Update for Website blog Dec 2024
Originally published at HSG Focus Feb 2023
Scientists and academics globally have wrestled with the dilemma of whether they should position themselves publicly on political issues and endorse candidates when their knowledge on specific issues compels them to do so. Under the right conditions, the answer is a resolute yes, says Assistant Prof. Eri Bertsou, Assistant Professor of Political Science in her column for HSG Focus.
Illustration: Corinne Bromundt
In October 2020, the scientific research magazine Nature made an unprecedented move by endorsing a political candidate for the US Presidency. However, a new study has found that the endorsement of Joe Biden had an unintended backlash effect, leading to increased distrust in science among those who supported Donald Trump. While the editorial team of the scientific journal stands by its decision in a response letter that outlines the reasons behind their endorsement of Biden, this case represents an increasingly familiar dilemma for scientists and scientific bodies.
Controversies surrounding the public positioning of scientific experts on political matters is not a new phenomenon. Policies regarding the regulation of tobacco, smoking bans, compulsory seat belts in vehicles, and most recently, combating and living under the COVID-19 pandemic, all relied heavily on the advice of scientific experts and created a backlash among political groups and factions of the population. Presently, one of the biggest – if not the biggest – battles of our time will be whether we can address the climate crisis and ensure the protection of our planet, life, and biodiversity.
The research supporting manmade climate change can hardly be refuted, and now we have decades worth of data at our disposal. This is leading many scientists to be more vocal about the need for policy solutions and to embrace activism in order to draw public attention to related issues. Newly formed groups, such as Scientist Rebellion, have made headlines due to the controversial activism of scientists. In Switzerland, ahead of a public vote on June 18th, 2023, 200 scientists came forward to support the proposed Swiss Climate Protection Law in a public statement, arguing that without this political framework the country will not meet its goal of reducing carbon emissions to net zero. The scientists’ positioning also raised eyebrows in public debates.
As a first reaction, people tend to shrug when scientific experts take a position on a political issue. An explicit or worse, loud stance from experts on policy matters is often perceived as a direct affront to the public’s imagination of the neutral, objective, apolitical scientific advisor who must simply offer politicians and the people the qualified facts and figures their expertise affords them. It is often assumed that it is not for scientific experts to position themselves publicly in favor or against political parties, candidates, or policy proposals. They should inform, advise, and share their knowledge with policy-makers and the public at large but maintain their neutrality and stay out of the arena of political decision-making.
But why is that? These lines of reasoning quickly become blurred and arguments give way once people start to discuss in more depth about the role of experts in political debates. As part of an SNF-funded project, we have held focus group discussions with citizens in Switzerland and Italy over the past months on this topic. Overwhelmingly, participants in these discussions quickly agree that the problems facing our societies and our world at a global level are increasingly complex and existential in nature. We therefore often need scientific experts to provide more input in shaping policy action. In addition, participants argued that true neutrality is a chimera. Everybody, whether they practice science or politics, has been shaped to some extent by the values, the disciplinary paradigm, network, and the socio-political circumstances around them. Experts can have affiliations and maintain positions on political matters. This is often how they become useful in sharing their knowledge and skills. After a few minutes of discussion, the image of the objective scientific advisor who offers facts and figures only when called upon by the public or the government is abandoned for a more nuanced understanding of varied types of expert voices that need to not only provide data but help interpret it, communicate problems, propose and promote solutions.
Nevertheless, there is something more worrying at play when it comes to the public positioning of scientific experts. Speaking in general terms, people are ready to acknowledge the need for expert advice, especially when it pertains to complex and urgent crises. However, once experts become specific individuals that publicly position themselves in favour of a particular policy, candidate or party, they risk being dismissed as biased or partisan by supporters of the opposing side. This in turn, can damage the credibility of scientific expertise among groups in society (in the same way as the endorsement from Nature increased distrust of science among Trump supporters).
A host of social science research is studying ways to improve the credibility and persuasion of scientific communication, but it has so far been unable to completely neutralize this sort of backlash among fervent supporters of the opposing side. Therefore, if the two options available to scientific experts are to either maintain their neutral stance and not position themselves on political matters or to openly voice their support of a policy and run the risk of backlash among some citizens, we have to evaluate this risk relative to the risk of pursuing damaging policies. In the case of the climate crisis, the risk of inaction is now becoming grave enough to warrant scientists actively supporting policy proposals and political programs.
Scientific expert advice is not value-free. It is, of course, imperative that scientists follow scientific principles, be transparent about their assumptions, methodologies, and possible conflicts of interest, and strive to make their research objective and reproducible. Consensus among experts and the strength of empirical evidence are also important aspects to share with the public. However, we must abandon the idea that an absolutely neutral and objective science will be useful in facing the biggest problems of our times. As political theorist Zeynep Pamuk has argued, useful expert scientific advice cannot be completely neutral, and completely neutral scientific advice cannot be useful. We therefore need to engage with scientific experts in new ways if we are committed to solving important political issues in our societies.
Eri Bertsou writes the column for HSG Focus in 2023. The HSG Assistant Professor of Political Science was recently awarded the Eccellenza Professorial Fellowship grant (Starting Grant) for the project ‘Varieties of Expertise‘ (2022-2027) from the Swiss National Foundation. Her work focuses on human behaviour, relations of trust and distrust and the role of experts in democratic politics and society.
