How do individuals assess the credibility of experts in various policy domains? Under what conditions does the public interpret particular scientific knowledge claims as being trustworthy and credible?Using data collected from an online survey experiment, administered to 1,507 adult residents of Quebec, this paper seeks answers to these questions. Specifically, we examine variation in the way members of the public perceive the credibility of scientific experts in the areas of climate change, shale gas extraction, cell phones, and wind farms. Our results contribute to the existing literatures on public perceptions of policy experts, framing, and cultural theory. We find that individuals evaluate expert credibility based on the way in which experts frame issues, and on the congruity/dissonance between these expert communication frames and one's underlying worldview. However, we also identify limits to these framing effects. Our findings shed light on the interaction of framing and political worldviews in shaping public perceptions of expert credibility in various policymaking contexts.
One of the original objectives of the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) was to shed light on the role of science in policymaking. The ACF depicts subsystem scientists as political actors just like any other. Unfortunately, science has never become a major theme of research within the framework and, as a consequence, its role in policymaking remains under‐theorized, leaving ample room for interpretation. This article seeks to explore the validity of three propositions about the role of science in policy. The first two are derived from the ACF: (i) the capacity of scientists to provide credible advice is affected by the harshness of the political debates dividing the policy subsystem; and (ii) agreement among scientists is just as common as among other groupings of policy actors. The third is derived from an “error costs” argument: (iii) Disagreements among scientists are even more pronounced than disagreements among other policy actors. Using the results of a survey of policy actors in 17 biotechnology subsystems, this article finds support for the first and third propositions. Indeed, scientists' participation in political divisions might even be underestimated by the ACF. The article concludes with attempts to clarify the role of scientists within the ACF, including discussions of ambiguity regarding the role of professional forums and of scientists in between‐coalition learning within policy subsystems.
More than ever, policy designers need to take legitimacy defi cits seriously. To do so, they increasingly involve citizens in policy design processes and draw from a wider range of expertise. Where should they stop in terms of inclusiveness to citizens and expertise and for how long should they allow citizens and experts to be persuasive? These are the questions addressed in this article. Policy design legitimacy, the article argues, can be related to variations in designers and politicians ' inclination to resort to output-oriented (expertise-based) versus input-oriented (citizen-centred) design processes. Input-oriented processes have a higher potential in terms of legitimacy defi cit reduction than output-oriented processes, but they take longer, notably because they require the involvement of large numbers of people. In contrast, output-oriented processes have a slightly lower legitimacy potential, but can produce it faster. These propositions are illustrated by two policy design narratives drawn from the United Kingdom ' s biotechnology sector.experience has shown that the utilitarian perspective is wholly inadequate in several policy sectors. Despite advanced scientifi c knowledge, policy designs failed to prevent catastrophes in sectors as diversifi ed as food safety, space discovery, air travel security and environmental protection ( Jasanoff 2003 ). These circumstances have shaken the utilitarian perspective as well as citizen ' s confi dence in politicians ' capacity to govern. As a result, any policy design justifi ed solely in terms of effi ciency risks appearing inadequate; politicians increasingly seek policy designs for legitimacy.This article focuses on the contribution of design to more legitimate policies. I argue that politicians, and the people they mandate to design policy, can resort to outputoriented (knowledge-centered) and input-oriented (citizen-centered) processes to create legitimacy-inspiring policy designs. Policy designers also have some control over the duration of these processes and over their inclusiveness to actors and citizens. Inputoriented processes, I argue in this paper, can produce more legitimacy than outputoriented processes, but they take longer, especially when they involve large numbers of people. In contrast, output-oriented processes have a lower potential in terms of legitimacy, but can produce it faster. In other words, politicians and policy designers face the challenge of having to make adequate choices in terms of processes in a time-constrained policy-making environment. This paper seeks to shed light on this challenge. The legitimacy of policy designs and its relationship to input-and output-oriented processes, their duration and their inclusiveness are illustrated by a study of biotechnology policy in the United Kingdom in two areas: assisted reproductive technology (ART) and genetically modifi ed organisms (GMO) in the agri-food sector. The article is divided into three main sections. First, I present a discursive understanding of policy design legitimacy....
Both studies of federations and studies of policy networks have sought to produce explanations for observed patterns of policy divergence and designs. However, both have evolved in parallel, insights rarely transferring from one to the other. This article reconciles the two types of studies. More specifically, it provides an understanding of the divergent efforts of the United States and Canada with regard to the adoption of environmental regulations for the agricultural sector, which emphasizes the establishment of policy networks through interactions between past policy decisions and federal arrangements. The American federal structure, when combined with unrelated agricultural policy decisions, shaped policy networks in such a way as to enable the adoption of stringent environmental regulations for agriculture. In contrast, the Canadian federal structure, also in conjunction with past policy decisions, prevented the creation of policy networks capable enough to design similarly stringent agro‐environmental regulations.
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