illustrate what this means, an analogy to court proceedings has in one instance proved instructive. 24 In court a lawyer has a role as an intermediary who can explain to the judge what the defendant has done in a way that corresponds to the concepts of guilt according to the law. On the other hand he tells his client about the law so that he can obtain not only justice but the lowest possible punishment.

This analogy with court proceedings should not be misunderstood as a plea for introducing legalistic methods into the handling of risks. The purpose is to illustrate a possible procedure to establish a communication link between the different parties involved, that is, on the one hand the decision-maker and on the other hand those providing him with support.

This example from legal proceedings may also illustrate another feature of high-level decision-making which might be important to mention, in case anyone should think that the idea is to leave the decision largely to the intermediary. As in a court, the actual judgement is made by the judge, i.e. the decision-maker. Likewise the suggestion to be made later in this paper for the improvement of the process leading to decisions about risk should not be considered as laying restraints on the judgements of high-level decision-makers. This point will be further elaborated in the concluding paragraph of this paper.

9 A PROPOSAL

In the literature on decision-making about risks based on uncertainties the subject of this paper has been treated only sparsely, at least in comparison with the many publications on the various sub-problems, risk awareness, risk perception, etc. One reason for this lack of suggestions or models to cope with the dilemma and problems outlined may be the diversity of situations where they occur. Another explanation, which appears more likely, is the interdisciplinary nature of an effort to improve the situation as suggested

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here. The role of someone like a lawyer, in the tentative analogy to court proceedings, has not yet been recognized as quite respectable or honourable in the scientific community where everyone is supposed to keep within the bounds of his discipline.

It seems, however, that there is a growing insight among high-level decision-makers who have pondered the dilemma of understanding and making use of decision support, that something along the lines drawn above needs to be done. While the present subdivision and fragmentation of science and the humanities does not strictly permit any role for intermediaries this does nevertheless occur in some areas of research like environmental protection, energy conservation, etc. Activities concerning decision-making about risks should therefore not be totally strange as a subject for serious consideration by authorities used to engaging university staff.

Again a word of caution is probably necessary. As already stated the knowledge within the different areas of risk handling mentioned--risk awareness, risk perception, etc.--is largely satisfactory for the present purpose. It is therefore in the first place not further research on the corresponding sub-problems that is needed although this might be of value in general. The activity that is suggested at this point is rather one of systems or of a network character. It has to do with relationships and interconnections in the system in question and with processes taking place in the system.

In concrete terms it is proposed that high-level decision-makers may be assisted in their tasks related to risk handling by a team or group of consultants representing knowledge about different aspects of risk: philosophy, psychology, political science, business administration and management. In order to make this team adopt a holistic approach to risk handling, and in order to establish the prescribed participation, it is essential to appoint a dedicated coordinator.

Concerning the relationships between the various participants involved according to this scheme it should be observed that the activities of the team of consultants employed are by no means intended to lay constraints on the activities and actions of the decision-maker. On the contrary their assistance will give him more flexibility and freedom by making his vision clearer, more penetrating and longer-ranging. As mentioned above the term 'management' may not be entirely acceptable by all parties in this system for risk handling. As a final remark, however, it might be appropriate to refer to a discussion a few years ago about the different roles of researchers and managers. 25 The point was made that a manager is not really doing his job if he does not care about his task. This is true not least for the management of the activity proposed in this paper where the handling of risks is associated, related and coupled to the corresponding responsibilities.


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On the dilemma of high-level decision-makers in their handling of risks in political contexts