Stichting Laka

Publicatie Laka-bibliotheek:
Technology Risk and Democracy. The Dutch nuclear energy debate (1981-84) (2004)

Auteur	Rob Hagendijk, Arjan Terpstra
	1-01-1-10-48.pdf
Datum	juni 2004
Classificatie	1.01.1.10/48 (OPINIE - BREDE MAATSCHAPPELIJKE DISCUSSIE)
Voorkant

1. Introduction

Current debates about public participation in scientific and technological 
innovationmay profit from a closer analysis of earlier attempts to involve the public 
in such matters. The Dutch public debate about nuclear energy in the early 1980s 
provides an interesting case. The debate was the first in its kind in the Netherlands 
and displays many of the issues, problems, antagonisms and dynamics that 
characterize current attempts to involve the public.
          The EU funded STAGE project seeks to develop a comparative framework 
for the analysis of such public involvement. The project focuses on the framing of 
public debates, their organization and the roles of various actors in the process of 
defining, deliberating and deciding questions, facts, risks and opportunities. It
challenges us to look at how exercises to engage the public draw on existing 
institutional arrangements and structures in defining the consultation agenda and 
the questions that can be legitimately raised and addressed in the debate, by whom 
and in what form.
          The STAGE project is itself part of a trend in which policy makers
increasingly embrace public involvement in decision-making and public 
deliberations about new and risky technologies. Such involvement is seen as a 
way  to promote legitimacy and acceptance for policies and to inspire trust among 
the public. 2 Although still lurking in the background, the dismissive approach in 
which  references to the publics’ ignorance are used to discredit public opposition 
has itself been
discredited and officially abandoned in speeches by politicians and high ranking
policy makers. Experiments to enhance public participation in deliberations over
technological policies abound; attempts to standardize procedures and to identify best
practices are underway.3
          In The Netherlands the roots of this trend towards enhanced public
participation goes back to the 1960s and 1970s. The emergence of environmental
activism, the general movement for democratisation from the late sixties and early
seventies and the growing awareness of the increasing importance of science-based
technologies for society led to more inclusive policies in fields like science policy,
physical planning, nature conservation, and health care. In the 1970s the Dutch
government established so-called sector councils for research policies. In these
tripartite sector councils representatives from science, government and society
(industry, NGOs) would discuss the research needed to formulate adequate
governmental responses to social problems.4 Yet, such forms of deliberation were
inadequate to address the public turmoil about nuclear energy that emerged at that
time.

In this paper we will follow the emergence of nuclear energy technology as a 
solution to the energy needs of the Dutch economy after the Second World War. 
For long optimistic views about nuclear technology dominated policy making and 
research. Sceptical and critical voices were seldom heard and easy to ignore. In the 
early seventies, however, when the technology became operational, widespread 
public concern and opposition emerged. Governmental measures to fund the 
introduction of new technology with additional taxes on energy use helped a lot to 
mobilize public opposition. A political stalemate developed between industry and 
government on the one hand and social movements campaigning against nuclear 
energy plans on the other. To assuage the tensions and to get out of the dead ally 
the government agreed with a proposal from moderate civic groups to organize a 
broad social debate about energy policies. This would become known as the BMD 
debate. It was the first in its kind in The Netherlands. From the beginning, it was 
as much a debate about the debate as it was a debate about nuclear energy. The 
approach taken and subsequent events tell us about the pitfalls of attempts to 
combine broad public involvement in technological and economic decision making 
with representative democracy and economic liberalism. It shows us public debates 
as essentially contested ‘political machines’ (Barry, 20).         How the issues and 
questions thrown up are handled and managed is decisive for their political impact 
and for the answer to the question whether it is yet another form of politics as usual 
or a genuine enhancement of democracy. As the Dutch debate shows us, organizers 
walk on a thin line from which one easily falls to one side or the other.