The moral authority of science: Evidence from parliamentary debates in seven countries

ABSTRACT

Relying on a neo-institutionalist framework of epistemic governance, this article examines the rhetorical function the term ‘science’ plays in the parliamentary discourse of seven countries. Our analysis confirms that ‘science’ is often referred to by members of parliaments throughout the world and across all policy sectors. We find ample references not just to particular sciences, but also to science in the abstract, and find hardly any contests around the mentions of science beyond technical contests around the credibility of a particular result. Our analysis reveals crucial forms of epistemic work conducted by evoking ‘science’ in the abstract. Drawing on and elaborating Durkheim’s view of morality and the framework of epistemic governance, we argue that much of the work done by references to ‘science’ can be characterised as building a moral authority of science.

KEYWORDS:

• Authority
• epistemic governance
• morality
• parliamentary debates
• rhetoric
• science

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The data from six countries is in English. For the Finnish debates, we used keywords ‘tiede’ and ‘tiete*’ and combed out the results not equivalent with ‘science’.

2 From this description, and our approach throughout, it is obvious that we are employing ‘science’ typically as a term used in our data, so always at a critical distance and in ‘scare quotes’. However, to sidestep the burden this would cause in reading, we drop the quotation marks, which are nevertheless notionally present.

3 The coding was conducted in a team of three, and a check of inter-reliability (a random 5% of the debates were coded by all team members) resulted in an agreement level of between 88% and 96% for each of the questions (using sample-based variance), at an average agreement level of 90%. After discussion on the pilot, coding agreement increased to 95%, and more random checks throughout the coding ensured overall reliability.

4 Number of paragraphs, where the word ’science’ is utilised as a rhetorical resource in seven countries: Australia (n = 162), Canada (n = 92), Finland (n = 96), Trinidad & Tobago (n = 77), Uganda (n = 66), United Kingdom (n = 75), United States (n = 278).

5 The science mentions are temporarily spread in following way (here organised into five-year periods): 1994–1998 (n = 236), 1999–2003 (n = 182), 2004–2008 (n = 185), 2009–2013 (n = 240).

6 Translated from Finnish by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Kulttuurin ja yhteiskunnan tutkimuksen toimikunta [Grant Number 25012960451].