Technical democracy as a challenge to urban studies: Introduction

Ignacio Farías, Anders Blok

Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskriftTidsskriftartikelForskningpeer review

21 Citationer (Scopus)

Abstract

What is technical democracy? And why does it matter for urban studies? As an introduction to this special feature, we address these questions by reflecting on To Our Friends, the 2014 manifesto of the Invisible Committee. We engage in particular its provocative diagnosis of the current situation: power no longer resides in the modern institutions of representative democracy and the market economy; instead, power has become a matter of logistics, infrastructures and expertise. This diagnosis, we suggest, brings into view the challenge of technical democracy, that is, the democratization of techno-scientific expertise and the instauration of forms of lasting collaboration among experts and laypeople. Urban politics, we claim, increasingly turns around socio-technical controversies and it is in terms of the politics of expertise that we should analyse and engage it. Building on Science and Technology Studies (STS), we conclude by pointing to four key conceptual dimensions of technical democracy—shared uncertainty, material politics, collective experimentation and fragile democratization—and provide examples taken from the papers included in this special feature.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
TidsskriftCity
Vol/bind20
Udgave nummer4
Sider (fra-til)539-548
ISSN1360-4813
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2016

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