Innovative forms of public participation challenge the idea that activists must inevitably be caught up in consultation methods that are tokenistic or manipulative. Citizens' juries, consensus conferences, deliberative polls and televotes' these methods hold promise for enhanced representativeness and offer the added benefit of creating deliberative spaces for sound decision making. (continue)

Consensus conferences involve a small group of citizens who go through a learning process on a given technological issue, engage experts, and develop an assessment of the key issues they identify as critical. These models of technology assessment, intended to make the process more democratic, have increasingly been used in Europe. This study examines the first application in Canada on the issue of food biotechnology. It examines the consensus conference as a model of public deliberation with specific attention to communication processes. (continue)

The Board of Technology was established by the Danish Parliament in 1986 to help ensure that technology decisions are made wisely. In its assessments of technology issues, the Board makes use of expert knowledge as well as the insight and experience of non-expert citizens. Armed with this knowledge, the Board of Technology is able to serve as an independent source of high-quality advice and assessment to the Parliament regarding technology issues. The Board of Technology also encourages decision-makers and citizens to engage in informed debate and discussion about technology issues. (continue)