The issue of framing and consensus conferences

Originally, the consensus conference was exclusively composed of experts convened to produce a detailed and comprehensive analysis of a specific technology. However in the 1980s, this widely used model was adapted to include a panel of non-expert citizens who would add a 'lay' voice to the process of analysis. Despite their popularity, the author warns of the limitations of the consensus conference when viewed as a form of deliberative citizen participation. The second part of the article focuses on the UK National Consensus Conference organized in order to debate the issue of radioactive waste. He author describes some major problems that arose, in particular that of framing, thus excluding some key questions from the debate and, in the authors opinion, rendering it rather unsatisfactory.