Science to the people! (and experimental politics): Searching for the roots of participatory discourse in science and technology in the 1970s in France

Abstract

The current conception of political participation in governmental institutions is deeply marked by the notions of deliberation and precaution. This normative conception of participatory politics neglects, backgrounds or disqualifies other participatory practices, in so far as they are not connected to deliberation and precaution. However, participation has not always been defined in such a restricted way: the current conception of participation is a product of the 1980s and 1990s. In this paper, the meaning ascribed to the notion of participation in the 1970s in France is explored through the study of discourses produced in three fields: the Science Policy Division of the OECD, the French radical science movement, and the emerging STS academic field. As is shown, some of the bases of the current notion of participation originate in the 1970s. Nevertheless, it is argued that in these years, the notion of participation has more to do with experimentation than with deliberation and precaution. Therefore, the conception of participation in the 1970s differs greatly from the current one. Methodologically, this paper combines tools offered by the social history of science and the French school of discourse analysis.

Keywords

activism critique of science experimentation French STS genealogy of discourse participatory technology assessment

1. The issue of political participation in science and technology

For thirty years, public participation in scientific and technological choices has become a prevailing issue for the governments of most industrialised countries (Lengwiler, 2008). It seems today that large scale scientific programmes and technological projects can no longer exist without public encounters and discussions – public participation has become a stage in the policy-making process, especially in the case of science and technology (Thorpe and Gregory, 2010). Consensus conferences, citizens’ juries, participatory technology assessment, public debates and referenda: multiple processes can be used to address socio-technical situations (Joss and Durant, 1995; Vig and Paschen, 2000; Callon, Lascoumes and Barthe, 2001). With the appearance of the formula “upstream public engagement” (Jasanoff, 2011), most governments even try to bring scientific and technical objects into discussion before they get out of control in the public sphere (Joly and Kaufmann, 2008). Participation now fulfils an essential function as a political value as well as a governing tool (Pestre, 2008). For instance, the European Union defines participation as one of the five conditions of governance – along with openness, accountability, effectiveness and coherence – in its White Paper on European governance (CEC, 2001) and gives a major role to participation in the research strategies of the sixth and seventh framework programmes. This establishes participation as a factor in contemporary means to produce order and political stability – one which raises new questions and conflicts.

Sometimes, participatory initiatives in science and technology (S&T) are said to be answers to the failure of genetically modified organism (GMO) policies in Europe. This interpretation would explain for instance the multiplication of “nano-debates” (Rip, 2006; Joly and Kaufmann, 2008). In this view, participatory processes are a recent feature of political life, aiming to address opposition to technological innovation. Beyond the GMO controversy, participation remains embedded in various other historical evolutions and political practices (Manin, 1996; Rosanvallon, 2006; Sintomer, 2007). First, the “participatory turn” is not limited to scientific and technological issues (Jasanoff, 2003a). The claim for more public participation spread in the context of a crisis of representative democracy in industrialised countries, with the rising of new public intervention practices, international governance principles and the redefinition of the North/South relationship. Multiple institutions and fields have contributed to the (re-)emergence of a participatory ideal. From the World Bank to the World Social Forums and alter-globalisation activism, through the Northern countries’ participatory initiatives, the same expression, “public participation”, has appeared to define crucial goals and ideals (Goldman, 2005; Gret and Sintomer, 2005). Furthermore, regarding S&T issues, the participatory turn has also developed in multiple ways and events since the mid-1960s, and it is not specific to institutional innovation politics: social movements against nuclear politics (Topçu, 2010), the emergence of environmentalism (Ollitrault, 2008), public health controversies (Epstein, 1996), among others, bring elements of understanding of the emergence of the participatory turn before the GMO case. The participatory turn is the consequence of a rich and complex history, involving activism and academic reflection as well as research policy and institutional politics.

The complex history and various origins of participation lead today to serious semantic problems. It has become difficult to understand what the term “participation” refers to. Obviously, participation does not have the same meaning in international institutions as in activist gatherings. It is used to characterise different political practices. At the same time, the use of the same word in such various contexts blurs its meaning. This vagueness leads to political misunderstandings, since diverging uses of the same notion create tensions in the interpretations and values associated with participation. First, participation tends to be interpreted either as a legitimising process for governmental propositions in institutional politics, or as a means for social emancipation in social movements (Joly and Marris, 2003). A second kind of semantic tension is due to divergent understandings of each participant’s epistemic contribution to participatory processes, illustrated in the conflicts between scientists and farmers involved in common participatory processes with distinct opinions about scientific and lay knowledge legitimacy (Bonneuil and Demeulenaere, 2007). The third series of contradictions is linked to the kind of actions considered as participation by the social actors. Brian Wynne (2008) distinguished “invited” and “un-invited” forms of public engagement, which suggests that participatory politics correspond alternatively to normative processes of official invitation (for instance invitation of “lay people” in citizen conferences: Boy, Donnet-Kamel and Roqueplo, 2000) and to the process of political legitimation of previously “un-invited” publics, such as the alter-globalisation activists mobilised against open field GMO trials (Bonneuil, Joly and Marris, 2008) or the sheep farmers in the controversy analysed by Wynne (1996).

These works show participation as a contradictory word, filled with divergent ambitions and values. To address the political issues raised, one has to clarify what “participation” is. That is to say: one has to define and explain the diversity of the forms of participation and their tensions. This is why, as Sheila Jasanoff (2003a) points out, the substance of participatory politics needs to be described. One such analysis consists in describing the diversity of the concrete, practical forms of participation and dynamics by which some practices become dominant. Scholars have described the great variety of concrete processes, practices and actions put in place by local, national or international institutions and civil society groups. First, different forms of participatory politics can be ordered according to the kind of involvement promoted: from involvement in a scientific project, through involvement in scientific policy to the definition of a social problem (Kleinman, 2000). Second, participatory processes can be more or less connected to political decisions: the impact and consequences of information, consultation, public debate or collective choice differ (Joly and Kaufmann, 2008). Third, the mode of organisation of participation is also important: local enquiries, national public debates, focus groups, round tables and citizens’ juries do not constitute the same figure of the public (Felt and Fochler, 2010). Last, issues that are discussed through participatory processes vary according to the nature of the actors and fields involved: budgets, regulation and law infrastructure projects, among others.

This diversity of practices is not incompatible with the predominance of some of the ways of ordering practice, and this too has to be taken into account in order to clarify the substance of participation. Indeed, Dominique Pestre (2007b: 19–20) warns us of the exaggerated importance given to “procedure” in governmental and academic fields, since “nothing proves that the core of democratic life mainly resides in devising the best/optimal procedure to collectively decide” (emphasis in original). In this view, the description and explanation of the substance of participation implies giving an account of the diversity of participatory processes, but also shedding light on their dynamics and on the dominant ways of organising participatory practices.

However, the multiple forms of participation and their dynamics alone cannot explain what participation is composed of. Participation also implies political discourses, conceptions and values. History, in this view, is made up of concepts and meanings as well as practices (Koselleck, 1990). Therefore, the analysis of these meanings is a second way to clarify our own understanding of the concept. To address the meanings and values of participation rather than its practices implies paying attention to discourses about participation, studying the ways in which the notion of participation is built and the values or implicit goals which are associated with it rather than analysing the practical processes labelled as “participatory”.¹ According to this view, one can show the diversity of meanings attributed to participation, their dynamics and the dominant role given to some meanings, to better understand the substance of participation.

As a first effort at explaining the discursive substance of participation, this paper puts forward the socio-historical semantic variety of “participation in science and technology” in France. It traces some meanings attributed to participation in S&T issues by the social actors during a phase of emergence of the participatory discourse in the 1970s. The focus is on three social groups: activist (the radical science movement), technocratic (the OECD Science Policy Division) and academic (the French STS field). Analysis of these groups shows that the meaning of participation differs according to the context in which it is embedded. Activists, technocrats and social scientists produced conceptions of participation relating to different understandings of science, social order and emancipation. But these conceptions interacted and shared some characteristics. From this viewpoint, their similarities distinguish them as a whole from some more contemporary, institutional definitions of participation. The discursive substance of participation appears therefore as a dynamic socio-historical construction, marked by the diversity of definitions attributed to participation and by their continuous tensions.

2. Participatory discourse in S&T in the 1970s

An agitated social context

Premises of the discourse on participation appeared towards the end of the 1960s and in the early 1970s. This may be quite obvious from a North American point of view, owing to Carol Pateman’s or Dimitrios Roussopoulos’ theories of participation published in 1970, and to the role played in the 1960s by the civil rights movement and the Students for a Democratic Society in the rise of participatory discourse (Pateman, 1970; Breines, 1989; Roussopoulos and Benello, 2005). It is less self-evident in a country like France, where the major activist period started in 1968, nonetheless some traces of discourse on participation at that time can be found. The social and political context of France in the late 1960s is the end of ten years of conservative government by President Charles de Gaulle. Many activist and cultural movements appeared on the political scene, such as Maoism, multiple leftist groups, environmentalism and feminism (Sommier, 2008; Mathieu, 2010). The end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s was a dynamic period for activism and ways of protestation were renewed in various forms (Hatzfeld, 2005; Artières and Zancarini-Fournel, 2008).

Some historians note, as regards science and society issues, that May 1968 marks the start of a decade of protestation and critique of science (Pestre, 2003; Bonneuil, 2004). The first sign is a critique of the effects of industrialisation. This critique is launched in the United States by the notable success of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring (Murphy, 2005). In France, a response increases towards the end of the 1960s. There is also the constitution, in the early 1970s, of the anti-nuclear movement. The fast growth of this movement is illustrated by the contrast between the two first significant demonstrations against civil nuclear power. The first national demonstration takes place in April 1971 and brings together 1500 people in Fessenheim. Four months later, another demonstration is organised, this time with the support of the national weekly Charlie Hebdo. Fifteen thousand protesters turn out: the demonstration is a success. Throughout the 1970s and until the demonstration of Creys-Malville in 1977, anti-nuclear activism is on the increase in France (Chateauraynaud and Torny, 1999; Topçu, 2006). The French pacifist movement is strong during these years, inspired by the critique of the Vietnam War, but above all, by that of the Algerian War which has a determinant influence on May ’68 (Ross, 2002). This anti-militarism leads to a critique of the links between science and the military (Pinault, 2003), illustrated for instance by the demonstration against the physicist Murray Gell-Mann at the Collège de France in 1972. Gell-Mann has to cancel a planned conference because of the protests against his involvement in military research during the Vietnam War (Jaubert and Lévy-Leblond, 1973). In the same period, environmentalism and political ecology appear on the political scene. The environmental theme is firmly established in the media sphere by the end of the 1960s (Charvolin, 2003) and the first political environmental groups, such as “Survivre” are founded in 1970. The 1968/70s activism, originally student activism, begins to acquire a strong intellectual groundwork, and social sciences and philosophy meet with great success (Gilcher-Holtey, 2000). The books of Herbert Marcuse are discovered, and many authors follow his way of intellectual criticism of science and technology, including Ivan Illich (1971) and André Gorz (1971). The 1970s thus become a period of renewal for the intellectual critique of science and technology.

In the context of this rising critique of science, many institutions and social actors reflect upon the social status of science and technology. The discourses and actions of three groups present the concept of participation as participation in scientific and technological choices most clearly. These are the Science Policy Division in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the French radical science movement and the emerging Science, Technology and Society field (STS) – the last appearing a few years later, in the mid-late 1970s. In order to distinguish the social functions and editorial practices of these three groups clearly, they are referred to as technocratic, activist and academic, respectively. These three groups elaborate distinct conceptions of participation to S&T. Both the differences and the similarities between these conceptions will be examined here.

Participation according to the OECD

Some of the bases of the discourse on participation in science and technology were set by the Science Policy Division of the OECD, which offers a first definition of “participation”. Between 1971 and 1979, the Division publishes a series of reports elaborating a methodological approach to technology assessment.² These reports deal to some extent with the issue of “participatory technology assessment” and define some features of participation to S&T (Boy, 1999). A first conception of participation can therefore be found within the OECD discourse, as one way among others to assess technologies. As early as 1971, the OECD notes for instance that for some people “democratic participation appears to be a solution to the problem of designing social goals and defining the responsibility of science towards these goals”³. A few years later authors of a report claim that “participation of an informed and responsible public can and should play a more and more important role in the articulation between the political and social goals of scientific and technological programs” (Mullin, 1979: 7).

At first sight, this notion of participation can hardly be considered as unified. Instead of a homogeneous, robust definition of participation, the reports elaborate some specific features attributed to that conception: through the reports, participation appears successively as a social claim which has to be answered, as a research object designed by policy researchers and as a coercion principle, implying compromise by participants. Even so, the notion of participation built into the reports is strongly associated with the idea of apparatuses and processes through which democracy could be enhanced. Participation is considered mainly as a governing tool dedicated to the enhancement of political decision rather than a democratic principle worth promoting in itself.

This conception of participation is a consequence of the definition of science policy by the OECD. The Science Policy Division of the OECD promotes a conception of science policy as a field which “should help in enhancing the technical conditions of decision making, especially regarding the comparison between heterogeneous objectives”.⁴ In this context, a “better” decision is one that integrates more knowledge – a better informed decision – and takes into account the social as well as technical parameters. A better decision has a pacifying effect on social order since it relies on a more complex vision of reality and formulates more clearly the social goals: “In order to use technology optimally, the social goals should be formulated much more clearly than they are now; as long as it will not be the case, the management of technology will not avoid the production of grave misuses” (Hetman, 1973: 7).

Participation, to the OECD, can serve this project, increasing the capacity to identify dissatisfaction and the possibility of controversies created by technical innovation. According to its promoters within the OECD, it can help identify socially representative formations and discourses. Following this idea, a report presents participation in technology assessment as a means to “collect and integrate the information related to interested groups and concerned groups, as well as their respective importance, with the aim of completing the available information for the person in charge of the decision”.⁵

A first conception of participation is therefore visible in the OECD reports, as a governing tool aimed at collecting information and not empowering people. To understand why such a role is given to participation, the increase in counter-movements in science has to be taken into account: the anti-nuclear movement and the radical science movement raise diverse problems for the management of science and technology. These movements also had a concept of participation, though not that of the OECD.

Participation according to the radical science movement

Throughout the twentieth century, critiques of science have been expressed in different forms (Werskey, 2007). From 1945, scientific activism becomes stronger, first through the critique of military uses of nuclear energy (Moore, 2008), then under the influence of social activism in the 1960s (Mendelsohn, 1994; Agar, 2008). Among the movements which appear at the end of the 1960s, some groups are directed against specific projects or innovations. The anti-nuclear movement gathers groups which regularly oppose the building of nuclear plants or discuss the safety norms of the nuclear industry (Balogh, 1991). Other groups are more interested in theoretical discussions about scientific ideology and technological alienation, such as the Radical Science Collective in England or the Impascience Collective in France. Groups often mix together and people who engage in theoretical discussions are also frequently involved in field actions (Beckwith, 1986). The main interrogations of these groups articulate the necessity of a socially more appropriate knowledge, a critique of the links between science, state and army, and promotion of scientists’ engagement in political issues.

While the radical science movement has been less important in France than in the US or England, there are groups of French scientists who claim that science should be practised by the people (Petitjean, 1998).⁶ Some of these leave the scientific establishment for activities based on the critique of Big Science, while others establish activist groups, such as the Groupement Scientifique d’Information sur l’Energie Nucléaire (GSIEN), Groupe Information Biologie (GIB), asbestos collective in Jussieu, and so forth. Journals or books are published, especially in the collection “Science Ouverte” run by Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond at the publishing house Le Seuil (Jaubert and Lévy-Leblond, 1973; Rose, 1977). Some figures of the movement are well-known, such as the mathematician Alexandre Grothendieck, Fields Medal laureate in 1966, who leaves his laboratory in 1970 when he discovers it is funded by the defence ministry. He is hired by the highly prestigious Collège de France, but his contract is not renewed because he organises talks about sciences and social movements instead of teaching mathematics. Grothendieck is very much involved in far left movements and founds the political ecology group Survivre.

Compared to the movements which precede it (Bernalism, Pugwash), the 1970s radical science movement presents an original feature: it not only demands science “for the people”, but also science “by the people”. The main axes of protestation in France are founded upon an analysis of laboratories as common workplaces, implying exploitation of the workforce, and upon a critique of positivist ideology and expertise. This is why the radical science movement oscillates between critique and self-criticism of scientific activity (Rose, 1979).

At first glance, such a critique is not directly related to the idea of “public participation” in S&T. The word “participation” is rarely used in the publications of the French radical science movement. This can be explained by the Gaullist connotations of this word in the 1970s. In France at this time, “participation” is associated with the proposal by the government to make employees of a firm “participate” (in the benefits) (Mouriaux, 1998). This form of participation is criticised by activist groups since it comes from “the top” (Cohen, 2008). During the demonstrations of May 1968, there are slogans such as “We participate, they make profit”, or “Participation, the new opium of the people”.

Even in that context of strong governmental connotations, the noun “participation” and verb “participate” are used, often cautiously, in the publications of the radical science movement, to describe such practices as the popular appropriation of scientific knowledge or public engagement in political decisions. The cautiousness of radical movements towards the notion of participation is reflected mainly by negative uses of the word. Radical science is more eager to denounce the lack of participation than to promote participation as an emancipatory concept. The authors of Porisme criticise for instance the “ever decreasing participation of workers in the sphere of decisions, either under an immediate or an indirect and representative form”. They add that “the apparent scientific rationality of authoritarian planning imposed by the interests of the strongest economic groups excludes any alternative democratic initiative”.⁷ Another paper, published by Labo-contestation, promotes a “participation which wouldn’t fall into its own trap”.⁸ But “participation” can also be used with a positive meaning of participation in scientific practice. For instance, an article from Labo-contestation quotes Ivan Illich’s hope that in a future system “people who would have participated once in a specialised activity would initiate others to a role which until now has been held by specialists”.⁹

Even more importantly, radical science journals also spread ideas firmly connected to what will later form the participatory ideals: critique of expertise (Quet, 2010), claims for science “by the people”, description of knowledge as a new political site. Papers suggest that for those who are “excluded from knowledge” it will be necessary to “take the power – and maybe to destroy it – in order to found and to master the new knowledge”.¹⁰ Others ask for a “collective appropriation of scientific knowledge”¹¹ and for methodical destruction of the “sacred wall which separates those who know and those who do not know”.¹² On the same grounds as social and economic inequalities, epistemic inequalities are criticised. For that reason, journals build a lexical, conceptual and thematic field of “participation” even when they do not use the word itself.

According to discourse analysis, one must observe tensions between connotations and uses of a word (Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 1986). Given the fact that a governmentally connoted word such as “participation” is used by the far left critique of science, and given that the uses of this word belong to a lexical field which strengthens the conception of participation, we can consider that the notion, if not the word, of participation corresponds to an axis of the radical science movement’s discourse.

In this sense, participation does not include the same meaning as that of the OECD reports. The claim for citizens’ involvement in science and technology is based upon a principle of emancipation. Whereas in the discourse of the OECD participation is mainly a governing tool, for the radical science movement participation is a condition for the people’s liberation and their fight against alienation.

Participation according to academic STS

The third field involved in a consideration of participation is the emerging academic STS field.¹³ The acronym “STS” will not be used by French researchers before 1980, when the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) starts funding the first French STS programme. But from the mid-1970s, various researchers from different disciplines gather through seminars, bulletins and journals so as to implement new conceptions in the practice of the sociology, history and economy of science and technology (Kreimer, 1992). This emerging and heterogeneous field forms the basis of the future French STS. Among the actors involved in the foundation of this field and the issues it deals with, Jean-Jacques Salomon (member of the OECD Science Division and professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers) and Philippe Roqueplo (researcher for the CNRS and for the Ministry of Industry) play a major role. But the “new sociology and economy of science” is soon under the special influence of the Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation (CSI) run by Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, as well as groups sharing similar views about science and technology, such as the Gersulp in Strasbourg (Dubois, 2001; Berthelot, Martin and Collinet, 2005). In their promotion of the STS field at this time, Callon and Latour try to invent a non-academic way of practising social sciences: “STS research has to design freely its objects, assemble freely its methods, define freely its collaborations, choose freely its style, its seriousness and its rules” (Latour, 1982: 77). In their attempt to elaborate a “free STS” in France, they create links with the radical science movement which preceded it. Pandore, the bulletin published by the CSI, deals with science in a nonconformist way. It asserts: “PANDORE is not an academic journal! It is a bulletin made by its own readers”.¹⁴ People involved in the radical science movement participate in the first editions (Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond, John Stewart, Roger Godement, among others). The publication is delivered to scientists, but also to activists and trade unionists. It may therefore be said that the STS field in France shares some features with the activist field, even if the former has a more academic character (Martin, 1993).

In the STS field too, some bases of the notion of participation are conceptualised. Like the radical science journals, STS journals rarely use the term “participation”, even if some occurrences can be found, as for instance in this proposal to organise “participation experiments”: “The complexity and diversity of situations related to the social inscription of technologies makes necessary the systematic organisation of small scale experiments, so as to invent modalities of participation and to understand consequences that only practice can reveal” (Prost, 1982: 23) or in this promotion of a participatory design of technological devices: “It is urgent to participate in the technological knowledge which is at the core of our daily tools. Investing these tools or being invested by them, ‘that is the question’”.¹⁵

The notion of participation is therefore relatively absent from French STS journals. However, the issue of public engagement in science and technology is put into question through various operations. And the actors of the new sociology of science provide conceptual tools to think about a relation between science and society which would be characterised by new forms of public involvement. Like those in the radical science movement, they build a conceptual environment that enables one to think the notion of participation. The most important – though not the only one (Jasanoff, 2003b) – of the conceptual tools provided by the academic field is epistemological relativism (connected to the critique of expertise). The authors in the field, inspired by Bloorian symmetry, emphasise the importance of giving the same consideration to each discourse and area of knowledge. Any knowledge or absence of knowledge is justified by the specificity of people’s practice, and not legitimated by a hierarchy between scientific and common knowledge: “Ignorance is not obscurantism, irrationality: it is an active form of resistance. If one ignores the laws which govern the life of planets and stars, it is in order to protect the knowledges one needs, to master the situations in which one has been involved” (Callon, 1982). In that sense, epistemological relativism improves the status of common knowledge and shows that everyone is involved in his or her own “knowledge situations”. The second tool is the focus on the controversies in science (Pestre, 2004, 2007a), which allows one to study sciences critically as an institution and authority, with the aim of re-legitimising the discourses of people who were excluded by this institution’s rules.

Participation, in the STS field, is seen as a new ontology: the authors describe the science/society relationship as if it were the case that people participated in scientific and technological choices. They insist for instance on “worker’s creativity” (Denieuil, 1982) or show how women manage to “democratise” technological interventions.¹⁶ They emphasise people’s involvement in knowledge production processes, but also their capacity for invention, their imagination. And they show that the hierarchy between knowledges and people is the “uncertain result of an ongoing fight between various players for the definition and stabilisation of their world” (Callon, 1983: 12).

This conception of participation is more descriptive and analytic compared to those proposed by the OECD and radical science movement. However, it remains to a certain extent normative, due to the use of the expression “technical democracy” and its related conceptions. This expression, first employed by Latour and Callon in 1981, is closely linked to the idea of participation, since it requires authors to reflect upon the means of sharing knowledge and to organise society according to the epistemological issues raised by science and technology. This expression also shows that even if the authors’ preoccupations are academically oriented, they are still rooted in political ambitions: “STS is expected to give the resources to build a technical democracy” (Latour, 1982: 72–73) or “technical democracy is yet to be entirely invented” (Latour, 1981: 15). According to this third concept, participation is therefore a mode of description of the science/society relationship and at the same time a regulating value.

Circulations and exchanges

Participation in science and technology is at stake in three different spheres during the same period: technocratic, activist and academic. The OECD Science Policy Division produces reports during the whole period; the radical science movement is active mainly between 1969 and 1977; the STS field starts emerging in 1974 with the seminar led by Philippe Roqueplo (Roqueplo et al., 1976), though the first bulletins and journals appear in 1978. These fields produce different conceptions of participation and give it different goals. Participation according to the OECD is a governing tool, whereas for the radical science movement it is a political principle, and for the STS field, a way of describing the science/society relationship. On this basis, the discursive substance of participation is made up of diverse understandings of science and government. But these three conceptions of what participation is, are connected. The technocratic and activist fields are connected through events and meetings; the technocratic and academic fields are connected since some players are involved in both; the activist and academic fields are connected since actors of the activist field will integrate the emerging academic field. From these interactions, common interpretations of participation appear and the substance of participation emerges.

The three fields are connected through different kinds of operations. The first kind is the circulation of individuals between the spheres. People can belong to the academic and the activist fields (Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond, John Stewart, Jean Deutsch), to the academic and technocratic fields (Jean-Jacques Salomon, Michael Pollak) or even to all three (Philippe Roqueplo). The second kind of operation refers to those made in texts. An example of such a textual operation is the circulation of common references: Illich, Marcuse, Ellul are quoted in publications by all three fields, for instance, even if they are given different status according to the field in which they are quoted. Another example of textual operation, though less frequent, is inter-quotation: an OECD report quoted in an academic publication, etc. The third kind of circulation operation is the organisation of meetings which give opportunities to the actors in the different fields to interact. This operation differs from the first in that the focus is on the meeting points, not on the circulation of individuals. Diverse encounters are organised, through seminars, congresses or workshops.¹⁷ During these encounters, people from different fields meet, discuss and sometimes (or often) disagree. But they put at the centre of their common interests the idea of participation through different interpretations.

For instance, during the colloquium of Saint Paul de Vence, organised in 1972 by the OECD and Direction Générale de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique (DGRST), a meeting was set up of people as different as Hilary and Steven Rose, Peter Weingart, Derek de Solla Price, Philippe Roqueplo, Roger Godement, Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond, Jean-Jacques Salomon. The colloquium opens with the reading of a letter sent by Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond to announce that he will not come, so as not to collaborate with this attempt at manipulation of the critique of science. In the following days many conflicts arise: one of the four discussion groups is dissolved and some of its participants join another group, founding a leftist section within the colloquium, whose objective is revolution (participants include Ravetz, Rose and Rose, Roqueplo, Thill). During this colloquium the idea of community science is promoted, and Steven Rose declares: “If research matters to society, everyone must participate in it” (quoted by Giraud, 1972). During such meetings, conceptions of participation as proposed in all three fields are brought into question.

These circulations and exchanges demonstrate one important thing for the substance of participation. In the 1970s, participation receives at least three distinct definitions: as a governing tool, an emancipation tool, and a description tool. These definitions relate to different understandings of science and social order, but the fields in which these definitions are promoted are not isolated.Therefore, through circulations and exchanges, dynamics are created and the notion of participation acquires a common discursive substance – participation is at the same time a governing tool, an emancipation tool, a description tool, the three concepts always in tension. Considering these dynamics, it is possible to explain why the substance of participation is simultaneously made up of different conceptions and common values: diverging conceptions of participation in the 1970s sometimes converge towards similar interrogations. For that reason, one may emphasise the similarities between the conceptions of participation in the 1970s, and upon their differences from contemporary conceptions.

3. Specificities of the discourse on participation in the 1970s

1970s participation vs. contemporary participation

We have seen that distinct conceptions of participation exist in the 1970s, and that these conceptions interact. We can now present their similarities, their common ground and what opposes them to contemporary conceptions of participation. Considering the defining aspects of participation, such as the institutions it requires and the kind of public which is involved, it becomes clear that participation has a different meaning in the 1970s from today.

The first difference originates in the Marxist conception of social relations which prevails in the 1970s (Judt, 1986). In the 1970s in France, Marxist theories play a dominant role in various social spaces. Even in the OECD, some researchers display Maoist influences. Therefore, the conception of participation shared by the three fields studied is less guided by the pursuit of political consensus than today. Even for the OECD, participation is a way to collect information in order to make decisions, not to produce consensus among the public. Today, participation is more oriented towards the elaboration of participatory processes and the production of consensus between “lay persons” and experts (Pestre, 2007b).

The second difference comes from the importance of discourse on the alternatives to capitalism and technological development. Marxist theories do not only give conceptual tools of description and analysis of the social world but also support the development of ideas regarding the future of our societies. During the 1970s, most actors imagine alternatives to capitalism and industrial societies could exist (not only under the form of communism, but through different ways of conceiving of social development). For social movements, the “revolutionary horizon” is inspiring throughout the 1970s. In the academic and technocratic fields, this influence is weaker, but people also consider the possibility of promoting a different system from capitalist social democracy.

The third difference is that in the 1970s, political and activist groups are closely connected within an extensive network, the issues they deal with are always placed in a broader frame. Science and technology are seen as embedded in crucial political questions; the governance of scientific and technological development is never at the centre of reflection, rather it is animated by the broad goal of the organisation of a fair society.

The fourth difference is that today participation has been integrated as a tool of government at European and national levels. In the 1990s, the environment has been a laboratory of this new relationship between scientists and the public (Lascoumes, 1994). For the last 15 years in particular, public consultations have been organised on issues such as GMOs and nanotechnologies, and civil society and activist groups have experienced this new role of participation as an instrument of control more than as an emancipatory concept. This is linked to deep changes in the relationship between the technocratic, academic and activist fields. Whereas some STSers have been increasingly involved in the production of participatory devices in collaboration with governmental institutions, others have adopted more critical positions. Within the activist field, new oppositions have been raised between promoters of deliberative processes and participatory democracy and their opponents, who describe these new tools as governmental traps (Fourniau, 2011).

The 1970s conceptions of participation emphasise direct democracy, collective forms of demonstration and independence of activist groups from political parties (Mathieu, 2010: 109). Participation is embedded in the notion of direct democracy and excludes the idea of “spokespeople” and mediation. The critique of the state, common in 1970s among social movements, makes irrelevant any attempt to create institutions and processes for “participatory democracy” on behalf of the state.

Participation as experimentation

Perhaps one of the most important differences between the older and contemporary conception of participation is that in the 1970s, texts dealing with the notion of participation give an important role to “experimentation”. The specific meaning which is given to experimentation in this context enriches the notion of participation itself. The same French word, “expérience” – sometimes “expérimentation” – is used to describe various kinds of participation and political engagement. It appears that experimentation accounts for an essential part.¹⁸

In the activist field, the word experimentation is used at two levels. The level of “social experimentation” belongs to a tradition of social and political experiments by far left groups (living in communities, creating new forms of solidarity). The level of scientific and technological experiments which could lead to “another science”, focused for instance on alternative ways of producing energy and soft technologies (straw gas). The two levels always interact. For instance, it is possible to read in one of the radical science publications that “Research and experimentation about soft technologies must not be considered as a goal in itself. [...], this kind of research should be inseparable from experimental research in new lifestyles and more true relationships between human beings” (Samuel, 1972: 32). In this passage, research and experimentation concern both science and society. Experimentation does not need any common public space, but requires from people new forms of engagement in their life. They must participate in research on new lifestyles. This is the kind of participation which is at stake in the radical science movement in the 1970s.

This is also true in the case of the STS field and OECD, but on a different ground. In STS, experimentation is described as a new social ontology. Latour and Callon promote the idea that the scientist builds the world through his/her work: “We [physicists and biologists] make the society through our laboratories and theories”.¹⁹ Therefore, the (natural and social) world is only an extension of the laboratory, and constitutes infinite experimental material. This idea is reinforced by the critique of the Habermasian conception of discussion: STS authors oppose to this conception a more concrete negotiation of knowledges and decision making: “To me, the most interesting thing is to understand how one can orient the process of science in a way where the content of techniques would be negotiated concretely – instead of selecting afterwards one out of two or three pre-existing techniques”.²⁰ That is why experimentation plays a role in this field too: it is considered as a political, conceptual and not necessarily a material site where researchers, experts and the public may interact. In the OECD, the issue of experimentation appears, but in a prospective way. Some reports promote an innovative power, which would explore in an almost scientific way different options, so as to propose forms of action. François Hetman (1973: 123) evokes the “experimental studies” of assessment put in place by the National Academy of Engineering so as to define the viability of some technological projects. He also promotes the need for an “innovative power” which would explore desirable collective futures and propose “possibilities of action” (Hetman, 1973: 419). There is also a strong interest in the need for a creative and experimental power. Since the consequences of technical innovations remain unknown, a government has to explore them and propose options. The “technocratic” conception of participation today is, however, much more interested in risk assessment.

The most important aspect of this issue is that in the three fields studied, the definition of experimentation differs from the meaning that was given to it traditionally by the history and philosophy of science. Experimentation is generally defined in the history and philosophy of science as a laboratory activity which consists in elaborating a reproducible process in order to demonstrate something. In the studied corpus, experimentation has a broader sense, more in tune with the conception of science in society. Experimentation can be understood at the same time as any of the following: as social and political forms of engagement, as government practices, as a regulation mode between science and society. Therefore, experimentation covers a wide range of social interventions in the scientific and technical processes, ranging from classical scientific experiments to social movements against open air experiments, aimed at taking advantage of the scientific field’s prerogatives.

From this angle, the “experimental” conception of participation in the 1970s belongs to a broader political project which is specific to the post-68 period. This project aims at renewing human relationships through the methodical experimentation of alternative ways of behaving. One paper from Impascience promotes an alternative science called bioenergy (not to be confused with the contemporary renewable energies), influenced by psychoanalysis, whose aim would be to experiment with new kinds of relations, based on methodical attempts to release one’s emotions.²¹ This project also renews knowledge production and circulation modes. This is for instance the point in alternative technologies, whose concept is to be created and used by the communities who need them. And last, the political project in which “experimentation” is embedded focuses on the invention of a new society. A member of the ecological group “Ecologie 78” declares “This future society must be invented with people’s imagination through multiple experimentations” (Amy Dahan, quoted by Allan-Michaud, 1989: 45). Experimentation appears therefore as a method of transforming individual and collective relationships, knowledge production and circulation, and society as a whole.

What happened to experimentation?

The critique of the 1970s did not lead to crucial political processes. For instance, the French Science Shops movement collapsed a few years after its launch in the early 1980s (Stewart, 1988). The political context also changed in the 1980s, first, with the election of François Mitterrand in 1981, the organisation of a National Colloquium on Research and Technology by Jean-Pierre Chevènement and the reappearance of strong National-Industrial regulation frames (Bonneuil, 2004), and then, with the liberal turn in which industrial and commercial issues swept away civil society issues until the 1990s. The activist basis of STS practice loosened and STS became more academically oriented, while political activism in general became less dynamic in the 1980s. For these reasons, the conception of participation as experimentation progressively gave way to other conceptions of participation: deliberation, precaution and risk assessment (O’Riordan and Cameron, 1994; Blondiaux and Sintomer, 2002).

The idea of experimentation did not completely disappear. It rather seems to exist today in three separate ways, whereas the 1970s had built it as a more unified concept. The first is the idea of “participation experiments”. STS studies use the idea of experiment to describe the set up of a process (certain kind of technology assessment, particular apparatus of representation of citizens or “lay persons”, etc.). In this case, experimentation accounts for the originality of the political apparatus put in place. Most of the time, it depends on the semi-institutional form of the experience, and is not exactly connected with a global discourse on experimentation. The second way of talking about experimentation is the celebration of activist experiments. For instance, hackers who meet at alter-globalisation events think of their practices as experimentations (Allard and Blondeau, 2007). The third way is connected to the issue of a “laboratory planet” (Latour, 2001) and, most of the time, it leads to the denunciation, in a Foucauldian way, of an “experimental regime” which would exist on the same grounds as a “surveillance regime”. A number of works investigate this dimension of experimentation, in which the state and industry are seen as the main actors in the experimentalisation of the world. In this case, experimentation describes the extension of scientific practices in social life rather than forms of emancipation (Krohn and Weyer, 1994; Abadie, 2010).

There are few connections between these three ways of conceiving of experimentation, whereas the strength of such a concept in the 1970s lies precisely in the combination of the description of practices of coercion and of emancipatory movements, as we have seen in the three fields (technocratic, activist and academic). There are still some authors interested in experimentation as a global conception (Callon and Barthe, 2005; Bonneuil et al., 2008). But it is in the realm of philosophy that the major insights on the global – that is, both coercive and emancipatory – experimental dimension of our world can be found (Ronell, 2005).

In this paper, it has been argued that in France, participation is not a creation of the 1980s and 1990s. Therefore, it is inappropriate to limit the substance of participation to the “politics of talk” identified by Irwin (2006). It would nevertheless be irrelevant to oppose all these conceptions of participation (governing tool vs. emancipation tool vs. description tool, or experimentation vs. deliberation/precaution), and assume that one is more appropriate than another. Instead, this paper would rather emphasise the fact that a short journey into time might enrich our comprehension of participation, showing that its current contemporary conception is not the only way of conceiving of it. In the 1970s, there were other ways of understanding what the means of participation are – put aside today or less considered. Following Sheila Jasanoff who argues for the importance of addressing the substance of participation, one would agree that it is also necessary to explore the different meanings of such an idea – the substance of participation is simultaneously made of practices and discourses. That is why we have to draw lessons from this “suspended genealogy” of discourse on participation in the 1970s. The substance of participation is made of distinct conceptions of the term: between social fields (such as activism, institutional politics and academism), but also between historical periods (such as the 1970s and today). We must take into account the differences of conception and their dynamics, the predominance of some conceptions over the rest. This is a way to gain a better understanding of participation, and to extend its significance and reach a proper conception of what participation can be.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

Author biography

Mathieu Quet holds a PhD in communication. His research focuses on the interactions between power and communication in the government of science, technology and medicine. He has been working on the history of participation and on controversies concerning nanotechnologies, and he is now involved in a research project on the controversies of fake medicines in India, Kenya and the European Union.

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