Paper long abstract:

In this paper, based on two case studies in Belgium and France, I aim at comparing the different participatory patterns for high level and/or long live radioactive wastes (LLRW & HLRW) since the « participatory turn » in the 80's. Public and stakeholders' participation and engagement today are considered as essential in the formulation of an effective and legitimate policy (European Directive 2011/70/EURATOM). Along this "participatory turn" in nuclear waste management, ANDRA and ONDRAF (National Radioactive Waste Management Agencies) developed new organizational practices. Concrete examples are local siting partnerships and citizens' conference to increase openness to social/ethical aspects as well as to early integrate stakeholders and the public in the decision-making processes. In this paper, guiding research questions are: (1) How were these innovative participatory patterns like in the cases of LLRW and HLRW; (2) which results did they lead to?; (3) how did national Agencies assess the quality of public/stakeholders participation and, lastly, (4) how did they make use of such exercises in their communication and management strategies? Based on official document analysis, semi-structured interviews with the Boards of Directors and some employees and participatory observation, I rely on an analytical framework widely used in the governance of socio-technical innovations to analyze those previous questions in terms of "opening up" and "closing down" strategies of technological appraisal (Stirling 2008).