‘Heating up’ or ‘Cooling Down’? Analysing and Performing Broadened Participation in Technoscientific Conflicts

Stakeholders and citizens today are often invited to deliberate in controversial processes of scientific and technological decision making. Scholars in the field of science and technology studies (STS) have long supported these initiatives to transcend strong expert–lay divides. However, despite many such contributions, there is no agreement on how such broadened participation should be performed, either in theory or in practice. The theoretical ambition of this paper is to reformulate the opposing viewpoints of Michel Callon and Harry Collins on public participation in scientific and technological decision making. It is argued that they try to ‘heat up’ (Callon) or ‘cool down’ (Collins) the issues they study: that is, that they enact them differently. The performative outcomes of these two strategies for participation are analysed. The empirical ambition is to study recent developments in participatory approaches to radioactive waste management in Belgium and Sweden and the role of social science in connection with these. Due to public criticism of earlier top-down technocratic approaches, this field has played a significant role in enacting and supporting broadened participation. Moreover, while the waste programmes in Belgium and Sweden have both been internationally recognised as taking participation seriously, they have varied considerably in terms of participatory technologies and involvement of social science. A conclusion is that social science research has influenced how participatory engagements are organised in radioactive waste programmes, and thereby has become involved in processes of ‘heating up’ and ‘cooling down’. However, social scientists, as well as all actors, need to be more aware of their own preconceptions about the issue at stake—in terms of its being “hot” or “cold”—and the consequences of these enactments.