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However, this does not mean that every consensus conference is a success.
At the first New Zealand consensus conference on biotechnology, citizen
participants largely deferred to scientific and economic experts, and deferred
to the Maori on their ethical concerns (Goven 2003). Although the organ-
izers appeared to be well-meaning, they had no experience organizing such
a conference and did not allow for a range of expert voices to be heard.
As a result, citizen participants heard the scientific and economic experts
speak with one voice, and had few resources to challenge that voice. An Aus-
tralian attempt faced similar problems of insufficient organization, as well
as a too-compressed time frame (Mohr 2002). A Japanese consensus
conference on genetically modified crops similarly failed to raise important
questions, perhaps because of the combination of the government s pre-
existing commitments and the cultural importance of polite agreement in
Japan (Nishizawa 2005). In general, in participants efforts to make recom-
mendations, consensus conferences may close down options as often as they
open them up (Stirling 2008). At the very least, consensus conferences require
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186 Expertise and Public Participation
great skill to organize, and probably require local experience and knowledge
to organize well.
Citizen Science and Technology
There are alternative modes of democratizing science and technology. Soci-
ety is already in science and technology. The strong programme, actor-
network theory, feminist studies, and other parts of STS have all shown, at
least as an approximation, the social construction of science and techno-
logy. Scientific knowledge is the result of the mobilization of resources
to produce agreement among key researchers. Similarly, successful technologies
are the result of the interplay among multiple actors and materials to pro-
duce artifacts that can be said to serve specific interests. Knowledge and
artifacts may reflect the socialization and training of the actors who make
them, and may also reflect assumptions that are more widely held. Thus
if there is a problem of democracy, it is a problem of the ways in which
science and technology are socially constructed, or a problem of the parts
of society that participate in the constructing.
Bruno Latour, in a political manifesto, aims to bring the sciences into
democracy by blurring the distinction between nature and society durably
(2004). In the place of the modern constitution that separates nature and
society, he proposes the instauration of a collective that deliberates and decides
on its membership. This collective will be a Republic of things, human and
nonhuman. Just as actor-network theory integrates humans and non-
humans into analyses of technoscience, it might be possible to integrate humans
and non-humans into technoscientific democracy. In a sense Latour s pro-
posal is to formally recognize the centrality of science and technology to
contemporary societies. But it is difficult to know how to turn that recogni-
tion into practical politics.
One route toward citizen science and technology is by making scientific
and technical resources available to interested groups. In the 1970s the
Netherlands pioneered the idea of science shops, which provide technical
advice to citizens, associations, and non-profit organizations (Farkas, 1999).
The science shop is typically a small-scale organization that conducts sci-
entific research in response to needs articulated by individuals or organiza-
tions lacking the resources to conduct research on their own. This idea,
instantiated in many different ways, has been modestly successful, being
exported to countries across Europe, and to Canada, Israel, South Africa,
and the United States, though its initial popularity has waxed and waned so
far (Fischer et al., 2004).
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Box 16.2 Patient groups directing science
In a series of works, Michel Callon and Vololona Rabeharisoa (e.g. 2008)
have displayed a form of science in which interested citizens have formed
networks, organized science around their interests, and contributed to it
directly.
The French association of muscular dystrophy patients (AFM) grew from
a small group of patients and their parents, based on personal appeals to
try to show their own humanity, and the scientific interest of their illnesses.
As the AFM grew, it started participating more directly in research, not just
as passive research subjects, but as active observers of their own conditions.
They formed hybrid research collectives with scientists and scientific organiza-
tions (Callon and Rabeharisoa 2008). Eventually, owing to the phenomenal
success of the AFM s fundraising Téléthon, it was able to organize and
support significant amounts of scientific research. Simultaneously, it was able
to use its success for political gains, improving the rights of the disabled in
France, and gaining access to government services.
In its support for research, AFM made choices about how to define
topics of interest. As the number of genetic diseases seemed to proliferate,
it defined a number of model diseases, on the assumption that similar
diseases could be treated similarly. In so doing, it reproduced some of the
scientific exclusions that had led to the formation of AFM in the first place,
albeit on a much smaller scale. Thus, while successful patient groups can
help democratize science, expanding the range of social interests contribut-
ing to science, they do so imperfectly. And while the AFM clearly represents
patient interests, some patient groups are constructed only to give the appear-
ance of representing a social movement, but are in fact wholly supported
by corporations to represent their interests: they are not grassroots organ-
izations, but astroturf ones.
People sometimes take science into their own hands. Grassroots environ-
mental science can be the response of people who believe that they are exposed
to larger risks than are officially acknowledged. Members of communities
may come together to map illnesses or measure toxins (e.g. Corburn 2005).
Sick Building Syndrome, a perceived pattern of higher-than-expected illness
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