Science, Representation and Democratic Legitimacy
Hannah Hilligardt (doctoral project)
This dissertation discusses the political role of scientists from the perspective of the values in science literature and theories of political representation. It conceptualises scientists as a type of representative and employs political theory literature to assess when such representation is democratically legitimate. The perspective gained from this conceptual shift is brought into conversation with and contrasted to philosophical debates on the legitimacy of values in science. The main part of this dissertation consists of three papers with an introductory chapter that justifies and explains the approach taken.
The first paper focuses on the broader framing of the values in science debate from the perspective of Iris Marion Young’s political theory. It argues that it is unhelpful to conceptualise all societal influences on scientific research as “values” when the aim is to discriminate between legitimate and illegitimate influences. It presents Young’s distinction between social perspectives, opinions and interests and develops individual demarcation strategies for each type of influence.
The second paper uses Pierre Rosanvallon’s account of the civil service to conjecture what it could mean for science and scientists to serve the public interest. It argues that the democratic legitimacy of a public service institution need not be dependent on procedural legitimation, nor on a unified account of what the public interest is. Rather, its legitimacy may be grounded in its representative function and the extent to which it contributes to a plurality of representational forms.
The last paper asks if a public mandate for science is the only legitimate one. To do so it takes a closer look at a recent case study from the Netherlands in which partisan science has played an important and constructive role. It argues that in situations of unequal power and influence on scientific research and political decision-making partisan science can be legitimate. I justify this thesis and the resulting commitment to a pluralism of scientific mandates with representative theories of democracy.