Work

Co-produced legitimacies: Parliamentary technology assessment and nuclear waste management in France

Year: 2018

Type: article

Abstract: In this article we question the roles and engagement of the French Parliamentary office of Technology Assessment (PTA) in governing Nuclear Waste Management (NWM) over an extended timeframe (1990–2017). We argue that the trajectories of the PTA and the NWM programme are so intertwined that we gain analytical purchase from understanding them together. Our empirical analysis looks at three episodes of co-production of technological and political practices: (1) the PTA as an independent assessor (1990), (2) the PTA as a regular follower (1996–2005); (3) the PTA as a whistle-blower (2007–17). We find that maintaining or redrawing boundaries between science and policy have increasingly been necessary but difficult in the course of the PTA’s mainstreaming into the policymaking landscape and the nuclear establishment. We conclude by examining the implications for PTAs of a possible shift from concerns about democratizing expertise to politicizing knowledge for policy.

Source: Science and Public Policy

DOI: 10.1093/scipol/scy016

Authors: Céline Parotte, Pierre Delvenne

Institution: University of Liège

Language: English

Topic: Research, Science, and Academia

Subfield: Management of Technology and Innovation

Field: Business, Management and Accounting

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: green

Funders: Harvard University, Fonds De La Recherche Scientifique - FNRS, Vlaamse regering