| Summary: | Public policies on mobile phones are confronted to a dilemma. On one hand, a scientific controversy flourishes. There is no general agreement among experts about the effects of electromagnetic fields exposure on human health. On the other hand, there is a wide social consensus about the usefulness of mobile phones. But when a base station is to be settled, citizens living nearby often protest against it (the well-known NIMBY effect; see Jobert 1998 ; Marchetti 2005 ), they generally focus more on the electromagnetic fields exposure created by base stations (Crivellari 2006) than on the aesthetics considerations (see the impact of landscape on environmental policies; Blanc et Glatron 2005). The actors involved in the regulation of mobile phones are diverse: decision-makers, experts, operators, pressure groups. Overall, the government takes into account the norms designed by international organizations like the World Health Organization or the European Union. Moreover, in federal States, we must consider its entities. Actually, a policy network (Marsh 1998) shapes this regulation. Relying on the case of Belgian regulation of mobile phones, our article aims at testing the following hypothesis: a public policy on risk is de facto a participatory policy. Public action would thus be built and implemented partially at local level, by the organization of citizen’s involvement. Contemporary governance, including sustainable development and deliberative processes, as well as political rescaling, will serve as a general framework to test such a hypothesis.
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