A new social contract for technology? – On the policy dynamics of uncertainty

Abstract

This paper proposes a typology of two fundamentally opposing conceptualizations of managing technology under uncertainty: ‘technology governability’ and ‘technology selection’. A wide variety of different versions of these idealized conceptualizations can be shown to underlie the controversies about scientific‐technological development. The example of genetic engineering indicates that such points of view are reconstructed over time in different forms and diverse settings, not only by the scientific community or during regulatory decision making, but by a rather wide‐reaching spectrum of social actors. Thus, the current efforts to open up science and technology decision making to a wider range of participants is interpreted here as an effort of generating a new social contract for technology management, by way of bridging the differences between the two opposing conceptualizations.

Keywords:

• technology policy
• genetic engineering
• social conflict
• science and technology regulation
• management of uncertainty
• decision making

Acknowledgments

The work presented in this paper was carried out as part of the projects La función de los valores en la ciencia reguladora (Ref.: HUM2005‐07168/FISO) and El principio de precaución en la evaluación de riesgos (Ref.: HUM2006‐12284/FISO) of the Spanish Ministry for Education and Science.