Swedish nuclear waste management as an inert controversy: using critical constructivism to understand cold technological conflict

Science and technology studies (STS) has long studied scientific controversies as a way to identify prospects for technical democracy. Contemporary STS tends to prioritize ‘overflowing’ controversies, where lay actors challenge experts’ technical frameworks by explicating the broader implications and so open up technological issues. Yet many controversies are not like this; they operate on a largely technical register within official procedures, so the broader implications remain implicit. In the case of Swedish nuclear waste management a major controversy did not overflow and so presents an opportunity to elaborate theoretically on such ‘inert’ controversies. Crucial insights can come from Andrew Feenberg’s critical constructivism – an alloy of STS and the Frankfurt School. It can help explain why some controversies remain inert and what is at stake there, regardless of the actors’ actions and statements. To make these contributions, critical constructivism needs to emphasize its critical heritage. As with many contemporary studies in STS, critical constructivism has increasingly come to study how change happens, at the expense of how the status quo is maintained. Through the STS idea of ‘structural closure’ – how controversies can be closed by hegemonic structures – inert controversies can be addressed by critical constructivism, thus enriching the study of controversies in STS.