scholarly journals Diversifying the Deliberative Turn: Toward an Agonistic RRI

2021 ◽  
pp. 016224392110672
Author(s):  
Deborah Scott
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Political Field ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Responsible Research ◽  
Opening Up

In its “deliberative turn,” the field of science and technology studies (STS) has strongly advocated opening up decision-making processes around science and technology to more perspectives and knowledges. While the theory of democracy underpinning this is rarely explicitly addressed, the language and ideas used are often drawn from deliberative democracy. Using the case of synthetic biology and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), this paper looks at challenges of public engagement and finds parallels in long-standing critiques of deliberative democracy. The paper suggests that STS scholars explore other theories of decision-making and explores what an RRI grounded in agonistic pluralism might entail. An agonistic RRI could develop empirical research around questions of power relations in contemporary science and technology, seek to facilitate the formation of political publics around relevant issues, and frame different actors’ stances as adversarial positions on a political field rather than “equally valid” perspectives.

Challenges to the Story of Innovation

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-34
Author(s):  
Michiel van Oudheusden
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Responsible Research And Innovation ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Responsible Research ◽  
Technological Decision Making

This chapter sets out the meanings attached to the concept of ‘innovation’ and asks how it has recently come to occupy the political and economic position it now holds. Drawing from science and technology studies, which has long sought to better incorporate the public in technological decision-making, it explores the impetus towards connecting ‘responsibility’ with ‘innovation’ and the context from which this derives. Finally, it examines how this impetus has become incorporated into various frameworks for Responsible (Research and) Innovation, and what is missing from this approach in terms of understanding the place of ‘innovation’ in the present political economy, and the place of politics in innovation.

scholarly journals Technology, Public Participation, and the American Bureaucracy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher George Torres
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Environmental Literacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Entrepreneurs ◽  
Decision Making Processes

This dissertation analyzes three participatory technology assessment (pTA) projects conducted within United States federal agencies between 2014 and 2018. The field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) argues that a lack of public participation in addressing issues of science and technology in society has produced undemocratic processes of decision-making with outcomes insensitive to the daily lives of the public. There has been little work in STS, however, examining what the political pressures and administrative challenges are to improving public participation in U.S. agency decision-making processes. Following a three-essay format, this dissertation aims to fill this gap. Drawing on qualitative interviews with key personnel, and bringing STS, policy studies, and public administration scholarship into conversation, this dissertation argues for the significance of “policy entrepreneurs” who from within U.S. agencies advocate for pTA and navigate the political controls on innovative forms of participation. The first essay explores how the political culture and administrative structures of the American federal bureaucracy shape the bureaucratic contexts of public participation in science and technology decision-making. The second essay is an in-depth case study of the role political controls and policy entrepreneurs played in adopting, designing, and implementing pTA in NASA’s Asteroid Initiative. The third essay is a comparative analysis of how eight political and administrative conditions informed pTA design and implementation for NASA’s Asteroid Initiative, DOE’s consent-based nuclear waste siting program, and NOAA’s Environmental Literacy Program. The results of this dissertation highlight how important the political and administrative contexts of federal government programs are to understanding how pTA is designed and implemented in agency science and technology decision-making processes, and the key role agency policy entrepreneurs play in facilitating pTA through these political and administrative contexts. This research can aid STS scholars and practitioners better anticipate and mitigate the barriers to embedding innovative forms of public participation in U.S. federal government science and technology program design and decision-making processes.

scholarly journals Science and Technology Studies in Policy: The UK Synthetic Biology Roadmap

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Marris ◽  
Jane Calvert
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Economic Progress ◽  
Uncertain Future ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Responsible Research

In this paper, we reflect on our experience as science and technology studies (STS) researchers who were members of the working group that produced A Synthetic Biology Roadmap for the UK in 2012. We explore how this initiative sought to govern an uncertain future and describe how it was successfully used to mobilize public funds for synthetic biology from the UK government. We discuss our attempts to incorporate the insights and sensibilities of STS into the policy process and why we chose to use the concept of responsible research and innovation to do so. We analyze how the roadmapping process, and the final report, narrowed and transformed our contributions to the roadmap. We show how difficult it is for STS researchers to influence policy when our ideas challenge deeply entrenched pervasive assumptions, framings, and narratives about how technological innovation necessarily leads to economic progress, about public reticence as a roadblock to that progress, and about the supposed separation between science and society. We end by reflecting on the constraints under which we were operating from the outset and on the challenges for STS in policy.

scholarly journals Investigación e innovación responsables: retos teóricos y políticos

2016 ◽  
Vol 2017 (83) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andoni Eizagirre
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Political Language ◽  
Critical Dialogue ◽  
Horizon 2020 ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Governance Of Science ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
The One ◽  
Responsible Research

The present article postulates the value of the new ways of looking at the relations between science, technology, public / policies and society. On the one hand, Science and Technology Studies / foreshadow / alternative models for understanding the governance of science. On the other, within the institutional framework at the heart of the “Horizon 2020” strategy, the political language associated with responsible research and innovation (RRI) is gaining in importance, arguing that those who engage in research and engineering activities should do a better job of aligning their processes and outcomes with the values, needs and expectations of European society. The article offers a critical dialogue between the theoretical advances and the new political language, and suggests that the significance, scope and application of an RRI-based focus will depend on the economic and sociopolitical dynamics by which science and technology are instrumentalised and regulated.

scholarly journals Re-negotiating Exhibitionary Practices and the "Digital" Politics of Display: The Case of the MTL Urban Museum App

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana-Maria Herman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Digital Display ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Digital Politics

In this paper, I employ a sociotechnical approach (drawn from science and technology studies) to reconstruct how the McCord Museum’s MTL Urban Museum App was re-made. I take into account both the social and the technical, and consider the human and the nonhuman, which allows me to chart the roles of heterogeneous actors in re-making the App and in re-negotiating the Museum’s display practices. In doing so, I explore and point to the politics of this 'digital' display:  What actors were involved in its re-making? How did they participate in decision-making processes? What are the implications of the negotiations made? The analysis reveals: 1) how the re-making of the App redistributed tasks associated with exhibitionary practices by displacing them across unexpected actors both inside and outside the Museum, 2) how some aspects of design can become ‘non-negotiable’ or ‘irreversible’, and 3) how the re-negotiation of display practices established unanticipated ‘gatekeepers’ in the Museum’s display practice. Thus, this study sheds light on a “digital” case of the ‘politics of display’ (Macdonald, 1998). 

scholarly journals Highly esteemed science: An analysis of attitudes towards and perceived attributes of science in letters to the editor in two Dutch newspapers

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-52
Author(s):  
Stefan P.L. de Jong ◽  
Elena Ketting ◽  
Leonie van Drooge
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
Letters To The Editor ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Societal Progress ◽  
Attitudes Towards Science ◽  
The Future ◽  
Decision Making Processes

Understanding attitudes towards science is crucial to safeguard the future of science, the application of its results and the inclusivity of decision-making processes related to science and technology. Most studies focus on attributes of social groups to explain attitudes towards science. In this study, we aim to move the discussion forward by focusing on perceived attributes of science itself by analysing over 300 letters to the editor in two Dutch national newspapers. The authors of these letters express a large degree of trust in science as a source of societal progress, if research is conducted according to a specific set of rules. Yet, they believe that these rules are under attack. The interests of universities as organizations and individual academics as well as the involvement of industry and government in research are perceived as conflicting with these rules. We conclude with recommendations for further research and practice.

scholarly journals Consensus or Contestation: Reflections on Governance of Innovation in a Context of Heterogeneous Knowledges

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Govert Valkenburg
Keyword(s):  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Rice Straw ◽  
Responsible Research And Innovation ◽  
Beneficial Use ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Chantal Mouffe ◽  
Marginalised Groups ◽  
Responsible Research

Governance of innovation needs to cater in a democratic way for heterogeneity of knowledges. Many initiatives in the democratisation of innovation aspire to some sort of consensus among relevant actors. However, consensus tends to silence dissenting voices, typically those of marginalised groups. In situations of high epistemic and epistemological diversity, this problem can be expected to aggravate. Against consensus-seeking theories of deliberative democracy, Chantal Mouffe has proposed the aspiration to grant the possibility of contestation. While one central principle in many theories of democracy is that it should never silence dissenting or minority positions, Mouffe elevates contestation, rather than the pursuit of consensus, to be the linchpin of democracy. I will explore what a contestation-oriented view of democratisation could mean in the case of governing innovation, specifically in the case of biogasification of rice straw. The latter is commonly presented as a potentially beneficial use of rice straw, which is currently considered waste and (illegally) burned by farmers on the Indian countryside. However, our research has shown that this view indeed unduly suppresses valuable yet marginalised knowledges. Lessons for frameworks such as Responsible Research and Innovation, and particularly an alternative to the dominant aim of democratising innovation through deliberation, will be drawn.

scholarly journals What can science and technology studies learn from art and design? Reflections on ‘Synthetic Aesthetics’

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Calvert ◽  
Pablo Schyfter
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Art And Design ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Research Agendas ◽  
Opening Up

In this paper we reflect on a project called ‘Synthetic Aesthetics’, which brought together synthetic biologists with artists and designers in paired exchanges. We – the STS researchers on the project – were quickly struck by the similarities between our objectives and those of the artists and designers. We shared interests in forging new collaborations with synthetic biologists, ‘opening up’ the science by exploring implicit assumptions, and interrogating dominant research agendas. But there were also differences between us, the most important being that the artists and designers made tangible artefacts, which had an immediacy and an ability to travel, and which seemed to allow different types of discussions from those initiated by our academic texts. The artists and designers also appeared to have the freedom to be more playful, challenging and perhaps subversive in their interactions with synthetic biology. In this paper we reflect on what we learned from working with the artists and designers on the project, and we argue that engaging more closely with art and design can enrich STS work by enabling an emergent form of critique.

Broadening out and opening up: an agonistic attitude toward progressive social accounting

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Dillard ◽  
Judy Brown
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Environmental Accounting ◽  
Accountability Systems ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Social Agenda ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the current research program in agonistic dialogic accounting and to reflect on future possibilities for broadening out and opening up accounting and accountability systems, especially as they relate to social and environmental accounting (SEA). Design/methodology/approach – The authors describe an ethic of accountability as a context for dialogue and debate intended to broaden out and open up new imaginings of accounting for democracy. The authors review the accounting literature addressing dialogic accounting and agonistics as the precursor of what has evolved into agonistic dialogic accounting. The authors discuss their work to date on agonistic pluralism and engagement, recognizing the necessity of linking the normative framework to an effective political program. The authors review prior studies applying science and technology studies that have addressed these issues. Findings – The authors consider how the application of agonistic ideas might facilitate the development of multiple accountings that take pluralism seriously by addressing constituencies and perspectives often marginalized in both SEA and mainstream accounting. An ethic of accountability and science and technology studies are useful for stimulating dialogue and debate regarding democratic and civil society institutions as they relate to economic entities, especially corporations. Practical implications – Agonistic dialogic accounting in conjunction with other disciplines such as science and technology studies can be used in formulating, implementing and evaluating policy for advancing a progressive social agenda. Originality/value – A reflective view of the current work in agonistic dialogic accounting highlights considerations for further research regarding the possible interdisciplinary work particularly with science and technology studies in broadening out and opening up accounting and accountability systems as facilitators of progressive social agenda.

scholarly journals Practising open innovation: a framework of reference

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 1311-1336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cinzia Battistella ◽  
Alberto Felice De Toni ◽  
Elena Pessot
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Open Innovation ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Innovation Process ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Exploratory Survey ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Opening Up

Purpose This work provides new insights into possible managerial choices and development directions for practising open innovation (OI) in companies. The purpose of this paper is to explore the different practices, actors and tools adopted for opening up the innovation process, in particular, by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are still facing difficulties in its implementation. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a literature review and an exploratory survey of a sample of 85 European SMEs. Findings The study identifies a total of 23 practices, 20 actors and 11 tools involved in the OI processes of companies. It highlights, through literature and empirical evidence, how different combinations of practices, actors and tools are put into practice. Research limitations/implications The developed framework offers new insights both from OI literature and from practitioners’ point of view into the supporting decision-making processes regarding which practices to implement, tools to adopt and actors to collaborate with. A wider investigation is recommended to include more variables to define the differences among the combinations of practices, actors and tools in terms of types of innovation (e.g. product, process, etc.), the openness degree and other contextual factors. Originality/value The originality of this paper is based on the fact that it focusses on a practical perspective of OI implementation, building a framework of reference from previous literature and empirical investigation.

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