Science and the public: Public participation and the new politics of PUS (II)1

This article is the second of a two-part literature review on the evolution of the relationship between science and the public after the second half of the twentieth century. The first part presented a general review on public understanding of science (PUS), PUS measurements and what has motivated a shift from a deficit model to a contextual one. In this second part, we look more closely at the discussion around the role of the public in science and the transformation from the idea that lay people are isolated from science to the idea that the public should participate in policy-making on science and technology issues. In particular, we focus on the debate around who should and should not contribute to decision-making by presenting both the arguments in favour of and against public participation in science policy.