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Journal of Nanoparticle Research
Published in: Journal of Nanoparticle Research 4/2011

01-04-2011 | Special Focus: Governance of Nanobiotechnology

Nanotechnology as an experiment in democracy: how do citizens form opinions about technology and policy?

Authors: Susanna Hornig Priest, Ted Greenhalgh

Published in: Journal of Nanoparticle Research | Issue 4/2011

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Abstract

This article analyzes nanotechnology as an experiment in democratic deliberation, one that seems motivated both by a desire to improve deliberative democracy and to protect the technology from undue public interference. However, rather than involving amplified (overstated) risks, nanotechnology appears to involve attenuated (understated) risks. Results from a 3-year panel study are presented to illustrate the ways in which citizens form opinions about nanotechnology, supporting the assertion that public opinion about complex technology can be both reasonable and stable. Nevertheless, the authors also voice concern that, in the absence of public pressure, risk regulation may not evolve as swiftly as it should to protect both society and industry.
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Footnotes
1
Public input provisions are common in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy making, and other agencies are moving in this direction. However, the emphasis in these efforts is usually more narrowly on stakeholder involvement in the development of specific regulatory policies, rather than broader citizen involvement in the discussion of more general and more prospective policy issues—an approach to policy sometimes referred to as “public consultation.”
 
2
Data were subsequently analyzed at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
 
3
That report notes, by comparison, that awareness of synthetic biology increased from 9 to 22% between 2008 and 2009, also based on responses of “a lot” or “some”; however, the series likely does not go back far enough to capture the initial awareness curve for nanotechnology since it begins at 30%, so the trajectories reported are not necessarily comparable.
 
4
Another way of looking at these data would be to consider that the more initially familiar respondents were the most optimistic, whereas—in contrast—adding information during the survey caused a sharper increase in those seeing more risk than in those seeing more benefit. A straightforward possible explanation is simply that those with the most familiarity going in were the most pro-technology more generally, perhaps due to personal interest in technology or to their occupations, etc., rather than their having been exposed to more information per se. Extra information seemingly had the opposite effect on others.
 
Literature
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Metadata
Title
Nanotechnology as an experiment in democracy: how do citizens form opinions about technology and policy?
Authors
Susanna Hornig Priest
Ted Greenhalgh
Publication date
01-04-2011
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Journal of Nanoparticle Research / Issue 4/2011
Print ISSN: 1388-0764
Electronic ISSN: 1572-896X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-011-0229-y

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