What do we know about public attitudes towards experts? Reviewing survey data in the United Kingdom and European Union

Dommett, Katharine; Pearce, Warren

doi:10.1177/0963662519852038

Cited by 32 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Now we turn to the question of preferences for technocracy. It is easy to see why a crisis such as the COVID-19 can be a fertile ground for increased demand for technocratic government, understood as the exercise of political power based on neutral technical expertise and competent management of public affairs, rather than ideological representation of preferences (Bertsou and Caramani, 2019;Dommett and Pearce, 2019). A pandemic is an extremely complex public health issue that requires, to be effectively managed, a great deal of technical expertise.…”

Section: Technocracymentioning

confidence: 99%

Pandemics meet democracy. Experimental evidence from the COVID-19 crisis in Spain

Amat¹,

Arenas²,

Falcó-Gimeno³

et al. 2020

Preprint

173

129

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The COVID-19 outbreak poses an unprecedented challenge for contemporary democracies. Despite the global scale of the problem, the response has been mainly national, and global coordination has been so far extremely weak. All over the world governments are making use of exceptional powers to enforce lockdowns, often sacrificing civil liberties and profoundly altering the pre-existing power balance, which nurtures fears of an authoritarian turn. Relief packages to mitigate the economic consequences of the lockdowns are being discussed, and there is little doubt that the forthcoming recession will have important distributive consequences. In this paper we study citizens' responses to these democratic dilemmas. We present results from a set of survey experiments run in Spain from March 20 to March 28, together with longitudinal evidence from a panel survey fielded right before and after the virus outbreak. Our findings reveal a strong preference for a national as opposed to a European/international response. The national bias is much stronger for the COVID-19 crisis than for other global problems, such as climate change or international terrorism. We also find widespread demand for strong leadership, willingness to give up individual freedom, and a sharp increase in support for technocratic governance. As such, we document the initial switch in mass public preferences towards technocratic and authoritarian government caused by the pandemic. We discuss to what extent this crisis may contribute to a shift towards a new, self-enforcing political equilibrium.

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Section: Technocracymentioning

confidence: 99%

Pandemics meet democracy. Experimental evidence from the COVID-19 crisis in Spain

Amat¹,

Arenas²,

Falcó-Gimeno³

et al. 2020

Preprint

173

129

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…z. B. Dommett und Pearce 2019 ), lässt sich an der Formierung wissenschaftsskeptischer (Gegen‑) Öffentlichkeiten, etwa im Kontext von Klimawandel, Gentechnologie und Impfdiskurs, die Verschiebung öffentlicher Rationalitäten nachzeichnen (vgl. Neuberger et al.…”

Section: Wissenschaftskommunikation Als Dynamisches Handlungsfeldunclassified

Wissenschaftskommunikation zwischen Gesellschafts‑, Wissenschafts- und Medienwandel

Fähnrich

Schäfer

2020

Publizistik

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Wissenschaftskommunikation als dynamisches Handlungsfeld Kaum ein Thema hat die Wissenschaft in den vergangenen Jahren disziplinübergreifend und international so beschäftigt wie die Wissenschaftskommunikation. Das galt schon vor der gegenwärtigen COVID-19-Pandemie und gilt heute umso mehr: Einzelne Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler, aber auch Hochschulen und Wissenschaftsorganisationen sind medial zunehmend präsent. Wissenschaftspolitik, Förderorganisationen und Fachverbände fordern und fördern die öffentliche Kommunikation über wissenschaftliche Themen in Journalismus und Social Media, den Auftritt wissenschaftlicher Akteure in öffentlichen Debatten sowie mehr kommunikatives Engagement von Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftlern (vgl. überblicksweise Bonfadelli et al. 2017; Fähnrich et al. 2019; Schäfer et al. 2015). Dem wissenschaftspolitischen Diskurs liegen dabei unterschiedliche normative Vorstellungen zugrunde. So fordert das 2019 erschienene Grundsatzpapier des Bundesministeriums für Bildung und Forschung zur Wissenschaftskommunikation einen "Kulturwandel hin zu einer kommunizierenden Wissenschaft" (BMBF 2019, S. 2) und betont damit einen spezifischen Bereich von Wissenschaftskommunikation: "organized actions aiming to communicate scientific knowledge, methodology, processes or practices in settings where non-scientists are a recognised part of the audience" (Davies und Horst 2016, S. 4). Kommuniziert werden solle v. a. aus der Wissenschaft heraus, durch individuelle Forschende, Medienabteilungen oder Leitungen

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“…However, more detailed national-level research is urgently required in the UK and elsewhere. This article indicates numerous potential lines of enquiry including: the relationship between medical classification and political imaginaries (Liddiard, 2020;Perego et al, 2020), cultural influences on the representation of uncertainty (Douglas, 2016;Stirling and Scoones, 2020), diversity and consensus within science advice (Leach and Scoones, 2013;Smallman, 2020a), the staging of science advice at press conferences (Hilgartner, 2000;Hollin and Pearce, 2015), the role of blogs and social media in challenges to established science (Raman and Pearce, 2020;Turner, 2013), the emerging demand for alternative science advice such as "Independent SAGE" (Smallman, 2020b;Wise, 2020) and how scientific emergencies such as Covid-19 affect public trust in experts (Dommett and Pearce, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trouble in the trough: how uncertainties were downplayed in the UK’s science advice on Covid-19

Pearce

2020

Humanit Soc Sci Commun

Self Cite

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The 2020 Covid-19 pandemic has forced science advisory institutions and processes into an unusually prominent role, and placed their decisions under intense public, political and media scrutiny. In the UK, much of the focus has been on whether the government was too late in implementing its lockdown policy, resulting in thousands of unnecessary deaths. Some experts have argued that this was the result of poor data being fed into epidemiological models in the early days of the pandemic, resulting in inaccurate estimates of the virus's doubling rate. In this article, I argue that a fuller explanation is provided by an analysis of how the multiple uncertainties arising from poor quality data, a predictable characteristic of an emergency situation, were represented in the advice to decision makers. Epidemiological modelling showed a wide range of credible doubling rates, while the science advice based upon modelling presented a much narrower range of doubling rates. I explain this puzzle by showing how some science advisors were both knowledge producers (through epidemiological models) and knowledge users (through the development of advice), roles associated with different perceptions of scientific uncertainty. This conflation of experts' roles gave rise to contradictions in the representation of uncertainty over the doubling rate. Role conflation presents a challenge to science advice, and highlights the need for a diversity of expertise, a structured process for selecting experts, and greater clarity regarding the methods by which expert consensus is achieved. The analysis indicates an urgent research agenda that can help strengthen the UK science advice system after Covid-19.

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What do we know about public attitudes towards experts? Reviewing survey data in the United Kingdom and European Union

Cited by 32 publications

References 33 publications

Pandemics meet democracy. Experimental evidence from the COVID-19 crisis in Spain

Pandemics meet democracy. Experimental evidence from the COVID-19 crisis in Spain

Wissenschaftskommunikation zwischen Gesellschafts‑, Wissenschafts- und Medienwandel

Trouble in the trough: how uncertainties were downplayed in the UK’s science advice on Covid-19

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