Logo image
Justice, Democracy, and Hazardous Siting
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Justice, Democracy, and Hazardous Siting

Christian Hunold and Iris Marion Young
Political studies, v 46(1)
Mar 1998

Abstract

In this essay we examine some issues of justice associated with the siting of hazardous industrial facilities. Utilitarian justifications of siting decisions are inadequate because they fail to address questions of fairness. Approaches that consider questions of distributive equity provide a better framework for siting justice, but are still incomplete. Limiting questions of justice to the distribution of benefits and burdens fails to examine the justice of procedures for deciding such issues of distribution. We argue that justice requires a participatory communicative democratic process for siting hazardous facilities, in two respects. It is prima facie unjust to impose a risk on citizens without their having participated in the siting process. Participatory communicative democratic procedures in facility siting, moreover, when structured according to specific norms of discussion and inclusion, are likely to yield the most just outcomes. We propose procedural as well as substantive conditions for such democratic procedures, and briefly apply these conditions to evaluate the siting of a landfill in Switzerland.

Metrics

11 Record Views
119 citations in Scopus

Details

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#13 Climate Action

InCites Highlights

Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:

Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
International Relations
Political Science
Logo image