| Abstrakt: |
This article explores a case of science policymaking about intrauterine contraceptive devices (IUDs) in Australia. This article is specifically about a committee which was set up in Australia to advise on the health dangers in using IUDs. One of the committee's major policy recommendations and tasks undertaken was the drafting of a leaflet for women which was to be given to them by their physicians as they considered whether or not it was safe to use the IUD. There is some evidence that when the Australian government set up the committee it was being guided by some model of the politics of scientific policy making. Thus the Labor Party, which was in power at the time, sought to broaden the representation on expert committees to include consumer representatives. The author wants to consider how it is that compromises such as that embodied in the text of the leaflet, are created. In this article, the author has taken a topic that is standard in the literature on policy-making and decision-making, that is, how it is that negotiations, bargains and compromises are hammered out. This is a topic which is also modelled in the literature on science studies as they attend to technical decision-making, scientific closure, and the democratization of technology policy-making. |
