Agoras, ancient and modern, and a framework for science-society debate

Sally Davenport and Shirley Leitch

Science and Public Policy, 2005, vol. 32, issue 2, 137-153

Abstract: This paper offers a contemporary version of the ancient Greek agora (assembly) designed for the conduct of science-society dialogues. Drawing on what is known from ancient Greece, we identified the dimensions of forum, participation and interactivity as the three central criteria for contemporary agora. Insights into the workings of a recent potential agora — New Zealand's Royal Commission on Genetic Modification — were gained by applying this three-part framework. The alignment of participant expectations with the purpose of agoras, particularly that their role is to support debate rather than determine decisions, emerged as crucial for the acceptance of contemporary science-society agoras. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.3152/147154305781779605 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:scippl:v:32:y:2005:i:2:p:137-153

Access Statistics for this article

Science and Public Policy is currently edited by Nicoletta Corrocher, Jeong-Dong Lee, Mireille Matt and Nicholas Vonortas

More articles in Science and Public Policy from Oxford University Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().