Deliberative Innovation to Different Effect: Consensus Conferences in Denmark, France, and the United States

Abstract

Democratic reformers are attracted by the role that advisory forums composed of lay citizens can play in public consultation on complex policy issues (such as participatory technology assessment). Using a comparative study of consensus conferences on the issue of genetically modified food in Denmark, France, and the United States, the authors show that the potential of such deliberative “mini‐publics” is quite different in different sorts of political system. They attend to the mode of establishment, perceived legitimacy, policy impact, and influence on public debate of the forum in each case. In actively inclusive Denmark,mini‐publics are deployed in integrative fashion; in exclusive France, in managerial fashion; and in the passively inclusive United States, in advocacy fashion. Proponents and practitioners of deliberative participatory reforms should take into account the constraints and opportunities revealed by this analysis and attend to the different roles that mini‐publics might play in different political systems.

Deliberating stratospheric aerosols for climate geoengineering and the SPICE project

“…Commentators have argued that such methodologies of engagement, first developed extensively in the context of Danish civic culture and the 'consensus conference' approach, may not always transfer successfully to countries with very different cultures of citizen participation 39 . For example, Dryzek and Tucker argue that the advocacy politics present in countries such as the USA can seriously bias the outcomes of public engagement 40 . However, recent evidence from citizen engagements with nanotechnologies 12,41,42 suggests that many of the conditions which are held to bias outcomes are absent when an emerging technology is sufficiently 'upstream' (since by definition strong advocacy positions have yet to emerge) or can be overcome with careful process design.…”

Nations at Ease with Radical Knowledge

“…The Lords Select Committee has not been alone in offering praise to the Danish governance of science and technology. Internationally, consensus conferences have attracted substantial scholarly attention as a key example of deliberative democracy in the governance of science and technology (see, for example, Joss & Durant, 1995;Dryzek & Tucker, 2008). In terms of external influence, one US website (Loka Institute, n.d.) lists 18 countries as having engaged in 'Danish-style, citizenbased deliberative "consensus conferences" on science and technology policy worldwide'.…”

Making Industry Part of the Climate Solution

“…First, it can jumpstart dialogue and facilitate discussions among previously disconnected actors, making it an important component of democratic decision making and also revealing power asymmetries between stakeholders (De Leon and Varda, 2009;Dryzek and Tucker, 2008;Hendriks and Carson, 2008). Second, the process of identifying stakeholder interests can promote a common understanding of key agendas and help incentivize collaboration.…”