Scientised citizens and democratised science. Re-assessing the expert-lay divide

During the last decade there have been growing calls for increased public inclusion in risk regulation. This paper investigates three of these proposals for a new relationship between science and the public, namely New Production of Knowledge, Postnormal Science, and Scientific Citizenship. These all concern how science can be democratised and how new relations between expertise and citizens can be negotiated and designed. By critically discussing the similarities and differences between these proposals, this paper examines the implications of the call for public inclusion in risk regulation. By way of conclusion, some warnings are raised concerning the belief in public inclusion as a cure-all for making knowledge production and risk regulation more publicly credible and socially robust. The space created for public inclusion may work as means for legitimating decisions, diluting accountability and persuading the public, with the consequence that the expert-lay divide may be reproduced rather than transformed.