Democratic Theory and Citizen Participation: Democracy Models in the Evaluation of Public Participation in Science and Technology

Citizen participation in terms of participatory technology assessment (PTA) has caused a lot of debate in science and technology policy. However, there are still many open questions: What is the actual impact of PTA on policy-making? On which normative theory of democracy is the evaluation of PTA based and does it make a difference which theory is used? Which framework is appropriate to evaluate the often fuzzy impact of PTA on policy-making? Is PTA actually a central element for policy-making or are other factors much more relevant such as politicians' involvement or the presence of industry interests? What is the ‘nature’ of the public in different national and institutional contexts? How are expectations of policy-makers played out in the perceived need for regulation? These issues are addressed in a series of comparative papers in this issue which focus on the regulation of xenotransplantation in the 1990s and early 2000s.