Revealing a paradox in scientific advice to governments: the struggle between modernist and reflexive logics within the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency

Abstract

While governmental scientific advisers attempt to innovate their practices to become more reflexive and interactive, they cannot escape the modernist fundaments that constitute these practices. How do governmental scientific advisers make sense of this paradoxical situation? Using the transition process in the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency as a paradigmatic case, this article explores how four actor groups—the PBL management team, clients, PBL practitioners and external peers—involved in PBL’s transition process disclose their views on institutional redesign and, while doing that, express their beliefs on what they think scientific advice “is” and “should do”. Frame analysis identifies three coexisting frames of PBL’s (future) role and identity—PBL as integrated assessment specialist, PBL as think tank and PBL as trustworthy expert. Implicated in these frames are reflexive beliefs in a “professional culture of humility” that seem to replace the modernist “science speaking truth to power” mode of advising in the PBL organization. At the same time modernist beliefs in the science/politics demarcation, objectivity and scientific privilege persist, in part by revisiting them in view of the newly found reflexive principles of humility, transparency and deliberation. In conclusion, this empirical work illustrates how questioning and deliberating about the role and identity of one’s own organization is the first step to advance institutional redesign in scientific advice to governments. The challenge for governmental science advisers is to “translate” processes of institutional redesign into concrete social and cultural changes, bringing about a transformation in conceptions of what scientific advice is and should do all along. This article is published as part of a thematic collection on scientific advice to governments.

Goodbye Expert-Based Policy Advice? Challenges in Advising Governmental Institutions in Times of Transformation

“…In that sense, we observed a strong orientation in TAB's work towards objectivity and authority of scientific knowledge, which corresponds to the still very common "modernist logics" of policy advice [19]. Yet, as was found for other similar advisory institutions [17,[19][20][21], a modernist orientation can coexist with more reflexive orientations. In TAB's case, a similar tendency of mixing orientations can be observed.…”

“…In this paper, we have argued that this gives TAB a special role in the governance of societal transformation; while many advisory institutions in the fields of TA and SR are flexing their roles and adopting more inclusive and reflexive forms of knowledge transfer [19][20][21], TAB can act as a mediating actor between parliament and (sustainability) science because it is based on an institutional arrangement that maintains the clear demarcation between science and politics. This enables TAB to bring findings from transformative (sustainability) science into the parliamentary arena after a thorough scientific quality review.…”

“…[18]): ensuring neutrality in the light of conflicting norms and values in problemoriented research (challenge of normativity), integrating a wide variety of knowledge sources, including scientific and non-expert knowledge (challenge of integration), and involving societal stakeholders, i.e., those affected by the issues at stake (challenge of participation). As recent research shows, the roles that policy advisors take on have diversified significantly, going far beyond traditional knowledge brokering [12,[19][20][21]. As a result, the role of established actors in the field of scientific policy advice, such as PTA institutions, is increasingly scrutinized and discussed (e.g., [21][22][23]).…”

Conditions and Constrains for Reflexive Governance of Industrial Risks: The Case of the South Durban Industrial Basin, South Africa

“…Although 'governance' has diverse interpretations [37,38], modern approaches to governance are generally understood as the inclusion of the non-state stakeholders in decision-making [39][40][41][42] and emphasis of accountability, transparency, fairness, rule of law and ethical considerations by the state [13,43], whilst not relying on technocratic and bureaucratic processes to manage developmental and policy processes [1,29,44]. This collective understanding of modern governance can be grouped together under reflexive governance [4].…”

From paradox to principles: where next for scientific advice to governments?

“…This applies particularly in areas of "post-normal science", where facts are uncertain, values are in dispute, stakes are high and decisions are urgent (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1993). In her article, Kunseler (2016) uses developments at the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency to illuminate the challenges that scientific advisers face as they attempt to become more reflexive and interactive. Cooper (2016) explores the changing role of social science expertise and advice in the UK government, revealing tensions between relevance and influence, on the one hand, and scientific objectivity and independence, on the other.…”