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and that the key driver for this socio-technical shaping lied in controversies, which, once closed,
offer « robust » and lasting compromises which are a central resource for deploying
investments. Hype phenomena with their ups and downs are good illustrations of the difficulty
to arrive at robust compromises.
Sometimes these difficulties deal with technology anticipations. We have a good case on-going
with molecular nanotechnology. The recent controversy about the scenarios made by the « center
for responsible nanotechnology » is there to tell us that anticipatory exercises can be
problematic, that engineering hype is a normal dynamics that has also to be carefully scrutinised.
Under which conditions can then anticipatory exercises feed the policy or strategy making
process ? Such questions explain why we witness a rapid growth of an academic community
dealing with foresight. And they should probably drive public programmes to develop specific
reflections on conditions of robustness of scenarios used, a typical issue for international
collaboration.
More often these difficulties are related to societal dimensions. Callon and Rip, more than 15
years ago, coined the term « hybrid fora » to qualify these arenas that are central for establishing
compromises, and which gather heterogeneous actors coming with very different types and
sources of knowledge. Work done then also highlighted the fact that, as for representative
democracy, users or citizens concerned seldom express themselves directly but through the
building of ‘concerned groups’ which would act as ‘spoke persons’. And that is was important
to consider the key role of these ‘mediations’ in the construction of a rich civil society and as a
central aspect of what Callon has termed ‘technical democracy’.
This is a central issue for what we are discussing in this meeting. One would have expected that
social scientists would have focused on the study of these mediations, on the emergences of
specific social groups, on the growing role of NGOs, and the ways they gain legitimacy and
involve themselves in the democratic debate and in policymaking processes. However many
social scientists have taken an unanticipated route. Rather than studying existing mediating
bodies and processes, colleagues have tried, often pushed by public programmes (see for
instance the NSF call for centres on nanotechnology and society), to develop new forms of
mediation by shaping citizens juries, or, like Demos and our colleagues from Lancaster and
Durham, testing novel forms of ‘nanodialogue’. I join the conclusions of John Stilgoe when
reflecting on this experience. Though it drove to unusual dialogues, it did not prove very fruitful,
as has been the case of most other experiences I know of.
What to conclude from this ? It does not reduce the need or will of citizen involvement in the
shaping of policies that engage the future. We (I use we to signify the citizens of a given
society) on the contrary, should anticipate that in the type of knowledge society Europe is aiming
at, this need will be growing. It simply says that we should not mix all situations. Social
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