Activities without institutionalization: Limits and lessons of TA and TA-like activities in Japan

Abstract

Even though the TA has not been institutionalized in Japan, there have been many TA and TA-like activities, in areas including food, healthcare, energy and technology strategy, since the idea of TA was introduce from the US. This paper analyzes the nature and limits of those TA and TA like activities; and the lessons for institutionalization of TA in the context of Japan are discussed, including the need for flexible framing and collaboration, the importance of appropriate distance, and the role of the Diet..

PACITA: The Next Horizon of Technology Assessment. Proceedings from the PACITA 2015 Conference in Berlin (Prague, 2015)

“…Unlike European parliamentary TA organizations that have various intervention mechanisms at their disposal to ensure interactions among the spheres of parliament, government, science and technology, and society (van Est, Ganzevles & Nentwich 2015), East-Asian TA and TA-like practices appear to have weaker ties with parliament, as well as with science and technology, where the government (and wider society at times) are largely involved in the practices (see also Shiroyama et al, 2009;Taniguchi, 2015). This implies relatively poor solidarity and social intelligence in scientific communities and universities as well as in parliament, which may hinder efforts to empower the two spheres, to create balance to the government and to incubate intermediaries, networks and social space for TA.…”

“…Our scope was so broad as to include "TA-like activities", by which we mean processes and structures that support problem definition and decision making for technology and society development in anticipation of societal implications but which are not explicitly labelled as TA (Shiroyama et al 2009). Examples include science communication and environmental impact assessment, among others.…”

Limits of Past Practices and Possible Future Institutionalization of TA in Japan

“…At that time, participatory TA, such as the consensus conference developed by Denmark, drew interest as a tool for improving communication. Using Danish practice as a model, consensus conferences were held for GM foods at national and local levels in Japan (Shiroyama et al 2010).…”

“…The Hokkaido consensus conference had the possibility of having an influence in the policy making process. But, there can be a pos-sibility that range of social impacts would be narrowed down because of the direct link to policy making (Shiroyama et al 2010).…”

Embracing Variety: Introducing the Inclusive Modelling of (Parliamentary) Technology Assessment

“…For reasons of simplicity, OTA is here described as a Parliamentary TA organization. As part of the United States Congress, however, OTA was literally a Congressional TA agency(Herdman and Jensen 1997).5SeeShiroyama et al (2009) for a discussion of how OTA inspired TA experiences in Japan.…”