The Political Theory of - IA de Investigación especializada en el MIT

The Political Theory of
French Science Studies
in Context

Aviezer Tucker
Queen’s University, Belfast

Science Studies, as developed initially in France attempt to overcome the dis-
tinctions between science and society, and correspondingly between the philoso-
phy of science and political and social theory. Science Studies considers the
theories and beliefs of scientists political rather than direct reºections of an
objective natural world. I consider here Science Studies as a political theory
that emerged and has developed in reaction to a particular social and politi-
cal context, a crisis of technocratic politics in France.

Some of the leading contemporary French exponents Science Studies, a
group around the journal Cosmopolitiques that is loosely associated with the
French Green party, including Bruno Latour and Michel Callon advocate
the democratization of science. They have developed explicitly and at length
the theoretical political aspects of science studies. I examine here critically this
political theory against its social background. I argue that the social and po-
litical structure of French science explains the emergence of the descriptive and
normative political theories associated with Science Studies. I doubt whether
the normative prescriptions that Latour and Callon developed would be suf-
ªcient to solve the problems that follow from the monolithic and exclusionary
structure of French governance and institutional science. En cambio, I doubt
their solutions are useful for other democratic systems and scientiªc institu-
tions that do not share the particular problems of France.

Science Studies, as developed initially in France by Bruno Latour, Michel
Callon and others attempts to overcome the distinctions between science
and society, and correspondingly between the philosophy of science and

I wish to thank Dominique Bourg, Daniel Boy, Michel Callon, Pierre-Benoit Joly, y
Marc-Olivier Padis for their help while I was collecting information for this research in
París. This research received generous support from the Australian Research Council. el
research for the article was underwritten by “ARC Discovery Grant DP0342795”

Perspectives on Science 2007, volumen. 15, No. 2
©2007 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology

202

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Perspectives on Science

203

political and social theory. Science Studies considers the theories and be-
liefs of scientists political rather than direct reºections of an objective nat-
ural world. Sin embargo, as “ªrst philosophy,” Science Studies rarely apply the
same approach to themselves, to understand themselves as political and
embedded in a social context. I do so here, by considering Science Studies
as a political theory that emerged and has developed in reaction to a crisis
of technocratic politics in France.

If science may reºect the interests of scientists, experts or those who
pay them, it may be prudent to democratically limit, curb, control or
countervail the inºuence of scientists on public policy. Science studies
have been political since their inception. Already in the early seventies in
Francia, Foucault’s work on the history of psychiatry, his criticism of psy-
chiatry as a science of control and discipline, and even more so Deleuze
and Guattari’s (1972) trabajar, led to an anti-psychiatry movement that at-
tacked the psychiatric and medical establishments and their “expertise” as
biased and a reºection of political interests. A pre-cursor to Science
Estudios, Paul Feyerabend, (1981, 25–33) advocated “democratic relativ-
ism.” In his opinion, lay citizens and their democratic councils should su-
pervise and control scientiªc institutions, including their ªnances, su
effects on education and even the academic freedom of scientists. Science is
just one tradition among others with no special claim for truth. “[D]emo-
cratic relativism . . . will not be imposed ‘from above’, by a gang of radical
intelectuales, it will be realized from within, by those who want to become
independiente, and in the manner they ªnd most suitable. . . . What counts
are not intellectual schemes, but the wishes of those who want change.”
(Ibídem 33)

Some of the leading contemporary French exponents Science Studies, a
group around the journal Cosmopolitiques that is loosely associated with the
French Green party, advocate a similar democratization of science. El
most famous members of the group are Bruno Latour and Michel Callon,
both of whom are based at the École des Mines in Paris. They have devel-
oped explicitly and at length the theoretical political implications of sci-
ence studies. I examine here critically this political theory against its so-
cial background. I argue that the social and political structure of French
science explains the emergence of the descriptive and normative political
theories associated with Science Studies. I doubt whether the normative
prescriptions that Latour and Callon developed would be sufªcient to
solve the problems that follow from the monolithic and exclusionary
structure of French governance and institutional science. En cambio, I
doubt their solutions are useful for other democratic systems and scientiªc
institutions that do not share the particular problems of France, al menos
not to the same degree.

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204

The Political Theory of French Science Studies in Context

French Scientiªc Technocracy
Traditionally, the French bureaucratic class, including politicians and civil
servants, ignores public opinion and does not seek democratic feedback
between elections (Assouline 2001). Political decisions about new tech-
nologies have usually been taken behind close doors in internal consulta-
tions among members of the bureaucratic, scientiªc, economic and politi-
cal elites. Since the institutional innovations of Louis XIV’s minister,
Colbert, the French have reacted to external military and political compe-
tition, ªrst with the British Empire and then with the Prussian and later
German empires, by centralizing power and initiative in an absolute and
later large and centralizing state, a political theory the French call Colbert-
ismo, and the rest of the world knows as etatism, statism. Emperor Napoleon
Bonaparte’s reforms laid the foundations for French law and many of the
centralized institutions of the French state. Finalmente, the Algeria crisis and
the ensuing 1958 new constitution of the Fifth Republic further central-
ized the administration by radically augmenting the power of the presi-
dent in relation to the parliament.

Elite education in France consists of disciplinary monopolies, grandes
écoles. Virtually all top politicians and civil servants graduate from the École
nationale d’administration and are knows as the ENARCs. All top engineers
graduate from the École nationale supérieure des arts et métiers. All top aca-
demic philosophers are graduates of the École normal supérieure and so on.
Como consecuencia, the various French educated elites are more homogenous
and cohesive than their Anglo-Saxon equivalents and have more uniªed
and dense networks and rigid class structure. Por ejemplo, the top manag-
ers in private industry, the top civil servants, and the top politicians are
likely to be fellow ENARCs. The top scientiªc advisors in industry and
government are likely to support each other and have the same opinions.
The cohesion of this exclusive elite is further strengthened by its merito-
cratic nature or at least its self-consciousness as meritocratic. Unlike in
Anglo-Saxon countries, admission to these grand graduate schools is de-
termined, at least ofªcially, exclusively by entrance exams, there is no tui-
ción. The technocratic elite perceives itself as the best and the brightest,
who just know better what is good for lesser mortals. Even if there are dif-
ferences of opinion between politicians, the managers of big business, y
científicos, they tend to attempt to resolve their differences behind closed
doors to avoid publicity, public debate and politically effective popular
sentiments. Por ejemplo, in the case of nuclear waste, both scientists and
politicians considered an uncontrolled public debate as the worst case sce-
nario. In such an environment the role of the dissident-scientist, a scien-
tist who “goes public” with her or his worries and breaks ranks with the

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Perspectives on Science

205

elite gains crucial importance (Boy et al. 2000). The French bureaucracy is
opaque; it hoards, concentrates and hides information, so nobody can criti-
cize it on the basis of knowledge.

Callon et al (2001, Chapter 4) suggest that members of the French
technocratic elite have not been motivated by greed or will to power, pero
by their belief that they contribute to human happiness against preju-
dices, medieval fears and primitive passions. Por ejemplo, (Ibídem, 165 nota
1), De Gaulle used to react to popular protest with the phrase Je vous ai
compris, “I understood you.” The General is the legitimate spokesperson of
the general will, he understands the people better than they do them-
selves, so further deliberation or consultation is redundant. Callon et al.
also stress that until recently, in France, unlike in the USA, science and
technology had not been considered policy issues, subject to the political
decision making process.

French MP Maurice Laurent claimed that the French parliament has
been attempting to restrict the powers of “a rather poorly deªned entity
comprised of high civil servants, senior managers of public and private
companies, and scientists and engineers, which is generally called the
techno culture: “. . . . Senior civil servants and public company managers
trained in the same colleges constitute an oligarchy that often tends to es-
cape all external control. “(Laurent 2000, 126–7) Laurent claimed that the
political, elected, elite is different from this oligarchy and is in a power
struggle with it. He presents the creation of the parliamentary institu-
tion for technology assessment Ofªce Parlemetaire d’Evaluation des Choix
Scientiªques et Technologiques (OPECST) en 1983 that he directed as a
weapon in the arsenal of the parliament against the technostructure. Cómo-
alguna vez, members of parliament do not usually attend different educational
institutions, nor do his own paternalistic statements indicate a different
cultura:

The widening gap between the basic knowledge of most citizens
and the complexity of the world that surrounds them also gave rise
to concern about certain technical innovations that they did not al-
ways fully understand. In the last few years, growing unemploy-
ment has contributed to creating a marked hostility toward indus-
trial modernization, which is blamed for the deterioration of the
employment situation.

The Parliament—which faithfully reºects the attitudes of the
population—is also sometimes led to question scientiªc and techni-
cal progress, and representatives and senators ponder the part they
can still play in a world where the most important decisions for the

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The Political Theory of French Science Studies in Context

future of society are increasingly made outside the conventional po-
litical decision-making centres. (Laurent 2000, 125–126)

Claramente, Laurent’s OPECST considered its role to educate an ignorant pub-
lic and politicians about the beneªts of scientiªc enlightenment and tech-
nological progress. Calls for scientiªc democracy in France should be read
against this exclusionary bureaucratic culture of decision making.

The French Experiment with Scientiªc Democracy
During the second half of the nineties, a series of science policy bureau-
cratic and political blunders, especially the use of contaminated blood in
French hospitals and the BSE “Mad Cow” crisis, have shaken the French
public’s deference to elite technocratic decision making. Jasanoff termed
the result “civic dislocation,” a mismatch between the expectation of the
public from its elected leaders to manage modernity, predict, and ensure
that new developments are safe, and their actual behaviour. The result is
civic disengagement from the state: “the gears of democracy had spun
loose” (Jasanoff 2001, 255)

En 1997, a new red-green coalition government was established under
PM Lionel Jospin. This government reversed an earlier decision by the
previous centre-right government that banned genetically modiªed foods
(GMF) and allowed the importation of genetically modiªed maize. El
government was split on the topic between the Greens and the Socialists.
Traditionally, under such conditions the government would, having ap-
pointed a committee of experts to delay, have to take a decision and let de-
bating fatigue set on the public. The committee would have legitimized
the original decision following “public consultation” and “expert opin-
ion.” However, en este caso, following the bureaucratic debacles, the gov-
ernment chose to establish a deliberative democratic forum, a non-expert
committee, a consensus conference to consider GMF. Jospin’s ofªce announced
ofªcially on 27 Noviembre 1997 the convening of a consensus conference
on GMF. The press release reasoned that public opinion on GMF is indeci-
sive, insufªciently informed, and incoherent since the public accepts ge-
netically modiªed medicines but reject GMF. Despite the large volume of
scientiªc research, citizens refuse to accept GMF before all the opinions
have been confronted. No further authorizations will be given to GMF un-
til scientiªc studies prove that GMF do not pose any danger to health or
to the environment (Boy et al. 2000). The consensus conference allowed
the French bureaucracy to buy time while negotiating with the American
administration that pressured for the admission of American GMF
(Assouline et al. 2001). Joly et al (2003) suggested that the consensus con-
ference in France took place as the result of an impasse in technocratic de-

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Perspectives on Science

207

cision making and a new generation of high level functionaries who were
more receptive to deliberative democratic procedures.

In Consensus Conferences, ªrst introduced in Denmark, 14 lay citizens
deliberate over science policy by examining and questioning expert wit-
nesses over two weekends. They meet for a third weekend to form their
own recommendations. In Denmark, the Danish Board of Technology, a
quasi-independent government body decides on the topics of consensus
conferences and chooses a steering committee. The steering committee
chooses the citizen members of the conference to correspond with the
main demographic variables of gender, profesión, and domicile; the read-
ing materials, and a list of possible witnesses (Joss 2000, Klüver 2000).
The French forum was organized by the Ofªce Parlemetaire d’Evaluation des
Choix Scientiªques et Technologiques (OPECST), the parliamentary ofªce for
technology assessment in cooperation with top bureaucrats. It used a poll-
ing institute to obtain a random sample of the French population that had
not had prior opinions about GMF. Fourteen citizens who agreed to par-
anticipar, demographically balanced, were selected. They spent two week-
ends questioning stakeholders and experts and came with very qualiªed
support for GMF. The steering committee selected the contents of the in-
formational package that all the citizens received, containing articles for
and against GMF and a list of potential witnesses for the lay citizens to
choose from whom they wish to invite as witnesses. That list included rep-
resentatives of interest groups from Monsanto to Greenpeace, geneticists
who supported GMF and academics with other scientiªc backgrounds
who opposed it. Some environmentalist NGOs charged that the selection
of experts by the steering committee was biased.

Joly et al (2003) emphasized that the consensus conference dealt with
the problem of evaluating expert opinions, minority opinions, and public
participación, questions that are dealt with usually in the literature on so-
ciology of science. Positions that are labeled relativist and hostile to sci-
ence, were taken by ordinary people. The issue of liability was raised when
members realized it would be difªcult to collect damages in case of a di-
saster. Sin embargo, this conference did not receive much attention. Its con-
clusions were announced in a press conference and reported to the govern-
ment and the parliament. But all the MPs abstained from attending the
consensus conference. Some told Assouline et al (2001, 8) that there was
no place for citizens to make decisions outside of elections in France.
Eventualmente, the GMF issue was resolved when Greenpeace sued the gov-
ernment in front of the Conseil d’etat (a French constitutional body in
charge of conºicts between the state and the citizen) and the later an-
nounced that this issue is beyond its competence and referred the issue to
the EU. The European parliament imposed then strict restrictions and a

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The Political Theory of French Science Studies in Context

moratorium on GMF and the French government was released from hav-
ing to state its own policy on GMF. Boy (2004) interviewed a representa-
tive sample of 20 members of parliament. All the MPs claimed ignorance
of what are consensus conferences and did not remember the 1998 uno.

Latour’s Political Theory
Latour’s 1999 Politics of Nature (2004) reºects the civic dislocation in
France and the search for democratic alternatives to traditional techno-
cratic decision making, as well as the political repercussions of Science
Estudios. As much as Edmund Husserl (1970) assigned the crisis of his con-
temporary European civilization to subject-object distinctions, Cartesian
objectiªcation, and the ensuing loss of the immediate meaningful “life-
world” of which we are conscious prior to scientiªc processing, objecti-
ªcation and abstraction, Latour assigned the crisis in contemporary Green
politics to the conceptual distinction between nature and society. Latour
would like political ecology to have nothing to do with the concept of
“nature,” which he described as a bland of “Greek politics, French Carte-
sianism, and American parks.” (Latour 2004, 5) He would like to abolish
the conceptual distinctions between politics, science and nature and re-
place them with a single cosmos: hence the name of the group and journal
Cosmopolitiques. Latour further advocated the abolition of the conceptual
distinctions between subjective and objective, society and science, pri-
mary and secondary qualities, might and right, knowledge and power, rea-
son and violence, philosophy and sophism, demonstration and persuasion,
realism and relativism. These distinctions are the subjects of disputes “. . .
between elites to decide what will administer the deathblow to the demos
ªrst.” (187)

As much as Heidegger accused Plato of inventing metaphysics, el dis-
tinction between the ideas and appearances, thus obscuring Being, Latour
blamed Plato for fatefully distinguishing truth and nature from the social
world, and for claiming that the philosopher or scientist must transcend
society to perceive the truth (cf. Zimmerman 1997). Latour repeatedly de-
nounced the Platonic myth of the cave from the Republic, where the philos-
opher must escape the cave of society to gradually be able to see the truth.
Scientists become then French enlightenment technocrats, lawgivers and
saviors, who know the laws of nature and return to the cave to teach them
to the ignorant brutes left behind. In Latour’s opinion, this myth lies at
the core of Western public life and impotent politics, the neutralization of
democracy by science and scientists. Latour presents the Platonic philoso-
pher as a French technocrat. He claims that the Platonic tradition is both
undemocratic in denying most people knowledge, and false because it ig-
nores the socially constructed aspect of scientiªc knowledge. Latour ig-

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Perspectives on Science

209

nores the Socratic aspect of the Platonic tradition, the emergence of truth
out of dialogues between citizens in the agora. Latour identiªes French
technocracy, the silencing of democracy by the experts, as an element in
the Western political tradition. Sin embargo, technocracy is an exception
more than the rule. Por ejemplo, in Scandinavia, the state is often actively
inclusive in seeking the opinions of citizens about a variety of issues, en-
cluding science and technology policies, between elections. In the United
Estados, scientists and big science have to compete when lobbying the Con-
gress and administration with other pressure groups (Dryzek et al. 2003).
Por ejemplo, religious fundamentalists lobbies defeated the scientiªc
lobby in the case of U.S. federal funding for stem cell research. Less tech-
nocratic democracies are better able to manage science and technology in
correspondence with the wishes of their citizens than the French mono-
lithic ruling class not so much because Scandinavian or American bureau-
cracies are less prone to making bad decisions, but because they can ªx
such decisions more quickly and efªciently, without feeling compelled to
deny and hide their mistakes without correcting them.

Latour attempts to articulate a democratic political theory that is not
subservient to what he considers “epistemology,” and recognizes science as
inherently political, and “nature” as a construct of science. According to
Latour, politics is not everything, but it gathers everything together. Él
redeªnes politics as “the entire set of tasks that allow the progressive com-
position of a common world.” (2004, 53) Desde esta perspectiva, deep ecol-
ogy is modernist rather than radical because it endorses the man/ nature
dichotomy as do its opponents. Political ecology, the French Green Party,
should drop then its concern with independent nature and concentrate on
incertidumbre, for example the issues where the French technocracy failed to
resolve due to its over-conªdence in objective scientiªc knowledge: cancer
causing asbestos, genetically modiªed foods, prions and the mad cow dis-
ease.

The common world, “pluriuniverse” is not a given—Latour, as a “post-
modern” diverges from Husserl or Habermas who assumed the life-world
to be single and universal—but what is obtained in democratic “due pro-
cess.” Latour accused scientists of making decisions about the common
world without such due process. Like Feyerabend, Latour wants scientiªc
issues to be decided democratically rather than by unelected scientiªc
elites. Actualmente, scientists presume to be the spokespersons for mute na-
tura. Latour would like to democratize the process by including non-
humans and spokespersons for other social groups, as was the case in his
opinion in the Kyoto forum on global warming. Following a radical lin-
guistic turn, Latour’s resulting democratic collective is composed of
“propositions” rather than persons. Latour’s democratic political ecology

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The Political Theory of French Science Studies in Context

implies resistance to scientiªc exclusions of some propositions from being
taken into account in discussion (Ibídem, 104). En cambio, he advocates an atti-
tude of perplexity and exploration that gives way eventually to the insti-
tution of certain propositions that are not discussed or debated tempo-
rarily but become a tentative presence within collective life. Por ejemplo,
prions, the unconventional proteins that may have caused mad cow dis-
ease, are a cause of perplexity, they initiate discussion. When president
Chirac, as a modernist, asked the scientist M. Dormont to assume respon-
sibility and tell him whether or not prions are responsible for the mad cow
enfermedad, Dormont answered that he does not know. This opened a discus-
sión, consultation and a search for spokespersons. Consultation leads even-
tually to the construction of a hierarchy in the propositions that becomes
institutionalized. Unlike most philosophers of science, Latour denies there
is an established method or set of methods for establishing such a hierar-
chy (Ibídem, 111–4). Propositions that are judged low on the hierarchy and
are not discussed may come back to haunt the collective later, and gener-
ate new cycles of perplexity, consultation, hierarchy and institution-
alización. Por ejemplo, el 8000 annual deaths from trafªc accidents in
France have currently a low position on the hierarchy and therefore are not
discussed, but may return to haunt the collective later.

Ahora . . . the laws of nature have their own parliament, a public as-
sembly that votes on them, records them, and institutes them. Sí,
after its deliberations, entities do indeed ªnd themselves bound by
efªcient causalities, and the chain of responsibilities ªnds itself
quite deªnitely assured. The prion is indeed responsible for the
mad cow disease; the minister of health is indeed responsible for
the deaths from blood transfusions. . . . (Ibídem, 179)

Latour did not discuss concrete institutional democratic designs that
should deliver better decision making about science and technology poli-
cíes. His negative examples, the mad cow disease, contaminated blood,
and genetically modiªed foods crises correspond with the standard politi-
cal reasons for experimenting with deliberative democratic forums in
Francia (Jasanoff 2005). Latour offers political theoretic reasons for demo-
cratic forums that mix lay persons and a multiplicity of experts in scien-
tiªc and technological decision making, especially on new issues that raise
perplexity and demand consultation.

Sin embargo, the perplexing case of mad cow disease that did not have a
determined scientiªc solution or even analysis till quite late, too late for
French and British farmers, may well be an exception. Most or many is-
sues in science policy do not raise particular perplexities. Instead of uncer-
tainties born of insufªcient evidence, most issues in the politics of science

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Perspectives on Science

211

and technology may involve choices between well-deªned options with
approximately known risks, costs and beneªts. In such cases, Latour would
have scarcely anything to say normatively, beyond holding in reserve the
possibility of future perplexity.

While it is clear what Latour dislikes about present politics of science,
especially in France, it is less clear what would his democratic politics of
nature entail in concrete institutional terms, how to reconstruct democ-
racy to apply to areas that have hitherto been dominated by unelected ex-
perts and their old school mates in industry and state bureaucracy?
Latour’s general ideas and approach were applied with greater political rel-
evance and detail by his colleague in the École des mines, Michel Callon
and his team.

Callon’s Hybrid Forum
Michel Callon introduced the concept of “hybrid forum,” a deliberative
democratic forum that involves scientists and lay persons deliberating to-
juntos, in a paper he co-authored with the Dutch social scientist Arie Rip
en 1991 and presented at a non-academic conference about the environ-
ment and sustainable development. In a recent interview, Callon et al.
(2003) distinguished their proposal from Habermas’ deliberative democ-
racy by noting that Habermas wishes to distinguish science from ethics
and politics, thus granting autonomy to scientists in non-normative is-
sues, whereas they would like to break these distinctions. Whereas Haber-
mas wishes to play communicative against instrumental rationality, ellos
claim that such distinctions are impossible in situations of uncertainty
where communicative reason is useless in the absence of information,
when it is impossible to distinguish indisputable facts from disputed val-
ues. Unlike Rousseau, Rawls and Habermas who would like the partici-
pants in such deliberations to be detached from their identities and emo-
ciones, Callon et al. consider active identities to be an advantage in a
process of research. Unlike Habermas’ elitistic rejection of the mass me-
es, hybrid forums can use it to create public space for discourse, for exam-
por ejemplo, the telethon has been a successful medium for hybrid research-politi-
cal activity.

Respectivamente, Callon et al. criticize the French Citizens Conference on
genetically modiªed foods as an unoriginal copy of the Danish consensus
conference model that merely added “citizens” in the title (2001, 19–20).
They would have preferred a hybrid model. They considered a hybrid fo-
rum that took place in Japan on genetic therapy, ªnanced by the Toyota
Base, successful. Callon praised the Japanese for borrowing the con-
sensus conference model from the West and then exporting it back with
improvements. This praise for Japanese democracy aims to tease Harvard

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professor Sheila Jasanoff who was less enthusiastic about the Japanese pro-
cedure, claiming that there is more to democracy than a “gadget” and
praising the American system of checks and balances as a better alterna-
tive for technology management than deliberative democracy (Jasanoff,
2001).

Callon et al. (2001) distinguished “risky” from “uncertain” situations.
In risky situations we possess an exhaustive list of all possible scenarios.
We do not know, aunque, the probabilities that are attached to each sce-
nario. In uncertain situations we do not know the possible scenarios and
therefore cannot prepare for all eventualities. Hybrid forums are particu-
larly appropriate in their opinion for uncertain situations. The traditional
expert, somebody who mastered known competencies, certiªed so, y
mobilized in a decision making process is irrelevant for new situations
where old competencies are useless. Such situations require organizing a
process of production of knowledge that may create competencies later.
This appears like an interpretation of Latour’s proposal above that the ªrst
stage in the democratization of science is a state of perplexity. Callon et al.
presented hybrid forums as a solution to the recent uncertain situations
that led to French bureaucratic blunders, like nuclear waste disposal and
genetically modiªed foods. In all these cases the central bureaucracy made
a decision that affected local or sectoral populations without consulting
a ellos. Affected populations learned of the decision, created a new identity,
and reacted by arranging local grass root protest. The bureaucracy ignored
the protest with disdain. This led to greater, even violent, protest and
more public debate. As the debate unfolded, more and more social sectoral
or local groups become involved and contributed to the hybrid delibera-
tive process. Facing this mounting pressure, the bureaucracy made a tacti-
cal retreat. It postponed decision or maintained the status quo. As more
social groups became involved in debate, the democratic discourse became
broader, but more signiªcantly, science itself was enriched by new per-
spectives. Sin embargo, as in the case of Latour above, it is not altogether ob-
vious that most cases of scientiªc policy choice have much to do with situ-
ations of uncertainty, nor is it clear that bureaucratic government systems
more heterogeneous than the French one cannot correct their blunders
more smoothly.

Latour has been considering science a text that is connected indirectly
with reality via a series of “inscriptions.” (Latour & Woolgar 1987,
Zammito 2004) There is no world on one side and its readings on the
otro, but a thick expanse of traces and readings that bridges the gap be-
tween the world and science. Through “translations” science becomes
more remote from reality, it reduces and simpliªes nature to control it
through symbolic manipulation. Increasing precision and control of inter-

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Perspectives on Science

213

vening variables requires the separation of the laboratory from nature. Sci-
ence is about a reality that is constructed in the laboratory rather than
about what is out there in the “open air.” Callon et al.’s (2001) solution is
the involvement of lay people in the process of scientiªc research beyond
the laboratory. Lay people can ªnd patterns where scientists see only unin-
teresting unique unconnected events. Callon et al. claim that the coopera-
tion between scientists and laity is particularly fruitful in health and envi-
ronmental issues because of their proximity to the immediate experiences
de personas. Por ejemplo, AIDS activists became involved in the search for
cures after the scientists had ignored the problem. Echoing traditional
populist, communitarian and Republican positions, Callon et al. liken
representative democracy to Latour’s scientiªc reductive transcription. Como
much as language and text gradually fail to represent reality, parliamen-
tary democracy gradually fails to represent the population, in ªve stages:

1. The exclusion of “aliens” who are not called to the ballot box.
2. The reduction of holistic collectives and communities to liberal in-

dividuals with free choice and judgment.

3. The reduction of electoral choice to names on lists, or to yes/ no an-

swers in referenda.

4. Through complex electoral calculations the voters are reduced to

representatives.

5. Between elections, voters are reduced to silence, entrusting the right
for political expression to their representatives. To avoid “explo-
sions” democracies grant avenues of expression to citizens on pre-
scribed topics and during prescribed times in consultations, com-
mittees etc. to prevent them from actually speaking. Asimismo,
Callon et al. chided social scientists for silencing the people by pre-
tending to speak for them and by telling them what are their inter-
ests, distinguishing the “rational” from the “irrational.”

Though the ªrst four reductions are true of all modern representative
democracies, the ªfth reduction is particularly true of the exclusionary
French technocratic system, less so of more inclusive systems as in Scandi-
navia or the U.S where citizens are hardly silences between elections.

Callon et al. seek a radical solution to eliminate the two analogous
schisms between scientists and laypeople, representatives and represented.
Their solution comes in three stages: Primero, the free and gradual spontane-
ous emergence and construction of groups and identities. Segundo, mem-
bers of the self-constructed groups begin to talk among themselves, con
their spokespersons and with other groups. This discourse leads to refor-
mulation of identities, changes of opinions etc. to the effect that commu-
nities replace statistical aggregates. The result should be the emergence of

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a general will that respects peculiarities and singular identities, bastante
than abstract them as in Rousseau’s (2001) original formulation of the
general will. Por ejemplo, the identity of people who share an illness and
search for its scientiªc basis through primitive accumulation of knowl-
edge and pressure on the scientiªc community is at once objective-real
and subjective-constructed. Finalmente, negotiations between identities create
a collective. Callon et al. promise that all people will ªnd a place in some
collective and that individual rights will be preserved. Sin embargo, más allá de
these promises, they do not provide any institutional mechanism or other
guarantee or reason to think so. Without such guarantees, well organized
activist minorities that construct identities can highjack the democratic
proceso, especially since Callon et al. write that hybrid forums are always
the result of struggles, often violent. En cambio, many unorganized
groups like illegal aliens who do not construct identities with spokes-
persons who can negotiate may be left out of the collective. As is the case
with the prescription for hybrid forums for solving problems in science
and technology policy, Callon et al.’s formula would and did succeed only
in a narrow range of cases that are not at all typical. As Callon et al. assert,
hybrid models involving lay people and experts are most effective when
there is a long gestation period of public debate. This period should abol-
ish the monopoly of a steering committee over information and the ensu-
ing opportunity for manipulation. Still, if such democratic forums follow
a long gestation period of public debate, the public may already adopt
ªrm opinions by the time of the forum that would miss then genuine de-
liberations and revisions of opinions, rather than negotiation or bargain-
En g.

Callon et al. evaluated the quality of concrete cases of scientiªc democ-
racy according to their intensity, openness to diverse groups, independ-
ence from pre-established groups, seriousness and continuity of discus-
sión, and transparency and clarity of the rules and regulations that govern
the debates: Public opinion surveys and referenda aid in elaborating strategies
for the power that be to prove that the activists are a noisy minority and
that new information favours the acceptance of new technologies. The pro-
cess does not allow space for dialogues or the emergence and examination
of identities. Focus groups allow some freedom for formulating questions,
discussion and the emergence of a collective; and they are transparent. Pero
they involve no research and no interaction between “conªned” and “plain
air” researchers. They do not transcend existing identities. There is no
continuity or sufªcient time for studying complex issues. Committees of
sages, of intellectuals, academics, and medical personnel advise the French
government about topics such as ethics, AIDS, social security, Justice and
employment. They transcend the limits of representative democracy and

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Perspectives on Science

215

introduce an element of serious and continuous deliberation, but they are
opaque and tend to represent the biases of the male white elites that com-
prise them. Especially in the French case, as we noticed above.

The quality of consensus conferences varies according to criteria of selection
of lay members; whether or not the organizers prepare a list of questions;
the duration of the process, and the place of the conference in political de-
cision making. Callon et al. praise the intensive interrogation of scientists
and research under conditions of uncertainty. The recommendations for
regulation of research “invade” the conªned realm of the laboratory. Estafa-
sensus conferences proved that ordinary people can understand scientiªc
research and its social dimensions. The conclusions of consensus confer-
ences are impervious to lobbying. Por ejemplo, the French consensus con-
ference about genetically modiªed organisms, recommended the prohibi-
tion of antibiotics resistant genetic markers and the reform of the
Biomolecular Genetics Council that advises the government, to make it
less susceptible to external inºuences. Something like long term universal
common interest has emerged from this consensus conference. Sin embargo,
consensus conferences do not generate collaborative research of citizens
with scientists and there is no continuity. Consensus conferences create an
open space where diverse opinions can be expressed, but only for pre-
existing spokespersons of pre-existing groups. They fail to become collec-
tives in search of their identity; the terms of their construction prevent
them from entering the public sphere as a collective. Callon et al. (Ibídem,
237) hail the achievements of a 1998 UK consensus conference on GNF
that recommended in addition to prohibiting all genetically modiªed
foods, outlawing non-organic agriculture because this panel exceeded its
assigned mandate. Callon et al. do not provide more information about
this conference, especially how could a purportedly random unbiased
group of citizens recommend raising the prices of vegetables to the level of
organic ones?! As much as the French technocracy attempted to control
the results of their consensus conference, activists on the other side may
attempt to ensure the results of theirs, only more effectively.

Callon et al. idealize most the interaction between AIDS activists, OMS
at the same time explored their identities and became involved in scien-
tiªc research. They explored various approaches for dealing with the medi-
cal and pharmaceutic establishments and generated new politics of HIV.
The French state encouraged these hybrids forums through founding the
AIDS Council, the State Agency for Combating AIDS, y el Nacional
Agency for AIDS Research. In an interview (Callon et al. 2003), the edi-
tors of Cosmopolitiques criticized Callon et al. for being excessively meta-
physical and not offering practical political methods and means for imple-
menting dialogic democracy in their 2001 libro. Callon et al. answered

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that there is no general procedure that ªts all situations. Bastante, each hy-
brid case results from a speciªc conjuncture of circumstances where
emerging minorities demand to be consulted. Despite their emphasis in
the book on rigorous rules, they leave the details to emerge and ªll in the
blanks spontaneously.

Implementation of the Theory
Following the work of Callon et al., a team of social scientists in the
French National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA) have devel-
oped an innovative “interactive technology assessment” of genetically
modiªed vines.

En 1999, a French satirical magazine exposed under the title: “Trans-
genic champagne bubbles” that a private ªrm has been experimenting
with genetically modiªed vines. This led to the immediate suspension of
the experiments and the ªring of the scientists involved. The state funded
INRA immediately hired them and allowed them to continue their re-
buscar. The issue of genetically modiªed vines is particularly sensitive in
Francia. French vine growers are in stiff competition with new quality
wine producers, especially from Australia and the New World. En el uno
mano, since vines are particularly vulnerable and require strong and toxic
pesticides, growers and their soil could use vines that are more resistant to
diseases and pests. Por otro lado, vine growers are afraid of loosing
their brand name (appellation contrôlée) if their wines become associated
with genetics rather than with sun and earth, and therefore called for a
moratorium on genetically modiªed vines. Since wine is a signiªcant part
of French culture and national identity, the issue has broad implications.
The directors of INRA contacted then the authors of Joly et al. (2004) en
2001 to organize a technology assessment process for this research project.
They chose an interactive model that involves the deliberations of a small
group composed of lay citizens, scientists and professionals who are se-
lected as representatives of “different visions of the world.” Deep sociolog-
ical interviews about the nature of good wine, transgenic plants, and sci-
ence ascertained the desired diversity.

The resulting group was composed of four lay members with no partic-
ular connection to the issue, six professionals who were either involved
with growing vines or making wine, and four scientists-researchers at
INRA with different methodological approaches to research on genetics or
vines. The panel deliberated for seven days between April and September
de 2002. The directors of INRA posed a question about open ªeld experi-
ments with disease resistant vines. The panel broadened and reformulated
the question to comprise four parts: the symbolic and commercial value of
wine; the characteristics and constraints of systems of production; eco-

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Perspectives on Science

217

nomic and political aspects; and the current state of vini-cultural research.
They called for different methods for ªghting diseases in vines and for ho-
listic research of the plant in its environment. De lo contrario, the group was
divided between those who supported the continuation of the experiments
under certain restrictions and those who opposed them. This is hardly sur-
prising given the selection criterion for the group. Joly et al. (2004) OMS
were also the organizers claim that this cleavage appeared only towards the
end, in response to the requirement to reply to concrete questions from
INRA.

The report of the working group was presented to the directors of
INRA on September 2002. They announced their policies on January
2003: INRA will continue experimenting only with disease resistant ge-
netically modiªed vines. The present experiments will continue cautiously
for another ªve years. Any innovation, within the above mandate, will
have to be approved in advance. INRA will create a mixed committee
with vine producers that will suggest directions of further research. Joly
et al. (2004) stressed that this is a new policy of parsimony, of minimal re-
search in open ªeld, according to social needs. INRA no longer promotes
innovation as a goal in itself, but explores diverse means to diverse ends,
to widen the possible choices and improve knowledge of the effects of in-
innovación. Joly et al. (2004) concluded that though the process did not
have an affect on the social legitimacy of the vine experiments, it effected
decisions making. During 2004 a local committee of researchers and vine
growers from Alsace (where the experimental ªeld is located) has con-
vened to direct together the research.

As idealistic as this hybrid scientiªc democratic procedure may appear,
it is also possible that the directors of INRA, in a classical French techno-
cratic fashion, may have been interested in continuing the ªeld research
and used this hybrid forum ªrst as a delaying tactic, and then to legiti-
mize their decision, since research on disease resistance was what the re-
search was all about to begin with. Anti-GMF NGOs condemned the ex-
ercise as a program for manipulating public opinion.

Reestablishment of the Scientiªc “Ancien Regime”
The failures of the French government and bureaucracy to foresee and con-
trol the results of the GMF consensus-citizens conference led them to lose
interest in new exercises of this sort and attempt to re-establish the old
technocracy. An opinion piece by Hervé Gaymard, the French Minister of
Agriculture, Food, Fishing and Rural Affairs, published in Le Monde on
1 Julio 2004 is emblematic: Gaymard stated that science and democracy
are not governed by the same logic. Scientiªc truth does not depend on
majority rule. Still, the opposite evils of oligarchy and demagoguery

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should be avoided. He raised rhetorically the question whether the French
people would accept that their leaders would follow “fashions, myths and
fears,” or delegate decision making to scientists?! The answer is neither.
Elected politicians should make decisions. He stated as an obvious axiom
that France is not America, where an independent Federal Agency like the
Food and Drug Administration controls both risk assessment and risk
management. Echoing De Gaulle he wrote, “I note and understand the
persistent worries of our citizens,” especially when the complexity of the
situation foils the popular desire for dualistic solutions. The problem with
food security is that “often passions invade the debate.” Yet, we have one
of the highest levels of food security in the world. We have to better orga-
nize our risk evaluation and distinguish it from risk management. Él
justiªed his decisions to reduce the variety and amounts of chemical pesti-
cides that are allowed, and approve eight new programs of research about
genetically modiªed plants. Gaymard wanted a France that does not
sacriªce to “technological idolatry and to proªtability at all costs,” but
also a France that is “competitive, does not retard its position in the
world, a model of progress.” How to reduce the tensions between science
and society without either playing “the sorcerer’s apprentice,” or falling
into “neo-obscurantism”? Gaymard’s answer is government! The scientists
should conduct risk assessments, but leave the decisions, risk manage-
mento, to politicians according to global social and economic cost/beneªt
análisis. He called for better deªnition of the limited authorities of com-
mittees of experts on the national and European levels to prevent them
from making decisions on their own. He called on the media to restrain it-
self, not to over simplify complex scientiªc issues by calling on experts to
pronounce yes or no judgements that disorient and scare citizens. Politi-
cians should adopt an ethics of responsibility and follow the examples of
Cicero and Max Weber!

Conclusión: Science Studies and Scientiªc Democracy
Since scientists are just as corruptible as the rest of us, their results must
be checked and replicated, and their adherence to the scientiªc method
scrutinized. In social structures where the scientiªc elite is uniªed and in-
bred with the political and economic elites, it is particularly prone to cor-
ruption, to presenting its interests as science. In polyarchic systems, como
in the U.S.A, where the scientiªc community is neither uniªed internally,
nor fully integrated with other elites, the scientiªc community may con-
ceivably check and control itself with the help of external independent
regulative institutions like the Food and Drug Administration. The uni-
tary and exclusionary character of the French technocratic elite has fa-

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Perspectives on Science

219

voured both its corruption and the emergence of the ideas of Science
Estudios.

A political reading of Science Studies as they emerged in France would
be a critical theory of French technocracy, of the converging symbiosis be-
tween the scientiªc, technological, technocratic and political elites. Ex-
posing the relations between apparently neutral science and expertise and
political and other interests had undoubtedly a liberating effect, especially
in the realm of psychiatry. The series of technocratic blunders in the sec-
ond half of the nineties put the French scientiªc, bureaucratic and politi-
cal elite under pressure to reform and democratize. In this new political
ambiente, ideas about scientiªc democracy that had been circulating
ineffectively for more than a decade earlier received a new lease on life as
applied democratic theory. Sin embargo, the old ruling technocracy has had
no intention of changing the constitution of the French state, its central-
ized distribution of power, just because it committed a few obvious blun-
ders. The bureaucracy used apparent democratic deliberative models as a
ruse to defuse public pressure. In light of this history, the kind of abstract
principles advocated by Latour appear sufªciently vague to allow manipu-
lative bureaucracies or NGOs to use pseudo-democratic institutions to le-
gitimize their decisions or interests. The information gap between scien-
tistas, bureaucrats or activists and ordinary people is an opportunity for
manipulation. Callon et al.’s solution, the holding of a hybrid forum in the
delicate moment, after the public is already familiar with the issues and
cannot be manipulated, but before their opinions congeal beyond open-
ness to deliberation, limits the range of circumstances where hybrid fo-
rums are useful. Callon et al. tried to ªt their model to actual spontaneous
eruptions of popular democracy in France. But the pre-requisite perplexity
or uncertainty is too rare to be a useful solution to the wider problems of
French science policy. The history of the transgenic wine forum demon-
strates that even hybrid forums are open to manipulation.

I would read Science Studies mostly as a critical theory of French poli-
tics and the monolithic class hierarchy, especially in relation to the politics
of science and technology and the peculiarly French inbred symbiosis be-
tween scientists, engineers, managers and bureaucrats. This social context
explains both the emergence of social studies of science in France, y
their limitations. Individual scientists, just like any other ofªce holder, son
corruptible and prone to bias. When the institutional structure of science
is that of a monolithic hierarchy, the biases are particularly apparent be-
cause nothing checks them. Sin embargo, there is a difference betweens sci-
ence as an international network of interconnected institutions and indi-
viduals that checks and control each other and the scientists that comprise
él. What may be true of the French political and academic system is not

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220

The Political Theory of French Science Studies in Context

necessarily true of international science. Asimismo, the solution to the crisis
of French politics of science may not be more or less wholesale utopian de-
mocratization of science that can also be corrupted easily, but constitu-
tional reform that would introduce a variety of measures for checks and
balances, democracy could well be one of them.

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