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A very public mess: Problematizing the “participative turn” in energy policy in Chile

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Abstract

Nowadays, a growing number of initiatives are being enacted to increase direct public participation on energy policymaking, a move that is seen as almost automatically granting more effectiveness and social acceptance to energy policy. Seeking to establish a counterpoint to such enthusiasm, this paper argues that there is nothing simple and automatically rewarding in the practical enactment of such “participative turn” in energy policy. As the current critical literature on the challenges of enacting public engagement shows, public participation is beset with all kind of risks and uncertainties, usually producing results that are quite different from the ones expected. In order to ground this point, this paper analyzes the case of a participative policy carried out by the Ministry of Energy in Chile. The rather messy results of such initiative will be used to show how the proper materialization of the “participative turn” in energy policy needs policymakers to radically change their notions about what public participation is, who are the ones participating, and what could be expected from them.

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... Activists and protestors shuttered energy projects through social movements and helped catalyze the inclusion of more established environmental NGOs in the government's social participation efforts. (Castiglioni & Kaltwasser, 2016;Ureta, 2017). ...
... However, during the second Bachelet administration (2014-2018), there was an increased emphasis on incorporating public participation into government decision-making, which has been at odds with Chile's technocratic approach. In Chile, public participation in decision-making has been framed as disruptive and unpredictable (Castiglioni & Kaltwasser, 2016;Ureta, 2017). During the Bachelet II administration, increased calls for public input led to a redrafting of the 1980 constitution, although this new constitution was never ratified (Seminario & Neaher, 2020). ...
... During the Bachelet II administration, increased calls for public input led to a redrafting of the 1980 constitution, although this new constitution was never ratified (Seminario & Neaher, 2020). In the Ministry of Energy, under Maximo Pacheco, energy strategy was supposed to be "socially validated," and the new energy agenda of the Ministry called for "deeper dialogue" with communities impacted by energy projects (Ureta, 2017). ...
... These studies adopt a mainly technocratic approach by analyzing the stimulus policies and market-based mechanisms that explain the advance towards a lower emission energy matrix, but without addressing a crucial aspect in energy transitions such as power and the power relations that underlie and determine these processes. In parallel to these trends, research has emerged that has sought to reveal the shortcomings of the supposed participatory approach or participatory turn in the context of the new public energy policy (Ureta 2017; Alvial-Palavicino and Opazo-Bunster 2018; Urquiza et al. 2018), and its neoliberal character and functional to the reproduction of the regimes of accumulation in the mining sector (Furnaro 2019). ...
... The pre-eminence of the technocratic approach has a long tradition in Chile. The delegation of the management of the social and problematic core of public affairs to expert bodies is identified as one of the central axes of the strengthening of the neo-liberal system and depoliticization in the country context (Silva 1991(Silva , 2004(Silva , 2006(Silva , 2008(Silva , 2011Huneeus 2000;Budds 2009;Ureta 2017). This technocratic management is based precisely on the idea of constructing a technified society where the most capable adopt the specialized decisions, limiting the political system to evaluating and assigning to the technocracy the responsibility of employing logical procedures for the resolution of the problems (Silva 1991(Silva , 2011Huneeus 2000;Budds 2009). ...
... 3.3. Non-deliberative depoliticization: the contours of consensus and participation The energy transition processes are usually conceived as instances to redefine the dynamics and energy systems (Burke and Stephens 2018) and germ of construction of common and innovative visions towards "more sustainable" futures in the long term (Rotmans, Kemp, and Van Asselt 2001;Schot and Geels 2008;Bues and Gailing 2016;Gailing 2016;Ureta 2017;Alvial-Palavicino and Opazo-Bunster 2018). In this sense, the possibility of a democratic and participatory co-creation process is important in the definition of the long-term policy design towards such a transition (Hendriks 2009;Van den Bosch 2010;Stirling 2014;Chilvers and Longhurst 2016). ...
Article
The Chilean energy transition has been internationally recognized as a case of successful public policy in the promotion of renewable energies, even being defined as an “energy revolution”. However, a preliminary analysis of the process allow us to sustain that the incorporation of non-conventional renewable sources to the energy matrix has not modified the technocratic model ofmarket-based management, the ownership structure of the projects, nor has it implied an advance towards democratic and decentralized energy systems that promote local development and the effective participation of communities in energy decision-making. It is concluded that the socio-technical process of the Chilean energy transition has given rise to a post-political energy condition, and that behind the technological success and consensus around the transition there is a perpetuation of power relations and structures of capitalist appropriation and management of energy resources.
... These studies adopt a mainly technocratic approach by analyzing the stimulus policies and market-based mechanisms that explain the advance towards a lower emission energy matrix, but without addressing a crucial aspect in energy transitions such as power and the power relations that underlie and determine these processes. In parallel to these trends, research has emerged that has sought to reveal the shortcomings of the supposed participatory approach or participatory turn in the context of the new public energy policy (Ureta 2017; Alvial-Palavicino and Opazo-Bunster 2018; Urquiza et al. 2018), and its neoliberal character and functional to the reproduction of the regimes of accumulation in the mining sector (Furnaro 2019). ...
... The pre-eminence of the technocratic approach has a long tradition in Chile. The delegation of the management of the social and problematic core of public affairs to expert bodies is identified as one of the central axes of the strengthening of the neo-liberal system and depoliticization in the country context (Silva 1991(Silva , 2004(Silva , 2006(Silva , 2008(Silva , 2011Huneeus 2000;Budds 2009;Ureta 2017). This technocratic management is based precisely on the idea of constructing a technified society where the most capable adopt the specialized decisions, limiting the political system to evaluating and assigning to the technocracy the responsibility of employing logical procedures for the resolution of the problems (Silva 1991(Silva , 2011Huneeus 2000;Budds 2009). ...
... The energy transition processes are usually conceived as instances to redefine the dynamics and energy systems (Burke and Stephens 2018) and germ of construction of common and innovative visions towards "more sustainable" futures in the long term (Rotmans, Kemp, and Van Asselt 2001;Schot and Geels 2008;Bues and Gailing 2016;Gailing 2016;Ureta 2017;Alvial-Palavicino and Opazo-Bunster 2018). In this sense, the possibility of a democratic and participatory co-creation process is important in the definition of the long-term policy design towards such a transition (Hendriks 2009;Van den Bosch 2010;Stirling 2014;Chilvers and Longhurst 2016). ...
Article
Full-text available
The Chilean energy transition has been internationally recognized as a case of successful public policy in the promotion of renewable energies, even being defined as an “energy revolution”. However, a preliminary analysis of the process allow us to sustain that the incorporation of non-conventional renewable sources to the energy matrix has not modified the technocratic model ofmarket-based management, the ownership structure of the projects, nor has it implied an advance towards democratic and decentralized energy systems that promote local development and the effective participation of communities in energy decision-making. It is concluded that the socio-technical process of the Chilean energy transition has given rise to a post-political energy condition, and that behind the technological success and consensus around the transition there is a perpetuation of power relations and structures of capitalist appropriation and management of energy resources.
... Nearly 34 million people across the Latin America and the Caribbean region still do not have access to reliable electricity, and their communities are often too isolated for connection to the major grids. Moreover, World Bank research and additional evidence in the region show that frequent technical problems reduce the benefits of the solutions implemented to deal with this challenge [1], [2]. Community participation has been recognized as a powerful tool for the operation and maintenance of systems that serve the community itself. ...
... Consequently, the interest of those who were cited may decrease, extending the process of decision-making and decreasing the convocation on the road. There is also the possibility that, due to format and time flexibility, certain voices may be overrepresented if there is, for example, a problem with the moderation of the discussion [1], [7], [10]. This scenario constitutes a main challenge for moving toward sustainable microgrid solutions. ...
... This requires the recognition of the complexity that these innovative initiatives have. Among others, there have been difficulties in developing an interdisciplinary work, mainly due to the significance, scope, and in setting the grounds for a common understanding of fundamental concepts, such as sustainability, participation, and community [1], [7], [8]. ...
Article
Many people across Latin America still do not have access to reliable electricity. Although Chile exhibits a comparatively high electricity coverage, many barriers are still present for the development of sustainable energy supply solutions exploiting local renewable energy sources. To face this challenge, a coconstruction methodology is proposed, which considers a flexible and participatory design with continuous communication between the technical team of the project and the community, thus ensuring informed decision making around the project design. In this context, microgrid-based solutions offer an ideal opportunity to exploit the integration of energy sources adapted to the specific local characteristics. The coconstruction methodology allows the identification of local requirements, less often considered for design procedures based on a traditional approach, in a joint work with the communities so that the technological solution is tailored for it. Consequently, different technical solutions (design adaptations and innovations) have been proposed and developed under this framework, such as: energy management systems, demand response strategies, microgrid applications for Mapuche communities, microformers, a monitoring system that includes social aspects, and vehicle to grid for microgrids. This paper summarizes the experience of several microgrid projects in Chile, identifies risks, impacts, control actions, and discusses their replicability to the Latin American and the Caribbean region.
... Whichever the case, the Consultative Committee largely relied on self-governance mechanisms and on the expertise of its members to guide decisions and build the Roadmap. At the Technical Board level, the debate often got trapped in controversies involving different (and partially irreconcilable) ways of framing the issue (Ureta, 2017). On the contrary, the Consultative Committee enjoyed a common acceptance of "expertise" as a common validity criteria which was able to cut across the divide that tends to exist between political relevance, scientific rigor, and economic profitability (Pinilla, 2012). ...
... While the Technical Boards did have some influence on the E2050 policy, this was rather indirect. Not only it was mediated by the Energy Ministry's framing of such Boards in the name of the "common good" of the Nation, ignoring and hiding competing framings that were dominant in some parts of the citizenry (Ureta, 2017); it was also filtered by the very deliberations that took place within the Consultative Committee. Thus, despite their alleged deliberative nature, their actual influence in the E2050 process was more prominently aggregative (Miller, 1992): they were treated as pre-existing and frozen perspectives to be "represented" through aggregation. ...
Article
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This paper analyzes the use of “participatory futures” within the context of energy transition, paying special attention to the case of Chile's long-term energy policy. Our main aim is to question the role of “participation” in such a context and particularly, to decouple the operative function of participation from its normative function. Structurally, we argue that the construction of a joint vision of desired energy futures must be understood as a deliberate attempt at governing the energy transition by way of governing the expectations of the actors and systems involved in it. Participatory approaches can promote the co-construction of such energy futures in the form of a boundary-object, able to resonate with and provide a common reference to the actors participating in its creation. On the other hand, participatory approaches can also be a way to make transitions more democratic, subjecting it to a broader influence and control from the citizenship. These two functions of “participation” are always potentially at odds with one another. Democratizing the transition, in fact, would require producing plural, dynamical imaginaries that are responsive and accountable to the public. On the contrary, the need to make transitions governable may close-up such imaginaries and narrow-down the participatory efforts to foster their normalization and acceptability on the part of the most influential actors in the self-government of the transition. To refine and exemplify our proposal, we perform a qualitative, exploratory case study of Chile's E2050 energy policy. Our findings show that “participation” may indeed have been used in the case to align partially conflicting expectations around a collectively-defined boundary object which may then act as a form of contextual, anticipatory and polycentric governance of the transition. However, from a democratic perspective, E2050 appears as a tokenization of the public in support of a pre-eminently technical and monolithic vision enacted by the Energy Ministry and the Consultative Committee. Within this context, the actual influence of the public on the policy and the possibility for political contestation are much more questionable.
... These two pillars of participation emerge as recommendations of good practices by the IDB. However, they do not escape from the paradox of "framing-overflowing" [26] that any participatory process entails. In other words, much of the participative instances we generate with the "gameplay", content, duration and call, may define the actions of the participants; therefore, running the risk of trending their responses to pre-chosen alternatives dictated by the government, the technical team and/or the team responsible for developing the methodology. ...
... These policies make the decision-making processes of the experts transparent, socializing energy potentials of the territory and the types of technologies available and desirable for each group. This period of public energy policy is known as the "participatory turn" [26], and it is also the context in which the EC leads the first experiences of participatory design of public policies. The co-construction methodology is fed by these learnings, and goes a step beyond citizen participation in public policy, proposing a way for local communities to pave the road for the design of technology transfer projects described in the next sections. ...
Article
The Energy Center has developed a co-construction methodology to address the challenges of technology transfer-based on distributed generation projects- in the context of energy transitions in isolated locations. Based on the experiences developed between 2010 and 2017, this paper analyses the process of preparing the Co-construction methodology. New tools were identified under the light of a theoretical-methodological reflection and a new version of co-construction methodology is proposed from this discussion. This learning process combines academic research and applied projects. It has provided Energy Center with an improved set of tools for current projects, and also contributed to a theoretical-methodological discussion based on new research activities. The main problems of method faced are presented during interdisciplinary work, such as: common understanding of fundamental concepts (sustainability, participation, community); the domination of one discipline over the others; the different visions of the priorities within the same project. And those problems given by the participation process under the paradox of “framing-overflowing”, where the constraints of actual projects (deadlines, budget, and specific KPIs) could limit the possibility of performing in depth diagnostics and building trust. One of the main challenges identified is that an actual impact on the overall experience is only feasible if lessons can be translated into concrete products (best practices, guidelines, tools), so can be adopted by future project developers.
... Teoría de la Práctica Social (tps), de los Estudios cts y desarrollamos un enfoque relacional desde el cual la calefacción doméstica es vista como el resultado de ecologías del calor. Estudiar las distintas ecologías del calor -sus elementos, relaciones y posibilidades-puede ser crucial para develar los nodos normativos y también potenciales limitaciones y desbordamientos (Ureta, 2017) El capítulo se organiza de la siguiente forma. A continuación, presentamos la literatura académica sobre los aspectos sociales de la calefacción y las transiciones energéticas en sistemas de calefacción doméstica, describiendo sus principales contribuciones y limitaciones. ...
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Capitulo libro La vida Social de la Energia, Ariztia y Ureta eds
... While the existing literature on framing and overflows in energy projects often discusses how framings are constructed by social actors (e. g. [18,33]), our paper focuses on how digital devices mediate this process (also following Callon's [15] focus on the role of technologies and other non-human actors). We argue that looking at framing through the three processes of capturing, channelling and managing enables us to understand how digital devices frame issues and create overflows. ...
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This paper presents a case of a digital device – a noise app – employed by a wind farm operator as a response to growing noise annoyance by residents living next to their wind farm in the Netherlands. This noise app communicates predicted sound levels to the residents and monitors their noise annoyance. We analyse the noise app as a digital framing device that governs concerns around wind turbine sound through three processes: capturing, channelling and managing. We show how in the process of capturing, the app uses a particular definition of ‘the public’ and construes ‘noise’ as a matter of concern. We use the term channelling to highlight who is involved in the interpretation of the data about annoyance, and how certain conclusions come to be seen as legitimate. Finally, we discuss how in the process of managing, specific kinds of solutions are proposed that fit with this problem definition. The framing process of the noise app also leads to unforeseen effects in the form of overflows. Particularly, we see that concerned residents develop an expectation to be more actively involved in decision-making around the wind farm, and that residents resort to alternative forms and channels for expressing existing and new concerns. We conclude by reflecting on the broader energy justice implications of digital framing and overflowing in terms of recognition justice, procedural justice, and distributional justice.
... To reduce these conflicts, the MINENERGIA has shifted its attention toward improving the understanding of people's responses to hydropower development and its associated infrastructure [3,33]. This change in focus is evident in the energy development policy. ...
Article
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Chile has defined an energy development policy in which hydropower is an important part of the energy grid. This energy source has not yet been accepted by many people in local communities. For future hydroelectric development to be more widely accepted, the Chilean Ministry of Energy developed a methodological framework called Objects of Valuation. This framework is aimed at identifying the main community interests that may condition hydroelectric development. The objective of this paper is to analyze the scope of the framework based on a review of the scientific literature and information generated through participatory activities in three basins that have high hydropower potential. Analyzing the results obtained from the application of the framework, four complementary intangible factors not represented by the framework are identified: the lack of validation of a formal participatory process, under-recognition of different worldviews, distrust regarding the development of hydroelectricity, and a sense of self-determination in the community. These factors could potentially condition community acceptance of hydroelectricity, thereby limiting the framework as a decision-making tool. We recommend that this methodological framework should be complemented by the incorporation of intangible elements in the decision-making process, using a systematic tool applicable to spatial planning and strategic environmental-assessment processes.
... While in the last years the government has put into place several incentives and laws to promote the construction of greener power plants and use of renewable energy sources [3], this is still not enough to drastically reduce GHG emissions. Many obstacles still remain hindering for example a full development of both solar and hydro power plants [4,5]. Coal and natural gas power plants still cover 43% of the total electrical energy installed in the country [6] and will still provide for many years to come stability and reliability. ...
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Chile’s 2050 energy policy ultimate goals are to produce a sustainable model of economic growth respectful of the environment where energy is produced efficiently and reliably. Renewable energy sources are considered the main drive for developing by 2050 at least 70% of the total energy in Chile. This study aims to provide a quantitative analysis for the selection of the most sustainable energy production methods using the compromise ranking method (VIKOR) that uses maximum group utility for the majority and a minimum of individual regret for the opponent. Since all evaluations are provided via intervals, the possible degree theory is used to compare them. Nine major criteria are critically used for this purpose and prioritized using Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). Since Chile’s energy production matrix still relies heavily on fossil fuels with major concerns of GHG emissions, all major potential energy sources in Chile are considered including ocean energy in addition to nuclear energy. This study shows that biomasses are the best compromise solution and that traditional and modern nuclear energy plants score consistently better than solar power. Large hydro power plants rank very high but in light of the social opposition present in the country, they might not be easy to build as hoped. Ocean power is far superior to geothermal energy and comparable to wind power and for this reason it should be considered together with nuclear power for the future Chilean energy matrix.
... Natural gas and solar power have been augmented significantly and hydropower installed capacity is still far from accomplishing the available estimated potential [12]. However, recent trends in the management of the energy policy have increased controversy and public contestation, in some cases bringing to full halt some very important projects [13]. Many barriers including economical, technical and regulatory [14] hinder massive deployment of solar systems and limit market penetration. ...
Article
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Renewable energy sources are considered the main drive for developing at least 70% of the total energy in Chile by 2050. All major international greenhouse gases reduction agreements include growth of renewable energy sources and nuclear power as the only ways to significantly reduce emissions by the decade 2040–50. Chile’s energy production matrix still relies heavily on fossil fuels, making very difficult to match the goal targeted by international agreements. For these reasons, the possibility of using nuclear power plants is considered. Small modular reactors (SMRs) in particular seems particularly suitable for a country like Chile for many reasons: SMRs are scalable and can provide energy in remote locations with no or limited grids (Atacama desert); SMRs can cope easily with future demands for expansion, thanks to their modularity; SMRs are cost effective and use all the latest developments in safety. This paper examines, using IAEA DEEP 5 economic software, the costs of nuclear desalinated water produced for the Chilean mining industry. Comparisons with respect to existing fossil fuels solutions show that the final cost is very competitive and allow for significant reduction of CO2 emissions.
... Nuclear power generation provides a very promising alternative in the reduction of greenhouse gases (GHG) and potentially could become the cheapest source of energy to fulfill energy challenges across countries in South America [16]. Nuclear power development in Chile has been hindered mostly by political indecision and people's fear over nuclear power plants and their capacity to undertake extreme natural events [9,[17][18]. This can be mainly attributed to the lack of education in energy matters and the fear that resulted from the safety failures that have occurred when implementing current nuclear energy technology. ...
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... Just as interest in the human and social dimensions of energy systems is being mainstreamed [19], this fragmentation is undermining the potential contribution of the social sciences. There is growing unease over the ability of existing approaches to account for the increasingly complex, diverse and interconnected roles of publics in energy systems on the cusp of a post-carbon era [20,21,12,22], linked to trends in globalisation, market liberalisation, distributed energy production, the digital revolution and the rise of the internet. ...
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Editor's Note. Three years ago, I invited Robert (Bob) Gephart to write a "From the Editors" column designed to help authors improve their chances of success when submitting qualitative research to AMJ. Judging from the increasing number of quali- tative studies that have been accepted and pub- lished in AMJ since that time, I would like to think that his article, "Qualitative Research and the Academy of Management Journal," has had a pos- itive impact. Continuing in this tradition, I asked Roy Sud- daby—an excellent reviewer (and author) of quali- tative research—to tackle another "big issue" that the editorial team has noticed with respect to qual- itative submissions to AMJ: overly generic use of the term "grounded theory" and confusion regard- ing alternative epistemological approaches to qual- itative research. Like Bob before him, Roy has, I believe, produced an analysis that will greatly ben- efit those who are relatively new to qualitative re- search or who have not yet had much success in getting their qualitative research published. Hope- fully, Roy's analysis will help even more authors to succeed, thus allowing AMJ and other journals to continue to increase the quality of insights pro- vided by rich qualitative studies of individual, or- ganizational, and institutional phenomena. Sara L. Rynes
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Public Culture 14.1 (2002) 49-90 This essay has a public. If you are reading (or hearing) this, you are part of its public. So first let me say: Welcome. Of course, you might stop reading (or leave the room), and someone else might start (or enter). Would the public of this essay therefore be different? Would it ever be possible to know anything about the public to which, I hope, you still belong? What is a public? It is a curiously obscure question, considering that few things have been more important in the development of modernity. Publics have become an essential fact of the social landscape, and yet it would tax our understanding to say exactly what they are. Several senses of the noun public tend to be intermixed in usage. People do not always distinguish between the public and a public, although in some contexts this difference can matter a great deal. The public is a kind of social totality. Its most common sense is that of the people in general. It might be the people organized as the nation, the commonwealth, the city, the state, or some other community. It might be very general, as in Christendom or humanity. But in each case the public, as a people, is thought to include everyone within the field in question. This sense of totality is brought out in speaking of the public, even though to speak of a national public implies that others exist; there must be as many publics as polities, but whenever one is addressed as the public, the others are assumed not to matter. A public can also be a second thing: a concrete audience, a crowd witnessing itself in visible space, as with a theatrical public. Such a public also has a sense of totality, bounded by the event or by the shared physical space. A performer on stage knows where her public is, how big it is, where its boundaries are, and what the time of its common existence is. A crowd at a sports event, a concert, or a riot might be a bit blurrier around the edges, but still knows itself by knowing where and when it is assembled in common visibility and common action. I will return to both of these senses, but what I mainly want to clarify in this essay is a third sense of public: the kind of public that comes into being only in relation to texts and their circulation -- like the public of this essay. (Nice to have you with us, still.) The distinctions among these three senses are not always sharp and are not simply the difference between oral and written contexts. When an essay is read aloud as a lecture at a university, for example, the concrete audience of hearers understands itself as standing in for a more indefinite audience of readers. And often, when a form of discourse is not addressing an institutional or subcultural audience, such as members of a profession, its audience can understand itself not just as a public but as the public. In such cases, different senses of audience and circulation are in play at once. Examples like this suggest that it is worth understanding the distinctions better, if only because the transpositions among them can have important social effects. The idea of a public, as distinct from both the public and any bounded audience, has become part of the common repertoire of modern culture. Everyone intuitively understands how it works. On reflection, however, its rules can seem rather odd. I would like to bring some of our intuitive understanding into the open in order to speculate about the history of the form and the role it plays in constructing our social world. 1. A public is self-organized. A public is a space of discourse organized by nothing other than discourse itself. It is autotelic; it exists only as the end for which books are published, shows broadcast, Web sites posted, speeches delivered, opinions produced. It exists by virtue of being addressed. A kind of chicken-and-egg circularity confronts us in the idea of a public. Could anyone speak publicly without addressing a public? But how...
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The new centrality of “the public” to the governance of science and technology has been accompanied by a widespread use of public consultation mechanisms designed to elicit from citizens relevant opinions on technoscientific matters. This paper explores the configuration of legitimate constituencies in two such exercises: the UK “GM Nation?” public debate on food biotechnology, and a Swedish “Transparency Forum” on the risks of mobile telephones. We consider the apparently paradoxical combination in these two examples of a tendency to produce static images of the public with a high valuation of mobility—of citizens and their opinions—as the key outcome of deliberation. We discuss the organizers' careful delineation of a distinction between “stakeholders” and the “general public,” and their aversion to any sort of “eventfulness” in public deliberations. Finally, we introduce the classical notion of the “idiot”—the individual who minds exclusively his or her own private affairs— and argue for the need to develop a new vocabulary to evaluate the politics of “listening to the public.”
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This article argues that the quantitative and quasi-experimental approach to evaluating public participation exercises is deficient in at least two respects. First, casting participants in instrumental terms excludes that participants have an experience and that this may be dramatic and emotional. If people are to be invited, even obliged, to participate, then this experience should be considered in event evaluation. Second, current evaluation frameworks tend not to be sensitive to what actually happened in terms of the actions of participants and how these influenced the proceedings and outcome, thus ignoring that such events are fora where positions, values, decisions, and so forth are constructed and constrained rather than simply reported. This article considers the possible contribution of dramaturgical, discourse and conversation analytic, and ethnographic and phenomenological approaches to evaluating participation exercises and illustrates their potential with data gathered during the U.K. "GM Nation?" public debate.
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Using a Santiago, Chile, health group as an ethnographic case study, I propose “accountable democracy” as an alternative normative project to the theory of deliberative democracy outlined by Habermas in Between Facts and Norms. Accountable democracy has at its center the impact of public-sphere opinion formation on decision making by officials in elected governments.
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This paper analyses the deployment of wind power and the related local controversies using actor-network theory (ANT). ANT provides conceptual instruments for a fine-tuned analysis of the contingencies that condition a project’s success or failure by focusing on the micro-decisions that intertwine the material aspects of the technology, the site where it is implemented, the participation process, and the social relations in which they are embedded. By considering controversies as alternative efforts of competing networks of actors to ‘frame’ the reality and enroll others, ANT sheds light on the complex and political nature of planning a wind farm project, insofar as it consist in aligning material and human behaviours into a predictable scenario. ‘Overflows’ occur when actors do not conform to expectations, adopt conflicting positions and develop their own interpretations of the project, thus obliging designers to adapt their frames and change their plans. To demonstrate this framework, we apply it to the case of a wind farm project in the South of France, near Albi. Our analysis suggests a new approach to examining wind power projects in terms of the interaction between globally circulating technologies, unique characteristics of the site, the participation process and the social dynamics that emerge when these are combined.