Inside Deliberative Experiments: Dynamics of Subjectivity in Science Policy Deliberations

Deliberative procedures – like consensus conferences, citizen juries, and scenario workshops – are intended to give voice to the citizens and to arrive at a more comprehensive knowledge base for political decisions. This paper seeks to enrich the analysis and practice of these endeavours, drawing attention to dynamics of subjectivities. Such interpretive dynamics among participants may ensue not only with respect to the problem tackled by the procedure but, importantly, with respect to the deliberative procedure itself. The main argument is that failing to accommodate these dynamics within the procedures may result in participants’ alienation from the event, effectively undermining the endeavour's participatory promises. As a consequence, the paper calls for more analytical attention to the micro-level of deliberative processes, which yields important insights into the interpretive and communicative processes upon which citizen panels’ statements and arguments rest. I illustrate my point by reflecting on my observations of a scenario workshop on the future of biomedical research, an ambitious experiment that took place in Germany in 2002 and sought to bring together citizens and experts in a new form of collective reflection and cooperative inquiry.