Participatory Technology Assessment (PTA) is said to increase democratic legitimacy, take up lay knowledge and improve technological solutions. Today it is part of science/technology policy rhetoric and, sometimes, practice. We confront some elements of the scholarly discussion on PTA with policy-makers’ understandings of the process in Austria. Here, participation often gets framed as a form of PR and a sensor for public sentiments rather than as a forum of multiple rationalities and co-development of policy projects. This understanding can be related to underlying conceptions of democracy and the public. As a conclusion, governance styles would have to change before PTA was to become more than a laboratory experiment.