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Aug

2011

Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: A Democracy Paradox in Studies of Science and Technology

If scholars of science and technology draw on deliberative democrats’ normative account of legitimacy, but reject the principles for legitimate rule prescribed by the same theory, how do we know that deliberative expert practices are more legitimate than those they seek to counter?
In short, shouldn't experts in the interface of science and society be bound by the same criteria of legitimacy that they apply to other types of expertise? The answer would seem to be "yes," but this is not how it works in practice.

rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/...dox-in-studies-of-science.html

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Deliberation Democracy STS Science Technology

I am a co-author along with Eva Lövbrand and Silke Beck on a paper published in the current issue of Science, Technology and Human Values (which I also mentioned on this site last fall). The paper is titled "A Democracy Paradox in Studies of Science and Technology," (it can also be found here in PDF) and it takes a close look at claims made by scholars who study science and technology that the governance of science and technology ought to be grounded in deliberation among experts and the general public. Political legitimacy, it is argued, derives from such deliberation. However, such claims are themselves almost universally grounded not in deliberation, but authority. Hence the "democracy paradox."
Only when specifying and adhering to internally consistent criteria of legitimacy, will students of science and technology be able to make a convincing case for more deliberative governance of science and technology.
For my part (not speaking for my co-authors), appeals to deliberative democracy by science studies scholars can not evade the paradox. Instead, we must look to other conceptions of democracy to understand the legitimate roles of science and expertise in governance.