{"id":63,"date":"2024-07-23T09:49:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-23T08:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/?p=63"},"modified":"2024-07-22T16:51:08","modified_gmt":"2024-07-22T15:51:08","slug":"civic-epistemologies-and-comparative-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/2024\/07\/23\/civic-epistemologies-and-comparative-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"Civic Epistemologies and comparative analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Author: Prof. Dr. Holger Stra\u00dfheim<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is Part 2 of Prof Sta\u00dfheim\u2019s reflections of international comparative analysis of ethics bodies and committees<\/em>. Part 1<\/a> foced on <\/em>the institutional embeddedness of ethics advice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last blog we explored how science-policy interactions, and by extension ethics \u2013 policy interactions are culturally and institutionally embedded. This helps us to develop a framework for international comparative analysis of ethics bodies and committees who provide advice to governments and policy makers. In this second part we look at the ideas of \u2018civic epistemologies\u2019 and \u2018policy epistemics\u2019 in more detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Context-specific shared commitments<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concept of \u2018civic epistemologies\u2019 sets out the ways by which expertise gains authority and evidence is validated in particular contexts. These \u2018institutionalized practices by which members of a given society test and deploy knowledge claims\u2019 (Jasanoff 2005, p. 255) vary fundamentally across countries. The contextual specificity of particular \u2018civic epistemologies\u2019 explains why \u2013 despite an international science system that is increasingly standardized and isomorphic \u2013 understandings and influences of policy expertise differ greatly across national contexts: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018[The] American system highlights the values of transparency and explicit public criticism while seeking to attain a view from nowhere in relation to scientific knowledge. British political culture is less concerned with specialized knowledge and more with the character of the experts who serve the public. British policy stresses experts\u2019 personal commitments to the public good and seek to ensure that experts will bring appropriate forms of experience to the issues before them. The German approach also implicitly embraces the idea of experts as society\u2019s delegates, but it does so by mapping the macrocosm of society onto the microcosm of committee structure.\u2019 (Jasanoff 2011b, p. 32)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the concept of \u2018civic epistemologies\u2019 turned out to be highly instructive in understanding divergent modes of policy advice and expertise in research on environmental policy, sustainability governance, and studies on biotechnology (the following is based on Stra\u00dfheim, Jung, and Korinek 2015; see also Bridel 2023 and De Don\u00e0 2023).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultural embeddedness of science and ethical advice to governments<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Science and policy interact in manifold patterns shaped by institutions and administrative principles, practices of demarcation and boundary setting, as well as collectively shared understandings of what is politically relevant, publicly legitimate, and scientifically sound. As Jasanoff (2005, p. 15) convincingly argues: \u2018With growing awareness of the culturally embedded character of both knowledge and policy, there are reasons to be skeptical of unproblematic learning from others\u2019 experience.\u2019 Expertise and ethical advice take many forms. What might be accepted as unquestionable and convincing in one cultural context might be met with doubts and skepticism in another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes the UK and Germany different?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultural orientations to objectivity<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A comparison between the UK and Germany might be instructive in this respect. The British empiricist tradition (Shapin and Schaffer 1985) is characterized by its \u201ccommitment to empirical proofs, which, in principle, should be evident to everyone\u201d (Jasanoff 2013: 141). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, there is a tight fit between this constitutive aspect of the British culture of expertise and the easy graspable demonstration of both scientific soundness and political relevance. This amalgamation of concepts of objectivity, however, stands in stark contrast to Germany\u00b4s culture of expertise. In Germany, objectivity, i.e., the \u201cappearance of a view from nowhere\u201d, as Jasanoff (2005: 267) puts it borrowing a term coined by philosopher Thomas Nagel, \u201cis achieved by resolutely embracing views from everywhere\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, in contrast to Britain where this view from everywhere is dressed in the \u201ccommonsense vision\u201d (Jasanoff 2011: 314), Germany\u00b4s \u201cview from everywhere\u201d comprises all institutional perspectives that are deemed as relevant for the issue at stake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultural orientations to public interest and civil society<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Britain, the attribution of expert competence is tied to an individual \u201cwho achieves standing not only through knowledge and competence, but through a demonstrated record of service to society\u201d (Jasanoff 2005: 268). This pattern of attribution of expertise is closely linked to Anglo-Saxon public interest culture where the government or government departments (rather than the state) draw their authority from obtaining \u201cthe public\u00b4s consent (or, at least, acquiescence) for measures devised in the public (general, national) interest\u201d (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004: 53). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Germany\u00b4s \u201corganic\u201d state tradition, by contrast, state and civil society are part of an essentially organic whole – a citizen is not \u201can atomistic individual but rather a member of an essentially organic society that exists in more or less formalized relationship with the state\u201d (Loughlin and Peters 1997: 48). In this context expert credibility draws on institutional affiliation as sufficient testimony to the quality of the ensuing judgements (Jasanoff 2005).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultures of civil service<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast to Britain\u00b4s generalist public servants whose profession is mostly about policy and pragmatic management, Germany\u2019s civil service is characterized by the prevalence of the so-called \u2018Juristenmonopol\u2019. German civil servants, predominantly trained by lawyers, are not only public employees but also personifications of the legal state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the UK, however, \u201cthe professional civil service provided politicians with both fearless advice, thanks to a security of tenure comparable to university professors\u201d (Pollitt 2004: 103). This long-lasting influence of British administrative tradition is echoed in the evidence-based policy movement that accompanied New Labour\u2019s reform activities since the late 1990s but has never been a priority for the German civil service (Stra\u00dfheim and Kettunen 2013).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultures of \u2018public witnessing\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the British \u201cstateless society\u201d (Stillman 1991) the state has no legal basis and government is regarded as \u201cnecessary evil, whose powers are to be no more than are absolutely necessary, and whose ministers and officials must constantly be held to public account\u201d (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004: 53). Accordingly, since all governmental authoritative claims require \u2018public witnessing\u2019 in Britain, British official science must allow the public to witness its scientific validity and objectivity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the level of government agencies, this demand of public witnessing is increasingly met by publishing a dense web of ethical checklists, ethical governance guidelines and meta guidelines (Freudl 2020). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the German \u2018Rechtsstaat\u2019, in contrast, with its strong and all-encompassing body of public laws governing every administrative sphere, the state is a legal state vested with exceptional authority but constrained by its own laws. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Weberian accountability of public servants is ensured through constitutionally and legally mandated rules under which they carry out their functions. Accordingly, once the rules for a German advisory body have been formally set in place and once it has been constituted, science advice is carried out in a relatively \u201cinvisible sphere of expert decision-making\u201d (Jasanoff 2005: 261) whose authority is not exercised by means of public witnessing as in Britain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond universals: What counts as good ethical advice?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What counts as good ethical advice? There is no universal standard. Instead, a more comparative view on the political, administrative, legal and epistemological cultures of countries and regions might help us to get a better understanding of the international varieties of ethics and expertise, their transformations, and the implications for the normative and moral underpinnings of public discourses in an increasingly globalized world (De Dona 2023; Stra\u00dfheim 2023).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bibliography   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bridel, Anna. 2023. “Fixing Subjects, Fixing Outcomes: Civic Epistemologies and Epistemic Agency in Participatory Governance of Climate Risk.”  Science, Technology, & Human Values<\/em> 48 (4):938-964. doi: 10.1177\/01622439211066136.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

De Don\u00e0, Matteo. 2023. “Is it only about science and policy? The \u2018intergovernmental epistemologies\u2019 of global environmental governance.”  Journal of International Relations and Development<\/em> 26 (1):86-110. doi: 10.1057\/s41268-022-00276-w.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freudl, Rebecca-Lea. 2020. The Politics of Politico-Epistemic Authority. The Case of Independent Food Safety Agencies in the UK and in Germany<\/em>. T\u00fcbingen: Eberhard Karls Universit\u00e4t T\u00fcbingen (Dissertation).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jasanoff, Sheila. 2005. Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States<\/em>. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jasanoff, Sheila. 2011. “Quality control and peer review in advisory science.” In The Politics of Scientific Advice. Institutional Design for Quality Assurance<\/em>, edited by Justus Lentsch and Peter Weingart, 19-35. Cambridge\/New York\/Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Loughlin, John and Peters, B.G. 1997. State Traditions, Administrative Reform and Regionalization. In The Political Economy of Regionalism, edited by<\/em> Michael Keating and John Loughlin, 41\u201362. London: Frank Cass & Co, .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pollitt, Christopher. 2004. “United Kingdom.” In Agencies. How Governments do Things Through Semi-Autonomous Organizations<\/em>, edited by Christopher Pollitt, Colin Talbot, Janice Caulfield and Janice Smullen, 97-114. Hampshire\/New York: Palgrave Macmillan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pollitt, Christopher, and Geert Bouckaert. 2004. Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis<\/em>. Oxford: Oxford University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stillman, Richard J. 1991. A Preface to Public Administration: A Search for Themes and Direction<\/em>. New York: St. Martin’s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stra\u00dfheim, Holger. 2023. “Expertise under uncertainty: Comparing policy expert platforms at the global climate\u2013health nexus.”  Australian Journal of Public Administration<\/em>:1-19. doi: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1111\/1467-8500.12618<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stra\u00dfheim, Holger, Arlena Jung, and Rebecca-Lea Korinek. 2015. “Reframing Expertise: The Rise of Behavioural Insights and Interventions in Public Policy ” In Moments of Valuation. Exploring Sites of Dissonance<\/em>, edited by Ariane Berthoin Antal, Michael Hutter and David Stark, 249-268. Oxford: Oxford University Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author: Prof. Dr. Holger Stra\u00dfheim This is Part 2 of Prof Sta\u00dfheim\u2019s reflections of international comparative analysis of ethics bodies and committees. Part 1 foced on the institutional embeddedness of ethics advice. In the last blog we explored how science-policy interactions, and by extension ethics \u2013 policy interactions are culturally and institutionally embedded. This helps us to … Continue reading “Civic Epistemologies and comparative analysis”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2226,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,24,23,2,7,5,6,3,22,8],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-australia","tag-civil-service","tag-comparative-politics","tag-ethics","tag-germany","tag-policy","tag-policy-advice","tag-policymaking","tag-science","tag-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions\/67"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}