Martijn Vos

Politics of participation under contestation: experimentation and innovation in agricultural test sites

Athena Institute, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Laurens Hessels, Dr. Thomas Franssen

Background

Martijn completed an interdisciplinary bachelor’s program (Bèta-gamma) with a major in biomedical sciences and a major in political philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. Later on, Martijn continued his interdisciplinary trajectory by completing a master’s program in political philosophy at the University of Amsterdam and a research master in Biomedical sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Martijn’s thesis within political philosophy examined how agonistic theories of democracy are susceptible to their own critique of depoliticization. Within the masters in biomedical sciences, Martijn completed two theses within the tracks ‘infectious diseases’ and ‘international public health’. After his studies, Martijn was a co-applicant and recipient of an NWO XS grant for which he examined power structures in nursing care.

Content

This PhD project aims to explore how dialogical science communication practices navigate the tension between conflictual and consensusual engagements in the context of polarized, knowledge-intensive issues such as climate change. Scholars in the field of science and technology studies (STS) and political theory have often proposed deliberative forms of public engagement practices to adress polarization on knowledge intensive issues. While these deliberative dialogues seek rational consensus through inclusive dialogue, critics argue that they risk obscuring power dynamics and depoliticizing conflict. In contrast, agonistic theories of democracy offer a counterpoint by emphasizing the democratic and emancipatory potential of conflict.

Rather than treating agonistic and deliberative science communication practices as mutually exclusive, this research explores their co-constitutiveness—how agonistic and deliberative logics interact, reinforce, and even require one another within democratic practices. The project develops this perspective through a comparative case study approach. The first case, “Theatre Dialogues of Dissent,” employs theatre methods for engaging polarised citizens in an agonistic dialogue around polarized issues like climate change. A second, deliberatively designed case study will be selected to explore how power, conflict and emotions emerge and are managed within consensus-oriented public engagement formats.

Through theoretical analysis and empirical research, this project addresses three main questions: How is the interplay between agonism and deliberative democracy conceptualized in democratic theory? How does this interplay manifest in real-life dialogical science communication practices? And how effective are these practices in constructively engaging with polarization? Ultimately, the project contributes to both democratic theory and science communication by offering new insights into how public engagement with science can be done in polarized contexts.

Publications

Credits for the image on the top of the page: graphic designer Hans Boeykens.