community participation

[meuser@cats.ucsc.edu]

Hi,
 This article came to me from another list. I'm posting it
here because it describes a very different way of seeing the
community and decision-making.
-----------------------------

 CITIZEN-BASED TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT?

 An Update on Consensus Conferences in Europe

 Copyright by Richard E. Sclove 1994

 Can everyday folks play a constructive role in complex
decisions involving science and technology? As a partial answer,
this memo reports on what I have recently learned about the
"consensus conference" model of technology assessment pioneered
in Denmark and now being adopted more widely in Europe [1].

 In 1992 a panel of ordinary Danish citizens attended two
background briefings and then spent several days hearing diverse
expert presentations on genetic manipulation in animal breeding. 
After cross-examining the experts and deliberating among
themselves, the lay panel reported to a national press conference
their judgment that it would be "entirely unacceptable" to
genetically engineer new pets but ethical to use such methods to
develop a treatment for human cancer [2]. Their conclusions
influenced subsequent Parliamentary legislation.

 To organize this type of consensus conference, the Danish
government's Board of Technology (an institution roughly
analogous to the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment) begins by
selecting a salient topic--such as biotechnology or newly
emerging telecommunications systems--and then advertises in
newspapers for volunteer lay participants. These volunteers are
asked to send in a one-page letter describing their backgrounds
and reasons for wanting to participate.

 The Board then picks a panel of about 15 laypeople who
roughly represent the demographic breadth of the Danish
population and who do not have any significant prior knowledge
of, or specific interest in, the topic at hand. These are
genuine lay groups ranging, say, from college educated
professionals (but excluding professionals in the topic under
investigation) to housewives, office and factory workers, or
garbage collectors.

 The entire process of organizing a consensus conference
takes about 6 months. (In contrast, it takes the U.S. Office of
Technology Assessment about 2 years to produce a published
report, so the Danish process is relatively swift and
economical.) There are three basic stages:

 During a first preparatory weekend meeting, the chosen lay
group discusses a background paper from the Board that maps the
political terrain concerning the chosen topic. The lay group
then formulates the specific questions that it wants to address
during the subsequent consensus conference. Meetings of the lay
panel are run by a skilled meeting facilitator--someone committed
to an open and egalitarian democratic process, but who is not
knowledgeable on the substance of the topic under investigation.

 Based on the lay panel's questions, the Board then assembles
a corresponding expert panel. This panel includes credentialed
scientific and technical experts with widely divergent
viewpoints, but also pertinent experts in ethics or social
science and knowledgeable representatives of organized
stakeholder groups (such as trade unions, industry,
environmentalists, etc.) The experts are each asked to prepare
succinct written statements, in everyday lay language,
summarizing their views on the lay panel's questions. The lay
group then meets for a second preparatory weekend to discuss
these expert statements and, if they want, to suggest additions
or deletions from the proposed expert panel.

 The culminating consensus conference is a three-day event,
bringing the lay and expert panels together in a forum open to
the media and to the public at large. The event is chaired by
the facilitator from the preparatory weekends, and assisted by
staff from the Board of Technology. It begins with each expert
taking turns speaking for 20 minutes and then addressing follow-
on questions posed by the lay panel (and, if there is time, by
the audience). The lay group then retires to discuss what they
have heard and to begin formulating judgments concerning the
questions under debate.

 On the second day the lay group publicly cross examines the
expert panel. Observers report that this is normally a consensus
conference's dramatic high point. Afterwards, the experts are
politely dismissed.

 During the final 24 hours the lay group prepares its own
concluding report summarizing the issues on which it could reach
consensus and characterizing any remaining points of
disagreement. This document is immediately presented by the lay
group itself to a national press conference and then publicized
further by the Board of Technology through local debates,
leaflets, and videos [3]. In the case of biotechnology, for
example, the Board has subsidized more than 600 local debate
meetings.

 Dr. Jorn Ravn, the Board's General Secretary, explains that
"citizens alone are the final judges of what they find good and
promising, insufficiently examined, or perhaps even totally
unacceptable" [4]. Research suggests that the Danish public and
politicians are better informed on issues addressed this way than
are the citizens of other countries facing similar questions. 
Its achievements have led the Danish process to be emulated in
the Netherlands and, two months ago (Nov. 1994), in the
United Kingdom. Further emulation is under consideration in
other European nations and under the auspices of the European
Union.

 The people I have interviewed who have participated in
organizing European consensus conferences are tremendously
enthusiastic about the quality of judgment exhibited in lay
panelists' concluding reports. Apparently democracy is, after
all, within the range of human possibility.

 Moreover, although Danish industry originally resisted the
idea of even establishing the Board of Technology, there appears
since to have been a change of heart. A representative of the
Danish Council of Industry relates, for instance, that Danish
corporations have benefitted from their nation's participatory
approach to technology assessment because

 "Danish product developers have worked in a more
 critical environment, thus being able to forecast some
 of the negative reactions and improve their products in
 the early phase." [5]

 In other words, more open, participatory modes of technology
decision-making have the potential to enhance both social
acceptability and business profitability.

 The Danish process is a specific implementation of a general
model in which (a) technical experts, (b) experts in
technologies' social dimensions and effects, and (c)
representatives of organized interest groups (including public-
interest groups) play vital roles, but final judgment is in the
hands of representative everyday citizens.

 In contrast, in the United States a more common mode of
technological judgment is one in which the great majority of
participants are technical experts or representatives of
organized stakeholder groups. Thus, experts in technologies'
social effects and everyday citizens are outweighed or, more
often, excluded entirely.

 A central limitation of this U.S. model is that the
aggregation of technical expert and stakeholder views is apt to
greatly slight technologies' broader social and political
consequences. For instance, when--as is often the case--the
represented stakeholders include industry, workers and
environmentalists, then economic, workplace and ecological
concerns will normally be addressed. That is good. However,
nobody is there to watch out for cultural repercussions,
structural political ramifications, or the overall public good. 
On the latter issues, variants of the Danish model appear much
more promising.

 In thinking about adapting the Danish model to a nation such
as the United States, one might worry that consensus is much
easier to achieve in a small, fairly homogeneous nation such as
Denmark. That is true, but in terms of democratic norms I
believe that the important feature of the model is its efficiency
in cultivating informed citizen judgment, even if the final
report represents a reasoned dissensus. (Besides, consensus will
not invariably prove impossible; U.S. juries routinely reach
consensus within the context of highly contested, complex legal
disputes.)

 It is also true that a single lay panel composed of, say, 15
people would be a feeble statistical sample of the entire United
States. However, the assembled groups are not being asked to
promulgate binding laws or regulations; their deliberations are
merely advisory to the public as a whole and to elected
officials. In that context, hearing the considered views of a
diverse group of 15 everyday citizens would be a marked
improvement over hearing from none (which is the norm in a great
deal of contemporary technology policy analysis and decision
making). Moreover, on especially important issues one could
experiment with seeking greater representativeness by assembling
a succession of small lay panels or a single, larger group [6]. 
In any case, given prevailing U.S. disparities in wealth and
overbusy lives, both fairness and efficiency would seem to
mandate paying people to participate.

 With variants of the consensus conference model now
diffusing in Europe, I suspect that the question is not whether
the model will eventually be tried in the United States, but when
and where. Certainly, that is my hope.

 NOTES

 1. This memo is adapted from my forthcoming book about
technology and democracy: Richard E. Sclove, [working title:] _In
Every Sense the Experts: Toward a Democratic Politics of
Technology_ (New York: Guilford Press, summer 1995), chap. 12. 
My information is based partly on interviews with Prof. Norman
Vig, Carleton College, Minnesota (Oct. 1993 and Aug. 1994);
Anneke Hamstra, Institute for Consumer Research, the Hague (Oct.
1994); Lydia Sterrenberg, The Rathenau Institute, the Hague (Oct.
1994); and Lars Kluver, Danish Board of Technology (Nov. 1994). 
I take full responsibility and apologize for any inadvertent
factual errors that may have crept into my characterization of
the Danish process. 

 2. "Consensus Conference on Technological Animals" 1992, p.
17.

 3. The Board of Technology uses the consensus conference
format for addressing issues of relatively narrow scope. For
dealing with broader, more open-ended matters--such as
alternative visions of a sustainable society--the Board has
learned to rely on alternative participatory procedures, such as
"scenario workshops." See Andersen et al. (no date) and Ravn (no
date).

 4.Ravn (no date, p. 8)

 5. Quoted in Cronberg (forthcoming).

 6. On the latter idea, see the deliberative opinion poll
model discussed in Fishkin (1991). Small groups probably afford
greater opportunity for intensive probing, deliberative depth,
and mutual understanding.

 WORKS CITED and ADDITIONAL ENGLISH-LANGUAGE
SOURCES ON CONSENSUS CONFERENCES

Agersnap, Torben. No date. "Consensus Conferences for
 Technological Assessment." In _Technology and Democracy:
 The Use and Impact of Technology Assessment in Europe_, Vol.
 I. Proceedings of the 3rd European Congress on Technology
 Assessment, Copenhagen, 4-7 November 1992. Pp. 45-53. 
 Published by TeknologiNaevnet (Danish Board of Technology),
 Antonigade 4, DK-1106 Copenhagen K, Denmark; Fax +45 33 91
 05.

Andersen, Ida, Lise Drewes Nielsen, Morten Elle, and Olfu
 Danielsen. No date. "The Scenario Workshop in Technology
 Assessment." In _Technology and Democracy_, Vol. II, Pp.
 446-55. _See_ Agersnap no date.

"Consensus Conference on Technological Animals: Final Document
 (preliminary issue)." 1992. Copenhagen: Danish Board of
 Technology.

Cronberg, Tarja. Forthcoming. "Technology Assessment in the
 Danish Socio-Political Context." _International Journal of
 Technology Assessment_.

Fishkin, James S. 1991. _Democracy and Deliberation: New
 Directions for Democratic Reform._ New Haven: Yale Univ.
 Press.

Joss, Simon, and John Durant. 1994. "Consensus Conferences: A
 Review of the Danish, Dutch and UK Approaches to this
 Special Form of Technology Assessment, and an Assessment of
 the Options for a Proposed Swiss Consensus Conference." 
 London: The Science Museum Library. TS, 24 pages.

Miles, C.M., M.A. Winstanley. J.G. Gunning, and J. Durant. 1994.
 "Towards a Public Consensus on Biotechnology." _Science in
 Parliament_, 51, no. 2 (April): 14-16.

O'Brien, Claire. 1994. "Lay U.K. Panel Savors Debate." 
 _Science_, 266 (11 Nov.): 964-65.

"Public Debate: Genetic Modification of Animals, Should It Be
 Allowed?: 14th, 15th and 16th May 1993, Museon, the Hague." 
 The Hague: Netherlands Organisation for Technology
 Assessment (NOTA). TS, 22 pages.

Ravn, Jorn. No date. "The Board of Technology and Experience of
 Technology Assessment." Copenhagen: Danish Board of
 Technology. TS, 9 pages.

_UK National Consensus Conference on Plant Biotechnology: Final
 Report_. 1994. London: Science Museum

Vig, Norman J. 1992. "Parliamentary Technology Assessment in
 Europe: Comparative Evolution." _Impact Assessment
 Bulletin_, 10, no. 4: 3-24.

Vig, Norman J. 1993. "Parliamentary Technology Assessment in
 Europe: Comparative Evolution." Paper prepared for delivery
 at the Eighth National Meeting of the National Association
 for Science, Technology & Society, Crystal Gateway Marriott
 Hotel, Arlington, VA, Jan. 15-17, 1993.

END