Social license to operate: Social acceptance in the Quebec context

Abstract

Issues of social acceptance around development projects are widespread in our societies. Whether for exploiting natural resources, constructing an airport, or building a waste treatment plant, public controversies clearly reflect the importance of social acceptance for civil society, public authorities, and project proponents. Several articles have presented frameworks, indices, scales, analytical models, and measurements to synthesise these issues to assess various projects' social acceptance levels. Although helpful, our main contention is that these frameworks and scales have not paid enough attention to the context (social, political, and institutional) in which social acceptance issues emerge and develop. Our article calls for greater contextualization of models to understand the social acceptability of projects. To illustrate our argument, we analyze the socio-historical foundations of social acceptance over half a century in Québec, Canada, which allows us to develop a contextualized analysis framework that considers the specific Québec context. We have developed an analysis grid with three pillars (issues, context, and discourse), seven related categories and 33 social phenomena to observe. Our intention is to help decision-makers at the local and regional levels in places such as Quebec understand controversies in their communities early in developing a project.