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Expertise and Democracy Expertise and Democracy Cathrine Holst (ed.) ARENA Report No 1/14 Expertise and democracy Cathrine Holst (ed.) Copyright ARENA and authors ISBN (print) 978-82-93137-45-0 ISBN (online) 978-82-93137-95-5 ARENA Report Series (print) | ISSN 0807-3139 ARENA Report Series (online) | ISSN 1504-8152 Printed at ARENA Centre for European Studies University of Oslo P.O. Box 1143, Blindern N-0318 Oslo, Norway Tel: + 47 22 85 87 00 Fax: + 47 22 85 87 10 E-mail: [email protected] http://www.arena.uio.no Oslo, February 2014 Cover picture: Plato and Aristotle. Excerpt of the fresco painting School of Athens (1511) by Raphael, Stanza della Segnatura, Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. Preface Why not epistocracy? Political legitimacy and ‘the fact of expertise – (EPISTO) is a five year research project hosted by ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo. The EPISTO project is financed by the Research Council of Norway. EPISTO inquires into the role of knowledge and expertise in modern democracies. Epistocracy means rule of the knowers, and the project has a particular focus on ‘epistocratic’ developments in the European Union (EU). The kick-off conference took place in Oslo on 4 and 5 April 2013 and was the first of several international events to take place within the project. This report includes a majority of the papers presented at this conference, which was organized around three main themes: 1. Expert-rule and democratic legitimacy 2. The role of knowledge and expertise in EU governance 3. The European Commission’s use of expertise Discussions around the first theme concentrated on implications of modern democracies’ knowledge and expertise dependence for political and democratic theory, with a particular focus on epistemic approaches to deliberative democracy. Contributions addressing the second theme discussed general trends and developments in the EU with regard to the role of expertise and experts in political decision-making, the implications for the EU’s democratic legitimacy, and analytical strategies for studying expertise and democratic legitimacy in an EU context. The last theme focused on the European Commission’s use of expertise and the Commission’s expert group system in particular. I want to thank all authors for their contribution and cooperation, and Kadri Miard, Linn Hege Lauvset, Veronica Thun, Silje H. Tørnblad and Marit Eldholm at ARENA for excellent work with preparing the report. Cathrine Holst Project Coordinator Table of contents Introduction Why not epistocracy? Political legitimacy and ‘the fact of expertise’ Cathrine Holst ................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1 Epistemic democracy and the accountability of experts Cathrine Holst and Anders Molander .......................................................... 13 Chapter 2 A dual justification for science-based policy-making David Budtz Pedersen ................................................................................... 37 Chapter 3 Democratic theory and expertise Between competence and consent Alfred Moore ................................................................................................. 49 Chapter 4 Science and democracy in the third wave Elective modernism not epistocracy Robert Evans ................................................................................................. 85 Chapter 5 Philosophers as experts Principles vs. moral trajectories Beate Elvebakk ............................................................................................. 103 Chapter 6 Public reason and political legitimacy Silje Aambø Langvatn ................................................................................. 117 Chapter 7 Factual disagreement and political legitimacy Klemens Kappel ........................................................................................... 141 Chapter 8 Scientific standards in public reason Karin Jønch-Clausen and Klemens Kappel ................................................. 173 Chapter 9 Let’s study arguments! Deliberation in EU decicion-making Marianne Riddervold .................................................................................. 193 Chapter 10 The micro–macro link in deliberative polling Science or politics? Espen D.H. Olsen and Hans-Jörg Trenz .................................................... 217 Chapter 11 The European Citizens’ Initiative and the activation of EU demoi The role of knowledge and expertise Lucy Hatton ................................................................................................ 239 Chapter 12 EU Commission expert groups Between inclusive and effective policy-making Julia Metz .................................................................................................... 263 Chapter 13 For the sake of democracy? The European Commission’s justifications for democratising expertise John R. Moodie and Cathrine Holst ............................................................ 293 Chapter 14 EFSA’s involvement policy Moving towards an analytic-deliberative process in EU food safety governance? Marion Dreyer and Ortwin Renn ............................................................... 323 Chapter 15 Expertise and power Environmental agencies operating in complex policy environments Anthony R. Zito .......................................................................................... 353 Chapter 16 Is expertise the driving force? Explaining agency autonomy in the EU Christoph Ossege ......................................................................................... 393 Introduction Why not epistocracy? Political legitimacy and ‘the fact of expertise’ Cathrine Holst ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo The role of knowledge in political decision-making has been a central topic in normative political theory at least since Plato in The Republic recommended states to be run by philosopher kings. Recently, the topic has been re-introduced by political philosopher David Estlund in his discussions of the legitimacy of ‘epistocracy’, a ‘rule of the knowers’, referring to the Greek word episteme (Estlund 2003, 2008: 1– 20, 206–222). Estlund’s discussion is a response to the epistemic turn in normative political theory discussions of legitimacy: the idea that a political rule to be legitimate must deliver good outcomes, or what Thomas Christiano (2013) refers to as ‘truth-sensitive’ or ‘truth- tracking’ decisions.1 Estlund supports the turn to epistemic legitimacy criteria, but along with others he worries about the implications: If ‘true’ decisions and outcome improvements are all we have to consider, is it not likely that a rule of the knowledgeable and educated will outperform a rule of the people? (Martí 2006; Lafont 2006; Peter 2011). 1 Epistemic justifications of political rule are seldom regarded as sufficient. A common claim is rather that a normative defense of democracy must refer both to democracy’s instrumental value, how it is a form of rule that improves on decision quality, and to the inherent value of democratic procedures. 2 Cathrine Holst This normative political theory discussion has its counterpart in worries spurred by experiences and a range of empirical studies from the last decades that highlight how contemporary governments and political decision-making processes rely extensively and increasingly on knowledge and expertise. Critics claim that democratic government as we know it is eroding as a result of growing expert power. One expression of this is the increase in depoliticised expert bodies with substantial decision-making power, such as courts, independent governmental agencies and central banks; another is parliamentary and executive institutions’ heavy reliance on expert advice. Consider for example the European Union (EU), a case often brought forward by democratic critics, where the European Commission, in addition to relying on substantial internal expertise, routinely consults around one thousand expert groups and committees with considerable powers not least with regard to agenda-setting. In addition, there are currently more than forty increasingly powerful EU agencies and the European Central Bank, perhaps the most independent of contemporary central banks, centrally determining the Union’s monetary policy, which is a decisive variable for member state economies. Furthermore, the rulings of the European Court of Justice trump member states’ court rulings and parliamentary majorities. Adding to this are the new measures that drastically reduce member states’ scope for independent fiscal policies, newly introduced in the aftermath of the euro crisis.2 These developments, in the EU and elsewhere, raise fundamental normative questions about the limits, but also of the legitimate role, of knowledge and expertise in decision-making. On the one hand, modern societies’ rely intimately on expert knowledge and judgment, and so on a division of labor between experts and non-experts. We are confronted with a seemingly unavoidable expert dependency or a ‘fact of expertise’ (Kitcher 2011, Holst 2012)3: It is impossible – and most people recognize that it is impossible – to make rational political decisions in complex societies like ours without relying extensively 2 For an instructive overview, see Lord (2012). 3 Discussions of normative legitimacy must be based on general facts about human society, such as ‘the fact of pluralism’ (Rawls 1993). Among the basic facts normative theory must relate to, is what we could
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