Public reviews and trust formation in disaster risk management

Abstract

This paper investigated two roles of public reviews in disaster risk management: 1) providing information to a policy maker about the desirability of a disaster risk management plan and 2) promoting stakeholders' trust in policy maker's decision. Our analysis was conducted by formulating two linked communication games, which described, respectively, information transmission from public reviewers to a policy maker and trust formation between the policy maker and an individual. It was shown that there exists an externality between the two games, and the policy maker accordingly faces a trade-off between the two roles of public reviews. Due to this trade-off, trust formation between the policy maker and the individual might be prevented. Finally, alternative institutional design for realizing trust formation between the policy maker and the individual through public reviews was discussed. It was pointed out that a communication protocol that disciplines the way in which reviewers express their opinions has to be designed in order to realize the two roles of public reviews.