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Paper short abstract

This paper explores how the shifting dynamics of inclusionary/exclusionary politics is reshaping technoscientific deliberation on climate change, highlighting the impact of “post-truth” power politics on expert authority.

Paper long abstract

The perennial question of the democratic limits of technoscientific deliberation is arguably being flipped on its head. The threat of so-called "technological populism" has long been hypothetical or defined by a small number of examples. STS scholars could thus maintain that there was a general problem of exclusion. However, the global political landscape has changed and along with it the politics of science and technology. We are seeing the results of new kinds of inclusionary (and exclusionary) politics whereby expert authority is being diminished on issues of paramount importance to publics' well-being.

This paper explores these shifts by re-examining an issue that has long been a sticking point for STS scholars, namely, climate change. How can we make sense of the abandonment of climate targets? To ask a somewhat loaded question: if technoscientific deliberation was "more inclusive," could the current situation have been avoided? To get to these questions, this paper turns to inclusion as an actor concept. By re-tracing public debates about climate change in North America and Germany, it comparatively asks: how has inclusion and exclusion as articulated by actors defined climate politics? Who has positioned themselves as excluded? Who has justified exclusion? How are discourses of exclusion related to larger political currents? As we might expect, political framings of inclusion and exclusion vis-a-vis climate change are increasingly flexible and often weaponized. To cope with this, we should revisit the prevalent democratic theories in STS and ask how they respond to a world defined by "post-truth" power politics.