Jan Gutteling

Lucien Hanssen

Neil Van Der Veer

Erwin Seydel

Trust in governance and the acceptance of genetically modified food in the Netherlands

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Introduction

In September 2000, the Dutch government published the so-called Integral Document on Biotechnology. In this document, the government explicitly recognized the importance of communication with the public and other stakeholders with respect to future developments in biotechnology under the conditions of the precautionary principle, openness of information and decision-making, and an optimal transparency in communication.

Dutch public opinion with respect to genetically modified (GM) applications in food had become increasingly critical in the years before the public debate [START_REF] Hanssen | In the Margins of the Public Debate on "Food and Genes[END_REF]. The public clearly had an interest in GM food and found having information about biotechnology important [START_REF] Jong | Genetische manipulatie: maatschappelijke reacties en communicatieprocessen[END_REF]. It was quite clear that the public claimed a role in decision-making processes with respect to risks associated with biotechnology. However, at the same time the public acknowledged its lack of adequate information to play a serious role in decision-making about GM food (see, e.g. [START_REF] Heijs | Biotechnology: Attitudes and Influencing Factors[END_REF][START_REF] Midden | The Netherlands[END_REF]Gutteling et al., 2001a[START_REF] Gutteling | Research Public Debate Biotechnology and Food. Public Attitudes Biotechnology and Food[END_REF].

As part of the communication processes outlined in the government document, a state "Committee on Biotechnology and Food" organized a debate with the Dutch general public. A public debate is a specific operationalization of the plea of the European Commission for "European Governance," which aims to strengthen the culture of dialogue and consultation in government decision-making processes (European Commission, 2001). The results of the Dutch public debate on GM food were published in early 2002 (Committee on Biotechnology and Food, 2002).

Government formulated as a goal of the Committee on Biotechnology and Food to "identify the conditions under which food biotechnology is acceptable for society." In the course of the formal debate with the general public-societal organizations were excluded from the debate-the role of the government in the future development of GM food raised a number of questions. Is the control of regulations well organized? Who is responsible for regulations? Can the information provided by government be trusted? The prominent issue in the debate appeared to be the position of the government as "provider of certainty to the public" [START_REF] Hanssen | In the Margins of the Public Debate on "Food and Genes[END_REF].

The question is how should we interpret the public wish for participation and more information in the context of the public's acceptance of GM food? On the basis of the selfreported lack of adequate information, one might assume that providing information, and thus increasing the public's knowledge about GM foods, might solve the problem (see e.g., [START_REF] Gaskell | GM Foods and the Misperception of Risk Perception[END_REF]. However, research has indicated that this is not a solution; increasing the knowledge level of the public with an intensified stream of information does not lead to a higher level of public acceptance [START_REF] Midden | The Netherlands[END_REF][START_REF] Hamstra | Public Debate Genetic Modification of Animals, Is That Allowed? Project Report and Evaluation[END_REF][START_REF] Durant | Biotechnology in the Public Sphere: A European Sourcebook[END_REF].

American studies do indicate that knowledge is related to the acceptance of modern technologies, but that trust in the actors that are developing and regulating these technologies plays a more important role in the public acceptance [START_REF] Priest | Misplaced Faith: Communication Variables as Predictors of Encouragement for Biotechnology Development[END_REF][START_REF] Earle | Social Trust: Toward a Cosmopolitan Society[END_REF]. For the European public, a similar conclusion seems appropriate [START_REF] Frewer | Communicating about the Risks and Benefits of Genetically Modified Foods: the Mediating Role of Trust[END_REF][START_REF] Gaskell | In the Public Eye: Representations of Biotechnology in Europe[END_REF]. Trust has been defined as an expectation toward another person or an organization, that this person or organization will act in line with one's own interests. Trust allows a person to take decisions and to act in the absence of complete knowledge of the consequences. The missing information is replaced by trust in order to tolerate the perceived uncertainty of the situation [START_REF] Luhmann | Familiarity, Confidence, Trust: Problems and Alternatives[END_REF][START_REF] Earle | Social Trust: Toward a Cosmopolitan Society[END_REF][START_REF] Frewer | Communicating about the Risks and Benefits of Genetically Modified Foods: the Mediating Role of Trust[END_REF]. Members of the European public that express trust in actors relevant to the food production chain, are more inclined to accept the introduction of GM food [START_REF] Gaskell | In the Public Eye: Representations of Biotechnology in Europe[END_REF]. Gaskell et al. attribute the important role of trust to the increasingly complex world in which people just cannot be knowledgeable on all societal issues. For that reason, part of the public may want to rely on organizations, such as governments, private companies or societal organizations to take care of business for them [START_REF] Gaskell | In the Public Eye: Representations of Biotechnology in Europe[END_REF].

An important constraint for this process is that these organizations communicate with the general public about issues like GM food in order to gain the level of trust necessary to adequately play the attributed role in the decision-making process. According to [START_REF] Fung | Deepening Democracy: Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance[END_REF] the quality of the democratic decision-making process depends on the quality of the process of argumentation and persuasion that precedes decision-making. The central process here is the development of mutual trust by active participation and sharing responsibility [START_REF] Hajer | Naar een samengesteld begrip van democratie: of hoe aan representatie nieuwe inhoud kan worden gegeven[END_REF]. In that context, the lack of trust in stakeholders responsible for risk prevention can also be interpreted as a way to stimulate organizations to a higher activity level: "to bind the trusted into a relationship and attitude of responsibility" (Szerzynski, 1999: 239). In the same sense, the seemingly straightforward question for more information is probably more than to satisfy an information need. Many people probing organizations for additional information want to stimulate the organization to take additional action [START_REF] Irwin | Science and Hell's Kitchen: The Local Understanding of Hazard Issues[END_REF]. The call for additional information and participation that is observed in recent public opinion surveys about modern biotechnology may have similar intentions.

Summarizing, trust is crucial for the public acceptance of GM food. In this paper, we study the role of trust in the acceptance of GM food, as well as the attitude and the public's behavior toward GM food in the Dutch context. In particular, we focus on the trust the general public expresses in two stakeholders, namely government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Compared to the surrounding countries, the Netherlands' NGOs have a relatively large number of members and sponsors (see [START_REF] Gutteling | Biotechnology in the Netherlands: Controversy or Consensus?[END_REF]. The presence and contribution of NGOs in the GM debate has been quite substantial, but they were excluded from the formal debate on GM food. In this study, we analyze the levels of trust expressed by the Dutch public, and we look at the role of trust in these stakeholders in relation to the public acceptance of GM food.

Method

Procedure

In June 2001, before the formal public debate started, we assessed public perceptions and attitudes with respect to GM food and trust in relevant actors by means of telephone interviews with a sample of the Dutch population of 15 years and older. Telephone numbers were acquired by taking a randomized sample from the database of private telephone users of KPN Telecom (sample size was 1473). This database has a national coverage and is run by the largest telecom firm in the country. The net response of completed and usable interviews was 1019 (69.2 percent). A non-response analysis was performed.

Questionnaire Trust

The respondents were confronted with a series of statements relating to trust in actors relevant to the food production chain and decision-making processes in that chain (all items were measured on a five-point scale; disagree/agree). Factor analysis revealed three clusters of intercorrelated items, explaining in total 53 percent of the variance. Three of the items aggregate to one underlying construct: "trust in governance." The items are "trust that government will involve the public in its decision making," "trust that the private sector seriously takes consumer interests into consideration" and "the expectation of how GM food will influence the quality of life."

The factor analysis shows that three other items aggregate to one concept: "trust in government." The items are "I trust that the government will take the interest of the public into account in the decision making process about GM food," "the control on GM food is in good hands with the government" and "the government is competent with respect to GM food."

Finally, the factor analysis revealed a third concept: "trust in NGOs." The items are "societal organizations are competent with respect to GM food," "I'm confident that in the process of decision making on GM food with the government, societal organizations will act in the interest of the public" and "the societal organizations must have a major influence on GM food decision making."

Perception and behavior with respect to GM food

We measured the public perception of GM food and technology in general in three separate ways. The "attitude toward GM food" was measured with five statements that were previously used by [START_REF] Jong | Genetische manipulatie: maatschappelijke reacties en communicatieprocessen[END_REF], with a Cronbach's α of .69. The "acceptance of GM food" was measured using items from recent Eurobarometer studies (e.g. 52.1; see e.g., [START_REF] Durant | Biotechnology in the Public Sphere: A European Sourcebook[END_REF], relating to perceived risk, perceived usefulness, moral acceptance and the stimulation of GM food or not. According to [START_REF] Gaskell | In the Public Eye: Representations of Biotechnology in Europe[END_REF] these items are the most important predictors of support for the introduction of GM food (the four items have a Cronbach's α of .76). Finally, we asked respondents to indicate how they assessed the influence of six technologies on the quality of life, as was also done in the Eurobarometer 52.1 [START_REF] Durant | Biotechnology in the Public Sphere: A European Sourcebook[END_REF]. The six technologies are solar energy, telecommunication, GM food, the Internet, nuclear energy and biotechnology. The construct of "technological optimism" comprises five of these six technologies (Cronbach's α = .61, solar energy was left out).

The respondents were asked three questions relating to behavioral aspects, namely whether one has participated in a protest action against GM food by signing one's signature, whether one has participated in a demonstration against GM food, or whether one has sought actively for information about GM food. All inter-item correlations between these items were significant (p < .001, with the exception of "seeking information" and "demonstrating"). We aggregated the behavioral items to the construct of "direct behavior." On the basis of the aggregated scale, the respondents could be assigned to one of two groups: a group of 791 respondents (83.9 percent) which can be considered as "passive" (said no to all behavioral questions), and a group of 152 respondents (16.1 percent) we named as "relatively active" (they said yes to at least one of the questions). In addition, we asked respondents whether they were a member of one of eight societal organizations, which are relevant to the debate on GM food. The level of "indirect behavior" is established simply by counting the number of memberships.

Other questions

We asked respondents to judge the information transfer process regarding GM food, both in general terms and with respect to several organizations in particular (measured on five-point scales; "insufficient/sufficient"). The "information sufficiency" is formed with seven items (Cronbach's α = .65). The "familiarity" of GM food is measured with one item with a fivepoint scale (very unfamiliar/very familiar). The "knowledge" of GM food is assessed with five items (answers either correct or incorrect) according to a set of questions used previously by [START_REF] Durant | Biotechnology in the Public Sphere: A European Sourcebook[END_REF]. These items did not form an internally consistent scale; nevertheless, for all respondents the number of correct answers was counted. Finally, we asked respondents for the "personal relevance" of GM food (one item, six-point scale; very unimportant/very important), for the level of "personal concern" (one item, six-point scale; very worried/not worried at all), and a series of questions relating to demographics (age, educational level, gender, family income, and religiosity).

Results

Characteristics of respondents and non-respondents

When we compare the characteristics of our respondents with population data (CBS, 2001), we observe that relatively more women participated in the study (54 percent, compared to 50.2 percent in the population; χ 2 = 5.8, df = 1, p < .05). Furthermore, people between 36 and 45 years of age are overrepresented (with 29 percent), as well as people with the highest levels of formal education. The analysis of the non-response group indicates this group comprises relatively many people with lower levels of formal education (40 percent compared to 27 percent in the group of respondents; χ 2 = 17.7, df = 2, p < .01). For the other demographics, the distribution of the respondents and non-respondents is similar. The motivation for not participating in the study was not related systematically to the issue of GM food (many non-respondents indicated "lack of time" or "not interested to participate," respectively 45 percent and 37 percent). The conclusion is that the group of respondents, in spite of the rather high response rate, is not entirely representative of the Dutch population. This will have to be taken into account when interpreting our data and generalizing our findings.

Of all respondents, approximately 39 percent said they knew about GM food. However, only 12 percent had actively been seeking information about GM food, and 46 percent remembered having read or heard about GM food in newspapers, on television or the radio. Of all respondents, 969 completed the simple five-item GM knowledge quiz. Of those respondents, 33 percent had a low score (maximum two answers correct), 59 percent had an average score (three or four answers correct) and 8 percent had all answers correct. When asked about the personal relevance of GM food, 13 percent answered that GM food was not important personally, whereas 42 percent said it was important or very important to them. Seventeen percent indicated they were not worried about GM food; however, 35 percent were worried or very worried.

Levels of trust in governance, trust in government and trust in NGOs

Approximately 73 percent of our respondents think that government should not be the only actor to take decisions about the future of GM food. A group of respondents of similar size does trust the government to consider the public interests, and 68 percent are of the opinion that NGOs will act in the public interest. In the public's eye, NGOs do better with respect to expertise than the government (55 percent versus 31 percent for NGOs and government, respectively). Almost 38 percent of the sample is not convinced that control of GM food is in reliable hands with the government. On the other hand, 45 percent is convinced that it is. Approximately 78 percent of the sample feels that NGOs should have an important role in the decision-making process on GM food, and more than 90 percent of the respondents would be in favor of an increased level of cooperation between NGOs and the government. The private sector is not judged very positively. Almost 50 percent of the sample is convinced that companies do not take the public interests into account. Table 1 gives the distribution of the respondents over the three constructs of trust. Separate items were recoded to reflect values ranging from 0 to 2, and aggregated to scales with values ranging from 0 to 6. Aggregated values 0, 1, and 2 were taken together as 'low,' aggregated values 3 and 4 as 'ambivalent' and aggregated values 5 and 6 as 'high.'

The data from Table 1 show that approximately 50 percent of the public expresses a relatively high level of trust in NGOs with respect to GM food. Another 35 percent is ambivalent toward this actor. NGOs are not seen as trustworthy by approximately 15 percent of the respondents. Only a third of the respondents express a relatively high level of trust in government. Roughly equal proportions of the respondents are ambivalent toward government or express a relatively low level of trust. Trust in governance is rather controversial: approximately 42 percent have relatively low trust in governance, 20 percent have relatively high trust, and 39 percent are ambivalent in their judgment of trust in governance relating to GM food.

Table 2 presents three separate multivariate analyses of attitude toward GM food, acceptance of GM food, technological optimism, and direct and indirect behavior with the three levels of trust in governance, trust in government and trust in NGOs as factors. In this analysis, we used gender, educational level and age as covariates because of the slight deviations of our sample compared to the Dutch population. Multivariately all trust factors were significant (governance: F = 26.36, p < .001; government: F = 6.32, p < .001; NGOs: F = 2.86, p < .01). In all analyses, all three covariates were significant.

The tests of between-subject effects underline the importance of the factor of trust in governance, as was found with the multivariate tests. Table 2 reveals significant differences for all five dependent variables. Inspection of the means shows that respondents with a high level of trust in governance have a more positive attitude toward GM food compared to those with a relatively low level of trust in governance, are more likely to accept it, and are more optimistic about technology. For these dependent variables, the ambivalent group always takes a position between the low and high trust groups. With respect to the behavioral measures, we see the opposite: respondents from the low trust group are more likely to express overt behavior against GM developments (demonstrate, sign petitions, etc.) than those from the ambivalent and high trust groups. The respondents from the low trust group are also significantly more frequent members of societal organizations with a specific critical opinion on GM, compared to the ambivalent and high trust groups.

For trust in government, the data in Table 2 resemble those for trust in governance, with the exception of NGO membership. Respondents with a relatively low level of trust in government have a less positive attitude toward GM food, are less likely to accept GM food, are less optimistic about technology, and are more inclined to participate in protest behavior.

For trust in NGOs, the data in Table 2 show statistically significant differences only for attitude toward GM food and acceptance of GM food. Those with a relatively high level of trust in NGOs, have a less favorable attitude toward GM food, and are less likely to accept it than those with a low level of trust in NGOs.

Predicting GM food acceptance

Further analysis indicates that the acceptance of GM food is significantly correlated to attitude toward GM food (r = .66, p < .001), technological optimism (r = .47, p < .001), and trust in governance (r = .48, p < .001), government (r = .25, p < .001), and NGOs (r = -.08, p < .05), respectively. On the basis of these correlations, we performed a hierarchical regression analysis, in which acceptance of GM food was predicted in three steps: attitude toward GM food (model 1), model 1 plus technological optimism (model 2), and model 2 plus the three measures of trust (model 3) (see Table 3).

Each of the three models adds significantly to the prediction of the acceptance of GM food. As expected from the correlations, model 1 adds most. This model explains 28 percent of the variance in the acceptance of GM food. In model 3, 31 percent is explained, which indicates that the technological optimism and the three trust factors explain only a small proportion of the acceptance. In the final model in Table 3, the attitude toward GM food is by far the most important predictor of acceptance (beta = .41), followed by technological optimism (beta = .11) and trust in governance (beta = .14). Technological optimism and trust in governance are also moderately correlated (r = .52). In model 3, trust in government and trust in NGOs do not predict acceptance of GM food significantly.

Discussion and conclusions

This study shows that with respect to GM food and public trust, three separate constructs can be distinguished which we called trust in governance, trust in government and trust in NGOs respectively. Trust in governance was measured with items as "trust that government will involve the public in its decision-making," "trust that the corporate sector seriously takes consumer interests into consideration" and "the expectation of how GM food will influence the quality of life." Trust in government or NGOs was related to competence and decision-making strategies of those organizations. On the eve of the formal Dutch debate on GM food, 42 percent of the respondents in a representative Dutch sample had low trust in the developments of GM food. On the other hand, 20 percent did trust these developments, and 39 percent were rather ambivalent about it, indicating that government timed the formal public debate well considering the seemingly controversial nature of the GM food issue.

Trust in government with respect to GM food indicates an even more controversial situation: the proportions of respondents indicating low, ambivalent or high levels of trust in government were almost identical. Almost 50 percent of the Dutch public trusted NGOs with respect to the GM food issue, 35 percent were ambivalent toward NGOs and 15 percent did not trust NGOs very much.

Our expectation, based on the available literature, was that (the three types of) trust would be important predictors of the attitude toward GM food, public acceptance of GM food, technological optimism, and various forms of behavior toward GM issues. Trust in governance supports this expectation. Trust in governance seems to be an important constraint for the further development of GM food in the Netherlands. With higher levels of trust in governance people have a more positive attitude toward GM food, are more likely to accept it, and are more optimistic about technological developments. People with higher levels of trust in governance with respect to GM food are less inclined to protest against GM developments by demonstrating or signing petitions, and they are less involved in societal organizations that criticize GM developments.

Trust in government is also related to attitude, the acceptance of GM food, technological optimism and protesting behavior. Higher levels of trust in government coincide with a more positive attitude, more acceptance, more technological optimism and less protesting behavior. Trust in NGOs is related only to attitude and acceptance. Those expressing a high level of trust in NGOs are less positive about GM food, and are less likely to accept GM food. In an overall test of acceptance of GM food, it appeared that of these variables attitude is the most important predictor, followed by technological optimism and trust in governance. Remarkably, trust in government and trust in NGOs no longer play a role.

Recent studies in the United States have indicated that "trust in societal actors" was an important predictor of the public support for GM food developements [START_REF] Priest | Misplaced Faith: Communication Variables as Predictors of Encouragement for Biotechnology Development[END_REF][START_REF] Irani | The Importance of Being Accountable[END_REF]. Our study shows a different result, in which at least "trust in government" and "trust in NGOs" are only indirectly important as individual predictors of the acceptance of GM food. Trust in government and trust in NGOs are important predictors of the public attitude toward the GM issue, and in that sense they are indirectly important for the acceptance of GM food. Public trust remains the important issue in the near future. It is a rather complex social and political phenomenon. And it is not just the restoring of public faith in government, industry, NGOs or other stakeholders. Trust is related to the way government or politicians are inclined to involve the public within decision-making, how industry is handling consumer interests, and individuals' perception of the way biotechnology may influence their life [START_REF] Hanssen | In the Margins of the Public Debate on "Food and Genes[END_REF].

In this respect, governance and trustworthiness have become crucial. Governance is a broad concept referring to the use of power and authority to conduct public life and to manage social and economical development. Contemporary societies are no longer seen as having a privileged political "center" from which future developments can be monitored and governed. Rather, the initiatives and contributions from different actors (governmental bodies, enterprises, NGOs, experts and lay audiences) will influence a more or less turbulent setting, a more or less unpredictable course of events. Like communication, the procurement of social and economical support is an ongoing, longitudinal process. Political power is a dynamical entity that circulates through networks and does not belong to any position in particular, but rather is distributed among various participants.

From the perspective of governance, public understanding and acceptance of biotechnology can be understood much better. Trust in governance seems to be an important constraint for the further development of GM food in the Netherlands, even more important than trust in government or NGOs.

Table 1 .

 1 Trust in governance, trust in government and trust in NGOs

		Relatively low		Ambivalent	Relatively high
		n	%	n	%	n	%	n
	Trust in governance	334	41.6 %	309	38.5 %	160	19.9 %	803
	Trust in government	330	36.5 %	274	30.3 %	301	33.3 %	905
	Trust in NGOs	141	15.4 %	321	35.0 %	454	49.6 %	916

Table 2 .

 2 Estimated marginal means and tests of between-subject effects of attitude toward GM food, acceptance of GM food, technological optimism, and direct and indirect behavior, for three levels of trust in governance, trust in government and trust in NGOs, with gender, age and educational level as covariates

		Low	Ambivalent	High	F (sign.)
	Trust in governance
	Attitude	2.02 a,b	2.68 a	3.14 b	87.74 ***
	Acceptance	0.48 a,b	0.99 a	1.36 b	83.32 ***
	Technological optimism	0.85 a,b	1.29 a	1.48 b	93.46 ***
	Direct behavior	0.31 a,b	0.18 a	0.11 b	9.72 ***
	Indirect behavior	1.50 a,b	1.13 a	0.84 b	8.27 ***
	Trust in government
	Attitude	2.23 a,b	2.57 a	2.77 b	18.32 ***
	Acceptance	0.61 a,b	0.95 a	1.09 b	20.87 ***
	Technological optimism	1.02 a,b	1.18 a	1.29 b	10.46 ***
	Direct behavior	0.30 a,b	0.13 a	0.20 b	8.99 ***
	Indirect behavior	1.40 a	1.11 a	1.13	2.64
	Trust in NGOs
	Attitude	2.82 a,b	2.52 a	2.40 b	7.11 **
	Acceptance	1.09 a,b	0.79 a	0.85 b	5.68 **
	Technological optimism	1.21	1.16	1.13	< 1
	Direct behavior	0.28	0.20	0.20	1.12
	Indirect behavior	1.06	1.19	1.30	< 1

* p < .05, *** p < .001 Contrast tests with as reference the group with low trust. Letters reflect significant differences (p < .05).

Table 3 .

 3 The prediction of acceptance of GM food with three sets of predictors

			Acceptance of GM food
		R sq.	F change	Sign. F change (df)
	Model summary
	Model 1	.277	239.61	*** (1,626)
	Model 2	.297	18.30	*** (1,625)
	Model 3	.309	3.51	* (3,622)
	Regression coefficients	Beta	t	significance
	Model 1
	Attitude	.53	15.48	***
	Model 2
	Attitude	.48	12.13	***
	Technological optimism	.16	4.29	***
	Model 3
	Attitude	.41	9.99	***
	Technological optimism	.11	2.80	**
	Trust in governance	.14	2.91	**
	Trust in government	-.00	< 1	NS
	Trust in NGOs	-.03	< 1	NS

* p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001

Public Understanding of Science 15 (1)

Public Understanding of Science 15 (1)

Public Understanding of Science 15 (1)

Author

Jan Gutteling is associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Twente. Lucien Hanssen is director of Deining Societal Communication, a research and consultancy office specializing in the public debate on emerging technologies from life and nano sciences. Neil van der Veer is director of Newcom Research and Consultancy (http://www.newcomresearch.nl/). Erwin Seydel is full professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Twente.

Correspondence: Jan Gutteling, Associate Professor, Department of Communication Studies, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, the Netherlands, e-mail: j.m.gutteling@utwente.nl


Franz Seifert

Local steps in an international career: a Danish-style consensus conference in Austria

The article gives an account of the first Austrian nationwide Danish-style consensus conference, held in the summer of 2003, treating policy issues related to genetic data. Consensus conferences are currently widely discussed for their promise to democratize fields of technological decision-making which are both crucial to the fate of modern society and inaccessible to public involvement. Instead of evaluating the "democratic efficiency" of the deliberative exercise, the essay will contextualize the event in local, as well as international developments comprising discursive, institutional and political elements. Rather than offering definitive claims about the normative significance of the rapidly diffusing deliberative technique, the discussion of a local experience with it will arrive at ambivalent conclusions.

Introduction

The relationship between technology policy and the public is structured by two major countervailing developments. On the one hand, nations are locked into a global race for technological innovation. An economy's capacity to create and exploit high-tech innovations has come to be considered crucial for the making and preserving of the wealth of nations. Political systems of the OECD area and a growing number of emerging economies therefore came to prioritize this capacity and to instigate a variety of programs and reforms for its promotion (Larédo and Mustar, 2001).

On the other hand, new social movements occasionally might succeed in hampering, or even blocking technological modernization projects. While employing a broad spectrum of political strategies, their most potent political tool is the rallying of mass support. Making use of rare situational opportunities for attracting mass attention, drawing on moral authority and challenging the legitimacy of government and corporate interests, protesters at times may muster general approval and thus force political systems to revise or even step back from technological projects. The current halt of agricultural and food biotechnology in the European Union is but the most recent illustration of this massive veto potential wielded by the general public and its mobilizing agents respectively.

As a result, new ways are sought to cope with these "problematic publics" (Davison et al., 1997). Besides eagerly surveying public attitudes in delicate fields such as risky or ethically dubious technologies, political systems draw on a widening repertoire of "participatory" and "deliberative" approaches for the public. The discourse accompanying these practices regularly depicts technological change as a generator of ethical ambiguity, whose responsible use requires more informed, more legitimate political approaches. 1 The participatory and deliberative techniques employed for this purpose take on a multitude of shapes, ranging from "round tables" with experts and interested parties to "citizen polls", which entail more or less representative samples of "the people" (Weale, 2001). Accordingly, the factual achievements and normative evaluation of such experiments with public involvement in the policy process vary. It can be regarded as a purely technical source of scientific expertise, allowing regulators and policymakers to keep up with rapid technological change. In such cases, deliberative and participatory techniques go along with the functional-elitist conceptions of the state.

More frequently, however, participation and deliberation are associated with normatively demanding "models of democracy," which disapprove of legalistic or technocratic state conceptions, add to and go beyond the set of constitutionally prescribed procedures of representative democracy. 2 Deliberation then implies the Habermasian notion of a "coercion-free discourse" antithetical to a real world of closed bureaucracies and vested interests. While participation hints at similarly idealistic, egalitarian and emphatic ideas of democracy, it implies inclusion and the enlargement of the circle of participants.

Likewise, since the "technological issues" at stake are of a complex nature and require special cognitive effort from laypeople to be properly understood and debated, a democratic rationalization of the various emerging participatory and deliberative practices needs to reflect on the normative status of the social distribution of knowledge. Again, we observe a tension between functional-elitist and egalitarian notions of knowledge. Conventional advisory committees use certain approaches under the headings of "Participatory Technology Assessment" (TA), "Technology Delphis," and-currently in vogue-broad information campaigns promoting the "Public Understanding of Science," coinciding with expertocratic approaches as they affirm the distinction between the cognitive haves and have-nots. 3 Conversely, participatory exercises such as "citizen juries" or "consensus conferences" aim at overcoming the expert/lay divide and concede to the general public the required intellectual capacity to arrive at wise decisions in technological matters.

The current debate on the political shaping of technological change gains its impetus from the tension between these normative poles. It reiterates a number of questions. Do experiments with deliberation and participation in technology policy actually signal a move from "the powers that be" to some version of "strong democracy" (Barber, 1984)? If the public is involved, who actually is involved? Do such techniques engage a representative majority or, more likely, only a minority of the public? And how real, how consequential, is this involvement? Do they ignite wider "public debates" and contribute to the formation of an informed public opinion, which might ultimately leave its mark on regulation and policy formation? Or do they pass without substantial effect and mainly help authorities to garner acceptance and present themselves as a responsibly acting government?

Far from promising unambiguous answers to these questions, the following article aims at adding to the debate by highlighting a deliberative exercise-a "consensus conference Danish-style"-recently carried out in Austria. Its intent is not to give a technical "evaluation" of this exercise based on standard criteria. 4 "Evaluation of the performance of public participation," as Steve Rayner recently mentioned, "is problematic."

It is almost exclusively self-evaluation performed by the organisers of the consultation or engagement activity or sympathetic evaluation by social scientists known to be committed to the principles or techniques employed. Most evaluation is of single projects. There is very little systematic or comparative evaluation across multiple sites and different techniques. The focus of evaluation is almost exclusively process based, for example, looking at how closely the activity corresponded to Habermasian "ideal free speech" or how the participants behaved or said that they felt about each other. (Rayner, 2003: 167) Rather than measuring the "performance" of the participatory event, this account will take a slightly different approach. While it portrays yet another national experience with a participatory technique, it will also focus on contextual information and regard the Austrian deliberative conference against the background of recent political developments at the national as well as international level. Its aim is not to arrive at a conclusive assessment, but to raise further questions about the normative significance of experimenting with participatory and deliberative techniques by highlighting their local occurrence, which might inspire more research in the future.

Empirical statements are based on interviews with key actors among organizers, observing journalists and advising experts, as well as the study of related documents and online searches of media reports. As regards Austria's political culture and its recent dynamics, the analysis draws on abundant materials derived from a research project on Austria's biotechnology policy under conditions of globalization.

Before going into the details of the Austrian experience, an outline of the Danish consensus conference model as well as its international career in recent years will be given. Then follows a draft of Austria's political culture, as it pertains to participation and deliberation, and recent trends in the transformation of this culture.

Danish-style consensus conference: an international career

The "Danish-style" consensus conference is one among a number of deliberative variants committed to an emphatic model of democracy. Beyond making available more direct channels of influence on political decision-making to "the people" than those provided by the institutional repertoire of representative democracy, the Danish consensus conference aims at reversing the hierarchy between laypeople and experts.

The procedure foresees that about a dozen "ordinary citizens" engage in an informed debate on a complex, mostly technological issue with the goal of attaining a common position, which in turn, might serve as a recommendation for political decision-makers. First, the organizers select citizens randomly or according to some representative criteria. Care is taken to ensure that volunteers, while showing concern for the matter, are not politically involved in the subject in order to avoid distortions of sound debate owing to single interest interventions. Then, in preparation, the lay panel is provided with abundant information and enabled to question experts of its own choice. Participants are supposed to be in full control of the interviews as well as the final debate and to arrive at conclusions as autonomously as possible. Their concluding suggestions are publicly handed over to the authorities, whose constitutional prerogatives, however, are not affected. The conference's recommendations remain optional and are not binding to the political decision-making process.

The term consensus conference has its origin in US technology assessment (TA) process and is still widely used for certain types of expert summits on medical issues. The understanding of the consensus conference as a citizen-based deliberative exercise, however, had emerged in the Danish political culture of the 1980s, well known for its prolific experimentation with inclusionary, participatory practices. There, it was the influential Danish Technology Board that first employed the instrument in the mid 1980s. 5 The Board, which had been established in order to assess the social impacts of new technologies and to advise the Danish parliament and government, pursued an outspokenly democratic approach. It stressed the egalitarian elements of consensus conferences, which should be designed to foster public debate, break expert dominance and enhance the status of the "ordinary citizen." The first consensus conference in that vein discussed the subject of "biotechnology in industry and agriculture." It was held in 1987 when Denmark went through a comprehensive public debate on biotechnology. 6 To this day, 22 conferences have followed in Denmark (Table 1). They have treated issues as diverse as human infertility and noise pollution. The most recent one took place in 2003 and addressed the problem of determining the monetary value of environmental benefits and losses. Scheduled for November 2005 is a consensus conference on brain science.

The Danish consensus model proved successful locally. In the 1990s, institutions in a number of industrial nations experimented with the Danish model (Table 2). Typically, national TA agencies embraced the deliberative exercise. For example, the "Rathenau Instituut" in the Netherlands, the "Zentrum für Technologiefolgen-Abschätzung" in Switzerland and the "Teknologirådet" in Norway became local centers repeatedly conducting consensus conferences. So it seems that, ironically, the effort of egalitarian de-specialization spawned new breeds of specialists, that the international rise of the Danish consensus technique aiming at subordinating the esoteric knowledge of expert elites to the common sense of "ordinary laypeople" is linked to the emergence of new expert networks and academic career venues for intellectual authorities in technological egalitarianism. Another accompanying feature of the international rise of the Danish consensus model is its close association with issues related to genetic engineering and biotechnology. The high incidence of consensus conferences on these issues is remarkable, as well as the fact that the international use of the Danish model for these is higher than in Denmark itself: while in Denmark about 22 percent of all consensus conferences focused on biotechnology, in the international environment the share is 58 percent (Tables 1 and2). Furthermore, among consensus conferences on biotechnology, debates on genetically modified food stand out: in seven out of the 16 countries that had consensus conferences, those conferences were conducted on genetically modified food.

Evidently, these proportions mirror the institutional perception of biotechnology as a public problem in many countries, or as one might also put it, the perception of the public as a problem for supportive biotechnology policies in these countries. Without suggesting a simple causality, one might contend that the international rise of the Danish consensus model-to a considerable extent-owes itself to the international rise of public controversies over biotechnology. This picture is confirmed by the fact that in most countries that held consensus conferences on biotechnology issues, the general public was either particularly sensitive, had experienced sharp biotechnology conflicts in the past, or was presently going through such conflicts. 7 Equally, the climax in consensus exercises on genetically modified food in the late 1990s, when national and European authorities were under pressure from a strong movement against these foods, testifies to the strong linkage between experimenting with deliberative techniques and occurrence of public conflicts.

Austria: political culture, modernization conflicts and recent ruptures

To better gauge the Austrian experience with the Danish model, the local context first needs to be taken into account. The features of this context are a rather unreceptive cultural and institutional milieu for participatory initiatives, an occasionally powerful protest culture and, since 2000, far-reaching political ruptures. First, political culture and mentality are a result of history, which, in the case of Austria, is one of late and interrupted democratization. Neither the Habsburg Empire with its subtle, seemingly ever-lasting rule, nor the authoritarian, Catholic "Ständestaat" from 1934 to 1938 or Austria's subsequent incorporation into the Nazi German Reich until 1945 were particularly conducive to the development of civic virtues in Austrian political culture, least of all of progressive ideas of "participatory democracy."

Second, in the years of the "Second Republic" from 1955 onward, the Austrian bureaucracy constituted a major obstacle to participatory experimenting. Being both highly influential and inaccessible to citizens' demands, administrative expert elites typically prepare laws and design policies in seclusion.

Third, two major governing parties typically dominated political life, at the expense of groups at the margins of the political spectrum. For a long time, these parties were the Social Democrats (SP Ö) and the conservative Austrian People's Party ( ÖVP), governing in a "Grand Coalition." The formation of a new coalition government of ÖVP and the right-wing Freedom Party (FP Ö) in February 2000, however, shattered the system. Though, since then, the Social Democrats' influence in public life is being progressively dismantled, the system has not become more inclusive. Rather, the subsequent polarization of political life has brought about a hardening of government policy.

Fourth, the "social partners" classically are part and parcel of the Austrian decisionmaking process. The neo-corporatist arrangement, joining together corporate labor and capital, had been set up in the postwar years in order to negotiate class compromise at elite level and thus forestall open social striving of the working classes. A key element of the arrangement is its avoidance of public controversy. Decisions are intimately negotiated behind closed doors, while symbolic controversies divert public attention. 8 The influence of this neo-corporatist arrangement equally retreated in recent years, accelerated by the government's reshuffling in 2000.

If party dominance and opaque decision structures are averse to public debate on common issues, policies pertaining to science and technology are even more remote from public scrutiny. One reason is that, traditionally, such policies were of minor importance for the rather retarded development of Austrian high-tech industries. Furthermore, policies supportive of science and technology, for a long time depended (and to some degree still depend) on fragmented and clientelistic structures and therefore remained hard to grasp for the public. And finally, media interest in science and technology is traditionally moderate in Austria. 9 Then again, the Austrian public is far from being entirely unmoved by issues linked to science and technology. On some occasions, powerful protest movements scored veritable victories against the political establishment by mobilizing the public against technological projects (Gottweis, 2000). In the late 1970s, a civil movement of unprecedented force obstructed governmental plans to put a nuclear power plant into operation, and thus blocked any future use of nuclear power in Austria. Later, in the mid 1980s, the equally spectacular thwarting of a hydropower project led to the formation of the "Greens," who, since then, have constituted one of the four parliamentary parties. Finally, in the late 1990s, the controversy over genetically modified food and agricultural biotechnology aroused the public ire, provoking the second largest popular initiative in Austria's political history and forced the government to adopt highly rigorous biotechnology policies. 10 These contentious episodes left their marks on Austria's political culture. Besides the parliamentary Greens, a dense web of environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has taken root, some of which in a latent alliance with the powerful popular press. Even so, the protest strand in the country's political culture has not brought about its "participatory modernization." Official political discourse stresses the importance of environmental protection and consumer safety and a number of environmental associations are supported and thus, to some degree, are co-opted by the state. However, there is neither an animated and autonomous public debate on trajectories of technological modernization, nor any experimenting with institutional channels conducive to such a debate (Seifert, 2003).

Finally, an appropriate account of Austria's political landscape needs to consider recent ruptures. The importance of the change from the seemingly everlasting Grand Coalition to a conservative coalition government in early 2000 can hardly be overestimated. As one major consequence, the traditional consociational pattern of conflict resolution gave way to a rather adversarial style of political decision-making. 11 This Austrian "Wende" also finds expression in major institutional restructurings in higher education, science and technology policy. 12 In an unprecedented move, the country's research infrastructure-universities and public research institutes-was subjected to farreaching reforms. The overall aim was to enhance international competitiveness, striving to undo the ills of fragmentation and the until now common "something-for-everybody principle" in technology policy that had obstructed policy initiatives for so long in the past. Therefore, centralized hierarchical decision structures covering all domains of state-funded applied research are being installed, while public spending is being cut in research fields deemed useless for enhancing national competitiveness, such as the arts, humanities and social sciences. Again, rather than being consensually established out of consideration for affected groups, often decisions were pushed through, often against severe protest. 13

The Austrian "B ürgerInnenkonferenz"

In the consensus conference titled "BürgerInnenkonferenz Genetische Daten. Woher, Wohin, Wozu?" 14 the issue under debate was the potential use and abuse of genetic data. The conference was the second of its kind in Austria, yet the first-at least according to its stated intent-of nationwide impetus. 15 Sponsor of the conference was the "Austrian Council-Rat für Forschung und Technologieentwicklung." In 2000, the committee, composed of eight personalities from industry and academia, had been instated by the new Austrian government to function as a central advisory body in designing and steering the current reform in science and technology policy. The highly influential commission thus represents a major element of the recent rupture.

From its very beginning, the improvement of public acceptance of science and technology figured high among the Council's priorities. In September 2002 the Council instigated a broad image campaign comprising, among others, three public relations (PR) and lobbying companies, some editorial offices of the Austrian broadcasting agency ORF 16 and various ministries and private associations engaged in the enhancement of the "Public Understanding of Science" (RFT, 2003). The awareness campaign consisted of 40 projects, among them, the creation of a trademark in science and technology, the launching of the web-based image campaign www.innovatives-oesterreich.at and the establishment of "centers of communication" endowing large research corporations with know-how in public relations. The consensus conference was one among these initiatives.

The idea to run a deliberative exercise as part of the general awareness package had come up in early 2001. 17 "Communication Matters," one of the three PR agencies, who so far had been engaged in conventional science communications, and civil servants from the ranks of the ministerial bureaucracy brought it up and got it through the steering committee in charge of the campaign.

The PR agency was inexperienced in running consensus conferences. To better understand the deliberative technique project managers first had to enquire with local and international experts and review the literature. Actually, acquiring this expertise was among the agency's main motives for engaging in the exercise. By capitalizing on the favorable circumstances of a well funded image campaign, the new technique could be tried out at an early stage: there is an international trend towards consensus conferences, which might represent a promising model for the emerging domestic market in science communication. Acquiring firsthand know-how would provide a competitive edge should it come to the broader implementation of the model in Austria (Menasse, 2003: 68).

Conversely, the issue to be debated in the consensus conference was of minor importance. Initial ideas had revolved around problems of nuclear energy, traffic congestion or human stem cell research, but they were all discarded for being too controversial. Finally, the problems surrounding the production, use and possible abuse of genetic data were chosen as the appropriate issue to be debated.

There was no obvious reason for suggesting this choice. The large public outcry in Austria over genetic engineering had focused on different issues-biotechnology in food and agriculture-and had disappeared from the media agenda by 2000. Furthermore, with respect to genetic data no decision-making process was imminent and no debate going on.

However, the topic was "at hand." In 2001, the Austrian Council had instigated a major technology initiative: the genomics program GEN-AU. 18 In the wake of GEN-AU, exercises in interactive science communication focusing on genetic testing already had been carried out. The organizing association, "dialog < > gentechnik" (dialogue < > genetic engineering), had the required expert knowledge and, upon request from the organizers, proved eager to provide its expertise in the planned consensus conference. 19 Considering the group's origin and raison d'etre, its eagerness to contribute to the conference is not surprising. dialog < > gentechnik had come into being in the late 1990s as the direct result of the Austrian biotechnology conflict. At that time, faced with acute public hostility, Austria's biotechnological research community had set up the organization with the aim of actively fostering the public image of Austria's bioscience. 20 In other cases, the organizers' quest to integrate external information sources and thus social protagonists into the project worked out as well, albeit less smoothly. When an expert from the major Austrian TA unit was invited to participate, he and the backing institution fervently refused at first. The fact that a commercial agency was conducting the procedure as part of a broad image campaign with the ultimate purpose to advance public acceptance for science and technology did not correspond with the institution's normative understanding of a deliberative exercise. 21 Yet, after some discussion, the expert fitted into the arrangement. 22 Finally, the TA expert, an executive of dialog < > gentechnik, a university professor in molecular biology, at the same time chairman of dialog < > gentechnik, and a university professor in the sociology of science constituted a working group responsible for designing the exercise (science.orf.at, 2003). As well as the required cognitive input, this broader inclusion of external scientists from academia helped to bestow the procedure with the air of impartiality and legitimacy. 23 With the working group's help, another advisory body-the scientific advisory board-was assembled. It comprised seven experts covering the fields of technology assessment, medicine, bioethics, human genetics, policy and law. These experts then proposed a larger range of experts as candidates to be questioned by the laypeople during the conference (Communication Matters, 2003: 52-7).

In order to compose a representative lay panel, invitations were sent to a random selection of 4000 people, 105 of whom submitted letters of application. From these, 12 people were finally selected according to demographic criteria. 24 During two workshops in April and May 2003 participants acquainted themselves with the issues at stake and consented on a catalogue of issues to be examined more closely. 25 These issues were genetic counseling and research, genetic screening, data protection and ethical aspects. Other subjects under discussion such as prenatal diagnosis, preimplantation genetic diagnosis and research on human stem cells were discarded for reasons of time limitation. Next, from the issue catalogue, the lay panel formulated a number of questions and chose a selection of experts from the list composed by the advisory board to whom the questions were to be addressed.

The expert hearings took place on a Friday and Saturday in late June. The Sunday thereafter was dedicated to the working out of a set of recommendations which consisted of various major points such as: the obligatory provision of psychological counseling for patients faced with a grave diagnosis, the improvement of public education on genetic data, public support for independent research, cautious regulations for mass screenings, highest standards in data protection and a lowering of the age limit for voluntary genetic testing.

On Monday, these recommendations were presented in a press conference and formally handed over to the chairman of the sponsoring Austrian Council, who, together with the organizers, declared the deliberative exercise a success worthy of further consideration (science.orf.at, 2003). Some days after, a delegation of the conference, the Council's chairman and the head of the organizing PR agency handed the recommendations over to the Chairman of Parliament who welcomed the initiative and promised to pass the conference's recommendations on to members of parliament.

Public and media attention for the event was very poor. Apart from observers with a professional interest and participants immediately involved, only interested visitors attended the press conference. Just as small was the event's resonance in the mass media, the ORF was the only media group to take any real interest in the conference. Highlights included a story in the ORF late news and a background report in an ORF radio program. Also, the ORF Internet platform for science news, involved in the broad information campaign on science and technology, covered the event with four reports and two commentaries. Much feebler was media reporting beyond the ORF. The private print media corporations took little notice. Online research resulted in five articles in three daily newspapers and about an equal number in more specialized journals.

Discussion

It is difficult to conclusively assess the political impact of the BürgerInnenkonferenz. Rapid technological change drives decision-making in Austria as elsewhere, rendering future debates unforeseeable. Yet, given the virtual absence of current debates on issues related to genetic data, such an influence on regulation or policymaking is improbable.

As all evidence demonstrates, political decision-makers never took notice of the event. While the citizens' recommendations had been passed to parliament with much fanfare, the issue was never discussed or even mentioned in parliamentary deliberations. 26 Nor were administrative policymakers ever systematically confronted with the results of the deliberative exercise. 27 Furthermore, at that time, there were virtually no legislative projects upon which the consensus conference could have had any effect. 28 Neither the Austrian Data Protection Act nor the Electronic Data Transmission Act, which regulate aspects of genetic data protection and therefore might be considered candidates for political influence, were being amended at the time of the exercise. The same holds true for the Austrian Act on Genetic Engineering. 29 Imminent at the time of the conference was the amendment of the Act on Reproductive Medicine. In this case, however, debates which might have had an impact on the process, like a debate on human stem cell research, were excluded from the panel's agenda, either in the conceptual stage or in the course of the panel's deliberations. Such definitional exclusions were warranted with time pressure or-outspokenly-with the topic's controversial nature. The avoidance of contentious matters was among the organizers' goals, whose major interest was to successfully stage an innovative device of scientific communication.

If there was no relevant political effect, one might search for effects the consensus technique had on the wider public. As is standard with deliberative exercises, the quest for a "broad public debate" was among the stated motives. From a normative perspective, such indirect effects may indeed be considered crucial: common sense assessments carried out by a handful of selected citizens hardly represent "the people" of a given polity, nor do they necessarily supersede technical expertise routinely invested in the policy process. Moreover, since outside of Denmark, consensus conferences are run as mere procedural experiments, their legal legitimacy with respect to the flow of authoritatively binding decisions is unclear, which leaves them usually with the status of an advisory committee, among others, delivering their recommendations on a non-binding basis. All this might lead us to consider the actual results of a consensus conference as less important than its various effects such as, for instance, the triggering of media debates or the demonstration of the very possibility of the "technological citizen." 30 Likewise, it is these side effects on the larger public from which we might realistically expect any substantial influence on the political decisionmaking process.

The fact that no such side effects occurred in the Austrian case does not come as a surprise for anyone acquainted with Austrian media discourse on science and technology. While organizers were eager to publicize the event, "scientific" matters rarely attract public attention. Moreover, since there was no perceptible political significance, newspaper editors didn't have any incentive to report on it, notwithstanding the PR agency's professional efforts to spread the word. At any rate, the virtual absence of media resonance reinforces the impression of the event's general pettiness. Did the deliberative exercise have substantial political effects? Did it trigger a larger public debate? The answer to these initial questions is most probably negative. 31 Yet, the Austrian experience raises interesting questions. One might reflect on the Austrian case in the context of a broader international development, in the course of which political systems adopt deliberative techniques in potentially contentious modernization fields. Comparative aspects arising from such a perspective ask for local conditions furthering, impeding or modifying the normative objectives of this practice. More specifically, one might ask whether the non-controversial nature of the issue had any impact on the process. It appears that the lack of a public controversy was among the factors providing the ground for the harmonious course of the citizens' deliberations and the ease by which they attained consensus. If one considers the Austrian controversy over agri-food biotechnology in the 1990s-which generated one of the fiercest technological controversies ever in this country and which did not leave any scope for compromise in virtually hundreds of public round tables taking place at that time-this is not a trivial achievement. But there seems to be a price that is paid for harmony, at least if one takes the example described above, an example of an event with no political impacts of significance and irrelevant in the media.

If that is the case, one might wonder, why run the deliberative exercise at all? Publicly, the event remained hardly visible, politically a non-event. But perhaps it is precisely these qualities that make the issue eligible for examination. In fact, a number of observers concluded that issues were selected precisely because they were not on the public agenda, debates mediated in ways excluding contentious matters. The proximate reasons for this cautious approach might be sought in the organizers' stated aim of primarily "trying out" a communication technique in vogue. Co-opted actors might have had their respective motivations, ranging from taking part in an academic exercise to promoting the traditional view of a "Public Understanding of Science," while the funding body understood it as part of an awareness package for the advancement of science and technology. At any rate, it was desirable for the consensus conference to become a "success," with success being defined as accomplishing a state-of-the-art consensus conference with some presentable "consensus" as output. The normative reason of somehow improving democracy by instigating an acclaimed, new form of participatory device could function as an overarching narrative for all participants and the public alike while the fact that democracy implies both consensus and contention could be disregarded for the moment.

Furthermore, one might ask how much of the outcome was the result of the design of the consensus conference itself and how much was due to Austria's sociopolitical context. As has been pointed out, Austria has no great tradition of experimentation with citizen participation; neither do its rather conservative political culture, bureaucratic paternalism, party dominance, and traditional consociationalism provide receptive conditions for inclusionary, deliberative initiatives. In this regard, it stands in stark contrast to Denmark, with its "historically rooted predilection for integrative processes" (Whiteside, 2003: 155). This difference alone would not preclude a deliberative evolution in Austrian science and technology policy-sociopolitical contexts might change-but current ruptures were not favorable to the emergence of such a tendency either. On the contrary, the Austrian Wende rather intensified adversarial politics and, in the fields of science and technology, diminished existing forms of deliberation and participation by instating more centralized and hierarchical decision structures.

If one accepts the premise that public (or media) interest increases with the potential political consequence of an event-an assertion which, at least in the negative, is supported by the Austrian case-a consensus conference would need to have some political weight to attract attention and catalyze broader public debates. This, however, would require political decision-makers to allow for its outcomes to be unpredictable and to have real consequences or, in other words, for a sharing of power. Nothing in current developments hints at such a willingness. This is not to say, that Austrian policy of technological modernization is usurped by party politics, opaque bureaucracies and corporate interests, nor that it is entirely unresponsive to public demands. A case in point illustrating the contrary is the Austrian movement against agro-alimentary biotechnology. While this movement pervades many EU countries, its Austrian manifestation is clearly among the most vigorous, comparable to those in Denmark, France, Italy or Greece. It was, to give some measure, powerful enough to deter any genetically modified organism (GMO) release into the environment and to push authorities to set up complex legislation designed to preclude commercial releases of GMOs for years to come. This compliance with public demands is not to be underestimated as it impinges upon significant corporate interests and puts government at risk of colliding with more permissive EU legislation. The victory of this movement, however, is not due to exercises in public deliberation but to the exertion of public pressure.

Once more, we face the dilemma of "problematic publics" which-in order to have some political impact-become entangled in the game of power and prove resistant to any attempt of their being deliberatively "domesticated." From a Habermasian viewpoint, this state of affairs seems deplorable, and to some, the Danish model, having set out on its astonishing international career, appears as a promising approach to resolve the dilemma. From this experience in Austria demonstrating another application of the deliberative practice, one might arrive at more ambivalent conclusions.

the consensus conference and the scenario workshop are genuine developments of the Technology Board (Andersen and Jaeger, 1999). 6 Of which Jesper Lassen noted:

What is characteristic about the Danish development is that besides the rather traditional assessment of the new biotechnologies by experts, an important part of the policy has been to stimulate a public assessment taking place among the citizens, at debate meetings, at consensus conferences or in the media. The . . . public assessment has perhaps more worked as a way to secure a peaceful introduction of the new biotechnologies, rather than as a tool to shape the technologies in accordance with the results of the public assessment. (Lassen, 1999: 82) 7 A case in point is the French controversy over biotechnology in the course of which the first consensus conference in France, the "conférence citoyenne," was held in summer 1998. What is remarkable about the event is the outstanding media attention and political salience it gained, mainly due to the importance of government discourse allocated to it while going through a profound policy change: "the people" was to be "inscribed" into the emerging "policy-narrative" (Gottweis, 1988). Equally remarkable is that, in spite of the public dramatization of the conférence, critique could not be placated. In fact, the full blown French antibiotechnology mobilization, connected with field trial vandalism and the vocal farmers' group "Confédération Paysanne" only came into existence about a year after the event (Joly and Marris, 2003; Joly et al., 2003). For a discussion of the consensus conference and subsequent deliberative events in the context of French political culture see Whiteside (2003). Instructive regarding the appearance of and semiotic strategies adopted by the Confédération Paysanne are Heller (2002) and Martin (2005). 8

Symbolic politics means that-by way of invocations, promises and assurances-the public is given the impression its interests are effectively taken care of. In Austria, the theatrical pathos of an ostensible controversy always goes along with consociational decision-making. Austrian functionaries often practice harmony internally while pretending disagreement on the surface. (Gerlich, 1997: 508, original German) 9 Hence, already in the late 1980s and 1990s decision-makers in the reluctantly emerging field of science and technology policy repeatedly came up with demands for an enhancement of public awareness. 10 The popular initiative is-beside the referendum and the public opinion poll-one of three instruments of direct democracy provided by the Austrian constitution and after having been held 31 times in the postwar republic it is the one most frequently applied. Its function is to oblige parliament to address a legislative initiative, provided the initiative rallies at least 100 000 signatures. As parliament decides and popular initiatives frequently are being exploited by the opposition its claims quite often remain without concrete consequences. Nevertheless, the level of citizens' support mobilized clearly points the way for government who would hardly get away with ignoring a successful initiative's demands. The claims advanced in the popular initiative against biotechnology-no GMO releases on Austrian ground, no GM food and no patents on life-mirror the general thrust of the popular movement driven by ecological, agricultural and religious NGOs as well as the highly influential Austrian yellow press. It is important to note, however, that the movement's framing of the issue as well as its political effect is restricted to agro-alimentary biotechnology and hardly alludes to other contentious matters related to modern biotechnology such as eugenics or privacy. 11 Several factors account for the change: coalescing with the right-wing FP Ö constituted the breaking of a taboo and triggered an unparalleled protest wave. The Social Democrats' loss of power after three decades of government entailed bitter reshufflings in public service, and, finally, the far-reaching conservative reform programme had to be carried through against stiff opposition. After re-elections in 2002 which resulted in a clear confirmation of the People's Party and an equally clear defeat of the FP Ö, the ÖVP-FP Ö government was reinstated. The remarkable electoral victory of the ÖVP rendered subsequent oppositional critique difficult and the intensity of public controversy somewhat decreased. Nevertheless, the seemingly harmonious days of the Grand Coalition and consociationalism were gone for good. 12 The term "Wende," if used in a sociopolitical context, designates an epochal change or turn of events. The German "Wende," for instance, stands for the demise of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) in 1989. 13 Protests, however, never prompted public debate about educational, science and technology policy as such.

They remained confined to those directly affected by reforms, principally in academia, who, as specialized groups, were often seen as privileged and did not succeed in raising public compassion or advancing persuasive issue-definitions. 14 "Citizens' conference: Genetic data-wherefrom, whereto, wherefore?" resource scarcity it neither produced satisfying results nor influenced policy to an extent worth noting (Grabner et al., 2002: 62-6). 16 Österreichischer Rundfunk. 17 Interview with organizers, 3 March 2004, on file with the author. 18 For "GENome research in AUstria" (http://www.gen-au.at/). Modeled after the German Human Genome Project (http://www.dhgp.de/) and endowed with a three-year budget of h31 612 million, this, so far, is the biggest Austrian technology program ever and aims at enhancing Austria's competitiveness in the international high-tech field. It is worth mentioning that, in spite of its importance in terms of financial support, GEN-AU never provoked any major controversy from the Austrian public. 19 Interview with organizers, 3 March 2004, on file with the author. 20 Equally, the PR agency in charge of the virtual platform (www.innovatives-oesterreich.at) had been engaged in the preceding biotechnology conflict, working to restore the public image of industry whose popularity had been tremendously reduced in the controversy. Conversely, dialog < > gentechnik had consistently refused industry's support in order to avoid being construed as self-interested (Seifert, 2002: 194-5, 205). 21 Some observers raised similar critiques (Riegler and Knoll, 2002). 22 The Austrian Council later commissioned the TA institution to carry out the the conference's evaluation. 23 Nonetheless, internal tensions never completely evaporated (interview with journalist, 26 April 2004, on file with the author). 24 Among the 105 applicants there was a clear surplus of retirees and housewives and a respective lack of candidates in the younger and economically active population, which had to be corrected in the further selection procedure in order to fit demographic criteria. This disproportion could be taken as an indication for a rather low attractiveness of the topic which might also explain the generally low return rate. 25 One participant left the group after the first sessions for personal reasons. 26 As shown by an online inquiry in parliamentary protocols for the keyword "BürgerInnenkonferenz" which results in only two hits: the first document notes the ceremonial handing over of the recommendations of the consensus conference to the Chairman of Parliament, the second is a statement of accounts which lists the consensus conference as an element of the PR campaign instigated by the Austrian Council. 27 Interview with administration, 2 June 2005, on file with the author. 28 Interview with constitutional lawyer, 13 June 2005, on file with the author. 29 The law had been amended the year before in order to transpose the EU directive on the contained use of genetically modified micro-organisms (98/81/EC) into national law, and it was amended again in 2004 to adapt to the amended EU directive on the deliberate release into the environment of GMOs (2001/18/EC). Neither of these amendments had any reference whatsoever to questions related to genetic data. 30 Only in this sense, the-often quoted-"finding" that citizens proved capable of absorbing specialized knowledge and formulating reasonable policy recommendations can be considered a criterion for the exercise's success. The fact that laypeople who are motivated to learn and provided with the required means are able to become as competent decision-makers as "the real" experts borders on banality. Besides, it is a principal assumption underlying the very possibility of democracy. 31 Thus an-albeit preliminary-finding which, at least, does not contradict Steve Rayner's more general verdict: "There have been almost no credible outcome-based evaluations that have established that a public participation technique has led to a technically or socially sound outcome that otherwise would not have been reached" (Rayner, 2003: 167).

Table 1 .

 1 Consensus conferences in Denmark

	Year	Issue
	1987	Gene Technology in Industry and Agriculture
	1988	The Citizen and dangerous Production
	1989	Human Genome Mapping
		Food Irradiation
	1990	Air Pollution
	1991	Educational Technology
	1992	Technological Animals
	1993	The Future of Private Automobiles
		Infertility
	1994	Electronic Identity Cards
		A Light-green Agricultural Sector
		Information Technology in Transportation
	1995	Chemical substances in Food and the Environment
		Gene Therapy
	1996	The Future of Fishing
		Future Consumption and Environment
	1997	Teleworking
	1999	Genetically modified Food
	2000	Noise and Technology
		Electronic Surveillance
	2001	Roadpricing
	2002	Testing our Genes
	2003	How do we assign Value to the Environment?
	Source: http://www.tekno.dk (accessed June 2005).

Table 2 .

 2 Consensus conferences Danish-style worldwide

	Year	Country	Issue
	1993	Netherlands	Genetically modified Animals
	1994	United Kingdom	Plant Biotechnology
	1995	Netherlands	Research in Human Genetics
	1996	Netherlands	Natural Resources
		New Zealand	Plant Biotechnology
		Norway	Genetically modified Food
	1997	Austria	Tropospheric Ozone
		USA	Telecommunications and Democracy
	1998	France	Genetically modified Organisms
		Japan	Gene Therapy
		South Korea	Genetically modified Food
		Switzerland	Electricity
	1999	Australia	Genetically modified Food
		Canada	Genetically modified Food
		Japan	Information Society
		South Korea	Cloning
		New Zealand	Biotechnological Pest Control
		Switzerland	Genetically modified Food
		United Kingdom	Radioactive Waste
	2000	Israel	Traffic
		Norway	Genetically modified Food (follow-up to 1996)
		Norway	Elderly People in the Information Society
		Switzerland	Transplantation Medicine
	2001	Germany	Genetic Testing
		Israel	Unemployment
		Norway	Stem Cells and Therapeutic Cloning
	2002	USA	Genetically modified Food
	2003	Austria	Genetic Data
		Norway	Future Heating of Norwegian Homes
		USA	Future of Food
	2004	Switzerland	Research involving Human Beings
		Italy	GMO Research
	2005	USA	Responsible Nanotechnologies

Source: http://www.loka.org and research by author.

Public Understanding of Science 15 (1)

Public Understanding of Science 15 (1)

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Seifert: A consensus conference in Austria 81

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Acknowledgements

This article is a result of the research project "Austria's biotechnology conflict in the world," supported by the Austrian Science Fund, FWF (P16403-G04). The author thanks two anonymous Public Understanding of Science reviewers for their valuable comments.

Notes

1 For the gulf between a rhetoric of openness, increasingly popular among policymakers, and the institutional reforms required for its realization see Levidow and Marris (2001). 2 For a comprehensive outline of democracy's diversity see Held (1996), for demanding models of democracy, Cohen and Rogers (1995) and Fishkin (1991). 3 A notable example for an expert-based variant of participatory TA was set by Wolfgang van den Daele et al.'s discursive arrangement treating the contested environmental and health risks of transgenic herbicide-resistant crops. Representatives of corporate promoters and civil society opponents of agricultural biotechnology engaged in a controlled "ideal discourse" on the risks of genetically modified food crops. Since they were provided with all scientific expertise necessary to warrant their argumentation the procedure ultimately resulted in the creation of an interdisciplinary library on the contested issue. Expertise thus antagonistically assembled ultimately proved useful to regulatory elites (Van den Daele et al., 1997). An account of a "Technology Delphi" is given by Grabner et al. (2002). The same anthology also contains various accounts of types of participatory TA which promote laypeople's rather than expert deliberations. In fact, "consensus conferences" to be discussed shortly can also be understood as forms of participatory TA. For an article epitomizing the early, elitist discourse on the "Public Understanding of Science" see Durant et al. (1989). 4 In recent years, an academic discussion on the formal evaluation of consensus conferences has unfolded. For an early assessment of a Dutch consensus conference see Mayer et al. (1995). Joss (1998) assesses the deliberative procedure in its Danish place of origin. The first holding of a Danish-style consensus conference in the United States is analyzed in Guston (1999). For a recent German consensus conference see Zimmer (2002), for Australia see Mohr (2002). For a first comparative framework see Mayer and Geurts (1998). Further suggestions for a more formalized assessment were put forward in Rowe and Frewer (2000) and Rowe et al. (2004). For pioneering comparative work see Einsiedel et al. (2001). 5 The "Teknologie-Rådet," established in 1985 (http://www.tekno.dk). It is worthwhile noting that the consensus conference is only one within a wider repertoire of deliberative procedures employed and in part developed by the Technology Board, consisting of citizens' and parliamentary hearings, development spaces, future panels, future search and voting conferences, perspective and scenario workshops, and policy role plays. Among these

Author

Franz Seifert is a biologist and political scientist and currently working as an independent social researcher in Vienna. He has participated in various international projects on bio-politics and has ample experience in survey-, media-and policy-analysis as well as democratic theory pertaining to bio-politics and related policy fields. At present, he is directing a study on transnational aspects of the Austrian biotechnology controversy. Correspondence: Maxingstrasse 22-24/2/7, A-1130 Vienna, Austria, e-mail: fseifert@gmx.at