MACOSPOL is a large multifacted project revolving around the mapping/visualisation/navigation of controversy. The project (or network of projects) is funded by the European Union Seventh Framework Program and shared between Science Po (Paris), The University of Oslo, the Observa Reserach Centre (Italy), Ludwig-Maximillians University Munich, University of Liege (Germany), Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (Switzerland), University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands), & Manchester University (England).
The project/network is divided into 8 ‘work packages’ and provides a useful model for how to run large scale project/networks across dispersed institutions. Each work package bar the final meta-administrative package has substantial individual outcomes all of which contribute toward the goal of realising a well developed and tested research methodology, toolset, aggregation, and implementation/extension strategy for the mapping/visualisation and finally, the collaborative mediation, of issues of policy debate/contest.
Bruno Latour is listed as the ‘Scientific Coordinator’ and an Actor Network Theory methodology characterises the project. Here however ANT folds into the concerted development of a strategic approach and governmental technology, the tools to manage that approach, and the communication of that approach to different levels of researcher/antagonist.
As the leader of the team working on Work Package 1 Latour working with Sciences Po (Paris), and a number of parties from MIT have established a web site and called Mapping Controversies (http://www.demoscience.org/) that collects and directs the implementation of resources to the execution of controversy mapping and has developed a set of courses and course materials that allows Science and Technology students to engage in the research and mapping of controversies in science and technology. Many of the projects developed by students at MIT, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland), and Sciences Po (France), Manchester University, Oxford University (UK), Ecoles de Mines (france) move well beyond the mapping of purely scientific issues (http://medialab.sciences-po.fr/controversies/) and demonstrate the potential of the approach as a generalised strategy of networked issue collaboration/navigation/mediation/governance. The level and presentation of research performed at an undergraduate level via the apporach is particularly impressive and perhaps indicates the potential for a community level implementation of the MACOSPOL approach.
The Mapping Controversies website also collects a wide range of resources for both the investigation/research of controversy, the collection of data, and the presentation of that data. These include a vast set of visualisation softwares designed for the analysis and representation of dynamic social networks. Many of these technologies are simple and accesible (wordle.net) and the despite the project’s pretence to ‘build one platform’ its clear the methodology itdelf is the primary and directive ‘codebase’ – The project presently aggregates and augments systems and softwares in the service of this methodology. The most successful of the student visualisations tend to be quite technical implementations or iterations of the NetVis Module (http://www.netvis.org/), although the project also directs students/researchers the promising Prefuse -Java/Flash toolkit as well (http://prefuse.org/).
The courses deployed as part of the project empower the students involved to work through the mapping of controversy from the identification and documentation of the Actors and Propositions involved, through to the mapping/visualisation of the networks they describe, and finally, an analysis of potential outcomes implied by the process and their communication online. The initial workpackage project tests, supports, and illustrates the development and application of both the MACOSPOL methodology and a collection of mostly open access technologies as they are deployed by relatively low level (undergraduate) researchers across a wide range of institutions and cultural contexts.
The other work packages move toward the collection, aggregation, development of technologies in the hope of consolidating the approach demonstrated by work package 1. They involve; The development of visualisation technologies at Ludwig Maximillian University and the University of Oslo (“Risk Cartography: Visualisation of Argumentative Landscapes” http://www.risk-cartography.org/en_index.html), The development of a compatible set of tools tested/proven as effective in WP1 toward their integration as a platform (Govcom.org, University of Amsterdam) and finally The testing of the platform in the government/policy arena.
It is this final element that illustrates the expansive aims and potential for the project. The project’s synopsis gestures toward the aim of developing/demonstrating the project as the ‘elementary building block of a ‘quasi-parliament’ allowing a multitude of stakeholders, interests and other actors – including the public- to effectively navigate a particular issue. The project aims to develop the methodological and technological ground for a ‘technical’ or networked governance – to develop the ‘democratic equipment’ required for such a governance.
While there are any number of government and institutional initiatives concerned with the development of Gov2.0 MACOSPOL is perhaps the first large scale project looking at the way new methodologies and literacies will be central in the realisation of a more networked and distributed governance capable of routing around the need for Big Government as a principle technology for negotiating interests and navigating particular issues.