Consensus Seeking Versus Truth Seeking
Publication: Practice Periodical of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste Management
Volume 9, Issue 1
Abstract
Postmodernists have long argued that giving an egalitarian voice to all citizens by seeking consensus decisions with cooperation improves social welfare more effectively than the competition traditionally used with common sense and scientific evidence as part of truth seeking in a democracy. In a recent evaluation of its policy on consensus, the Department of Energy Environmental Management (DOE-EM) encouraged its Citizen Site Specific Advisory Boards “to work toward consensus” in order to be “fair,” thereby improving American democracy, according to the lead evaluator. But no empirical evidence has been collected from the field by the Evaluation Team to validate the DOE’s policy. In contrast, the literature and field data contradict the Team: consensus seeking retards cleanup; the coercion necessary to seek consensus reduces trust; and consensus-seeking favors risk perception rather than scientifically determined risk. In contrast, the competition of ideas driven by truth seeking significantly accelerates the cleanup and improves trust. While we recommend that the DOE revise its policy, we also note that in its enactment, the DOE allows the individual Boards to set their own decision policy.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This paper was developed from an earlier version (see Lawless 2004). The first writer would like to thank the reviewers for their helpful comments and suggested changes.
References
Arab Human Development Report (AHDR). (2002). ⟨www.undp.org/rbas/ahdr/⟩, United Nations.
Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation, Basic, New York.
Benardete, S. (2002). The argument of the action, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Bradbury, J. A., Branch, K. M., and Malone, E. L. (2003). An evaluation of DOE-EM Public Participation Programs (PNNL-14200), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Coleman, J. J. (2003). “The benefits of campaign financing.” CATO Institute Briefing Papers, ⟨www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-084es.html⟩, Washington.
DOE. (1996). vol. 1, DOE/EM-0311, vol. 2, DOE/EM-0312.
DOE/RL. (2002). DOE/RL 2002-47, Rev. D.
DOE. (2003). Top-to-Bottom Review of Environmental Management Program.
DOE-ESV. (2003). Draft DOE-HQ end state vision policy and guidance.
DOE-IG. (2003a). “Audit report: Savannah River Site’s waste solidification building.” DOE-IG-IG-0618.
DOE-IG. (2003b). Special Report: Management challenges at DOE.
DOE-PMP. (2002). Draft DOE Program Management Plan.
Eagly, A. H., and Chaiken, S. (1993). Psychology of attitudes, Harcourt, Fort Worth, Tex.
Federal Facilities Env. Restoration Dialogue Committee (FFERDC). (1996). Keystone Center, Colo., Consensus principles and recommendations for improving federal facilities cleanup.
Freer, R. D., and Perdue, W. C. (1996). Civil procedure, Anderson, Cincinatti.
Habermas, J. (1997). Jurgen Habermas. A Berlin Republic Writings on Germany, S. Rendall (Tr.), Introduction by P. U. Hohenddahl, Lincoln, N.B. University of Nebraska Press.
Hagoort, P. (2003). “How the brain solves the binding problem for language: A neurocomputational model of syntactic processing.” Neuroimage, 20, S18–S29.
Hamilton, A., Madison, J., and Jay, J. (1945). The Federalist 1787-88, Heritage, New York.
Hanford Advisory Board (HAB). (2002). HAB Recommendation 142. Acceptance of offsite Tru wastes.
Hanford Advisory Board (HAB). (2003). Risked Based End States.
Hanford Advisory Board (HAB). (2004). Motion 164, Tank Closure EIS alternatives.
Hardin, G. (1968). “The tragedy of the commons.” Science, 162, 1243–1248.
Holmes, Justice Oliver Wendell . (1919). Dissent, Abrams v. United States.
Huber, P. (2004). Presentation to SAB: Environmental Remediation Highlights.
Janis, I. L. (1982). Groupthink, Houghton Mifflin, Boston.
Johnson, B. (2003) Presentation to SAB on SRS Gold Metrics.
Kelley, H. H. (1992). “Lewin, situations, and interdependence.” J. Social Issues, 47, 211.
Lawless, W F. (1985). “Problems with military nuclear wastes.” Bulletin At Sci., 41(10), 38–42.
Lawless, W. F. (1993). “Interdependence and science: The problem of DOE military nuclear weapons waste management.” Research in Social Problems and Public Policy 5: 271-288.
Lawless, W F. (2004). “DOE’s policy of consensus seeking versus truth seeking in traditional American democracy.” WM’04 Conf., Tuscon, Ariz.
Lawless, W F., Castelao, T., and Abubucker, C. P., and (2000a). Conflicting agents: Conflict management in multi-agent systems, C. Tessier et al., eds., Kluwer, Boston, 279–302.
Lawless, W. F., Castelao, T., and Ballas, J. A. (2000b). “Virtual knowledge: Bistable reality and the solution of ill-defined problems.” IEEE Syst. Man, Cybernetics, 30(1), 119–126.
Lawless, W F., and Grayson, J. M., (2004). “A quantum perturbation model (QPM) of knowledge and organizational mergers.” Agent-mediated knowledge management, L. van Elst, V. Dignum, and A. Abecker, eds., Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 143–161.
Lawless, W F., and Schwartz, M. (2002). “The social quantum model of dissonance. From social organization to cultural evolution.” Soc. Sci. Comput. Rev. (Sage), 20(4), 441–450.
Levine, J. M., and Moreland, R. L. (1998). “Small groups.” Handbook of social psychology, D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, and G. Lindzey, McGraw-Hill, New York, II, 415–469.
Loftus, E., and Ketcham, K. (1992). Witness for the defense: The accused, the eyewitness and the expert who puts memory on trial, St. Martin’s Press, New York.
National Research Defence Council (NRDC). (2002). Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., and others vs. Spencer Abraham, Secretary, USDOE, Case No. CV-01-413-S-BLW, Memorandum Decision and Order in U.S. District Court for District of Idaho, August 9, 2002.
Nowak, M. A., and Sigmund, K. (2004). “Evolutionary dynamics of biological games.” Science, 303, 793–799.
Reeves, M B. (1997). Chair, Hanf. Adv. Board, Tri-City Herald, see ⟨www.tri-cityherald.com/progress/science/science21.html⟩.
Roberson, J. H. (2002). DOE Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management, Statement before the Subcommittee on Strategic Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate.
Roberson, J. H. (2004a). DOE Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management, Statement, Subcommittee on Armed Services, U.S. House of Representatives.
Roberson, J. H. (2004b). DOE Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management, Statement before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate.
Rogers, E. (1999). EM-SSAB Administrative procedures survey results, Rocky Flats Citizens Advisory Board, Senior Program Coordinator.
Savanah Advisory Board (SAB). (1997). “Plug-in-rod approach.” SAB recommendation 46.
Savanah Advisory Board (SAB). (2000). “Mound tru waste shipments to SRS.” SAB Recommendation 130.
Savanah Advisory Board (SAB). (2002a). “Purex recovery alternatives.” SAB Recommendation 146.
Savanah Advisory Board (SAB). (2002b). “Purex waste alternative treatment.” SAB Recommendation 152.
Savanah Advisory Board (SAB). (2003a). “WIPP non-compliant item WAC.” SAB Recommendation 164.
Savanah Advisory Board (SAB). (2003b). SAB meeting summary, SAB bimonthly meeting.
Savanah Advisory Board (SAB). (2003c). “Inspector General Waste Solidification Building Report.”
Schepens, R., and Klein, K., (2003). (Managers, ORP and Hanford). Stang, J., “Letter to T. Martin, Chair, HAB.” Hanford News Nov. 8, ⟨www.hanfordnews.com/2003⟩.
Schlesinger, A., (1949). The vital center, Riverside, Cambridge, Mass.
Shafir, E., Simonson, I., and Tversky, A. (1993). Cognition, 49, 11–36.
Slovic, P., Layman, M., Kraus, N., Flynn, J., Chalmers, J., and Gesell, G. (2001). “Perceived risk.” Risk, media and stigma, J. Flynn, P. Slovic, and H. Kunreuther, eds., Earthscan, London.
Suskind, L., et al. (1999). The consensus building handbook, Sage, see ⟨www.cbuilding.org⟩.
Tietmeyer, H. (2002). Wall Street Journal., Dec, 6.
Trustnet. (2004). Draft: Trustnet 2: Towards inclusive governance of hazardous activities, European Commission—Science, Research, Development, Fifth Framework Programme of the European Atomic Energy Community [EURATOM for research in the fields of nuclear energy (1998-2002)].
Von Neumann, J. (1961). “The mathematician.” Collected works, Pergamon, New York.
Von Schomberg, R. (2004). “The… Precautionary principle… and risk management decisions.” Microscopic modification and big politics, T. Achen ed., Vadstena, Sweden.
Wagoner, J. D., (1998). Letter, Mgr, DOE Richland, to M.B. Reeves, Chair, HAB.
Weapons Complex Monitor (WCM). (2003). “Congress wants DOE policy to clarify EM-NNSA feud.” Weapons Complex Monitor, 14(44), 3.
Wendt, A., (1999). Social theory of international politics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
White Paper. (2002). (WP) European governance (COM, 2001, 428 final), Brussels.
WSRC. (2002). WSRC-RP-2002-00245 Rev 6.
World Economic Forum. (2003).
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2005 ASCE.
History
Received: Aug 24, 2004
Accepted: Sep 8, 2004
Published online: Jan 1, 2005
Published in print: Jan 2005
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.