Controversies over such issues as nuclear waste, genetically modified organisms, asbestos, tobacco, gene therapy, avian flu, and cell phone towers arise almost daily as rapid scientific and technological advances create uncertainty and bring about unforeseen concerns. The authors of Acting in an Uncertain World argue that political institutions must be expanded and improved to manage these controversies, to transform them into productive conversations, and to bring about "technical democracy." They show how "hybrid forums"in which experts, non-experts, ordinary citizens, and politicians come togetherreveal the limits of traditional delegative democracies, in which decisions are made by quasi-professional politicians and techno-scientific information is the domain of specialists in laboratories. The division between professionals and laypeople, the authors claim, is simply outmoded. The authors argue that laboratory research should be complemented by everyday experimentation pursued in the real world, and they describe various modes of cooperation between the two. They explore a range of concrete examples of hybrid forums that have dealt with sociotechnical controversies including nuclear waste disposal in France, industrial waste and birth defects in Japan, a childhood leukemia cluster in Woburn, Massachusetts, and Mad Cow Disease in the United Kingdom. They discuss the implications for political decision making in general, and they describe a "dialogic" democracy that enriches traditional representative democracy. To invent new procedures for consultation and representation, they suggest, is to contribute to an endless process that is necessary for the ongoing democratization of democracy. Inside Technology series
Cited By
- Vallès-Peris N and Domènech M (2023). Caring in the in-between: a proposal to introduce responsible AI and robotics to healthcare, AI & Society, 38:4, (1685-1695), Online publication date: 1-Aug-2023.
- Sousa M, Antunes A, Pinto N and Zagalo N (2022). Fast Serious Analogue Games in Planning, Simulation and Gaming, 53:2, (175-193), Online publication date: 1-Apr-2022.
- Duke S (2022). Deny, dismiss and downplay: developers’ attitudes towards risk and their role in risk creation in the field of healthcare-AI, Ethics and Information Technology, 24:1, Online publication date: 1-Mar-2022.
- Costas R, de Rijcke S and Marres N (2021). “Heterogeneous couplings”, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 72:5, (595-610), Online publication date: 10-Apr-2021.
- Bilbil E (2017). Social Networking and Local Controversies, International Journal of Virtual Communities and Social Networking, 9:3, (15-28), Online publication date: 1-Jul-2017.
Soden R, Sprain L and Palen L Thin Grey Lines Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, (2042-2053)- Le Dantec C, Asad M, Misra A and Watkins K Planning with Crowdsourced Data Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing, (1717-1727)
- Kennan M, Williamson K and Johanson G Environmental voluntary groups Proceedings of the 76th ASIS&T Annual Meeting: Beyond the Cloud: Rethinking Information Boundaries, (1-10)
- Teston C Investigating usability and "meaningful use" of electronic medical records Proceedings of the 30th ACM international conference on Design of communication, (227-232)
- Storni C, Linde P, Binder T and Stuedahl D Exploring ANT in PD Proceedings of the 12th Participatory Design Conference: Exploratory Papers, Workshop Descriptions, Industry Cases - Volume 2, (145-146)
- Deckert M, Stem A and Sack W (2011). Peer to PCAST, Information Polity, 16:3, (225-241), Online publication date: 1-Aug-2011.
- Deckert M, Stern A and Sack W Enabling peer review of expert testimony within government proceedings Proceedings of the 11th Annual International Digital Government Research Conference on Public Administration Online: Challenges and Opportunities, (229-230)
Index Terms
- Acting in an Uncertain World: An Essay on Technical Democracy
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Reviews
Bernice T. Glenn
First published in France in 2002, this book examines new ways for society to deal with highly controversial, technological issues such as global warming, nuclear and industrial waste disposal, genetic engineering, and the effects of toxic drinking water. It bases its concepts on actor-network theory (ANT), a systematic approach to solving complex, apparently intractable issues. ANT includes relationships and infrastructure usually omitted during explorations and discussions of issues that are difficult, controversial, and composed of seemingly inflexible participants. Callon et al. illustrate with concrete examples occasions where technology, scientists, politicians, and the everyday world interacted to solve some difficult or intractable problems. They show how solutions were brought about through hybrid forums composed of all the associated people, structures, and relationships. Technology affects us all. Solutions offered by the government for disposing of nuclear waste may be highly rejected by individuals who lie in the path of the disposals. Corn modified to produce higher yields may also create problems that growers experience, but of which scientists are unaware. Controversial issues that face the world today-global warming, international bank failures, massive unemployment-could benefit from some of the ideas and recommendations offered by Callon, Lascoumes, and Barthe. The solutions proposed in the book may not solve all the difficult problems dealing with technology. The authors agree that even within a delegated democracy, there are minority groups that may take over a hybrid forum despite majority consensus. They offer some suggestions regarding how to work with various problems that may arise within a forum. Nonetheless, this is a book that demonstrates how we may reach solutions by examining problematic situations with more encompassing procedures. Models of technology that predict certain types of processes and behaviors could be reexamined within a hybrid forum to better reflect what is actually happening. For example, economists, in a field that has traditionally worked with strict mathematical models, are now developing models that also include the way lay people behave within markets-differently than the long-established models previously assumed. Online Computing Reviews Service
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