Since James Carroll (1971) made a strong case for ‘‘participatory
technology’’, scientists, engineers, policy-makers and the public at large have seen
quite a number of different approaches to design and implement participatory
processes in technology assessment and technology policy. As these participatory
experiments and practices spread over the last two decades, one could easily get the
impression that participation turned from a theoretical normative claim to a working
practice that goes without saying. Looking beyond the well-known forerunners and
considering the ambivalent experiences that have been made under different conditions
in various places, however, the ‘‘if’’ and ‘‘how’’ of participation are still
contested issues when questions of technology are on the agenda. Legitimation
problems indicate that attempts to justify participation in a given case have not been
entirely successful in the eyes of relevant groups among the sponsors, participants,
organizers or observers. Legitimation problems of participatory processes in technology
assessment and technology policy vary considerably, and they do so not only
with the two domains and the ways of their interrelation or the specific features of
the participatory processes. If we ask whether or not participation is seen as
problematic in technology assessment and technology policy-making and in what
sense it is being evaluated as problematic, then we find that the answer depends also
on the approaches and criteria that have been used to legitimize or delegitimize the
call for a specific design of participation.