TY - JOUR
T1 - Understanding 'anticipatory governance'
AU - Guston, David
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is supported by the National Science Foundation cooperative agreement 0531194 and 0937591. Any findings, conclusions, or opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the National Science Foundation.
PY - 2014/4
Y1 - 2014/4
N2 - Anticipatory governance is 'a broad-based capacity extended through society that can act on a variety of inputs to manage emerging knowledge-based technologies while such management is still possible'. It motivates activities designed to build capacities in foresight, engagement, and integration - as well as through their production ensemble. These capacities encourage and support the reflection of scientists, engineers, policy makers, and other publics on their roles in new technologies. This article reviews the early history of the National Nanotechnology Initiative in the United States, and it further explicates anticipatory governance through exploring the genealogy of the term and addressing a set of critiques found in the literature. These critiques involve skepticism of three proximities of anticipatory governance: to its object, nanotechnology, which is a relatively indistinct one; to the public, which remains almost utterly naïve toward nanotechnology; and to technoscience itself, which allegedly renders anticipatory governance complicit in its hubris. The article concludes that the changing venues and the amplification within them of the still, small voices of folks previously excluded from offering constructive visions of futures afforded by anticipatory governance may not be complete solutions to our woes in governing technology, but they certainly can contribute to bending the long arc of technoscience more toward humane ends.
AB - Anticipatory governance is 'a broad-based capacity extended through society that can act on a variety of inputs to manage emerging knowledge-based technologies while such management is still possible'. It motivates activities designed to build capacities in foresight, engagement, and integration - as well as through their production ensemble. These capacities encourage and support the reflection of scientists, engineers, policy makers, and other publics on their roles in new technologies. This article reviews the early history of the National Nanotechnology Initiative in the United States, and it further explicates anticipatory governance through exploring the genealogy of the term and addressing a set of critiques found in the literature. These critiques involve skepticism of three proximities of anticipatory governance: to its object, nanotechnology, which is a relatively indistinct one; to the public, which remains almost utterly naïve toward nanotechnology; and to technoscience itself, which allegedly renders anticipatory governance complicit in its hubris. The article concludes that the changing venues and the amplification within them of the still, small voices of folks previously excluded from offering constructive visions of futures afforded by anticipatory governance may not be complete solutions to our woes in governing technology, but they certainly can contribute to bending the long arc of technoscience more toward humane ends.
KW - anticipatory governance
KW - emerging technologies
KW - foresight
KW - nanotechnology
KW - public engagement
KW - responsible innovation
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U2 - 10.1177/0306312713508669
DO - 10.1177/0306312713508669
M3 - Article
C2 - 24941612
AN - SCOPUS:84896805158
SN - 0306-3127
VL - 44
SP - 218
EP - 242
JO - Social Studies of Science
JF - Social Studies of Science
IS - 2
ER -