Sciencepolicy boundaries:

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Science/policy boundaries changing divisions of
labour in expert policy advice.
Willem Halffman Policy Sciences University of
Twente
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Programme
Rethinking political judgment and science-based
expertise boundary work at the science/politics
nexus of Dutch knowledge institutes. In short
Rethinking
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Question
How is expert advice organised and how has this
changed?
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Specification

• expert advice for policy government
• the Netherlands national
• time frame since about 1990

What patterns can we find in the organisation of
expert advice to the Dutch national government
and how have these patterns changed over the last
fifteen years?
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Start diversity of expert roles

• Advice of scientists (experts) to policy,
  roles
• Instrumental e.g. expected policy outcomes

• Signal new problems e.g. unintended consequences
• Advocacy e.g. provide arguments
• Interpretation e.g. conceptual, define problem
• Strategy e.g. suggest possible solutions
• Critical e.g. question policy beliefs
• Certification e.g. reliable knowledge about x
• Mediation e.g. support negotiations

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Problematic experts

• Experts refuse to stick to their role
• Experts do not provide useable knowledge
• Experts are confronted with dissent (e.g.
  problem definitions)
• Experts are confronted with counter-expertise
• Experts miss crucial knowledge (other
  disciplines, lay knowledge)

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Problematic policy makers

• Policy makers miss crucial sources of knowledge
• Policy makers avoid knowledge that does not fit
  their policy beliefs
• Policy makers over-support the development of
  knowledge that does
• Policy makers use research to postpone decisions
• Policy makers avoid debate/decisions by means of
  expertise

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Complement policy

• Uses of science advice in policy equally
  diverse
• Diverse roles are played together, by both sides
• Roles are contextual, e.g. depend on policy
  situation
• Roles are debated, conflictual disagreement and
  friction

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The search for the solution

• A long tradition of looking for the Holy Grail of
  expertise
• independent science
• Cost/benefit analysis
• Risk Assessment
• trans-science
• Participatory expertise (post-normal science)
• Communication improvement
• More recent and more modest sets of guidelines

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Boundary work

• Demarcation
• defines a practice in contrast with other
  practices
• protects it from unwanted participants and
  interference
• while attempting to prescribe proper ways of
  behaviour
• Coordination
• defines proper ways for interaction between
  practices
• makes interaction possible and conceivable

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Boundaries and division of labour
Division of labour demarcation
co-ordination 1. What is the work at hand? 2.
Work of experts/ work of policy makers? 3.
How do the two cooperate? Institutionalisation
when boundary work produces boundaries routinised/
embedded patterns
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Homogenizing accounts

• Dominant interpretation
• National styles
• transition
• Optimisation of science/policy relations
• Underestimates diversity and disagreement.
• Our account 3 different patterns in the
  Netherlands
• corporatist, neo-liberal, deliberative

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Corporatist pattern

• Participation in policy making limited set of
  formally
• accredited actors.
• Expertise
• Organised per actor
• (as advice or even as representation)
• Delimiting the playing field

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Indications of corporatist expertise

• Advisory councils from societal to expert only
• reorganization of advisory sector in 1997
• Planning bureaux expansion
• 1945 Central Planning Bureau
• 1973 Social Planning Bureau
• 1996 Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
• 2002 Netherlands Institute for Spatial Research
• (sic)

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Neo-liberal pattern
Small state, co-ordination through the
market, externalisation of governmental
functions, privatisation. Expertise Consultants
knowledge as commodity Knowledge as tradable
information
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Indications of neo-liberal expertise

• Externalisation of expertise struggle in
  departments
• creation of agencies, loss of control,
• and knowledge brokers
• commodification of knowledge
• Contractualisation of research

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Deliberative pattern
Stress on public reason, debate,
dialogue, Participation and multiple
perspectives, learning. Expertise interactive,
lay knowledge, reflexivity, New collectives in
the risk society
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Indications of deliberative expertise

• Interactive TA (Rathenau)
• Knowledge centres post-professional
• Reflexive experts and expert organisations
• Political debate extra resources for Parliament

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Conclusions

• Three competing patterns corporatist,
  neo-liberal,
• deliberative
• Complex developments not one simple transition
• Ideologically loaded labels science/policy
  boundaries
• more than an optimisation problem.
• (Conflict, differing opinions on the role of
• experts in a democracy.)

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So how do we organize expertise?

• minimally contextual (depends on the situation)
• more political
• for what purpose?
• for whom?
• which in- and exclusions?
• I.e. the question of how to organize expertise
  touches on the question of how to organize
  politics.

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Paper
To appear in Scientific Expertise and Political
Decision Making, edited by Sabine Maasse and
Peter Weingart. Dordrecht Kluwer, 2004
(?). Pdf. downloadable from Rethinking
website http//bbt-webserver.bbt.utwente.nl/rethi
nking/
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Rethinking research sites

• Five Dutch knowledge institutes, five projects
• WRR Scientific Council for Government Policy
• CPB Central Planning Bureau
• (Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis)
• CBS Central Bureau of Statistics
• Alterra nature conservation research at
  Wageningen
• RIVM National Institute of Public Health and
  Environment

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Research design

• Per institute
• 2-3 cases, defined around a national policy
  problem
• follow the case as the institute produces advice
• (qualitative analysis interviews/documents)
• identify patterns and changes
• zoom out to institute positioning, choices,
  history
• zoom out to science and policy context
• Sixth, overall project
• research international points of reference
• bring together case material

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Points of attention

• Six aspects
• Handling of normative issues
• Handling of conflicting knowledge
• Handling of uncertainty
• Possibilities for policy learning
• Role and nature of trust
• Institutional form of state/expert contacts

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