Many people say People’s Democracy is bound to fail, and of course if they keep saying that, it will. So here’s something to make waverers think and the rule-by-experts school see red: an experiment in using participative democracy to decide whether public money should be spent on research for a subject which experts assure us is so deeply specialised and abstract that no ordinary person can possibly understand it: nanotechnology. Well, the Regional Council of the Ile de France (the large area surrounding and including Paris) decided to see whether ordinary people can take decisions usually monopolised by politicians. It chose a random jury of 16 ordinary folk to find out about nanotechnology, discuss its implications and then decide whether, in their view, research into it is worth funding. Gender equality was respected, ages ranged from 21 to 70 years, there were members from black and north Africa as well as whites on the jury and professions ranged from a forklift truck operator to managing director, with at least one member of the jury on the dole.

The idea of allowing a group of citizens to express themselves on issues considered taboo for the general public, either because of their complexity or because they have been monopolised by strong lobbies, seems quite current in Denmark. The Danish Board of Technology site says it’s a method developed in the US and Britain, so if any readers have direct experience of a citizen’s jury, it would be interesting to know. But as far as I can see it has not been used much, if at all, in France. This particular project on nanotechnology was in fact part of a deal: the Region agreed to put 4.7 million euro towards research if, in return, the researchers agreed to explain their work to a citizen’s jury and accept that their findings would influence the Regional Council’s ultimate decision. You can’t say fairer than that. The jury spent three weekends brushing up their molecular manipulation techniques and then, on the 20^th January, they held a day of auditions to interview not only the researchers but industrialists who use nanotechnology. This calling of experts to public account is a first in France. Most, Lefarge, Oréal, STMicroelectronics, agreed to come and be grilled. Some, like Michelin, refused, as did some parliamentarians.

Broadly speaking, the jury were impressed by the possibilities of nanotechnology, but worried by a few possible consequences, particularly the risk that some of its techniques, such as therapeutic implants, could be/will be hijacked by the unscrupulous or simply mad. The majority verdict was that the Regional Council should “support nanotechnology, because of its openings for medicine, energy and job creation.” At the same time the jury noted the “marked lack of information about the risks involved”, for example the dissemination of nanoparticles when not enough is known about their impact on health and the environment, so their conclusion is that public finance for nanotechnology research should be contingent on a “correct” sum of money being allocated to research the possible dangers, and that would include a permanent supervisory body, passing on information to the public.

This blog is not the place to analyse their findings, nor am I the person to do it. But from the point of view of people’s democracy the 6 page downloadable .pdf file written by the jury as a summing-up is a very good example of how the ordinarily educated person, given responsibility (and that is the key), is far more perceptive than his stereotype allows. It is also a rather beautiful document, with, from the very first sentence, echoes of 1789 : “Nous, citoyens hommes et femmes d’Ile de France, avec nos différences, nos particularités et notre diversité, avons débattu des enjeux liés au développement des nanotechnologies…..”. Throughout there runs a cri de coeur that they want to be informed, they are taken aback that so much has been done without their knowledge, as if behind their backs and certainly as though those in authority (politicians more than the people doing the research) believe that ordinary people have nothing useful to say. Yet they show their awareness of the problems and pressures, commercial, political, international, and they are not Luddites, indeed they want to be properly informed and they want to be involved.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 24th, 2007 at 10:50 am and is filed under Political, Power. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.