Consent and the Justification of Risk Analysis

In a democracy, government is made legitimate by the consent of the governed. But figuring out what counts as consent where opinions are divided and why consent should be so valued poses deep problems, whether we are considering authority in general or are focusing our attention on a particular application of authority through government. Decisions about risk and safety that must be centralized, usually in regulatory agencies, provide some dramatic examples of this problem. The agencies must determine acceptable levels, distributions, and kinds of risk. Most of these agencies were established by legislation, but they were not established to do whatever they please. What should they do? How can they appeal to the consent of the governed to justify their decisions?