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DOI: 10.1177/0306312711414759
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Darrin Durant
Models of democracy in social studies of science
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Models of democracy in social
studies of science
Darrin Durant
Department of Science & Technology Studies, York University, Toronto, Canada
Abstract
Science and Technology Studies (STS) offers contrasting normative visions of how to
democratically manage the relations between experts and larger publics in contemporary liberal
democracies. This lack of uniformity has not stopped advocates of participatory politics from
implying that to be anything other than staunch defenders of the public is to be illiberal and
undemocratic. But if we turn to political philosophy, part of liberal democratic theory is the
attempt to theorize how deliberation might include limits to public discourse. This paper treats
the debate between Sheila Jasanoff and Brian Wynne, on one side, and Harry Collins and Robert
Evans, on the other, as representative of opposing normative sensibilities within STS. Jasanoff
and Wynne claim that widespread deliberation is the democratic means for protecting publics
from experts who colonize public meanings. Collins and Evans caution that a failure to draw
distinctions between publics and experts, or politics and expertise, undermines expertise and
is impractical for democracy. By relating both of these approaches to prominent positions and
traditions within political philosophy, I aim to illuminate different senses of democracy. Jasanoff
and Wynne appear to have the normative upper hand, but only because their approach dovetails
with a politics of identity, which is widespread in contemporary political discourse. However, it
is an unsatisfactory view of the grounds of public discourse. I argue that Collins and Evans work
within a different tradition, that of John Rawls and liberal egalitarianism. Explicating these links
helps to disrobe the implication that Collins and Evans are anti-democratic in their effort to
impose restrictions on public engagement with expertise.
Keywords
democracy, experts, politics, publics
In modern pluralist democracies, how should citizens discuss public affairs? When mak-
ing decisions about public affairs, what kinds of reasons and arguments are appropriate?
Answering such questions demands judgments about the grounds of public discourse. In
Corresponding author:
Department of Science & Technology Studies, York University, 4700 Keele St, Toronto, ON, Canada M3J 1P3.
Email: ddurant@yorku.ca
414759SSSXXX10.1177/0306312711414759DurantSocial Studies of Science
692 Social Studies of Science 41(5)
political philosophy, John Rawls recommends ideals of public reason as a regulative
principle, while Jurgen Habermas recommends the ideal speech situation. These princi-
ples are meant to guide practical judgments about how pluralist liberal democracies
should structure discussion forums and organize decision-making. Notwithstanding
some notable exceptions (cf. Brown, 2009; Feenberg, 1991; Frickel and Moore, 2006;
Fuller, 2008; Kusch, 2007; Thorpe, 2008; Turner, 2003; Winner, 1977), in Science and
Technology Studies (STS) we tend to ignore what political philosophers have to say
about the entanglements between science and politics. Latour (1993), among others, sug-
gests that they are clueless. However, to ignore them is a mistake. One consequence of
paying insufficient attention to how political philosophers seek to apply regulative ideals
is the prevalence of thin conceptions of what constitutes a democratic sensibility in
claims by STS practitioners about the relations between experts and publics in liberal
democracies. This is apparent in the debate between two of the major camps in what
Sergio Sismondo labels the engaged program within STS, defined as pursuing the
opportunities for contributions to a political philosophy that recognizes the centrality of
science and technology to the modern world (Sismondo, 2008: 26). In this debate, Harry
Collins and Robert Evans (2002, 2007) propose what they call a third wave of STS.
According to them, the second wave of STS research leveled the cultural field of knowl-
edge and effectively criticized the excess authority of scientists, but they want to investi-
gate what it means to have real expertise to know what you are talking about. Their third
wave would provide a basis to challenge the scope of public involvement in decision-
making about public affairs involving expert claims. In reply, Sheila Jasanoff (2003a,
2005) and Brian Wynne (2003, 2007) defend democratic participation of non-experts in
public deliberation on public affairs involving technical matters. Currently this debate is
mired in an unproductive stand-off about the scope of politics, a stand-off not helped by
a lack of clarity about the different democratic sensibilities on offer. This paper adds
some clarity to the debate by showing that each camp echoes different strands within
liberal democratic theory. Moreover, while some claim that the third wave is anti-
democratic (because it suggests limits on the publics role), I argue against this impres-
sion. Democracy is about both deliberation and decision-making, and Collins and Evans
focus on the latter. If politics is about prescribing the kinds of arguments capable of
facilitating legitimate consensus, then Jasanoff and Wynnes participatory politics leaves
relatively unanswered what to do with intractable social conflict.
My argument turns on the claim that the dispute between Collins and Evans versus
Jasanoff and Wynne is actually a case shaped by different positions within liberal demo-
cratic theory. I relate the approach of Collins and Evans to Rawlss notion of public
reason, and more generally to a form of liberal egalitarianism, while relating the theoriz-
ing of Jasanoff and Wynne to the contemporary project of identity politics, and more
generally to Habermass discourse ethics. Both camps share what is common to Rawls
and Habermas: qualified support for the role of ethical-political commitments in public
affairs. Yet, like Rawls, Collins and Evans are more focused on decision-making, while,
like Habermas, Jasanoff and Wynne are more focused on deliberation. Moreover, the
scope of politics features differently in the ways Collins and Evans and Jasanoff and
Wynne theorize the problem of political engagement in a manner that is roughly parallel
to the split between Rawls and Habermas. For Rawls, settling (some of) the meaning and
Durant 693
scope of politics before you get to actual controversy and conflict between groups is a
liberal way of tempering distrust and turmoil in democracy. Similarly, Collins and
Evanss normative demarcation of political from technical questions aims to save exper-
tise from populism. This echoes Rawlss concern to ensure a workable form of political
justice in a world of competing commitments. For Habermas, facilitating actual debate
and negotiation among citizens is a democratic way to create the possibility of legitimate
consensus. Similarly, Jasanoff and Wynnes support for greater public participation in
public affairs involving expertise aims to enhance the democratic representation of
diverse views. This echoes Habermass concern about hegemonic rule and democracy
undermined by social exclusion.
Rather than claim either camp is doing political theory, I am treating STS as political
theory (see Thorpe (2008) for a related effort). Where Collins and Evans restrict the role
ethical-political positions and social identities play in decision-making forums, Jasanoff
and Wynne regard the recognition of ethical-political positions and social identities as
crucial to anything passing for democratic deliberation. I speak of these as moves within
liberal democratic theory because they involve similar kinds of questions to those raised
in prominent debates within contemporary liberal democratic theory. For instance, are
egalitarian ideals and social justice furthered or stymied by stressing the role of differ-
ences in identities and interests? Does multiculturalism demand special treatment of dif-
ference or a largely difference-blind approach? Consequently, I treat political philosophy
as a resource and not just a bte noire (see also Durant, 2010). I suggest that doing so
fleshes out the politics of STS and also helps focus STS discussions on how to under-
stand and study the relation between public deliberation and government decision-
making in public affairs involving technical claims. For example, how does the qualified
skepticism of Collins and Evans about deliberation square with democratic theory?
Uncharitably labeling their proposals as illiberal and undemocratic (Jasanoff, 2003a:
394, 397; Jasanoff, 2003b: 158; Wynne, 2003: 402; Wynne, 2007: 108) is just smoke and
mirrors. As Mark Brown (2009: 226) has noted, there is nothing antidemocratic about
attempting to discern through deliberation what actions best serve public interests. Like
Rawls, Collins and Evans emphasize an anti-populist decision-process capable of gener-
ating a workable consensus. By contrast, Jasanoff and Wynne focus on facilitating dis-
cussion and mapping diversity, and evince a concern with limiting domination in public
affairs, with the aim that citizens can be the authors of their own understandings. This
focus partially answers Martin Kuschs (2007: 146) questioning about what motivates
and justifies Jasanoff and Wynnes demand for debates about the direction and values of
science and democracy. These contrasts suggest there is not one best way to understand
the relation between deliberation and decision-making in technically complex public affairs,
because democratic politics involves both and because the normative concerns can vary.
Collins and Evans third wave thus acquires a political rationale in this paper. While that
rationale can be criticized along similar lines to criticisms of Rawls for placing too much
emphasis on what constitutes acceptable reasoning and too many restrictions on public argu-
ment, that line of argument is for critics to develop. My goal here is to articulate a political
rationale for Collins and Evans third wave, and also to articulate a criticism of Jasanoff and
Wynnes participatory politics for drawing uncritically on identity politics and for giving
insufficient attention to the socio-political ramifications of unending conflict.
Collins and Evans: Keeping expertise and extrinsic
politics separate
Collins and Evans (2002) claim that STS has excelled at showing that policy-making
involving technical matters can and should involve a broader array of actors than core-
group specialists, but has not shown how far we ought to expand the participatory
boundary. Prescriptive theorizing about that boundary tends to reject claims to exper-
tise as mere attributions, rather than treating expertise in realist terms. Even if exper-
tise is an achieved status and judgments about relevant expertise all we have in public
affairs, few would argue that such status and judgments are created or performed de
novo in every new social interaction. Collins and Evans (2002) thus propose a norma-
tive theory of expertise, based upon distinctions between different types of knowledge
and particular kinds of abilities: no expertise, contributory expertise, interactional
expertise, and referred expertise, plus translation and discriminatory abilities. These
categories have been refined into a periodic table of expertises (Collins and Evans,
2007; Evans and Plows, 2007). The categories are meant to define the contributions
different groups make to policy-making endeavours that involve expert knowledge.
Collins and Evans (2002: 267268) also specify different types of science, some allow-
ing for the resolution of problems by pre-defined groups of scientists and others requir-
ing political input from other groups.
Two kinds of criticism have been leveled against Collins and Evans demarcation proj-
ect: contextual and normative. The contextual critique holds that the participants in con-
troversies contest the very terms that Collins and Evans would use to demarcate technical
from political matters by her account (Jasanoff, 2003a; Wynne, 2003). If expertise only
achieves legitimacy within an institutional context, then demarcating experts from non-
experts presumes an answer to the epistemic status of non-experts knowledge, under-
plays the degree to which such demarcations themselves constitute epistemic and political
problems, and fails to take account of how dominant institutions frame the issues in ques-
tion (see Irwin, 2006; Jasanoff, 2003a; Wynne, 2008). These contextual critiques question
the presumptive ability to be able to separate politics from (genuine) knowledge.
The normative critique labels the project anti-democratic. Jasanoff (2003a: 394, 397)
claims that Collins and Evanss demarcation project is at best nave and at worst mis-
guided because it opposes the worldwide movement toward wider participation. For
Jasanoff (2003b: 158), citizen participation ensures that experts are only granted care-
fully circumscribed power. Attending to the distinctions and differences of publics is
what matters by her account (Jasanoff, 2005: 291). Wynne claims that the demarcation
project reinforces an illiberal cultural imagination based on uncritical acceptance of
western scientism (2003: 402). An emphasis upon propositional questions implicitly
ignores the fact that disputes often turn on defining what the issue is and on whether or
not public identities and meanings are being considered (Wynne, 2007: 108). As Martin
Kusch notes, Jasanoff and Wynnes brand of participatory politics demands that we
have to move to a much more fundamental debate over what kind of science and technol-
ogy we collectively want (Kusch, 2007: 147). For Wynne, this means a change in what
to expect from science rather than merely the convenient division of labor that Collins
and Evans suggest (see Durant, 2008: 1718).
Durant 695
Restricting public reason
To address accusations that the third wave is anti-democratic, I argue that it includes a
democratic pedigree, with Rawlsian roots. I further argue that Jasanoff and Wynne owe
much to Habermas, and depart from Collins and Evans at junctures similar to where
Habermas departs from Rawls in regard to democratic politics. Like Rawls, Collins and
Evans begin by acknowledging a splintering of viewpoints. In asking a Rawlsian ques-
tion about which aspects of public discussion should be part of decision-making and
which should not, Collins and Evans (2007: 2) focus on the role that trust in those who
know what they are talking about can play in public affairs.
Rawls versus Habermas
Both Rawls (1991 [1971], 1993, 1995) and Habermas (1990, 1996) presuppose that there
must be restrictions on political discourse within a liberal democracy and on the kinds of
issues appropriate for different decision-making arenas. Both propose means for deter-
mining such restrictions, and both realize that conflicts will ensue once deliberation is
underway, but their different responses to the conflicts endemic to pluralist democracy
are relevant to situating Collins and Evans theory within liberal democratic theory.
Rawls (1979, 1995) makes use of idealizations, especially the veil of ignorance,
when proposing legitimate restrictions on public discourse. Just and fair societal arrange-
ments match outcomes produced by idealized citizens who seek workable agreements,
while putting aside comprehensive doctrines, including their own stake in such doc-
trines. The veil can be thin or thick, allowing more or less information to reach partici-
pants, depending upon whether the issue is a broad socio-political matter or one that is
restricted to considerations of justice (Rawls, 1980). Comprehensive doctrines implicate
religious, moral, philosophical, and ethical-political views, as well as deeply held beliefs
and private attachments. Citizens of pluralist democracies are unlikely to agree on such
doctrines, and so what is needed is an overlapping consensus, arrived at by bracketing
divergent interests and commitments, rather than a normal consensus, which Rawls iden-
tifies as tapping into already present interests and commitments (Rawls, 1993: 15). One
imagines what it would be to bracket comprehensive doctrines and reasons, choosing to
mask them behind the veil of ignorance. Habermas pursues a different path to accom-
plishing restrictions on the conditions of political discourse. Habermas proposes the
ideal speech situation as a regulative procedural model for deliberative exchanges.
Through participation in such exchanges, and taking the views of others, citizens acquire
information about competing conceptions of the good, while using the ongoing dialogue
to test whether a shared perspective is viable as a basis for shared practice (Habermas,
1995, 1997). In effect, Rawls constructs a model actor and a model of the situation within
which idealized actors deliberate. Habermas is happy to invoke living and breathing
people for his actors, but wants to specify how to regulate their exchanges. Rawls and
Habermas both realize that conflicts will ensue once deliberation is underway, but they
respond to such endemic conflicts in different ways.
Habermass notion of a discursive democracy means that participants in democratic
discourse can and should be able to deliberate, even when they do not share basic values,
as long as they can agree that conditions of reasonable discourse are in place (Freeman,
2000: 406411). This is because public deliberation is the epistemic and political route
to understanding and consensus, and discourse ethics provides the regulative principles
(Habermas, 1990: 15, 6667, 94, 211; Habermas, 1996: 147, 151, 450). Discourse ethics
involves a distinction between weak and strong publics, the former referring to informal
deliberations among social actors and the latter to formal institutions of decision-making.
Weak publics manifest more reflexive deliberations than strong publics, because weak
publics are further removed from power relations. For Habermas, the reflexive delibera-
tions of weak publics feed into the actions of strong publics as both generators of mean-
ing and as a democratic check on the ability of formal institutions to impose meanings
on the public at large. Discourse ethics also involves a distinction between ethical-
political discourse and moral discourse. Ethical-political discourse reflects ethical self-
understandings and the contested interests and values of groups and individuals. Moral
discourse adheres to the ideal that consensus is possible and aims to achieve negotiated
agreements that all parties can accept. Habermas seeks political deliberation that reaches
beyond the limits of ethical-political discourse.
Significantly in comparison to Rawls ethical-political discourse is not bracketed,
but should be used to channel weak public deliberations into strong public forums, where
moral discourse can prevail. If Collins and Evans are Rawlsians, as I argue below, are
Jasanoff and Wynne full-blown Habermasians? Unfortunately, they are not. Jasanoff and
Wynne share Habermass concern with how issues becomes defined for political action
(what Jasanoff and Wynne refer to as framing). They also demand that democracy
requires actual dialogue and not just idealized dialogue, and emphasize the need for a
democratic check on expert authority. Sometimes the affinities are very specific. Thus
Wynne follows Habermas in regarding publics as more reflexive because of their dis-
tance from (epistemic) power relations (Durant, 2008), and makes an argument similar
to Habermass colonization of the lifeworld when criticizing the imposition of mean-
ings on publics (Wynne, 2007: 106). Sometimes the similarities are more on the order of
family resemblances. For example, Jasanoff (2005: 249) argues that ways of knowing
achieve their legitimacy by meeting entrenched cultural expectations, an argument that
resembles Habermass claim that legitimacy flows from procedures of discursive will-
formation. But Jasanoff and Wynne also borrow uncritically from approaches referred to
as the politics of identity, thus departing from Habermas. Habermass approach to delib-
eration is compatible with an aspect of identity politics that demands that publics should
be directly engaged in political processes, in order to redress marginalization, generate
public meaning(s), and secure democratic legitimacy for decisions. Here Jasanoff and
Wynne mirror Habermas. Habermas, however, opposes the identity politics project of
securing group rights. For Habermas (1994: 130131), group rights might lock members
into a fixed identity and thereby impinge on individual autonomy (for instance, to cre-
atively appropriate culture), thereby endangering political autonomy by too closely
aligning individual with collective identity. Moreover, identity politics threatens to
reduce social disputes to power struggles by failing to decouple group membership from
abstract political integration. As discussed below, Jasanoff and Wynne fail to adequately
address criticisms of the role of difference and recognition in deliberative democracy,
unlike Habermas, who tackles them head on.
Durant 697
Rawls also distinguishes between private and public reason. He, however, allows pri-
vate but not public reason to be mediated by comprehensive doctrines. Democratic delib-
eration thus requires that choices be made about which reasons will count as grounds for
deliberation and which reasons will not. For Rawls, private reason can draw upon compre-
hensive doctrines that are not likely to be common to pluralist communities (Freeman,
2000: 396405). Public reason embodies the democratic notion that free and equal citizens
exercise ultimate political authority, but in a context of reasonable pluralism they must be
prepared to offer reasons that others can accept (Rawls, 1997). For Rawls (1997: 786),
public reason can be grounded in common sense, political principles (such as justice and
fairness), and ascertainable evidence and facts open to public view. As Kwame Appiah
notes, the Rawlsian ideal of public reason presupposes the existence of comprehensive
doctrines among citizens, but Rawls advises that more neutral discourse is more likely to
persuade the other. That is, the strictures suggested by Rawls public reason are perhaps
best interpreted as debating tips for persuading others in a plural polity (Appiah, 2005: 81).
Unlike Habermass actor, who is dialogically formed and always socially embedded,
Rawlss actor when engaging in public reason is modeled on the idealized notion of
an isolated individual. This idealization opens Rawls to the criticism that his political
theory starts with a fiction and never recovers. But, for Rawls (1995: 138139), while
democratic deliberation involves actual citizens exchanging views, sometimes in con-
flict, the ideal of public reason remains crucial to the revision of opinions that ensures
that opinions are more than just the fixed outcomes of existing interests. The shift to
public reason is thus a change in kind rather than degree, as I discuss below. Rawls sig-
nals this qualitative shift by distinguishing between the proper political reasoning (public
reason) appropriate for public political forums, and the comprehensive doctrines often
invoked in civil society discussions. Rawls (1997: 784) argues for an injunction to pres-
ent proper political reasons I refer to as the proviso [that] specifies public political
culture as distinct from the background culture. Citizens engaging in public reason are
modeled after people acting behind the veil of ignorance. Citizens possess but do not
use comprehensive beliefs in particular spheres (note that Habermas theorizes how to
channel them), thereby rendering value pluralism safe by cornering it into the private
realm (Alejandro, 1996: 12).
Collins and Evans: Rawlsians
Are Collins and Evans suggesting something similar to Habermass weak/strong publics
and his associated contrast between ethical-political and moral discourse? Collins and
Evans (2002: 261267) do recommend that public disputes about technical matters
should be viewed in terms of different phases. The broader lay public, they argue, has
a legitimate place in the political phase but not in the technical phase of a dispute. But,
whereas Habermas is concerned about the insufficiency of relying on ethical-political
discourse, if liberal democracy is to avoid imploding under the weight of competing
views, Collins and Evans are concerned about the illegitimacy of explicit ethical-political
discourse in the technical phase.
Habermas rejects Rawlss idealized public reasoner because the capacity to make ratio-
nal decisions is not sufficient to generate an understanding of generalizable interests
(1995: 116, 118). For Habermas (1995: 116119), what is required is an enlargement of
citizens interpretive perspectives via a mutual criticism procedure in which each citizen
takes the role and perspective of the others. The regulative principle at work here involves
a change in degree, because ethical-political discourse is supplemented by procedural
norms that enlarge that discourse into a we-perspective from which all can test in common
whether they wish to make a controversial norm the basis of their shared practice
(Habermas, 1995: 117). By contrast, Rawlss shift to public reason is a change in kind, not
degree. The satisfaction of the proviso that in due course proper political reasons and not
just comprehensive doctrines are presented (Rawls, 1997: 784) signals that different
kinds of reasons are being offered. Collins and Evans also discuss the distinction between
political and technical phases as being akin to arguments based upon stakeholder status (an
attributed property) and arguments based upon merit (a real property). Presumably, this
distinction represents a difference in kind not just degree.
Collins and Evans are thus closer to Rawls, for whom justifications in a democracy
ought to be based in public reason. Of course, Rawls is talking about political discourse
and what it ought to sound like if one citizen has a hope of convincing others who do not
already share his/her sectarian convictions. Collins and Evans are discussing public dis-
putes that involve factual claims about nature and technology. Moreover, Rawls limits
the use of public reason to matters of basic justice and constitutional essentials. To say
that Collins and Evans are deploying a kind of public reason argument is to say that they
are extending its scope of applicability to expertise and decision-making forums involv-
ing expert claims. Yet this is not an unwarranted extension of Rawls, given that Rawls
argues that the procedures of science when generally accepted can form part of the
basic conditions upon which parties to a dispute can seek workable agreements (1980:
540). The third wave is not solely about expertise per se, but also about the grounds of
public discourse involving claims to expertise and the conditions under which expert
knowledge should inform or influence action (either by the state or citizens). Collins and
Evans thus make a similar argumentative move with regard to epistemic matters that
Rawls does with fundamental disputes. The argument is not just that appeals to ethical-
political positions and stakeholder rights do not to constitute public reasons for epistemic
commitments Habermas argues similarly, and Jasanoff and Wynne do not seriously
dispute this either. Instead, their argument involves the claims that ethical-political argu-
ments are illegitimate in technical phases of disputes and that such phases require differ-
ent kinds of discourse. If viewed as a species of political philosophy, Collins and Evanss
focus is consistent with Rawlss hope that political philosophy will discover the basis for
reasoned agreement in societies threatened with conflict (2001: 25).
Collins and Evanss Rawlsian roots can help us understand both the politics of STS
and its conception of the relation between deliberation and decision in public affairs
involving technical claims. For instance, critics of the third wave over-read its strictures
against politics, in ways that are similar to uncharitable readings of Rawls. Rawls distin-
guishes between public political culture and background culture (the culture of civil
society). For Rawls (1997: 768), the idea of public reason does not apply to the back-
ground culture with its many forms of non-public reason nor to media of any kind.
Sometimes those who appear to reject the idea of public reason actually mean to assert
the need for full and open discussion in the background culture. With this political
Durant 699
liberalism fully agrees. Similarly, Collins and Evans stress that in the political phase,
broad discussion involving fundamental convictions is important for framing a dispute
(see the discussion of framing and identity in Collins (2011)). Indeed, they share Wynnes
lament that experts often colonize public meaning (Collins and Evans, 2003: 439440;
Collins and Evans, 2007: 78), and thus leave open the possibility that the political phase
would conclude by prioritizing non-expert determinations in decision-making (see
Collins, 2011). But they also insist that a kind of public reason the norms and cul-
ture of evidence-based, scientific argument (Collins and Evans, 2003: 441) is the proper
way to settle epistemic matters. Like Rawls, Collins and Evans (2003: 439) declare them-
selves astonished that they are criticized for rejecting full and open discussion. Does this
raise a disanalogy between Collins and Evans and Rawls because, like Habermas, they
actually want to allow public framing and to refrain from limiting the resources that go
into such framing? Not quite. Few of us would outright deny the democratic wisdom of
public framing, which Rawls discusses as the wide view of public political culture in
which comprehensive doctrines may be introduced into public political discussion at any
time (Rawls, 1997: 783784). But Rawls also asks that public framing not be limited to
comprehensive doctrines, but be informed by to give proper political reasons in due
course. So while Collins and Evans endorse public framing, they also follow Rawls in
asking for a proviso to be met: in this case, that relevant expert judgments should be intro-
duced into public disputes that involve propositional questions.
But does this proviso rob the political phase of its democratic legitimacy? Habermas
regards Rawlss proviso as just one more means of gradually raising the veil of ignorance,
an abstraction that, he argues, burdens citizens because it constrains from the beginning
the field of vision (1995: 118). Habermas concedes that the question of whether such
Rawlsian principles would lead to political stability should be answered empirically, but
he also argues that the democratic process will be demoted unless important political
boundaries are acknowledged to be in flux and subject to political will formation (1995:
127129). But, for Rawls, the proviso is part of a focus upon decisions that are meant to
follow deliberation, and he sarcastically characterizes Habermass public sphere as an
omnilogue that includes all citizens who voice comprehensive doctrines and in which
there are no experts (Rawls, 1995: 140). Collins and Evans raise similar concerns about
the denigration of expertise when they discuss the problem of extension. Rawls wants
more than a consensus built from pre-existing interests and claims, such as one brokered
by a skilful coalition builder. He wants a reasonable overlapping consensus, a kind of
free-standing view that can be justified pro tanto without looking to, or trying to fit, or
even knowing what are, the existing comprehensive doctrines (Rawls, 1995: 145).
Similarly, while Collins and Evans acknowledge that politics is intrinsic to science, they
do not imply that judgments about knowledge are based on any and all political views
(Collins and Evans, 2002: 245; Collins and Evans, 2003: 444445). What has to be
grasped here is that restrictions on majority rule and/or open participation in debate do not
ipso facto diminish political participation. Rawls (1971 [1991]) argues that majority rule
is only legitimate when other conditions are also fulfilled (as provided for by parliamen-
tary and judicial review, bills of rights, and so on), and Collins and Evans assert that
soliciting well-informed technical judgments should be a condition for legitimate deci-
sion-making on public affairs involving propositional questions.
Such prescriptive arguments suggest that unending deliberation does not exhaust
democratic politics, and that public decision-making should involve either regulated pro-
cedures (Habermas) or restrictions on legitimate arguments (Rawls). For Rawls (1993:
223226), political justice does not strictly hinge on outcomes of deliberation, but on
public reason adhering to preestablished rules of evidence, inference, and reason. The
aim is to achieve stability for the right reasons and conclusions that diverse people can
live with (1995: 146). For Rawls, in a democratic society marked by reasonable plural-
ism, satisfying the conditions for legitimately exercising coercive power over one
another means that public reason has to be justifiable without regard for particular com-
prehensive doctrines (1995: 146). One aspect of public political culture thus necessitat-
ing public reason is that judges deciding cases must make decisions (Rawls, 1997:
797). For Collins and Evans (2003: 439), the burden of the technical phase is similar in
kind: someone has to seek the answers to propositional questions. Arguments formu-
lated according to comprehensive ethical-political doctrines are legitimate within the
broader (background) culture, but not in expert domains, where they need to be disci-
plined by evidence-based norms (public reason, by analogy). Citizens have their own
ethical-political commitments and social identities, but this does not mean they should
offer them as justifications for their views on the credibility of claims about epistemic
matters (the Rawlsian constraint). The switch from deliberation to decision-making
demands a shift to different kinds of arguments. Otherwise, any comprehensive doctrine
found in the background culture (the public) could constitute a public reason for action
in public political culture (science, by analogy). But if such arguments were not embed-
ded in public reason, Rawls feared that all that would result was an agreement to disagree
and a balance of contingent forces rather than stability (1995: 147). This is the problem
that Collins and Evans (2002) identify as the problem of extension: that in the absence
of a conception of expertise separate from politics, science would just blow in the politi-
cal wind. Citizens are thus asked to observe the limited relevance of their substantive
commitments when it comes to deciding propositional questions and making evidence-
based judgments.
Recognizing public reason
Thus far I have offered a political lineage for Collins and Evans proposals, which ought
to rebut simple accusations that they are anti-democratic. But the normative force of
Jasanoff and Wynnes accusation owes not only to the Habermasian point that public
participation is integral to developing civic autonomy, but also to what political philoso-
phers call the politics of identity. Without implying that Jasanoff and Wynnes approach
can be reduced to identity politics, I outline how it is consistent with, and potentially
sympathetic to, identity politics. I then criticize their approach for uncritically borrowing
from identity politics.
The politics of identity
As an analytic category, the term identity implies that people everywhere and always
have particular ties, self-understandings, stories, trajectories, histories, predicaments.
Durant 701
And these inform the sorts of claims they make (Brubaker and Cooper, 2000: 34).
Commentaries on identity politics acknowledge that the term is a protean one, which can
refer to all kinds of mobilization related to politics, culture, and identity (Bernstein,
2005: 48). The politics of identity is also a loaded phrase that has been used to make posi-
tive characterizations of civil rights movements and other collective efforts at empower-
ment. It has also been used to make negative characterizations, for instance as a synonym
for reactionary provincialism.
Studies that fly under the banner of identity politics thus can examine social move-
ments based upon categories that are externally ascribed and defined (such as racial or
sexual stereotypes); historically and/or geographically grounded (such as ethnicity and
nationalism); actively chosen or adopted (such as environmentalist); admitting of dis-
putes about nature/nurture (such as sexual orientation); or associated with particular
interests and values (cf. Polletta and Jasper, 2001; Bernstein, 2005). Identities may vary,
but the politics of identity always includes the basic notion that identity differences are
important for political action. That is, liberal democratic states concerned with political
equality should also be concerned with what is not universally shared: what is peculiar to
particular individuals or groups. Recognizing different identities is sometimes called the
politics of recognition or the politics of difference (Baumeister, 2000). Prominent theo-
rists on this topic include Charles Taylor (1992) and Iris Marion Young (1990). Wynne
(2007) cites them when recommending that STS should turn to political philosophy
when discussing public participation.
Young (1990) argues that liberal democracies must recognize and respect identity dif-
ferences in order to encourage broad participation in public affairs. Only then can there
be a change in how evaluations and decisions are made that affect marginalized groups.
For Taylor (1992), differences need to be recognized and respected as a condition for
equality in human dignity. For Taylor our identities are formed through dialogical pro-
cesses, and for Young our identities embody collectively experienced oppression and
marginalization. Thus identity politics might begin with identities, but can also include
interests. Identity politics theorists (usually) admit that the differences they discuss are
socially constructed, but nevertheless contend that such differences create distinct groups
(Bernstein, 2005: 50). Consequently, they use groups to frame how particular identities
are formed and sustained. This can be seen as a critique of liberalism, to the extent that
liberalism posits an unencumbered, ahistorical, and universal person as its model citizen.
Michael Sandel (1982) thus argues that we are historically and culturally embedded,
and always part of a web of associations that create identities and obligations.
If groups frame how identity is formed, then (claim exponents of identity politics)
their integrity should be protected and sustained. For some, this applies only to existing
groups and to some groups more than others. For example, Will Kymlicka (1995) starts
from the standard liberal emphasis upon equal personal autonomy, and endorses self-
governance for national minorities and polyethnic rights for ethnic immigrants.
Kymlickas (1995: 57) politics is group-differentiated, but he leaves the basis of the
groups flexible: it can consist of particular social identities, needs or interests, or a cul-
ture common to the group. Others focus more exclusively on disadvantaged or oppressed
groups. Young (1990: 43), for example, argues that groups ultimately have a cultural
basis that generates particular identities and interests, which are not protected very well
in difference-blind liberal democracy. For others, protecting group identities is analo-
gous to preserving species. For example, Taylor (1992: 4041, n. 16; 5859) makes a
communitarian argument that cultural embeddedness grounds personal authenticity, so
that liberal autonomy requires group preservation. Accordingly, group recognition
requires group-differentiated citizenship rights, or group rights (Baumeister, 2000;
Sistare et al., 2001). Individual rights are the norm in liberal democracies, with civic or
political rights being defended through the demonstration of what they do for individu-
als, such as protecting their ethical and civic autonomy (Barry, 2001: ch. 4). The basic
idea behind group rights is that, if individuals are embedded in communities, and com-
munities give choices their content and context, then equal respect for individuals entails
equal respect for communities. We thus move from equal standing for individuals to
equal standing for identity groups, and then to collective rights for those groups (see
Appiah (2005: 7175) for discussion and criticism). Group rights are especially relevant
to social and political actions, that many identity-politics theorists say are shaped by
position in social space. The social space of identitarian theorizing typically means a
multidimensional space defined by particularistic categorical attributes ([such as] race,
ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation) (Brubaker and Cooper, 2000: 6).
Criticisms of the politics of identity
Identity politics has faced two main criticisms. One is the political objection that a focus
on difference and identity could undermine actual social reform. The second is that there
is an unresolved theoretical tension between essentialist and constructivist conceptions
of identity.
Todd Gitlin (1993, 1995) raises a political objection to the emphasis on difference
when he argues that identity politics is rooted in group self-assertion, and thus encour-
ages the analytic debunking of generalizations and the affirmation of the differences
among groups. For Gitlin identity politics fragments and undermines what used to be a
core idea of the Left: a recognition of differences in identities and interests that encour-
ages efforts to build alliances and establish commonality. Similarly, Habermas (1994:
130135) argues that in complex societies, citizens cannot be bound together by a con-
sensus on values, but only by a consensus on procedures for legitimately enacting laws
and exercising power. It is thus vitally important to keep separate two levels of integra-
tion: ethical integration around collective identities and conceptions of the good, and
abstract political integration grounded in procedural consensus. For Habermas, without
a common horizon of interpretation embedded in both citizen motivations and proce-
dural norms, all social conflict degenerates into struggles for power. Others express sym-
pathy with what they take to be the original impetus of identity politics movements, but
also argue that when such movements develop an introspective cast they become anti-
political in effect. Kauffman (2001: 29) thus praises the empowerment that can follow
from the active affirmation of the experience, dignity and rights of historically margin-
alized or excluded people, but he also criticizes the idea that self-exploration is itself a
political process. He bemoans the confusion that results from thinking that a politics of
lifestyle and self-transformation is actually socially transformative, and laments the fact
that organizing around a particularistic sense of oppression can inhibit valuable coalition
Durant 703
building. He also cautions that seeing everything as political can obscure different forms
and levels of power (Kauffman, 2001: 2932).
The analytic objection is that, while identities may be fluid and negotiable, the claim
that distinct groups need recognition and protection conflates constructivist language
with essentialist arguments about groups (Calhoun, 1994). Such conflation is not a mat-
ter of intellectual sloppiness. Rather, it reflects the dual orientation of many academic
identitarians as both analysts and protagonists of identity politics (Brubaker and Cooper,
2000: 6). The point is not what the analyst claims theoretically, but what must be the
working assumption grounding the call for group representation: that groups are inter-
nally homogenous and sustaining of determinate interests (Barry, 2001: 11, 330; Jaggar,
1999). This has been termed groupism, or the tendency to take discrete, sharply dif-
ferentiated, internally homogeneous and externally bounded groups as basic constituents
of social life, chief protagonists of social conflicts, and fundamental units of social analy-
sis (Brubaker, 2002: 164). Ultimately, communities are treated as individuals, thus
underplaying multiple and overlapping memberships.
This close affinity between a respect for difference and talk of distinct groups becomes
a source of political objections. Leftist politics is incompatible with unbridgeable group
boundaries, as coalition building is taken to be central to reform movements (Gitlin,
1993). Brian Barry (2001) argues that liberal egalitarianism means neutrality (fair treat-
ment) with respect to individuals, and that this is undone by a lack of neutrality toward
specific groups (to be distinguished from anti-discrimination legislation, which is aimed
at individuals). For Barry (2001: 301), identity politics threatens a politics in which fears
about the submergence of differences lead citizens to neglect the need to contribute to a
common discourse about their shared institutions. Benhabib (1999) agrees with the need
to respect and recognize difference, but argues that this has to be done by groups as posi-
tional subjects (say, via marginalization processes). For Benhabib, the fluidity of groups
means that group rights are a recipe for a kind of narcissistic participation that deflects
attention from genuine social concerns.
Jasanoff and Wynne: Politics of identity theorists?
As Charles Thorpe (2008: 73) has noted, the localist sensibilities of STS have devel-
oped toward a politics of difference. Much of the theoretical and quasi-normative sign-
posts we saw in the identity politics tradition diversity, recognition, respect of difference,
cultural and possibly unbridgeable conflict are present in Jasanoff and Wynnes work.
1. Societies are characterized by heterogeneity. Accordingly, Irwin and Wynne
(1996: 9) advocate the importance of recognizing the diversity of groups that
make up the public. For Jasanoff, Western democracies construct public reason in
heterogeneous ways because different groups respond to technological risks in
terms of their distinct civic epistemologies culturally specific, historically and
politically grounded, public knowledge-ways (Jasanoff, 2005: 249).
2. Recognition and respect for differences matter. Wynne (2007: 101) argues that
expert institutions display a profound inability and refusal to internalise, respect,
and reflect difference [and a] blithe lack of recognition of the public.
Jasanoff (2005: 291) claims that what matters for comparative politics, and what
STS ought to aim to reveal, are the meanings [that give] significance to another
cultures distinctions and differences.
3. Differences are both valorized and regarded as the route to a meaningful under-
standing of groups. Thus, for Wynne (1996: 59), lay publics often have vernacu-
lar, informal knowledge about the validity of expert assumptions about
real-world conditions. Technical ignorance is not a function of public misunder-
standing, but a function of social intelligence, indeed of an understanding of
science in the sense of its social dimensions (Wynne, 1995: 380). Jasanoff (2005:
254) calls the lay citizen a culturally knowledgeable figure, able to master a
more complex phenomenology in some respect than that of science.
4. Those groups not fortunate enough to be powerful and/or in the majority should
have the right to speak for their own identities and interests, as experts of sorts
about their own domain. Alan Irwin (2006: 316) thus sets the goal for public
dialogue of allowing public groups to frame issues in a manner that approxi-
mates to their own experience.
5. Conflict between groups has a cultural component. Wynne (2007: 107, 109)
refers to the clash between techno-scientific cultures and the larger diversity of
different human cultures. Jasanoff (2008: 196) refers to public interpretive
capacity as shaped by longstanding cultural commitments.
6. Such group conflicts can indicate deep cultural divides that are possibly unbridge-
able. Wynne, for instance, describes differences among publics as a matter of
incommensurable practical human-cultural ways of being (ontologies), not only
of different preferred ways of knowing (Leach et al., 2005: 8). Noortje Marres
(2007: 762763) argues that the claim about incommensurable ontologies is
indicative of the socio-ontological approach of STS.
One might object that identity politics is incidental to Wynnes position, because all he
needs is a commitment to actual, rather than ideal, dialogue and an emphasis upon indi-
vidual preferences that can coalesce into group interests. However, such an objection
ignores Wynnes rhetoric of public recognition. More importantly, it ignores how his
theoretical grounds for the importance of recognition are consistent with those of identity
politics. Wynne makes social identity central to his theorizing about publics and experts
(see Durant, 2008): social identities should be seen as the level from which explanation
of lay responses to science is to be derived, and the construction of knowledge and
understanding is a process of identity construction (Wynne, 1992: 298, 283).
Accordingly, marginalizing public views about expert claims must be a threat to identity,
which echoes Taylors dictum that misrecognition can inflict harm (Taylor, 1992: 25).
Similarly, one could object that identity politics is incidental to Jasanoffs position,
because her groups are too large. But identity politics theorists often speak of national,
sub-national and cultural groups as large as those discussed by Jasanoff in connection
with civic epistemology. Moreover, Jasanoff shares a skepticism about universal catego-
ries of moral and political judgment, which is akin to the philosophical commitments of
identity politics. A comparison with Young can substantiate this point. Jasanoffs (2008:
197) critical focus on what it means to manipulate and industrialise the basic stuff of
Durant 705
life differs from Youngs project to endorse differentiated citizenship and special
rights that attend to group differences, so as to ensure equal treatment for all groups
(Young, 1995: 176177). But Jasanoff stipulates that civic epistemology is crucial to
her overall argument, because it is the flip side of a more common concept for political
theorists: public reason. As an STS scholar, I wanted to draw attention to the eternally
situated character of reason in public life (Jasanoff, 2008: 196197). Similarly, Young
(1995: 183) refers to situated experience, or the way interests and identities are shaped
by group membership, and concludes that it implies that a general perspective does not
exist (1995: 190). Of the eight positions that Jacob Levy has shown the identity politics
literature to endorse, the JasanoffWynne brand of participatory politics dovetails with
at least two of them: Representation of minorities in government, guaranteed or facili-
tated; symbolic claims to acknowledge the worth, status, or existence of various groups
(Levy, 2000: 127).
Identity politics and STS: The good, the bad and the ugly
That Jasanoff and Wynnes participatory politics is consistent with identity politics
does help answer Kuschs (2007) concern about the justification for fundamental
debates about the direction of science and technology. Such debates might redress mar-
ginalization, because the recognition of unique identities and perspectives is central to
the egalitarian ideal of equal dignity. The recognition of civic epistemologies, social
identities and public cultures is indeed central to the project of ensuring vibrant public
deliberation and inclusive public policy-making on technical as well as political matters,
a project central to identity politics. Moreover, highlighting differences among publics
and between publics and experts, and understanding their public capacities, is central to
emphasizing the qualification of every citizen to be involved in the negotiation of (dom-
inant) public meaning, of what are the specific issues to be addressed, when a public
issue emerges (Wynne, 2008: 27). These are some of the fruitful ways that STS schol-
ars borrow from identity politics.
One critique of identity politics is that recognition can devolve into bland attestations
of appreciation. In previous work, I argued that Wynnes arguments can result in an asym-
metric treatment of lay publics and experts, in which laypersons become reflexive demo-
crats and experts become unreflexive dictators (Durant, 2008: 1718; see also Brown,
2009: 253). Kusch (2007: 145) similarly criticizes Jasanoff and Wynne, concluding that
the level of charity borders on the humorous, especially when it is spiced with opaque
references to lay citizens complex phenomenology. In political philosophy, the worry
is that politically correct deference to group behavior or belief will result in its a part of
our culture being accepted as a (tautological) defense of any (especially illiberal) prac-
tice. In STS, the worry should be that politically correct valorization of public cultures and
civic epistemologies will result in thats what we think being a (tautological) defense of any
(especially technically ill-informed) belief. Another threat is that of groupism. The greater the
degree of proposed incommensurability between groups, the more incoherent the idea that
diverse groups are being included. The question becomes: included in what, if nothing is
shared? Moreover, the quest to show differences among public constituencies and between
laypersons and experts might obscure what actually constitutes the relevant political issues
and alignments. Consider Marres (2007: 761) discussion of publics being demarcated on
the basis of issues such as lifestyle politics. Does lifestyle produce a politics or is lifestyle
the politics itself? If the latter, Kauffman (2001) criticizes it as anti-political.
And then we have the ugly. How are differences mobilized in Jasanoff and Wynnes
participatory politics? As Kusch (2007: 145) has argued, it is as if what is being sug-
gested is that expertpublic relations should be modeled on good-old class struggle.
The synthesis, often regarded as the possible light at the end of such struggles, suggests
to Kusch a fruitless and divisive search for consensus about ultimate values, which
would not remain uncontested for longer than a moment, in contrast to reasoned agree-
ment about procedural principles (2007: 147). Kusch is concerned about how group-
level political conflict is conceptualized, and his complaint parallels criticisms of identity
politics. If differences are a recipe for endless conflict, we should be circumspect about
how we evaluate them. Both Habermas and Rawls caution that politics can devolve into
bald struggles for power when voicing citizens differences is taken to exhaust politics.
For instance, Wynne backs into the same kind of over-extension of politics that troubles
liberal egalitarian critics of identity politics. Wynne (2008: 26) claims that identifying
and addressing different public concerns and meanings should be a responsibility of the
institutions involved. These are not simply political, thus allocable to other domains
and institutional agents, as Collins would tidy them away from the scene. Compare this
claim to Youngs (1990: 120) demand that no social practices or activities should be
excluded as improper subjects for public discussion, expression, or collective choice. As
Barry (2000: 269271) notes, it is but a short hop from Youngs proposals to an illiberal
regime in which thought police control discourse indiscriminately in the name of the
public. The question is whether institutions of collective decision-making should be
involved in every aspect of the political lives of its citizens? The problem here is not
identifying, but addressing public concerns. Without a sense of the scope of politics,
all concerns become political, in a very illiberal sense.
It is not clear that Jasanoff and Wynnes participatory politics is sensitive enough to
these well-known criticisms of identity politics. The question is what to do about the
potential for unending conflict once difference has been recognized. For instance, are
there any similarities across groups that could counteract the threat of social splintering?
How can democracy structure social interactions in a way that provides for both auton-
omy and containment of conflict? Typical responses to identity politics propose possible
ways to sustain a common polity in the face of difference and division. Collins and Evans
can be read to be making similar proposals about sustaining democratic discussion
involving expert claims in a way that recognizes that some participants know more than
others about relevant technical matters.
Enlarging our (STS) vision
Given the overlaps between STS and political philosophy (see also Durant, 2010), is
there a big picture here a problematic with which both fields can engage? One specula-
tion worth pursuing is that both are engaged with the problem of how to handle differ-
ence, especially concerning the grounds upon which citizens make claims within liberal
democracies. If we broaden our horizons to include debates in political philosophy over
Durant 707
citizens membership rights and the vexed issue of multiculturalism, it becomes clear
that the Third Wave is quite consistent with an established strand of contemporary demo-
cratic politics: liberal egalitarianism.
Collins and Evans: A liberal egalitarian view of experts
Rawls states that the correct regulative principle for anything depends on the nature of
that thing (1991 [1971]: 29). Similarly, Collins and Evans (2002: fn. 27, 286; 2003:
440444) argue that it is in the very nature of Western science to treat politics as intrinsic,
not extrinsic. Just because science and politics cannot be disentangled (a descriptive
claim) does not mean science is a kind of institution that should be explicitly politicized
(a prescriptive claim). Collins and Evans adopt an attitude to membership in that form of
life that emphasizes the kind of liberal egalitarian sentiments favored by Rawls (2001;
also see Barry, 2001): equality of opportunity and considerations of merit.
Similar to Rawls suggestion that an overlapping consensus ought to be the aim of
deliberation, Collins and Evans suggest that Western science seeks universality and core-
set of claims that are continuous (overlapping) with each other rather than discontinuous.
One political implication of this stance is that they oppose standpoint sciences that
ground themselves in overt political positions or cultural worldviews (Collins and Evans,
2002: 280, 286; Collins and Evans, 2003: 442443; Collins and Evans, 2007: 127128).
In response to Rips (2003) critical commentary, Collins and Evans consider the differ-
ence between high-energy physics and so-called Maori science, and argue that non-
Maori should be able to acquire the cultural capital to do high-energy physics, but formal
barriers prevent non-Maori from acquiring the cultural capital to do Maori science. The
inability of a Western scientist to do Maori science thus makes the latter discontinuous
with Western science (2003: 442). They argue that a persons membership in an interest
group or their social identity whether Maori, female, black, or gay provides insuffi-
cient grounds for making legitimate claims about technical facts. If science were consid-
ered to be a state, then their argument would be the political equivalent of demanding
that the state (science) relate to its citizens (scientists) by virtue of their status as citizens
rather than their membership in a particular group (standpoint or social identity). Liberal
egalitarian political theorists make similar arguments about whether appeals to culture
constitute justifications. For instance, Barry (2001: 253255) discusses an historical
account of an event that occurred in 1835, in which a group of New Zealand Maori
invaded the Chatham Islands and slaughtered the inhabitants. Barry criticizes the cited
explanation that it was done in accord with Maori custom by saying that it provides
insufficient grounds for defending the practice (it tautologically explains doing X by
saying because we do X).
Collins and Evanss objection to standpoint sciences thus resonates with a basic ques-
tion in the liberal political tradition: what ought to be the extent of membership rights?
As Appiah (2005: 7177) notes, in the liberal tradition, rights are typically defended by
showing what they do for individuals. Appiah identifies two ways to think of group
rights. One is to see rights as collectively exercised, such as in the case of the right of
national self-determination. The issues raised by such collective rights include deciding
who is a member of the group and how they should exercise their rights. The second is
to see them as membership rights: entitlements that legal or political institutions owe to
each member of a group. Appiah argues that challenges to group rights normally chal-
lenge the extent of membership rights. For instance, membership rights gained through
citizenship in a democratic state enjoy wider support in political philosophy than, say,
membership rights gained from being white in apartheid South Africa. The objection is
to the idea that a state should relate to any citizen in virtue of his or her membership of
a group rather than simply as a citizen (Appiah, 2005: 72). Collins and Evans (2007:
23) similarly argue that experts acquire tacit knowledge through socialization in a
practice, but that their expertise ought to be valued on realist rather than attributional
grounds on what they possess as individual experts instead of ascribed features due to
their membership in a group.
Collins and Evans: A liberal egalitarian view of lay publics
Collins and Evanss discussion of the example of Maori science is meant to illustrate the
problems that would arise if liberal democracies were to let expertise collapse into poli-
tics. A proliferation of experts in a kind of each-to-their-own epistemic life would
result from such an inflation of membership rights. Collins and Evanss challenge to the
idea that everyone is an expert in some way, in which boundaries between expert and
non-expert are dissolved and rights to decide technical matters are extended indefinitely,
can also be read as a challenge to the extent of membership rights. Read in this way, their
arguments mirror contemporary moves by liberal egalitarians in their debate with liberal
multiculturalists over how to handle difference within multicultural societies.
The multiculturalism debate centers on some fundamental questions. How do we
ensure equal treatment and even survival for various minority groups within liberal
democracies (whether identity- or interest-based, ethnic nationalists, or just disadvan-
taged)? Does the equal treatment of different communities require special treatment of
particular (especially minority) communities? So-called liberal multiculturalists (such
as Taylor (1992) and Kymlicka (2007)) advocate group rights and possibly group auton-
omy, and some form of the politics of recognition. Accordingly, special treatment is
needed to ensure equal treatment, so that minorities are not assimilated to the majority
culture to the extent that differences are obliterated (assimilation can thus be a different
issue from political integration). For instance, when considering the applicability of a
law, liberal multiculturalists argue in favor of taking into account the differential impact
the law will have given the different socio-cultural and religious practices in diverse
communities. Liberal multiculturalism, with its conception of the state as allowing citi-
zens to act in accordance with their differences, can be viewed as an engaged form of
identity politics. Note that Jasanoff and Wynne share the same normative orientation as
the liberal multiculturalists, one with an emphasis on recognition, and on the need to
understand deep differences among communities.
So-called liberal egalitarians, by contrast, deny that cultural difference is sufficient
grounds for differential or special treatment (Barry, 2001; Kelly, 2002). A Rawlsian style
of liberal egalitarianism adopts the traditional liberal principle that equal treatment means
the same treatment for all. Liberal multiculturalists refer to this as difference-blind liber-
alism (Taylor, 1992). Liberal egalitarians support equal treatment, but object to group
Durant 709
rights (accorded on the basis of ethnicity and social identity) and to special treatment as a
principled means to achieve equal treatment. Their basic argument is that equal treatment
is best achieved through a system of equal civil and political rights for individuals (such
as equality of opportunity), and the general principle of fair treatment (neutrality). These
measures can be supplemented by anti-discrimination laws, some socio-economic entitle-
ments, and possibly some pragmatic rule-and-exemption provisions (for example, politi-
cally granted exceptions to general laws). The concern is that special treatment, for
instance on the basis of identity or interest, is a perilous move away from the notion of
a singular status of citizen: identities proliferate, social solidarity wanes, the socio-
economic causes of group disadvantage are avoided in favor of exaggerating and celebrat-
ing differences (Barry, 2001: 517, 299317; Gitlin, 1995: 236).
Collins and Evans make analogous arguments about expertise to those that liberal
egalitarians make about laws. In their view, judging the credibility (applicability) of
expert claims should not be a matter of how they jive with community-based political
and cultural claims. Collins and Evans deny epistemic rights, in the sense of special treat-
ment granted to groups simply by virtue of ascribed properties in a fashion analogous to
liberal egalitarians. Their position mirrors the normative concerns that motivate rejection
of the politics of identity and liberal multiculturalism: that granting special political sta-
tus to particular groups is a recipe for social fragmentation. In Collins and Evanss case
this means a disintegration of science as a coherent form of life, replaced by island sci-
ences organized around specific identities and political commitments. To spell out the
connection: if group (political) rights are not distinguished from the grounds of epistemic
claims, then appeals to group identity alone could suffice in policy disputes about techni-
cal claims. The third wave is opposed to the kind of populism that could result from not
maintaining a distinction between politics and knowledge. The debates about delibera-
tion over public affairs involving technical matters in which Collins and Evans are
engaged mirror those of the multiculturalism debate: Collins and Evans reject social
identities and associated group political rights as a basis for public reason about the
credibility of expert claims. They can thus be read to be making a standard move within
liberal democratic theory to disavow a form of group rights to the making of technical
decisions. Denying special privileges to politicized public groups (in policy-making
about technical matters), and denying that public reason with respect to technical matters
ought to be politicized, aligns Collins and Evans with Rawlss democratic theory in par-
ticular and the approach of liberal egalitarians in general. This suggests that calling the
politics of the Third Wave anti-democratic takes too narrow a view of contemporary
democratic politics.
Conclusion
As Stephen Turner (2007: 45) argues, deference to expertise, participatory populism, or
even democracy, is not a form of legitimation: additional legitimating beliefs are required
to aggregate knowledge into a basis for making decisions. Disputes about those additional
legitimating beliefs are entirely appropriate. Collins and Evans prescribe the procedural
guidelines for deciding when and where particular kinds of reasoning and abilities ought
to be relevant on the assumption that such decisions can help manage conflicts among
pluralist collectives. Their approach is modeled on situations where decisions are wanted,
and more clearly defined boundaries might help decision-makers proceed. Jasanoff and
Wynne articulate what citizen autonomy means and map how institutional experts
behave, on the assumption that the recognition of public meanings promotes autonomy
and can mitigate processes in which meanings are imposed from on high. Jasanoff and
Wynnes approach is modeled on situations where facilitating discussion is the issue and
any boundaries are thus a topic and not a resource.
Unfortunately, elevating deliberation over decision-making can result in a halo being
erected around public participation. As Brown (2009: 219) notes, even though most
people affiliated within STS have either not heard [the] message or not agreed with it,
the emphasis among contemporary scholars on deliberative democracy is now on show-
ing how robust citizen participation remains possible within the constraints imposed by
social and technical complexity (2009: 219220). As Thorpe (2008: 73) has noted,
Rawls re-founding of liberal ideals can be seen as providing a model for attempts within
science studies to salvage liberal theory from relativistic communitarian and multicul-
tural critiques. What I have shown in this paper is that Collins and Evanss theorizing
follows the same path as Rawlss political philosophy. Rawlss notion of public reason
calls for limits in the extent to which comprehensive ethical-political commitments enter
into public discourse. Such commitments inform background culture, but are bracketed
in formal decision contexts, where they are replaced by a more neutral framework involv-
ing considerations of justice, fairness, and equality. Similarly, Collins and Evans permit
politicized claims (however they are based) to be part of political phases of disputes, but
argue for limiting participation to contributory and interactional experts in technical
phases of disputes. Brown (2009: 225) hints at the sensibility at work here with his obser-
vation that without some sort of distinction between citizens impulsive desires and their
reflective interests, it becomes impossible to criticize radical forms of populism and
majoritarianism that pander to citizens worst impulses.
The normative distance between Collins and Evans and participation theorists such as
Jasanoff and Wynne arises in part because the latter assume a position on participatory
politics analogous to Habermas response to Rawls. Unlike Rawls, with his bracketing
operation, Habermas (1995: 110, 118119) suggests that sorting out conflicts within lib-
eral democracies necessitates a communicative process that takes place in public, among
real citizens, and in light of their substantive commitments, interests, and identities. Yet,
unlike Habermas, who rejects identity politics, Jasanoff and Wynne recapitulate central
aspects of identity politics, but without seriously addressing available critiques of it.
They highlight marginalization and social differences and treat how publics relate to sci-
ence and technology in a similar fashion to the way liberal multiculturalists theorize the
relationship between citizens and the state. Critics of identity politics claim that it threat-
ens to produce an unworkable politics, with no limit to the scope of identity and interest
claims. This criticism has been explored empirically. Some political philosophers, such
as Fung (2003: 345), claim that hot deliberations among partisans who have interests or
identities at stake achieve political impact and legitimacy because the participants invest
themselves in the process. Others (for example, Hendriks et al., 2007: 377) deny this, for
instance comparing a partisan forum on agricultural gene technology and a non-partisan
forum on genetic diagnosis, and finding that the non-partisan forum demonstrates higher
Durant 711
deliberative capacity and is no worse and perhaps even better than the partisan forum in
terms of impact and legitimacy. The latter studies thus provide some empirical support
for Collins and Evanss prescriptive arguments about limiting the scope of identity and
interest claims.
Finally, my worry is that the tenor of STS-style theorizing about participatory politics
is too beholden to the identity politics literature. There are reasonable grounds for being
concerned about the exaggeration of differences and of the related special privileges
within multiculturalism. We might instead embrace Habermass point about valuing dis-
tinct lifeworlds, but without rejecting the ideal of common projects (via consensus on
procedures). Political philosophers, such as Gitlin (1993) and Barry (2001), refer to this
kind of normative sentiment as old style Leftism, meaning a concern for issues of
socio-economic parity, compromise, and maybe that hoary chestnut of an idea known as
the common good. Criticisms can of course be made of Collins and Evanss approach,
but at least they recognize the danger of politicizing everything and suggest ways to
arbitrate differences. I suggest that both features of their approach are useful antidotes to
the tendency within STS to splinter publics, in order to recommend their inclusion in
decisions about science and technology. Attempts to avoid conflict with procedural and
constitutional theorizing can be a useful tool in anyones democratic thinking.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Michael Lynch and Sergio Sismondo, Editors of Social Studies of Science, for
their constructive feedback during the review process. Neither fully agrees with the thesis of the
paper, but both sought to make the argument clearer nevertheless, and I have appreciated and ben-
efited from their scholarly acumen and integrity. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewers of each
version of the unfolding paper, whose critical commentary helped hone the argument, and in par-
ticular to Harry Collins, who gave up his anonymity. To Harry I say thanks for encouraging me to
push the envelope, and if it does not work out, well at least I have someone to blame. Lastly, to
political philosophers, I apologize on behalf of my STS colleagues for the field having often taken
a narrow view of your work. Applied political theory is just as much about the entanglements
between ideas, practices, and communities as any STS study.
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Biographical note
Darrin Durant is Assistant Professor of Science and Technology Studies in the
Department of Science and Technology Studies, York University, Canada. His recent
books include Darrin Durant and Genevieve Fuji Johnson (eds), Nuclear Waste
Management in Canada: Critical Issues, Critical Perspectives (UBC Press, 2009). His
recent articles include pieces on STS and political philosophy in Perspectives on Science
18(2), 2009; on STS and public participation in Public Understanding of Science 17(1),
2008; and on nuclear waste management in Technology in Society 31(2), 2009, and
Science & Public Policy 34(7), 2007. Current research interests focus on claims about an
impending nuclear energy renaissance and how that project is entangled with the nuclear
waste disposal problem and broader energy politics, with a continuing effort to theorize
democracy and the politics of expertise in multicultural societies in order to both maxi-
mize participation and get knowledge right.

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