Democracy in the age of assessment: Reflections on the roles of expertise and democracy in public-sector decision making

Steve Rayner

Science and Public Policy, 2003, vol. 30, issue 3, 163-170

Abstract: In recent decades, governments have increasingly employed expert assessments and formal decision-making technologies. While these promise objectivity and transparency, they are just as likely to buffer decisions from public scrutiny. Countries such as Britain and the United States have experienced a sharp decline in electoral participation. Social scientists have responded with participatory techniques to resituate the non-expert citizen at the heart of decision making. This paper explores three specific problems with such methods: evaluation; representation; and agenda setting. It concludes that participatory techniques may have significant potential to inform and supplement representative democracy. However, under current arrangements, it is impossible for them to escape political-cultural constraints that reduce complex moral and aesthetic issues to scientific framings. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Date: 2003
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