Introduction

Góra, Magdalena; Holst, Cathrine; Warat, Marta

doi:10.4324/9781315268033-1

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…The reliance of governments and parliaments on expert agencies and committees for solving complex political problems is an increasingly common feature of contemporary democracies (Góra et al, 2018). Contrary to the reputation of such ‘expert bodies’ as detached, unaccountable and depoliticised, Eva Krick and Cathrine Holst highlight the social and political ties of experts and argue that this presents us with the question of ‘how to strike a balance between the independence requirement of reliable expertise and the responsiveness requirement of democratic governance’ (Krick and Holst, 2019: 118; see also Holst and Molander, 2017).…”

Section: Ethical Criteria For National Risk Assessmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A better foundation for national security? The ethics of national risk assessments in the Nordic region

Lidén¹

2022

Cooperation and Conflict

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Aiming at analysing all major security risks to a country, comprehensive National Risk Assessments (NRAs) can be used as a foundation for national security policies. Doing so manifests a modernist dream of securing societies through the anticipatory governance of risks. Yet, this dream resembles a nightmare of undemocratic state control in the name of security. Based on a critique of the politics of NRAs, this article offers a theoretical framework for evaluating their scientific and political credentials. Drawing on political theory of technocratic expert rule, ethical criteria of epistemic reliability and political representation are introduced to the debate. These criteria are then applied to an analysis of the NRAs of Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland. I argue that although these NRAs are convincing correctives to the risk perceptions of politicians and civil society, they are insufficiently reliable and representative for defining the scope and priorities of national security policies at large.

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Section: Ethical Criteria For National Risk Assessmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A better foundation for national security? The ethics of national risk assessments in the Nordic region

Lidén¹

2022

Cooperation and Conflict

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“…In recent years, such ideologically motivated agendas as equal treatment and anti-discrimination, and attempts to revise history in accordance with these agendas, are said to have been imposed on universities through political decree as well as bureaucratic concessions to social movements (Kronman, 2019;Lukianoff and Haidt, 2018;Williams, 2016). The status of science in society also seems ambiguous: calls for "evidence-based" policy and the prevailing canon that our society is, or should be, a "knowledge society" have boosted the cultural status of science and scientific knowledge and led to the "expertization" of politics and society at large (Góra et al, 2018;Pestre, 2003), although there are also growing concerns regarding knowledge resistance and the widespread rejection of expert knowledge (Boghossian, 2006;Klintman, 2019;Nichols, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the essential role of organized skepticism in science’s “internal and lawful autonomy” (Eigengesetzlichkeit)

Hallonsten¹

2021

Journal of Classical Sociology

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The institution of science is said to be under pressure from political, economic and social interests, manifested in alleged bureaucratization, managerial reforms, anti-intellectual movements on university campuses, and widespread questioning of expert knowledge in society. Commercialization of academic publishing and the growth of competitive funding have increased the importance of journal and grant peer review in science and seem also to have contributed to the proliferation of false impressions about the nature of scientific knowledge production and science’s role in society. In this article, these developments are problematized and put into perspective with the help of classic sociological theory in a Weberian and Mertonian tradition, in an attempt to shed new light on the debate on the governance and institutional autonomy of science. First, academic science is identified as a Weberian value sphere with “internal and lawful autonomy” ( Eigengesetzlichkeit), and the broader functionalist context of this supposition is discussed. Second, Merton’s theory of the normative structure of science is used to give specific content to Eigengesetzlichkeit in the case of science. Third, the concept of organized skepticism is developed to represent a range of social patterns ubiquitous in scientific practice, and its epistemological and sociological foundations are discussed. Organized skepticism is thus identified as the essential feature of science’s Eigengesetzlichkeit.

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Introduction

Cited by 2 publications

References 1 publication

A better foundation for national security? The ethics of national risk assessments in the Nordic region

A better foundation for national security? The ethics of national risk assessments in the Nordic region

On the essential role of organized skepticism in science’s “internal and lawful autonomy” (Eigengesetzlichkeit)

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