Heads in the clouds: knowledge democracy as a Utopian dream

Knowledge democracy serves as an inspiring new vision for the relationship between knowledge production and use, to replace the old and discarded speaking truth to power and information deficit models. However, a closer look at what is envisioned makes it clear that knowledge democracy has a problematic Utopian character. Knowledge democracy is based on technocratic and scientific Utopian ideals complemented with Utopian governance and participation ideals. It refers to a society with empowered, competent citizens and public actors who: (1) have unrestricted access to scientific information; (2) contribute to its production and/or assessment and (3) utilise it to make informed and rational decisions. This chapter uses two examples in environmental governance (the Water Framework Directive and sustainability certification) to argue that – as has been demonstrated for many other Utopia – putting knowledge democracy into practice may have undesirable technocratic and anti-democratic implications