The Problem of Legitimacy in Expert Advising and its Exacerbation Through Neoliberalism: A Case Study from the Research on Climate Mitigation

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ESRC
ESRC
ESRC
ESRC
ESRC

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Sept. 25, 2022

Sept. 30, 2026

My research aims at discussing what I call the Problem of Legitimacy (PoL) in expert advising and how neoliberalism may exacerbate the PoL. The PoL argues that expert advice to a democratic government is illegitimate when the experts' values are not democratically chosen or representative because their advice is value laden. I will also aim to provide solutions to both the exacerbation of the PoL by neoliberalism and the PoL in general. To enrich my philosophical claims, I will look at a case study: research on climate mitigation with a focus on carbon dioxide capture and storage.

Philosophers of science have long argued that science, especially science used in policy making, is value laden (Douglas, 2007; Rudner, 1953; Steele, 2012). If one accepts these arguments, then experts who advise policy makers function as both experts, who provide information, and policy makers, who invoke values. The advising then is illegitimate when the experts' values are not democratically selected or representative because this would be counter democratic. I have already explored this problem in my master's dissertation and have called this the Problem of Legitimacy (PoL).
One factor that might exacerbate the PoL is neoliberalism. While neoliberalism varies across time and space, some general consequences of neoliberalism for science may be that private funding for science has increased while public funding has decreased, research is commodified and there is a skew in what is researched (Brown, 2002; Lave et al., 2010; Moore et al., 2011; Voland et al., 2019; Wehling, 2015).

My research's primary aim is to assess whether neoliberalism exacerbates the PoL. My hypothesis is that neoliberalism makes the PoL worse because it causes a skew in what projects are funded. This leads to a skew in the representation of values in science where private and corporate interests are more important than societal ones (i). Additionally, because of the skew in funding, it is less likely that research findings are true (ii). This is an instance of Longino's (1990) "inequality of intellectual authority", i.e., that a set of values dominates because of the political - or in this case economic - power of their holders.
Secondly, my research will aim at discussing how the hypothesized exacerbation of the PoL through neoliberalism could be reduced and how the PoL in general could be alleviated.

The proposed case study, research on climate mitigation with a focus on carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS), is a pertinent one because research shows that there is a skew towards researching solutions from the natural and technical sciences as opposed to the social sciences (Dunlap and Brulle, 2015; Overland and Sovacool, 2020).