Where are the Politics? Perspectives on Democracy and Technology Roel Nahuis Utrecht University Harro van Lente Utrecht University The politics of innovation involves displacements between various interre- lated settings ranging from the context of design to the context of use. This variety of settings and their particular qualities raise questions about the demo- cratic implications of displacements, which have been addressed within STS for decades from different perspectives and along various theoretical strands. We distinguish five different traditions of conceptualizing the relation between technological innovation and democracy: an intentionalist, a proceduralist, an actor-network, an interpretivist, and a performative perspective. They differ in their concepts of “technology,” “politics,” and “democracy”; they imply dif- ferent roles for the analyst and they suggest or urge other political means. It is suggested that spelling out the differences and similarities between the five perspectives creates the possibility to overcome the limitations of any particular perspective of technology and democracy. Keywords: technology; innovation; displaced politics; democracy The Problem of Displaced Politics The politics of technology involves displacements between various inter- related settings ranging from the context of design to the context of use. Not only parliaments, councils, and forums accommodate political practices, but also laboratories (Latour 1987), experiments, demonstrations (Pinch and Bijker 1987; Rip and Schot 2002), markets (Summerton 2004), work floors (Garrety and Badham 2004,) and even households (Silverstone and Hirsch 1992) and actual use (Gjøen and Hård 2002). This variety of settings and their particular characteristics raise questions about the democratic quality of technological innovation. This article examines these questions and the Science, Technology, & Human Values Volume XX Number X Month XXXX xx-xx © 2007 Sage Publications 10.1177/0162243907306700 http://sth.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com 1