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This dissertation is a philosophical contribution to the theories on trust and on risk communication. The importance of trust in risk communication has been argued for and empirically studied since the 80s. However, there is little agreement on the notion of trust and the precise function of trust. This thesis sets out to study both aspects from a philosophical point of view. The dissertation consists of five essays and an introduction. Essay I is a comment on risk perception theory and the psychometric model in particular. The essay argues that sometimes individuals take risks simply because they are in a vulnerable position and have no other choice. Four factors are identified as crucial in risks from vulnerability: poor outset conditions, lack of reasonable options, hope and liability to disinformation. Essay II addresses the democratic approach to risk communication and the ideal of risk communication as a dialogue between more or less equal stakeholders. The essay develops a typology of different risk communication practices and influence distributions and concludes that the form of risk communication most commonly referred to in the literature is of the most imbalanced kind where all three types of influence falls to the same party. Essay III argues that trust can be understood as comfortable defocusing. Trust as comfortable defocusing means that when a person trusts, he or she is comfortable with letting certain things be in the hands or in the control of the trusted other. Departing from this idea a definition of trust is proposed consisting of three elements: (i) the truster's comfortable defocusing from the trusted person's part of caring for X, based on a (ii) belief about the trusted person's care for X, concerning (iii) something of concern to the truster. Essay IV explores the concept of trustworthiness and under which conditions trust can be betrayed in a morally justified way. It is argued that two aspects are essential for every reasonable notion of trustworthiness: reliability in terms of ...

This thesis is a philosophical contribution to the theories on risk communication. The topic of risk communication is approached from several different angles, but with a normative focus on equality and vulnerability. Essay I is a comment on risk perception theory and the psychometric model in particular. In risk perception research individual risk taking is described as either a result of valuing the benefits from risk taking or a failure of comprehending the severity or probability of risks. The essay argues that sometimes individuals take risks simply because they are in a vulnerable position and have no other choice. Four factors are identified as crucial in risks from vulnerability: poor outset conditions, lack of reasonable options, hope and liability to disinformation. Essay II addresses the democratic approach to risk communication and the ideal of risk communication as a dialogue between more or less equal stakeholders. The Essay argues that even the more innovative and dialogue oriented approaches to risk communication are unequal. This is often blurred by the confusion between the described ideal and the description of these newer approaches. This inequality is analysed in a three-fold way: influence over the communication process; influence over and access to information; and influence over risk decisions. The Essay develops a typology of different risk communication practices and influence distributions and concludes that the form of risk communication most commonly referred in the literature is the most imbalanced kind where all three types of influence falls to the same party. Essay III explores the concept of trust, an often-mentioned objective for risk communication. The concept of trust is analyzed from previous philosophical approaches, and the idea of trust as comfortable defocusing is introduced. It is argued that not only the gains for the trustee but also the gains and risks for the truster, generally and in the case from risk communication, can be explained by this notion. It is concluded ...

Background The regulatory approach used by SKI has an impact on the licensee and, therefore, indirectly on the safety of the nuclear facilities. The regulatory policy and its implementation also influences the way SKI is working and the competency needed by the regulator as well as by the industry. One of SKI´s tasks is to be able adjust the regulatory approach to current and future needs. Little research is available on the use of regulatory strategies, methods and activities used by regulatory agencies in their work (to assure safety), as well as their impacts. To address this gap in knowledge, SKI has contracted two separate research projects. This project, where the focus is on comparing inspection policies in Swedish government agencies, and another one where regulatory strategies across selected countries, are studied and compared. SKI´s purpose and goals The goal of this research project is to gain knowledge about selected Swedish agencies and their inspection policies. All the selected agencies are working with issues regarding health, environmental protection or safety. A number of persons at each agency have been interviewed about the regulatory work at their organizations. A questionnaire was developed as a first part of the project, and it was used during the interviews. In addition to provide insights as a basis for improvement within SKI, the purpose has been to promote exchange of experience between agencies with similar tasks. By this study SKI also wanted to contribute to the development of competency in this field of research. Results A lot of information has been gathered and analyzed during the project. The focus of the research is on comparing agencies and their practices. The report includes an analysis regarding similarities and differences in a number of areas across the agencies. The report also provides information and evidence on the problems related to comparison between agencies, partly due to the difference in the use of definitions. The recommendations resulting from this study focus on improving cooperation among Swedish agencies and on improving inspection methodologies, areas where further analysis is suggested. The conclusions and recommendations in the report belong to the persons participating in this work, and are not necessarily the same as the once drawn by SKI.