Co-chairing panel "T08P10 - War On Expertise - War On Culture: Understanding the Expert-Culture Boundary in Current Policy Controversies" - 4th International Conference on Public Policy in Montreal (Canada)
Abstract
We live in times in that being in a rage with expertise is a legitimate political stance (Higgins 2016). While expertise has been an inherent part of modern policymaking, it has recently raised waves of criticism because of ideological biases, rent-seeking behavior or contradictions between science as theory and science as practice.
The June 2016 Brexit vote was repeatedly cited as an illustration of the dichotomy between 'the people' versus 'experts'. The underlying argument of that dichotomy was that knowledge is placed in the hand of experts who should or need to, persuade the public.
Other political events have been evaluated through the perspective of a public that seems get in the way of expert's knowledge. The analysis of Donald Trump's victory reflected this trend as it was attributed to his image as the anti-expertise, anti-establishment guy among the candidates.
However, Cramer (2016) points out that people's distrust to experts is embedded in broader contours of a clash between proponents of liberal cosmopolitanism and defenders of socially conservative values and that we can understand these trends as "a retro reaction by once-predominant sectors of the population to progressive value change" (as argue Inglehart and Norris 2016). Liberal democratic political order has been indeed criticized for having induced divides and political controversies in modern societies (Boltanski and Chiapello 2005, Brown 2015, Hochschild 2016, Seymour 2014).
For some, the liberal values realize a long-held dream: they can determine the course of their lives, they can live their sexual identity freely, and they can alter political decisions through protest. For others, these values are the twilight of civilization, because they can no longer understand its social structure: they want clear identities restored, with distinct hierarchies enabling them to follow socially and culturally prescribed patterns.
We argue that policy expertise needs to be seen as part of these culture wars and suggest this panel to address policy controversies in their cultural context, to examine roles of moral values and expertise and to study lessons which can be drawn from these controversies for policy studies. We intend to explore links between culture and policy expertise which is very often overlooked in traditional policy analysis (with exception Douglas and Wildavsky 1983, Fischer 2009 or Schram 2012).
Policy expertise on topics such as family, sexuality, migration, or climate change steps in the terrain of everyday moralities, frustrations, desires, and emotions. It prompts us to reconsider the position of policy expertise within the current deliberative systems (see Parkinson, Mansbridge 2012), the way how policy expertise is communicated and epistemic authority of policy expertise itself.
Echoing critical policy studies, the panel advances an interpretive understanding of 'culture'; as a dynamic site of meanings, narratives, and discursive practices that are negotiated to legitimize or abandon particular values and beliefs in a society. The panel aims to develop a deeper understanding of narratives, meanings, and discursive practices, through that citizens articulate the various contestations in diverse policy fields such as education, sexuality, family, migration, ethnicity, health or environmental policies.
At the same time, the panel wants to use these examples to further conceptualize 'culture war' and to further the understanding of the culture-expertise boundary. References: Cramer, Katherine J. 2016.
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