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Stock options, tax credits or employment contracts please! The value of deliberative public disagreement about human tissue donation

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  • Walmsley, Heather L.

Abstract

'Deliberative democracy' is increasingly popular globally, as a means of securing public engagement with emerging health technologies and democratizing their governance. Architects of deliberative 'mini-publics' have tended, however, to privilege consensus within deliberation and the generation of 'action commitments' within a 'decisional context', despite widespread critique. Less attention has been paid to the phenomenon of persistent disagreement within constructed deliberative fora. This paper addresses this lacuna, performing a narrative analysis of four days of deliberation within one small group of demographically diverse public participants at the BC Biobank Deliberation (Vancouver, Canada, 2007). It reveals the value of listening to persistent deliberative disagreements. First, this paper argues that disagreements enable identification of deliberation and evaluation of its quality. Second, they generate insight into the deliberative process and the discursive means through which consensus can be achieved. Third, persistent deliberative disagreements can be creative of innovative governance solutions. In the case of the BC Biobank Deliberation, disagreements about compensation for biobank donors generated a range of suggestions for mediating between donor rights, corporate interests and societal needs - from tissue sample rentals to donor tax credits - suggestions that are unique to the existing academic and policy literature. Finally, this paper argues that practitioners should present persistent disagreements to public and policy audiences as an 'output' of deliberative democracy events.

Suggested Citation

  • Walmsley, Heather L., 2011. "Stock options, tax credits or employment contracts please! The value of deliberative public disagreement about human tissue donation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 209-216, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:73:y:2011:i:2:p:209-216
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Secko, David M. & Preto, Nina & Niemeyer, Simon & Burgess, Michael M., 2009. "Informed consent in biobank research: A deliberative approach to the debate," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(4), pages 781-789, February.
    2. John S. Dryzek & Simon Niemeyer, 2006. "Reconciling Pluralism and Consensus as Political Ideals," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(3), pages 634-649, July.
    3. Jason Chilvers & Jacquelin Burgess, 2008. "Power Relations: The Politics of Risk and Procedure in Nuclear Waste Governance," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(8), pages 1881-1900, August.
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    1. Lehoux, P. & Daudelin, G. & Abelson, J., 2012. "The unbearable lightness of citizens within public deliberation processes," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(12), pages 1843-1850.
    2. Takeuchi Ayano, 2021. "A survey of methods for evaluating mini-publics," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 1-19, February.
    3. Degeling, Chris & Carter, Stacy M. & Rychetnik, Lucie, 2015. "Which public and why deliberate? – A scoping review of public deliberation in public health and health policy research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 114-121.
    4. O'Doherty, Kieran C. & Hawkins, Alice K. & Burgess, Michael M., 2012. "Involving citizens in the ethics of biobank research: Informing institutional policy through structured public deliberation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(9), pages 1604-1611.

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