“At first, I was only a subscriber”: re-mediating food citizens’ solidarity practices through digital technologies

Digital Solidarity

Over the last two decades, the Internet has been a laboratory for social innovation. One of the most unexpected collective discoveries has been the existence of another mode of organization to achieve large−scale co−ordination. This mode relies neither on the market, where price signals perform important co−ordinating functions horizontally (as Friedrich Hayek famously stated), nor on public an...

Discussing Nascent Technologies: Citizens Confront Nanotechnology in Food

How does the public articulate its visions, expectations and concerns regarding a technology whose applications and ramifications are only just beginning to be worked out? Nanotechnology is an emerging technology on the brink of offering transformative applications to the food industry at every level, from food packaging to the nutritional quality of the food itself. But the very newness of the...

Special Issue Digital Government: technologies and practices

The Internet is changing the way we live and do business. It also offers a tremendous opportunity for government to better deliver its contents and services and interact with its many constituents—citizens, businesses, and other government partners. In addition to providing information, communication, and transaction services, exciting and innovative transformation could occur with the new tech...

Participation in ‘big style’: first observations at the German citizens’ dialogue on future technologies

In 2010, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research started a series of citizens' dialogues on future technologies. In the context of the German history of public participation in technology-oriented policy making, these dialogues are unique for at least two reasons: The Federal Ministry retains the responsibility for the entire process and is heavily involved in its planning, organi...

A Precarious Solidarity Between Christian Democratic & Social Democratic Understandings of Solidarity Concerning Re- allocation of Refugees