Publication year: 2011
Source: Social Science & Medicine, In Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available online 1 June 2011
Heather L, Walmsley
‘Deliberative democracy’ is increasingly popular globally, as a means of securing public engagement with emerging health technologies and democratizing their governance. Architects of deliberative ‘mini-publics’ have tended, however, to privilege consensus within deliberation and the generation of ‘action commitments’ within a ‘decisional context’, despite widespread critique. Less attention has been paid to the phenomenon of persistent disagreement within constructed deliberative fora. This paper addresses this lacuna, performing a narrative analysis of four days of deliberation within one small group of demographically diverse public participants at the BC Biobank Deliberation (Vancouver, Canada, 2007). It reveals the value of listening to persistent…
Highlights: ► The BC Biobank Deliberation reveals the value of deliberative disagreement. ► Disagreements enable evaluation of deliberative quality. ► Deliberative disagreements offer insight into discursive production of consensus. ► Deliberative disagreements can generate innovative governance solutions. ► We should present persistent disagreements to public and policy audiences.