Constructivist technology studies have often cast government as one “social group” among many, reflecting a liberal pluralist view of politics. This article argues, in contrast, that due to the conceptions of citizenship conveyed by policy designs, governments have a special role to play in the shaping of new technologies. This argument is illustrated in the case of the controversial 1996 decision by the California Air Resources Board to significantly revise its electric vehicle program. The article shows that the board’s decision (...) changed the image of citizenship conveyed by its policy design, thus influencing the civic values embedded within electric vehicle technology. (shrink)

About a decade ago, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency unwittingly embarked on a transition from a technocratic model of science advising to the paradigm of ‘‘post-normal science’’. In response to a scandal around uncertainty management in 1999, a Guidance for ‘‘Uncertainty Assessment and Communication’’ was developed with advice from the initiators of the PNS concept and was introduced in 2003. This was followed in 2007 by a ‘‘Stakeholder Participation’’ Guidance. In this article, the authors provide a combined insider/outsider perspective on (...) the transition process. The authors assess the extent to which the PNS paradigm has delivered new approaches in the agency’s practice and analyze two projects—on long-term options for Dutch sustainable development policy and for urban development policy—the latter in somewhat more detail. The authors identify several paradoxes PBL encounters when putting the PNS concept into practice. It is concluded that an openness to other styles of work than the technocratic model has become visible, but that the introduction of the PNS paradigm is still in its early stage. (shrink)

The UK-based deliberations that led up to the legalisation of two new ‘mitochondrial donation’ techniques in 2015, and which continued after that time as regulatory details were determined, featured a division of advisory labour that is common when decisions are made about new technologies. An expert panel was convened by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, charged with assessing the scientific and technical aspects of these techniques. Meanwhile, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics addressed the ethical issues. While this division of (...) labour was undertaken in the name of thoroughness, I argue here that it can have the unintended consequence that hybrid questions that simultaneously involve ethical and technical aspects—especially questions about where to set evidential thresholds for the acceptance of new technology—do not receive enough attention. (shrink)

Post-normal science is presented by its proponents as a new way of doing science that deals with uncertainties, value diversity or antagonism, and high decision stakes and urgency, with the ultimate goal of remedying the pathologies of the global industrial system for which, according to Funtowicz and Ravetz, existing science forms the basis. The authors critically examine whether PNS can fulfill this claim in the light of empirical and theoretical work on politics and policy making. The authors credit PNS as (...) an innovative frontrunner in raising important issues regarding the limited problem-solving capacity of ‘‘normal science’’ and ‘‘professional consultancy.’’ Yet, the authors notice that PNS lacks important considerations about the governance of problems and aspects of participatory and deliberative democracy. PNS in effect implies that methodological ‘‘ratiocination’’ would prevail over political deliberation and democratic interaction and that merely changing scientific input in public policy making would have the power to change its outcomes. This scientistic hubris can be traced back to PNS’s origin in concerned scientists’ activism, which in effect accessed the political arena through the scientific entrance. The authors conclude that the art of politics needs to come back into the discussion on environmental problems if societal change is to occur. (shrink)

Since its founding in 1863, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has occupied a special niche in the complex ecology of advice-giving in the United States. Established as a small, private organization with special responsibilities and obligations vis à vis the American people and government, the Academy has expanded considerably in the past century and a half and now releases, through the National Research Council (NRC), its operating arm, more than 200 reports per year, on topics covering nearly the entire (...) range of science, engineering, health, and education. The development of the organization, its basic ethos, and its evolving structures and processes can be seen as examples of what Herbert Simon called procedural rationality : the pursuit of reasonably good solutions to complex problems based on appropriate deliberation. (shrink)