One world or two? Science–policy interactions in the climate field

Sundqvist, Göran; Gasper, Des; Clair, Asunción Lera St.; Hermansen, Erlend Andre T.; Yearley, Steven; Tvedten, Irene Øvstebø; Wynne, Brian

doi:10.1080/19460171.2017.1374193

Cited by 39 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…This is also in line with much of the literature in the field regarding the co-production of science and policy in the context of the IPCC (e.g. Beck 2011; Beck and Mahony 2018;Livingston, Lövbrand, and Olsson 2018), and Sundqvist et al (2018) observation that the processes of integration and separation between science and policy are both at work in the relationship between the UNFCCC and the IPCC.…”

Section: Empirical Materialssupporting

confidence: 87%

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Going beyond science-policy interaction? An analysis of views among intergovernmental panel on climate change actors

Thoni¹,

Livingston²

2019

Critical Policy Studies

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Scholarly literature on science-policy interaction is typically divided between advocating that science and policy need to be brought closer together or separated. In a recent article in this journal, Sundqvist and colleagues [Sundqvist et al. (2018) Oneworld or two? Science-policy interactions in the climate field, Critical Policy Studies, 12:4, 448-468] proposed a typology that structures this debate. We use their typology to conduct a text analysis on empirical material from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) internal consultation on its future. We find that science-policy practitioners are not as divided as the scholarly debate. Moreover, while the typology is a powerful tool in unearthing differences in opinion regarding science-policy interaction, it comes at the price of reductionism. We suggest that a continuum, instead of separate boxes, helps visualize the large spectrum of ideas. However, regardless of type of typology, it is important that the discussion goes beyond the relationship between science and policy, and beyond an unconstructive battle between extremes. It is neither possible nor normatively desirable to demarcate 'science', 'policy' and other actors. Whilst this discussion is of central importance to the IPCC, greater focus should be put on its relationship with society.

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Section: Empirical Materialssupporting

confidence: 87%

“…In this paper, we presented an analysis of the submissions by Parties to the IPCC, IPCC experts, and other actors such as international NGOs, on the future of the IPCC. We used a typology of science-policy interaction that focuses on the distance between science and policy developed by Sundqvist et al (2018) to discuss our material.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Going beyond science-policy interaction? An analysis of views among intergovernmental panel on climate change actors

Thoni¹,

Livingston²

2019

Critical Policy Studies

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“…To create a societal change towards a sustainable future, constructive relations between science and policy are of major importance. However, due to the dominating understanding in society that science and policy are guided by different internal logics (science by objective knowledge, and policy by subjective values), it is difficult to determine what such a constructive relation entails and how to make that relation a reality [1,2]. Instead, due to their differences, any relation between science and policy risks jeopardizing the legitimacy of both practices [3,4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning from the Experiences of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Balancing Science and Policy to Enable Trustworthy Knowledge

Gustafsson

2019

Sustainability

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To create a societal change towards a sustainable future, constructive relations between science and policy are of major importance. Boundary organizations such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have come to play an important role in establishing such constructive relations. This study contributes to the development of empirically informed knowledge on the challenge of balancing different expectations for how the science–policy relation is to be constructed to create trustworthy knowledge and policy decisions, i.e., when to be what and to whom. This study revisits Climategate and uses the public debate on the IPCC’s credibility, legitimacy, and policy relevance that followed Climategate as an analytical window to explore how the IPCC balanced the science–policy relation in a trustworthy manner. The analysis is based on a document study. The study shows how different expectations on the science–policy relation coexist, and how these risks create a loss of trust, credibility, legitimacy, and policy relevance. Thus, for boundary organizations to have a chance to impact policy discussions, reflexivity about the present epistemic ideals and expectations on knowledge production is of major importance, and must be reflected in an organizational flexibility that is open to different strategies on how to connect science and policy in relation to different actors and phases of the knowledge production process.

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“…But as we have argued above (2.3), one cannot conceptualize society as a whole as a collective actor of the type organization. It is also, in our view, oversimplified to use “distance” as a measure to differentiate between one‐world and two‐world positions on the science‐policy interface, as Sundqvist et al () have proposed. The multiple‐worlds model, in contrast, suggests that the worlds of science and policy follow rather different institutional logics: politicians adhere to scientific advice for political reasons, or they do not adhere to it for political reasons.…”

Section: Reassessing the Link Between Earth System Science And Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sociological Perspectives on Earth System Modeling

Grundmann

Rödder

2019

J Adv Model Earth Syst

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How can we understand climate change from a sociological perspective? In asking this question, we assume that Sociology has something to contribute to such an enterprise. The argument that we put forward is twofold: We argue that Sociology provides a much needed alternative to two dominant approaches that have influenced public discourse, behaviorist theories, mainly employed in Economics, and a belief in the centrality of science in policy making ("evidence first"), mainly entertained by physical scientists. We critically discuss both approaches, showing the limits of behaviorism and the linear model of policy making and provide an alternative framework, which emphasizes the role of social action, of organizations, and of structural differences between different social worlds. We then apply our framework to assess the role of evidence at the climate science-policy interface and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a boundary organization in particular. We argue that science and politics follow different logics and that the IPCC is simultaneously both more political and less policy relevant than its self-description as "policy-relevant, never policy prescriptive" tries to make us believe. We conclude that a depoliticization of politics by IPCC expert advice and a politicization of climate science occur simultaneously and mutually reinforce one another. The result is a lack of progress in climate policy as science has taken center stage but is unable to offer political solutions.

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One world or two? Science–policy interactions in the climate field

Cited by 39 publications

References 55 publications

Going beyond science-policy interaction? An analysis of views among intergovernmental panel on climate change actors

Going beyond science-policy interaction? An analysis of views among intergovernmental panel on climate change actors

Learning from the Experiences of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Balancing Science and Policy to Enable Trustworthy Knowledge

Sociological Perspectives on Earth System Modeling

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