History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
Kjell Andersson
Sweden
Models of Transparency and Accountability in the biotech Age
Today, societal decisions in areas of complexity are often dominated by one three alternative ways: 1) by scientists, nowadays often in combination with commercial interest (GM crops as done in US and as tried in EU), 2) by politicians alone (stem cell research in US, third generation mobile phone systems in Sweden) and 3) by simply "laisse fair", or "the tyranny of small steps" (genetic testing, bio data banks).
In a democracy societal affairs should be decided with awareness about the knowledge base but also about the value –laden aspects of alternatives. Not only the political decision-makers but also the general public need a high level of awareness - otherwise the citizens can not hold the politicians accountable. Consequently, neither of the three ways of decision-making outlined above is fully democratic, since they don’t create enough awareness among the politicians and the general public. One reason is, as can be seen from the examples mentioned, that the decision making basis becomes too narrowly framed and fragmented.
Biotechnology will continue to feed society with new democratic challenges for many years, perhaps decades, to come. The initially promising ideas of participative and deliberative democracy don't seem to solve the awareness problem either. Instead we propose an approach with more structured efforts for awareness building with transparency and participation taking place within the framework of representative democracy. The VALDOC approach with the RISCOM Model will be outlined in the paper.
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006