The turn toward public participation in technology assessment points to a link between democratization and the problematization of dominant assumptions, explanations, and justifications. Here, I evaluate whether the use of the consensus conference in New Zealand facilitated such problematization. After a brief outline of the Danish model, I discuss the ways in which the New Zealand conference differed from that model and demonstrate how strategies for managing the resulting bias undermined the possibility of problematization. Further, I argue that participants’ attempts to problematize were subsumed into the dominant scientific and economic rationalities through processes I call assimilation, resignation, and externalization. I argue that the effect of the conference process was to assimilate some concerns into the deficit model, produce a sense of resignation to the “inevitable” with regard to other concerns, and externalize those remaining onto the indigenous population.
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References
1.
1 Daniel J. Fiorino, “Citizen participation and environmental risk: a survey of institutional mechanisms,” Science, Technology, and Human Values15, no. 2 (1990); Philip J. Frankenfeld, “Technological citizenship: a normative framework for risk studies,” Science, Technology, and Human Values 17, no. 4 (1992); Frank N. Laird, “Participatory analysis, democracy, and technological decision making,” Science, Technology, and Human Values 18, no. 3 (1993); Wiebe E. Bijker, “Democratization of technology: who are the experts?” (http://www.angelfire.com/la/esst/bijker.html, accessed 9 November 2001); Richard E. Sclove, Democracy and Technology (New York: The Guilford Press, 1995); Langdon Winner, “Citizen virtues in a technological order,” in Technology and the Politics of Knowledge, eds Andrew Feenberg and Alastair Hannay (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995); Ida-Elisabeth Andersen and Birgit Jæger, “Scenario workshops and consensus conferences: towards more democratic decision-making,” Science and Public Policy 26, no. 5 (1999).
2.
2 Frank Fischer, “Technological deliberation in a democratic society: the case for participatory inquiry,” Science and Public Policy 26, no. 5 (1999); Igor Mayer and Jac Geurts, “Consensus conferences as participatory policy analysis: a methodological contribution to the social management of technology,” in The Social Management of Genetic Engineering, eds Peter Wheale et al. (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999), 281–282; Leonhard Hennen, “Participatory technology assessment: a response to technical modernity?” Science and Public Policy 26, no. 5 (1999): 305.
3.
3 Ortwin Renn et al., Fairness and Competence in Citizen Participation: Evaluating Models for Environmental Discourse ( Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers , 1994), 1-1.
4.
4 Laird, “Participatory Analysis” (cit. no. 1); Gotthard Bechmann, “Democratic function of technology assessment in technology policy decision-making,” Science and Public Policy 20, no. 1 (1993): 14; Bijker, “Democratization of technology” (cit. no. 1); Andersen and Jæger, “Scenario workshops and consensus conferences” (cit. no. 1). There is a further argument that is both instrumental and democratic: that policies that have been arrived at through more inclusive processes are more likely to be accepted by the public.
5.
5 For example, Alan Irwin, Citizen Science: a Study of People, Expertise and Sustainable Development ( London and New York: Routledge , 1995); Brian Wynne, “May the sheep safely graze? A reflexive view of the expert– lay knowledge divide,” In Risk, Environment and Modernity: Towards a New Ecology, eds Scott Lash et al. (London: Sage Publications, 1996); Frank Fischer, Citizens, Experts, and the Environment: the Politics of Local Knowledge (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000).
6.
6 See, for example, Renn et al., Fairness and Competence in Citizen Participation (cit. no. 3); Andersen and Jæger, “Scenario workshops and consensus conferences” (cit. no. 1); Georg Hörning, “Citizens’ panels as a form of deliberative technology assessment,” Science and Public Policy 26, no. 5 (1999).
7.
7 Erling Jelsøe, “Dialogue about new technology – crisis management or extension of democracy.” Paper presented at International Summer Academy on Technology Studies—Technology and the Public, Deuts-chlandsberg, 7–12 July 2002.
8.
8 Ibid. According to the Loka Institute, consensus conferences have been held in Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Switzerland, Britain, and the US. Of the 29 conferences held outside Denmark, 19 concerned gene technologies, and 13 of those concerned genetically modified food. (http://www.loka.org/pages/worldpanels.htm, accessed 4 August 2002).
9.
9 For example, Simon Joss, “Danish consensus conferences as a model of participatory technology assessment: an impact study of consensus conferences on Danish Parliament and Danish public debate,” Science and Public Policy25 (1998): 2–22 ; David H. Guston, “Evaluating the first U.S. consensus conference: the impact of the citizens’ panel on telecommunications and the future of democracy,” Science, Technology, and Human Values 24 (1999): 451–482; Igor Mayer, Debating Technologies: a Methodological Contribution to the Design and Evaluation of Participatory Policy Analysis (Tilburg: Tilburg University Press, 1997), especially chs 8–10.
10.
10 Alan Irwin, “Constructing the scientific citizen: science and democracy in the biosciences,” Public Understanding of Science10 (2001): 1–18 .
11.
11 The DBT carried out its first consensus conference in 1987 and has since carried out 1–2 conferences per year.
12.
12 Andersen and Jæger, “Scenario workshops and consensus conferences” (cit. no. 1).
13.
13 Andersen and Jæger, Scenario workshops and consensus conferences” (cit. no. 1), p. 334; Lars Klüver, “Consensus conferences at the Danish Board of Technology,” in Public Participation in Science: the Role of Consensus Conferences in Europe, eds Simon Joss and John Durant (London: Science Museum, 1995), 41–49; Lars Klüver, “Project management,” in Lars Klüver et al., EUROPTA European Participatory Technology Assessment: Participatory Methods in Technology Assessment and Technology Decision-making (Copenhagen: Danish Board of Technology, 2000).
14.
14 An example of a relevant relation to the impact of the technology is a supermarket employee who will have to answer customers’ questions with regard to GE food (Søren Gram [DBT], personal interview).
15.
15 Andersen and Jæger, “Scenario workshops and consensus conferences”; Gram, personal interview; Lars Klüver, “The Danish Board of Technology,” in Parliaments and Technology: the Development of Technology Assessment in Europe, eds Norman J. Vig and Herbert Paschen (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 189–90.
16.
16 Johs Grundahl, “The Danish Consensus Conference Model,” in Public Participation in Science: the Role of Consensus Conferences in Europe, eds Simon Joss and John Durant ( London: Science Museum , 1995), 34-34.
17.
17 Ibid., p. 31.
18.
18 Andersen and Jæger, “Scenario workshops and consensus conferences”; Gram, personal interview; Joss, “Danish consensus conferences” (cit. no. 9); L. Klüver, “The Danish Board of Technology” (cit. no. 15).
19.
19 Ida-Elisabeth Andersen, personal interview; Gram, personal interview.
20.
20 No independent evaluation of the conferences was carried out at the time (although the organizers did try to raise interest in such a study among researchers at a nearby university). The present work is based on a retrospective study of the 1996 and 1999 conferences, which utilizes published and unpublished documents, as well as semi-structured interviews with key members of the organizing committees and with 11 of the 16 lay panelists. The unpublished documents include personal notes made at the time by one of the panelists, as well as printed material distributed to the panel by the organizers and experts. I thank the panelist for generously sharing this material with me.
21.
21 This innovation was the result of constrained resources. The organizers hoped that the publicity generated by the abbreviated conference would help the trust that had been set up to administer this and future conferences to raise funds for future conferences. It was not successful in doing this.
22.
22 Lars Klüver et al., EUROpTA (cit. no. 13).
23.
23 Another aim of the organizers was to test the feasibility of the method. This is common to pioneering uses of consensus conferences, but has the potential to create a conflict of expectations between organizers and panelists, who are more likely to be working toward a substantive impact.
24.
24 Brian Wynne, “Public uptake of science: a case for institutional reflexivity,” Public Understanding of Science2 (1993): 321–337 ; Brian Wynne, “Public Understanding of Science,” in Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, eds Sheila Jasanoff et al. (Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 1995), 361–388.
25.
25 Irwin, “Constructing the scientific citizen” (cit. no. 10).
26.
26 Klüver, et al., EUROPTA, p. 93.
27.
27 Ibid.
28.
28 Ibid., pp. 97, 109–110, 154; see also D. Dunkerley and P. Glasner, “Empowering the public? Citizens’ juries and the new genetic technologies,” Critical Public Health 8, no. 3 (1998).
29.
29 Interestingly, there was, in fact, a scientist, a theoretical biologist, who spoke critically to the question: “What are the environmental effects of genetically modified plants?” The organizers had approached Greenpeace about supplying a speaker, and they had nominated this scientist. He was identified at the conference as “nominated by Greenpeace,” whereas the nominators of the other scientists were not identified. He criticized scientific reductionism and the power relations currently governing the use of the technology, concluding: “Plant biotechnology is the means whereby control can be exercised globally over life’s essentials, and nature’s checks and balances can be replaced by human intervention motivated by the prospect of gaining money and power.” The panelists seem to have categorized him as—or at least recall him as—a “greenie,” rather than a scientist.
30.
30 This person saw the limited range of experts as a constraint on the process; he thought that overseas experts would have been necessary to rectify this, and attributed the absence of such experts to funding constraints.
31.
31 Ursula Plesner, ‘… Before Technology Runs Riot’—Lay Opinions of Risk: a Discourse Analysis of 15 Concluding Documents from the Consensus Conferences 1988 to 1997 at The Danish Board of Technology. Transl. Mikkel Brus Flyverbom. Report for the Danish Board of Technology (http://www.ing.dk/tekraad/eng/publicat/Before.htm, accessed 11 December 2000).
32.
32 Edna Einseidel et al., “Publics at the technology table: the consensus conference in Denmark, Canada, and Australia,” Public Understanding of Science10 (2001): 83–98 .
34 The other questions were: How reliable are assurances given about the benefits of plant biotechnology? (In its original form, this question queried the reliability of assurances about risks, as well as benefits.) What are the environmental effects of genetically modified plants? What are the repercussions of plant biotechnology on plant biodiversity? How can we ensure that appropriate regulations necessary to safeguard the interests of New Zealanders are developed?
35.
35 The Waitangi Tribunal is a permanent commission of inquiry whose role is to make recommendations regarding claims for restitution and compliance brought by Maori under the Treaty of Waitangi and to determine whether government actions are consistent with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.
36.
36 Helga Nowotny, “Transgressive competence: the narrative of expertise,” European Journal of Social Theory3, no.1 (2000): 5–21 .
37.
37 Interestingly, however, the panel seized upon the one element of the domestic patenting law mentioned by the patent attorney that allowed the incorporation of ethical concerns: “the power of the Patent Office to refuse a patent application where the use of the invention would be contrary to morality.” Despite being told that this power has rarely been used and that no biotechnology patent application had been refused on these grounds, the panel declared “We believe that the patent office should retain its right to veto a patent application on the grounds that it is contrary to morality, even if it has not previous exercised that right.”
38.
38 This version of the question also shifts the focus from regulation to use (and assumes use).
39.
39 This summary is based on a panelist’s notes, as there is no printed text of the two presentations.
40.
40 Nici Gibbs, Genetically Modified Organisms and Maori Cultural and Ethical Issues ( Wellington: Ministry for the Environment , 1996).
41.
41 By this, I mean they are externalized from the report and also from association with the majority of the population. For the non-Maori members of the panel, it meant effectively a silencing of their ethical concerns; for the Maori member, it meant a displacement of those concerns to a different arena (and a silencing within the conference report).
42.
42 See, for example, The Place of Genetic Technology in New Zealand ( Wellington: New Zealand Association of Crown Research Institutes , 2000), 13-13.
43.
43 Einseidel et al., “Publics at the technology table” (cit. no. 32); Lars Klüver et al., EUROpTA (cit. no. 13).
44.
44 Whether this will occur in similar ways, through processes of assimilation, resignation, and externalization is a separate question. Externalization is dependent on the existence of a group or arena into which the concerns can be externalized; in another context, privatization—that is, the exclusion of “values” concerns from public debate and regulation on the basis that they are properly in the domain of individual choice—has played a similar role. (See Joanna Goven and Julie Wuthnow, “Challenging scientific legitimacy: citizen participation and technoscience,” in Kevin Dew and Ruth Fitzgerald, Challenging Science: Science and Society Issues in New Zealand (Palmerston North, New Zealand: Dunmore Press [forthcoming 2004]). Assimilation into the deficit model depends on the prevalence of that model, but assimilation of panelists’ concerns into experts’ frameworks is likely to be a more general phenomenon. In the area of biotechnology, there are reasons to expect tendencies toward resignation to be widespread, as discussed below.
45.
45 Evidence for this can be found in the Danish, Canadian, Australian, and Norwegian consensus conference reports discussed above; it can also be found in C. Marris et al., Public Perceptions of Agricultural Biotechnologies in Europe (Final report of the PABE research project, 2001), 69.
