The privatization of public talk: a New Zealand case study on the use of dialogue for civic engagement in biotechnology governance

Issues Mapping: A problem structuring method for addressing science and technology conflicts

“…It is the latter problem that we have encountered in the New Zealand policy domain (Cronin, 2008), and it is still an open question in New Zealand and elsewhere as to how much dialogical problem structuring will be used in central government policy and regulatory settings. We believe, however, that there is significant potential for using such methods to support decision making in science and industry, as organisations in these sectors are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of incorporating stakeholder values into strategy.…”

“…As it happened, neither this recommendation nor the original aim of the programme of informing central government policy were realised, as the Ministry set about revising its framing of the research after it was commissioned. Commenting on this experience, Cronin (2008) notes that the revision reflected a political movement away from experiments with deliberative democracy in central government to ''the privatization of public talk'' (p. 285): scientists were encouraged to undertake stakeholder engagement largely at a local, interpersonal level. Meanwhile, at the national level, Cronin suggests the government chose to deprioritise dialogue in favour of a declared policy of ''aggressively'' promoting the biotechnology sector in order to ''keep abreast of developments'', build capacity, fund research, promote investment and commercial growth, foster global linkages and ensure a workable regulatory regime (New Zealand Government, 2003).…”

“…However, in this case the issue is further complicated by the political dynamics that surrounded the commissioning and framing of the original Hands Across the Water research and the wider MoRST Dialogue Programme, of which it was a part. These dynamics are described in detail by Cronin (2008), but essentially there was a step-by-step shift in the discourse of MoRST (the commissioner) from an initial recognition of the need for dialogue to inform central government policy making, to a focus on enhancing individual scientists' communication skills in their interactions with local communities. Issues Mapping was very successful in terms of reducing interpersonal conflict between scientists and the community within our workshop, but additionally it highlighted the potential of dialogue as an institutional practice to inform science policy and risk regulation.…”

The “Citizen Scientist”: Reflections on the Public Role of Scientists in Response to Emerging Biotechnologies in New Zealand

“…In the science communication and risk communication fields, the dominant approach has been to "manage" public perceptions of science and to steer social actors toward expert assessments, using a range of communication techniques; see for example, the "Mental Models" approach in Morgan et al (2001), and also Hagemann and Scholderer (2009). When the discourse is pulled in this direction, the term "public engagement" is often used to imply that the public should "engage with" science, that is, to inform themselves about scientific matters, take on scientific framings and develop more positive attitudes and even "excitement" about science and what it has to offer (Cronin 2008b). This requires little effort from scientists to leave their "side" of the conversation and move out from their position to engage with social perspectives.…”

Engaging Across Boundaries—Emerging Practices in ‘Technical Democracy’

“…Far from purely utopian imagining (Evans 2003;Stern 2006;Hindmarsh 2008), they address in very practical terms the strategies necessary for publics to engage with science and technology and for scientists to engage with the social dimensions of science and technology (e.g. Chen and Wu 2007;Hindmarsh and Du Plessis 2008;Cronin 2008;Fujigaki 2009). Critical attention to such practices is essential if states in the Asia-Pacific region and further afield are to better respond to existing problems with rapidly emerging new forms of science and technology and their governance.…”