Transcript Institute for the Social Sciences 2006

Institute for the Social Sciences
2006-2009 Theme Project
“Contentious Knowledge:
Science, Social Science, and Social
Movements”
Team Leaders:
Ron Herring and Ken Roberts
Bolivia’s “Water War”
Fault Lines Between
Two Literatures
• Sociology of Knowledge and Science
Studies
• Social Movements and Contentious
Politics
Constructing Authoritative
Knowledge
• Which scientists or scientific bodies qualify as
“experts”?
• What scientific evidence is recognized as
authoritative, and who adjudicates scientific
disputes when the experts disagree?
• Once a scientific consensus emerges, how does
this get translated into public policy initiatives
when “settled knowledge” clashes with the
political or economic interests (or the cultural
values) of other societal actors?
Political Uses of Authoritative
Knowledge
• Evaluating and selecting between policy alternatives in
the decision-making process
• Persuading other actors
• Legitimating policy choices in public opinion
• Rising above partisan or ideological disputes
• Insulating decision-makers from mass democratic
pressures
Constituting Expertise as a Political
Strategy
• “Depoliticizing” contentious issues: shifting issues from
bargaining arena to technical knowledge
-- Expert commissions to offer advice
-- Technocratic management of policy
-- There are no protests around conventions of air-traffic
control, nor demands for popular participation and the
priority of local knowledge; technical expertise is widely
accepted as legitimate in this domain.
Contesting Authoritative Knowledge
“On the Ground”
• “Gap” between expert knowledge and popular
sentiments often leads to social protest and political
mobilization
• Two key issues:
-- How does local resistance get transformed into larger
social movements that challenge national policymakers
(issue framing, tactical diffusion, political brokers,
coalition-building strategies)
-- How do social movements create “feedback effects” that
modify public policies or political institutions?
Contentious Knowledge Team
Members
• Maria Lorena Cook (School of Industrial and Labor Relations,
Comparative and International Labor)
• Durba Ghosh (History)
• Rebecca Givan (School of Industrial and Labor Relations,
Collective Bargaining and Comparative and International Labor)
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Ron Herring (Government)
Stephen Hilgartner (Science and Technology Studies)
Ken Roberts (Government)
Sarah Soule (Sociology)
Janice Thies (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Soil
Biology and Ecology)
Post-Doctoral Fellows
• Thomas Medvetz, University of California,
Berkeley, Sociology
• Kyoko Sato, Princeton University,
Sociology
• Susan Spronk, York University, Political
Science (visiting affiliate)
Feedback Loops: The Impact of
Social Movements
• Social movements often follow cycles of
protest and political mobilization
• Peak periods of mobilization may create
political pressure, crises, or “critical
junctures” that are conducive to political
change
-- Public Policy
-- Political Institutions
Policy Effects
• Policy innovation: adoption of new policies (such as the
landmark environmental legislation of the 1970s)
• Policy change: modify existing policies (like water
privatization in Bolivia)
• Redefine the policymaking agenda (subtle shifts in the
political debate over climate change as the scientific
community moves towards closure)
Mechanisms of Policy Change
• Social movements can:
-- fracture elite/technocratic consensus
-- place new issues on the agenda
-- place new actors at the bargaining table
-- alter the balance of power between
political actors
Impact on Political Institutions
• “New Institutionalism” in the social sciences– emphasis
on how political institutions and formal rules shape
political and economic behavior
• Reversing the causal arrow: explaining institutions and
institutional change
-- What are the origins of institutions?
-- Whose interests do they serve?
-- And how do they change over time?
Social Movements and Institutional
Change
• Social protest may induce governments to create new
regulatory regimes
-- Cartagena Protocol on genetically modified organisms
-- Environmental and labor provisions in NAFTA and other
trade accords
• Social movements may seek institutionalized
representation in formal political arenas– i.e., moving
from “protest” to “platform”
-- lobbying government agencies
-- participating in election campaigns
-- forming or creating linkages to political parties
-- entering government
• But there is tremendous variation in the success of social
movements in entering the arena of institutionalized
politics
-- Some movements fear loss of political autonomy
-- Institutional politics can prove divisive
-- Latin American protests against the “Washington
Consensus”: very different patterns of success in
translating labor, indigenous, and community activism
into a unified political movement
Bolivian President Evo Morales: From
Social Movement to State Power
• But tension between institutionalized representation and
movement authenticity
-- Social movements can pressure a government or even
overthrow it– but can they form a government and
administer state power?
-- At what point do they cease to be a movement?