Consensus Confererence on Autonomous Vehicles: Case Study

Public Understanding of Science, 2001

Structured citizen deliberation has been promoted as an integral component of technology assessment, but scholars should also consider whether citizens’ value their participation in organised deliberations. We investigated whether Americans who had participated in structured deliberation about emerging technologies thought their experiences should be emulated and institutionalised to address the societal impact of new technologies. In this unique study, we interviewed participants nearly two years after the event rather than immediately post-process. They were also asked to explain their opinions using an open- ended survey format, which generated a qualitatively rich dataset. Nearly all respondents recommended future consensus conferences, and their reasoning echoed scholarly distinctions between public understanding of science (PUS) and public engagement with science (PES). Our paper concludes with a discussion about whether we can generalise from our results beyond the NCTF or the American political context.

Routledge eBooks, 2023

National Civic Review, 2002

Over the last decade we have watched democracy surge and ebb around the world. With its firm commitment to strengthening democratic movements, the United States has encouraged, directly assisted in, and even led many democratization efforts. Yet to maintain a credible leadership role, we must acknowledge that our own democracy has much room for improvement. A healthy democracy depends on the ability of citizens 1 to affect the public policies that deeply influence their lives, and ours does not currently allow citizens their rightful voice in decision making. Special-interest groups have captured the processes for democratic input. They have skewed the agenda toward extreme positions and alienated many citizens who would tend toward a middle ground.

Journal of Planning Education and Research, 2000

Transportation Research Record, 2006

Resolving conflicts in major transportation corridors remains a challenge. Many times the need to increase access has led to seemingly insurmountable divisions between stakeholders representing widely divergent interests. The case evaluated here, the I-710 corridor in Los Angeles, addresses a unique situation: the transportation planning process was redirected midcourse in response to the public's negative reaction toward the first set of transportation alternatives. An adaptive public participation process more aligned to the complex political and social realities of the I-710 corridor was introduced to replace a more traditional process that had not achieved the needed consensus. Transportation planners initiated a new series of consensus-building efforts with the objective of generating strategies and alternatives that would be acceptable to the affected communities while meeting the purpose and need for mobility improvements in the corridor. The consensus subsequently reached through the more adaptive process helped to reprioritize and bring out latent problems in the study area. Previously, either these problems had not been identified or their importance had been underestimated. Through the process of clearly identifying the problems and potential solutions, participants were able to come to consensus on an alternative set of strategies. By helping to clarify the public debate, this process strengthened the overall transportation planning effort.

www.laetusinpraesens.org, 2010

Possibilities suggested by the Grand Débat in France Current multi-platform technical viability and costs Eliciting insights from the public via debate Technical facilitation of insight capture and processing Enabling consensual articulation -- towards a synthesis? Envisioning consensus and synthesis: what form might it take? Oppositional coherence implied by polyhedral mapping of debate Problematic dynamics of debate Transcending vulnerability to inadequacy: self-reflexivity? Consensus on ecological transition: reductionism and misplaced concreteness?

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000