Three Cultural Boundaries of Science, Institutions, and Policy: A Cultural Theory of Coproduction, Boundary‐Work, and Change

Abstract

To help explain the role scientists play in policy change, concepts such as coproduction, boundary‐work, and pollution and purity claims as they are used in science studies should be incorporated into policy theory. Moreover improved policy theory should specify the kinds of boundary‐work that can occur and the kinds of values and beliefs that drive boundary‐work, explaining how boundary‐work leads to policy change. The cultural theory (CT) developed by Mary Douglas, Michael Thompson, Aaron Wildavsky, and others can help specify conditions for coproduction and change in science, institutions, and policy when recast as a theory involving three critical institutional boundaries. This theory‐development article uses this recast version of CT to help explain the most recent dramatic shift in federal land and wildlife management policy in the Pacific Northwest. The article illustrates how cultural combatants use boundary‐work including pollution and purity claims to align themselves and the domain of authoritative science with scientists whose constructs of nature and policy prescriptions are functional for their preferred institutions.

Boundary Concepts for Boundary Work Between Science and Technology Studies and International Relations: Special Issue Introduction

“…The following presents the core research lines on which the contributions gathered in this special issue have been developed and presents further research frontiers as well as policy considerations. These findings resonate outside the IR community as illustrated also by the contribution by Swedlow () in this issue of the Review of Policy Research .…”

The Science–Policy Nexus in Collaborative Governance: Use of Science in Ecosystem Recovery Planning

“…To better connect scientific and policy communities, scholars have examined the critical roles played by boundary organizations (Cash, ; Guston, ; Jasanoff, ; Swedlow, ). Such organizations help connect scientists with policy makers by fostering common understanding and knowledge building to inform policy making (Guston, ; Spence, ).…”

Science, red in tooth and claw: Whaling, purity, pollution and institutions in marine mammal scientists’ boundary work

“…In this work, scientists seek to distinguish among themselves. Boundary work is thus employed in struggles for authority within the scientific community (Swedlow, 2007, 2017). By successfully carving out and controlling a particular knowledge area, certain types of knowledge are accorded legitimacy in contrast to competing knowledge holders.…”

“…Furthermore, the boundary may also be a site of interaction – whilst the boundary is repeatedly withdrawn, it also functions as a space for communication between communities – a boundary space (Mahony, 2013). Boundary work, including pollution and purity claims, pushes certain groups (including scientists) into positions of scientific and policy-making authority (Swedlow, 2017: 828).…”

“…Recently, Swedlow has applied cultural theory to scientific conflicts, returning the theory to the pollution–purity claims of Douglas’ earlier work (2007, 2017). In this conceptualisation, boundary work is seen as ways of trying to constrain, maintain, or tear down distinctions between different types of human activities (including institutions) (Swedlow, 2017: 831). Purity and pollution claims assert that boundaries have been breached or remain intact and represent verbal attempts to enact breaches or wholeness and thus represent attempts to enact or protect a particular social structure.…”