Discourses on public involvement in science have become virtually hegemonic these days. So far, formal participatory arrangements have been mainly discussed in terms of legitimacy, accountability, impact or effectiveness. Critics of participatory exercises have focused on what these arrangements do not accomplish, what or whom they exclude, and how their democratic potential is limited for these reasons. Looking into participatory exercises in the issue area of genetic testing in Germany and the UK, I suggest to explore not only the negative, restrictive but also the positive, productive, mobilizing operations of participatory arrangements and to ask: How do participatory exercises construct publics? Which are the main types of publics constructed? Through which practices of attribution, invitation, interpellation, categorization and classification? And how does the participatory turn in scientific governance relate to the “participatory turn” in the new genetics? Current genetic research strategies and devices rely in a rather literal sense on public participation in science, in that they need large numbers of patients and controls in order to proceed. What are we to make of the “family resemblance” between these two participatory turns?

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