List of Figures - List of Tables - Acknowledgements - PART 1 INTRODUCTION - Introduction: How to Study the Force of Science; M.Callon, J.Law and A.Rip - PART 2 THE POWER OF TEXTS IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - The Sociology of an Actor-Network: The Case of the Electric Vehicle; M.Callon - Laboratories and Texts; J.Law - Writing Science: Fact and Fiction: The Analysis of the Process of Reality Construction through the Application of Socio-Semiotic Methods to Scientific Texts; B.Latour and F.Bastide - The Heterogeneity of Texts; J.Law - Mobilising Resources through Texts; A.Rip - PART 3 MAPPING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Qualitative Scientometrics; M.Callon, A.Rip and J.Law - Aquaculture: A Field by Bureaucratic Fiat; S.Bauin - State Intervention in Academic and Industrial Research: The Case of Macromolecular Chemistry in France; W.Turner and M.Callon - Pinpointing Industrial Invention: An Exploration of Quantitative Methods for the Analysis of Patents; M.Callon - Technical Issues and Developments in Methodology; J-P.Courtial - Future Developments; M.Callon, J-P.Courtial and W.Turner - PART 4 CONCLUSIONS - Putting Texts in their Place; M.Callon, J.Law and A.Rip - Glossary - Bibliography - Index

List of Figures - List of Tables - Acknowledgements - PART 1 INTRODUCTION - Introduction: How to Study the Force of Science; M.Callon, J.Law and A.Rip - PART 2 THE POWER OF TEXTS IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - The Sociology of an Actor-Network: The Case of the Electric Vehicle; M.Callon - Laboratories and Texts; J.Law - Writing Science: Fact and Fiction: The Analysis of the Process of Reality Construction through the Application of Socio-Semiotic Methods to Scientific Texts; B.Latour and F.Bastide - The Heterogeneity of Texts; J.Law - Mobilising Resources through Texts; A.Rip - PART 3 MAPPING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Qualitative Scientometrics; M.Callon, A.Rip and J.Law - Aquaculture: A Field by Bureaucratic Fiat; S.Bauin - State Intervention in Academic and Industrial Research: The Case of Macromolecular Chemistry in France; W.Turner and M.Callon - Pinpointing Industrial Invention: An Exploration of Quantitative Methods for the Analysis of Patents; M.Callon - Technical Issues and Developments in Methodology; J-P.Courtial - Future Developments; M.Callon, J-P.Courtial and W.Turner - PART 4 CONCLUSIONS - Putting Texts in their Place; M.Callon, J.Law and A.Rip - Glossary - Bibliography - Index

A call for a new form of democracy in which "hybrid forums" composed of experts and laypeople address such sociotechnical controversies as hazardous waste, genetically modified organisms, and nanotechnology. Controversies over such issues as nuclear waste, genetically modified organisms, asbestos, tobacco, gene therapy, avian flu, and cell phone towers arise almost daily as rapid scientific and technological advances create uncertainty and bring about unforeseen concerns. The authors of Acting in an Uncertain World argue that political institutions must be expanded and improved to manage these controversies, to transform them into productive conversations, and to bring about "technical democracy." They show how "hybrid forums"-in which experts, non-experts, ordinary citizens, and politicians come together-reveal the limits of traditional delegative democracies, in which decisions are made by quasi-professional politicians and techno-scientific information is the domain of specialists in laboratories. The division between professionals and laypeople, the authors claim, is simply outmoded. The authors argue that laboratory research should be complemented by everyday experimentation pursued in the real world, and they describe various modes of cooperation between the two. They explore a range of concrete examples of hybrid forums that have dealt with sociotechnical controversies including nuclear waste disposal in France, industrial waste and birth defects in Japan, a childhood leukemia cluster in Woburn, Massachusetts, and mad cow disease in the United Kingdom. The authors discuss the implications for political decision making in general and describe a "dialogic" democracy that enriches traditional representative democracy. To invent new procedures for consultation and representation, they suggest, is to contribute to an endless process that is necessary for the ongoing democratization of democracy.

A leading philosopher of technology calls for the democratic coordination of technical rationality with everyday experience. The technologies, markets, and administrations of today's knowledge society are in crisis. We face recurring disasters in every domain: climate change, energy shortages, economic meltdown. The system is broken, despite everything the technocrats claim to know about science, technology, and economics. These problems are exacerbated by the fact that today powerful technologies have unforeseen effects that disrupt everyday life; the new masters of technology are not restrained by the lessons of experience, and accelerate change to the point where society is in constant turmoil. In Between Reason and Experience, leading philosopher of technology Andrew Feenberg makes a case for the interdependence of reason-scientific knowledge, technical rationality-and experience. Feenberg examines different aspects of the tangled relationship between technology and society from the perspective of critical theory of technology, an approach he has pioneered over the past twenty years. Feenberg points to two examples of democratic interventions into technology: the Internet (in which user initiative has influenced design) and the environmental movement (in which science coordinates with protest and policy). He examines methodological applications of critical theory of technology to the case of the French Minitel computing network and to the relationship between national culture and technology in Japan. Finally, Feenberg considers the philosophies of technology of Heidegger, Habermas, Latour, and Marcuse. The gradual extension of democracy into the technical sphere, Feenberg argues, is one of the great political transformations of our time.