Breaking the myth of neutrality: contemporary politics and normativities in and of technology assessment

This presentations aims at theoretically and pragmatically addressing the future roles of Technology Assessment (TA) communities in the challenging context of contemporary politics. Mobilizing Chantal Mouffe’s theory of pluralistic agonism, we argue that TA communities should break with the myth of neutrality to render their political identities explicit and to recognize that TA does not only have politics, it also is politics. To do so, the notion of ‘constitutive outside’ is mobilized as a guiding methodological principle to invent a politics of TA. Three sites of politics where to define such a ‘constitutive outside’ are suggested: the values, the visions of the future, and the hegemonic and counter-hegemonic practices. We conclude that with a full awareness of its politics, TA communities should be able, on the one hand, to gain the trust and active support of political actors committed to the same ideals of democracy and knowledge-based policy-making. On the other hand, TA communities will also be able to distinguish TA supporters and adversaries and, consequently, reinforce their power of influence on policy-making. In a time of political uncertainty and epistemic ambiguity, TA communities may become a bastion of democratic politics.