Instructions for being unhappy with PTA — The impact on PTA of Austrian technology policy experts´ conceptualisation of the public

Leah A. Lievrouw

ITA manu:scripts from Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA)

Abstract: Participatory Technology Assessment (PTA) is said to increase democratic legitimacy, take up lay knowledge and improve technological solutions. Today it is part of science/technology policy rhetoric and, sometimes, practice. We confront some elements of the scholarly discussion on PTA with policy-makers’ understandings of the process in Austria. Here, participation often gets framed as a form of PR and a sensor for public sentiments rather than as a forum of multiple rationalities and co-development of policy projects. This understanding can be related to underlying conceptions of democracy and the public. As a conclusion, governance styles would have to change before PTA was to become more than a laboratory experiment.

Keywords: PTA; Participatory technology assessment; technology policy; conceptualisation of the public; deficit model; administration; models of democracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-12-17
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