Technoscientific Normativity and the ‘‘Iron Cage’’ of Law

Abstract

Participation of a broad variety of actors in decision-making processes has become an important issue in science and technology policy. Many authors claim the involvement of stakeholders and of the general public to be a core condition for legitimate and sustainable decision making. In the last decades, a wide spectrum of procedures has been developed to realize biotechnological citizenship. These procedures, composed of multiactor arenas, are either located in close relation to the system of politics, or, as in the case of administrative decision making, more closely to the system of law. In the latter case, a problematic constellation arises. Here, law and science can build a technoscientific normativity that systematically excludes political discourse. The law, although intending to provide for political freedom and citizenship rights, at the end appears to be an ''iron cage'' for political communication.

Heteroglossic Representations of Scientific Uncertainty

“…Arguably, it is via the study of this certainty seeking legal ''methodologism'' that STS research has generated some of its most significant insights, into, for example, the growth of ''junk science'' and the diminution, in court, of naïve cultural myths concerning scientific neutrality and unbiased reporting (Jasanoff 1995;Daemmrich 1998;Edmond 1999Edmond , 2002Edmond , 2007Crawford-Brown 2001;Caudill 2007;Moore and Stilgoe 2009;Bora 2010). STS studies continue to illustrate, moreover, that in seeking absolutism, certainty and clarity, legal proceedings can act as important catalysts for the exploration of epistemological, existential and metaphysical issues such as what a risk is; what science is; what uncertainty is; and so on (even if this is not their primary function).…”

“…The article pays particular attention to the discursive organization of the experts' co-conversance (Fairclough 2003;Locke 2004) and the linguistic catalysts (Halliday 1970) and cognitive metaphors that were foundational to the verbal framing of these risk sensitivities, ambivalences, and uncertainties within their talk and interaction. It contributes to the broader STS field by identifying these catalysts and metaphors and signaling their importance to processes of risk representation and uncertainty negotiation on the witness stand (Abraham 1994;Jasanoff 1995;Daemmrich 1998;Edmond 1999Edmond , 2002Edmond , 2007Crawford-Brown 2001;Caudill 2007;Moore and Stilgoe 2009;Bora 2010;Mellor 2010).…”

Normativisation and its processes as seen from the neo-functional perspective: Towards science governance

“…It this context, it is worth mentioning the tensions between the contradictory discourses perceiving science in terms of a more objective (classical) vision of science, as Science and Techno logy Studies (STS) does; or via the more-differentiated, subjectively-based approach demonstrated within the paradigm of Post-Normal Science (PNS) (Durant 2011, Bora 2010, Wesselink and Hoppe 2011. What arises as a consequence is a question as to the set of meanings spread throughout knowledge-based discourse that conceptualises science in a certain way, drawing on the rationalities of a range of participants in network governance.…”

Democratic theory and citizen participation: democracy models in the evaluation of public participation in science and technology

“…Among STS scholars there is a preference for deliberative and participatory ideals of democracy, which often deliver the normative and analytical baseline when PTAs are evaluated (Weale, 2001;Reynolds and Szerszynski, 2006). However, empirical studies indicate that PTAs have difficulties in achieving measurable impacts on governance processes, thus not delivering on the promises of democratisation (Hansen, 2010;Bora, 2010). Comparative politics research, on the other hand, primarily relies on representative models of democracy, in which PTAs do not fit very well as they are often developed as supplements to representative politics.…”