ABSTRACT
The epistemological changes that characterize modern technoscience, as described in Chapter 1, along with the growing concentration of economic power and energy, have important implications for the involvement of the public in decision-making processes concerning socioenvironmental issues. In this view, the epistemic framework of post-normal science challenges the model of Public Understanding of Science (PUS), and the thesis of the public’s inability to act on scientifi c issues, supporting instead the launch of various efforts for democratizing science. Such an extension of participation calls for a refl ection on the nature of the knowledge that is being produced and on what the criteria and processes for ensuring quality might be. Chapter 2 deals with these questions through an exploration of different models of participation and co-construction of knowledge, which refer to different perspectives on the relationships between science and society. In particular, if exclusive reliance on scientifi c knowledge validated by the academic community is no longer tenable, then quality in decision making is linked to the extent to which multiple subjects can be involved and participate in a process of dialog: an extended peer community that is able to balance previous power differences between science and society, and also to enable co-production of civic science.
