Legitimacies of scholarly expertise in policymaking: insights from a comparative study of the UK and Japan
Tadafumi Kubota
(Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, Kyoto University)
Short abstract
This study compares policy discourses on embryonic intervention technologies in the UK and Japan to examine how scholarly expertise is framed in policymaking. It reveals that notions of legitimacy locally embedded in each country can differently shape scientistic prioritisation of expertise.
Long abstract
Since the introduction of scientific advice into policymaking (Brooks, 1964), there has been a persistent expectation for scientific knowledge to ‘speak truth to power’ (Hoppe, 1999). While science and technology studies (STS) have critically examined the technocratic assumptions underlying this expectation (Beck, 1998; Millstone, 2009; Bijker, 2009), the prioritisation of scientific knowledge—recently reframed as ‘evidence’—over other forms of intellectual input continues to dominate globally (Welsh & Wynne, 2013; Straßheim, 2024). Nevertheless, the pervasive integration of science into societal functions has rendered the use of scholarly expertise in policymaking unavoidable. This necessitates a broader—or ‘meta’—perspective to analyse how scholarly expertise is currently situated and how it should be, recognising its cross-national variations.
This study investigates how the status of science in policymaking processes is shaped by comparing policy discourses surrounding advisory committees in the UK and Japan. Using Scharpf’s typology of democratic legitimacy (Scharpf, 1997), it employs a comparative qualitative case study on policy debates on novel embryonic intervention technologies, including interviews and policy document analysis, to elucidate different forms of legitimacy embedded in each national context. Specifically, it reveals that Japan tends to emphasise the legitimacy in the output of decisions, reflecting broader Asian perspectives (Johnson, 1999), which contrasts with the Western democratic presumptions centred on procedural justice of input (Goodin, 1999).
By highlighting these locally embedded preferences for legitimacy, the study provides insights for more inclusive incorporation of scholarly expertise within policymaking practices, enabling harmonisation with other intellectual contributions and eventually more societally beneficial, or ‘democratic’, policymaking.
Accepted Paper
Short abstract
Long abstract
Since the introduction of scientific advice into policymaking (Brooks, 1964), there has been a persistent expectation for scientific knowledge to ‘speak truth to power’ (Hoppe, 1999). While science and technology studies (STS) have critically examined the technocratic assumptions underlying this expectation (Beck, 1998; Millstone, 2009; Bijker, 2009), the prioritisation of scientific knowledge—recently reframed as ‘evidence’—over other forms of intellectual input continues to dominate globally (Welsh & Wynne, 2013; Straßheim, 2024). Nevertheless, the pervasive integration of science into societal functions has rendered the use of scholarly expertise in policymaking unavoidable. This necessitates a broader—or ‘meta’—perspective to analyse how scholarly expertise is currently situated and how it should be, recognising its cross-national variations.
This study investigates how the status of science in policymaking processes is shaped by comparing policy discourses surrounding advisory committees in the UK and Japan. Using Scharpf’s typology of democratic legitimacy (Scharpf, 1997), it employs a comparative qualitative case study on policy debates on novel embryonic intervention technologies, including interviews and policy document analysis, to elucidate different forms of legitimacy embedded in each national context. Specifically, it reveals that Japan tends to emphasise the legitimacy in the output of decisions, reflecting broader Asian perspectives (Johnson, 1999), which contrasts with the Western democratic presumptions centred on procedural justice of input (Goodin, 1999).
By highlighting these locally embedded preferences for legitimacy, the study provides insights for more inclusive incorporation of scholarly expertise within policymaking practices, enabling harmonisation with other intellectual contributions and eventually more societally beneficial, or ‘democratic’, policymaking.
Research on research use & its role in metascience
Session 1 Wednesday 2 July, 2025, -