Assessing the impacts of citizen participation in science governance: exploring new roads in comparative analysis

Abstract

In this paper we explore new avenues of analysis on the thorny issue of the impact of participatory technology assessment (PTA). We apply qualitative comparative analysis to data abstracted from a series of detailed country case studies of policy-making on xenotransplantation to explore which factors are decisive for policy outcomes. Contrary to our expectations that PTAs would contribute to restrictive policy outcomes, we find that this is not the case and that a combination of politicisation and public vigilance is pivotal to explaining policy outcomes. Further, our analysis was symmetrical in attempting to account for both permissive and restrictive policies. We conclude that the paper makes both a substantial and a methodological contribution to the literature on public participation in technology assessment and policy-making.

A survey of methods for evaluating mini-publics

“…Hansen and Allansdottir ( 2011 ) used relevant materials to clarify the conditions that lead to restrictive policies regarding Xenotransplantation and those that lead to innovative policies. Comparing 11 Western European countries; a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) was employed.…”

“…The QCA aims to identify the necessary and sufficient conditions for the results to occur and to eradicate the least important factors, thereby identifying the composition of factors that can best explain the results of interest. For example, in Hansen and Allansdottir’s ( 2011 ) research, “relevant Xenotransplantation policy,” “place of public participation,” “political participation,” “public concerns,” “business,” and “scandals” were listed as requirements for inclusion.…”

“…In addition, many themes that deal with ethical issues were taken up and carried out with the aim of reflecting citizens' value judgments, including Xenografts, the first internationally discussed topic (Jones and Einsiedel 2011 ; Hansen and Allansdottir 2011 ), and euthanasia or assisted dying (EAD), a controversial issue in medical ethics and healthcare policy (Walker et al 2019 ). The value of a biobanking policy to store human biological specimens and data for research purposes was also deliberated (Walmsley 2011 ).…”

Exploring public engagement with geothermal energy in southern Italy: A case study

“…However, although a proliferation of case studies is interesting and worthwhile we also need to design appropriate frameworks under which such case studies can be systematically analyzed, compared and contrasted also in terms of the impact on policy making processes (O'Doherty and Einsiedel, 2012). For an example for such an approach in the study of public discourse on biomedical science see Hansen and Allansdottir (2011). Finally, this research has been characterized by the strong and productive cross disciplinary approach to the whole question of the development of geothermal energy in the Southern Italy that can hopefully inspire studies on energy policy that include the views, hopes and the sentiments of the local communities.…”

‘Nothing to do with the science’: How an elite sociotechnical imaginary cements policy resistance to public perspectives on science and technology through the machinery of government

“…Many of those who have examined and evaluated this 'mini-public' approach to democratising science and technology have concluded that it is problematic however. They have found little evidence that public perspectives have been taken up by policy (Goodin, 2006;Wynne, 2006a;Stirling, 2007;Kurath and Gisler, 2009;Hansen and Allansdottir, 2011;Loeber, Griessler and Versteeg, 2011;Irwin, Jensen and Jones, 2012;Smallman, 2018). Explanations for this apparent resistance of policy to public perspectives tend to focus on the dominance of technoscientific perspectives and 'cultures' within policy-making institutions.…”