Democracy & Technological Change: Limits to Steering

Abstract

Participatory design can be read as a way of interest representation in the design of technical artifacts, be it computer systems or houses. Apart from participatory design, other strategies have been tried out in the past, to democratize the processes of technological change. In this paper we will evaluate several of these initiatives, and analyze them in terms of the factors that drive technological development. Possibilities for technology steering seem rather limited, and in the last section, we will discuss what still may be feasible.