Keywords

World Politics rests on science and expertise for maintaining a functioning multilateral system of governance. The liberal world order rests on numerous foundations, including the recognition of the authority of expertise and science (Ezrahi, 1990; Stokes, 1997; Zürn, 2018). Without the regular provision of objective and impartial advice (or at least the confidence in the warrants behind technical advice) the governance of highly technical issues such as climate change, finance, and public health, among others, would fail and the international system would lose legitimacy in the eyes of those who value the effective delivery of public goods and the enhancement of social welfare. Indeed, until recently the reliance on science as a source of technical advice had become an institutionalized social fact. Scientists and politicians speak of the need for scientific governance for making sound policy decisions (Gore, 1996; Holdgate, 1982; Jasanoff, 2011; Leemans, 2008; OECD, 2015; Scientific Advisory Board, 2016; Sebek, 1983; Stafford-Smith et al., 2017; Watson, 2005).

Because science is imparted to global environmental governance by international science panels, I consider here the various legitimacy criteria which states apply to international science panels. While science serves multiple purposes, including such indirect functional effects as generating publicity and concern by mass publics, here I focus on its direct legitimacy in the eyes of states, as states are the primary constituency which convenes and funds international science panels. It relies on Fritz Scharpf’s distinction between input, output and outcome criteria to identify scientific practices which enhance the legitimacy of scientific influence (Scharpf, 2009). This chapter builds on an earlier conceptual piece I published on the legitimacy of science panels (Haas, 2017).

This chapter begins with a review of the history of reliance on science and expertise by the modern nation-state. It then discusses the nature of scientific influence, and how experts exert power in world politics. It the proceeds to look at the array of legitimacy criteria in the literature and concludes with some suggestions about how to restore the legitimacy of science in world politics. Like Marx’s understanding of history—“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past” (Marx, 1852/1971, p. 243)—scientists’ legitimacy is bounded to the interpretive frames of social circles in which they operate. Thus, scientists’ ability to project their expertise and influence rests on the social criteria of the system in which they must operate. My goal here is to explore how this boundedness can be bridged to improve global governance.

Science Is an Institution

Science is an institution which confers a source of governance in opposition to rule by force or theology or plutocracy derived from dynasties, monarchies, or organized religion (De Solla Price, 1975; Drori, Meyer, Ramirez, & Schofer, 2003; Ezrahi, 1990; Hirschman, 2013; Knorr-Cetina, 1999; Lasswell, 1965; Sagan, 1996; Ziman, 2000). Scientists are accorded authority because of the benefits they are believed to provide. In practice scientists are recruited by states to serve as national advisors and to serve on international science panels.

In the environmental realm, 140 global environmental assessments have been conducted since 1977, (Jabbour & Flachsland, 2017; Kowarsch et al., 2016) and over 32 international science advisory panels operate (Haas & Stevens, 2011, 2017). It has become an almost a taken for granted assumption in diplomatic circles that regimes would be designed with formal science advisory components, or what is now called the science policy interface. National environmental ministries have become ubiquitous, as has offices of science advisors (Drori et al., 2003; Golden, 1991; Holdgate, 1982; Meyer, Frank, Hironaka, Schofer, & Brandon Tuma, 1997; Skolnikoff, 1994; Smith, 1990, 1992).

Science and expertise contributed to many of the major multilateral achievements of the post World War II global order, such as: reductions in infant mortality, improvements in life expectancy, macroeconomic coordination and sustained economic growth, nuclear nonproliferation, advances in public health, and environmental protection.

And yet the authority of science to meaningfully contribute to global governance/world politics is now contested to an unprecedented degree since the Dark Ages. This challenge is but one new feint in a war of interests in world politics, where science is being threatened by populists in conjunction with corporate interests who have been threatened by the policy implications of scientific findings, an argument which is elaborated in section “Assaults on scientific legitimacy” (Oreskes & Conway, 2010). There is an affinity between populist questioning of elitist expertise and the fossil fuel industry’s efforts to undermine the legitimacy of those providing policy advice counter to their interests, leading to climate gate in England and the harassment of climate scientists by Congress in the USA (Bradley, 2011; Mann, 2014). But the effects may be more pernicious than just undermining the technical foundations of effective global governance. As Hannah Arendt wrote:

The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth, and truth be defamed as lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world is being destroyed. (Arendt, 1967, p. 15)

Still, science enjoys authority in global governance because of science’s social reputation for usable expertise. Its power rests on its ability to exercise influence over states. But it does not enjoy uniform influence. Its influence—or power—depends upon the extent of legitimacy which scientific institutions command in the eyes of the relevant audiences. While science operates within a political space, (Jasanoff, 2004; Jasanoff & Martello, 2004; Le Prestre, 2017) there are clearly identifiable criteria by which political actors accord science and scientists with authority and legitimacy, and choose to defer to scientific advice. Science’s legitimacy can be defended through rigorous contestation based on the roots which have supported its authority over the years.

The Nature of Scientific Influence: When Knowledge Is Power

Knowledge is power (Foucault, 1972; Haas, 1990). Through persuasion and learning, it leads other actors to recognize, and often pursue, new goals and policies by updating understandings of how the world works and how actors are affected by conditions in the world (Haas, 2015). Concretely, science influences governance by shaping frames and discourses, setting agendas, privileging policies, shaping the determination of who is entitled to representation in deliberations about technical and environmental issues, privileging reasoned discourse over emotional or purely interested discourses, and contributing to social learning. But it is a fragile power, which rests on the social foundations of Weberian deference. But because the reasons for deference to it rest on social beliefs, its influence may be rehabilitated by reasserting those foundational beliefs.

Science exercises power because it leads to behavior which would not have occurred in its absence. Science has a demonstrable influence on governance and exercises multiple forms of power in the sense of inducing actors to do things they would not otherwise have done. But this power is not exercised through direct influence over the choices of other parties. Rather it occurs by shaping beliefs and expectations, and understandings about how the world works and how national interests are affecting by conditions in the world (Guzzini, 2017; Lukes, 1974). Science helps frame choices and collective understandings through path dependent lock-in social mechanisms as the resources commanded by the formal institution’s scientists get deployed based on scientific understanding. Science also tends to accumulate more authority through such institutions, as the institutions amplify the respect for the informal institutions of science. Barnett and Duvall call these influences the institutional and productive forms of power (Barnett & Duvall, 2005). The social mechanisms by which such authority yields collective outcomes involve persuasion, learning, and institutionalized socialization of actors through new incentives and constraints deployed on behalf of the authoritative beliefs exercised by institutions which were themselves affected by the authority and legitimacy of the science. Steven Lukes was hesitant to call such influence power (Lukes, 1974), as it seemingly rests on consensus and there is no public evidence of manipulation. Yet the effects are powerful, because they lead to outcomes which would not have occurred otherwise and may be counter to state’s ex ante preferences.

While most of these social mechanisms are permissive or enabling, scientists’ ideas can be causal in the necessary sense. For instance, without the ideas actors would not have a plausible understanding of what to do, or of the map of available options and policy destinations. Ideas, be they warranted or not, can cause outcomes. Consider stock market scares and runs on banks which are triggered by rumors, or various Cold War scenarios, where an idea generates behavioral effects. Or consider alarms about global warming—something which cannot be confirmed by individual observation—where once accepted the ideas give rise to actions.

Scientific authority also has constitutive effects (Allan, 2017; Shackley & Wynne, 1996). By privileging the expertise of science at the expense of other possible claimants, and thus contributing to forms of social stratification, as well as privileging presumptive policies through the frames which experts help instill. Relying on science promotes reasoned and scientific deliberation. Relying on scientific institutions reinforces the legitimacy of the institutions of science, and vice versa. This latter constitutive effect appears to be well understood by the Conservative anti-science movement in the USA and UK, which have systematically launched attacks at science after the IPCC was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize to undermine the legitimacy and authority of the IPCC.

Because reliance on science is voluntary, adherence to its dictates operate in the absence of any explicit coercion, and the nature of scientific power or influence rests on its authority and legitimacy. Without any material capabilities to influence decisions, or direct responsibility for making decisions, experts’ influence is indirect. It rests ultimately on their social authority and the willingness of states to voluntarily defer to the advice of experts and to be persuaded by it.

Thus scientific power rests on scientists’ authority, and the willingness of principals—be they states, IOs or firms—to willingly defer to their claims. Steven Bernstein writes that “legitimacy is the glue that links authority and power” (Bernstein, 2011, p. 20). Scientists enjoy privileged agency. Weberian legal rational authority comes with its own inherent logic (Weber, 1946/1958). It enjoins willing compliance with scientific or bureaucratic dictates because of the perceived impartiality and reason of the source.

Scientific Legitimacy

Legitimacy is thus a social construct that relates a group of presumptive experts to an audience willing to accede to their expertise. Ian Hurd writes that “legitimacy is the belief by an actor that a rule or institution ought to be obeyed” (Hurd, 2008). Allen Buchanan and Robert Keohane speak of “the right to rule” (Buchanan & Keohane, 2006, p. 405). Michael Zürn uses the more nuanced language “believed to have the right to rule” (Zürn, 2005, p. 136).

This notion of legitimacy combines the traditional distinction between normative and empirical legitimacy. The distinction is a false dichotomy (Flathman, 1980; Zaum, 2013). Zaum writes:

It is problematic to neatly distinguish between … the normative dimension (the right to rule) and the sociological dimension of legitimacy (a widely held belief in the right to rule). However, one cannot just assert universal criteria against which legitimacy claims can be judged, as these criteria are depending on the particular audience making a normative judgement on an institution’s legitimacy. They are the consequence of social processes of argumentation, persuasion and socialization, and subject … to social change. Similarly, judgements on an institution’s sociological legitimacy, ascribed as the result of the congruence of the institutions’ objectives and practices with the beliefs, values and expectations that provide a justification for its power, are made on the basis of certain normative suppositions. Thus, in practice both the normative and sociological dimensions of legitimacy are closely interlinked. (Zaum, 2013, p. 10)

Legitimacy in practice is the consequence of the normative expectations embraced by diverse audiences (Zürn, 2005). Their authority ultimately rests on a social relationship with the presumptive audience (Avant, Finnemore, & Sell, 2010; Zaum, 2013, 2016). The question, addressed in the following section, is what expectations of legitimacy are held in practice by states about science’s role in global environmental governance specifically, because states still make the decisions about delegating and deferring to science panels. The legitimacy criteria are generalizable to other areas of technical policy making.

The general concept of legitimacy is contested by scholars (Hurrell, 2005), but there is broad consensus on a variety of components that contribute to legitimacy. While it is unknown if these components are widely endorsed by audiences, and to what extent different audiences hold different criteria of legitimacy satisfying more criteria is better than fewer, legitimacy is a social fact, created by the actors who confer legitimacy on others (Bernstein, 2011). Indeed Steven Bernstein writes that “there are no universally shared criteria of legitimacy in global governance” (Bernstein, 2011, p. 22). There is very limited empirical work on the legitimacy of science, or general criteria of legitimacy at the global level (Börzel & Risse, 2005; Kanie, Andresen, & Haas, 2014; Rittberger & Schroeder, 2016; Zürn, Binder, & Ecker-Ehrhardt, 2012).

It is not just a matter of what is legitimate, but it is also a matter of who is legitimate to whom (McNamara, 2010). The granting of legitimacy depends on a social audience: “although legitimacy is mediated by the perceptions and behaviors of individuals (and one might add corporate entities) it is fundamentally a collective process” (Johnson, Dowd, & Ridgeway, 2006, p. 57). Such a question of audience is particularly important given the increasing number of multi actor networks involved in global governance where actors’ legitimacy may not be the same in the eyes of every other actor (Avant et al., 2010; Kahler, 2009; Kanie et al., 2014).

Many criteria for legitimacy are invoked—many from democratic theory and normative theory. Legitimacy has been most widely studied in the EU and, more generally applied to global governance by David Held and Koenig-Archibugi’s edited work on global governance more generally (Ebbin, 2012; Held & Koenig-Archibugi, 2005). The terms authority and legitimacy tend to be used interchangeably. Below I distinguish between input, process, output, and outcome criteria of legitimacy. This taxonomy is informed by Fritz Sharpf’s the study of the legitimacy of the EU (Scharpf, 1999, 2009) and of climate change governance (Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen & McGee, 2013). Alternative formulations weight input, output and substantive legitimacy (Nasiritousi, Hjerpe, & Bäckstrand, 2016). Some of the categories are a bit arbitrary, as fairness can be considered a process or an output. Despite slightly different taxonomies, the intents are similar.

These definitions also span a variety of a number of different but overlapping sources of legitimacy criteria which are commonly identified by different theoretical traditions. Essentialist or rationalist criteria involve inputs having to do with respect for expertise and generative norms, which Constructivists regard as social facts (Ruggie, 1983, 1993) and which more essentialists treat in terms of their functional utility. In terms of process, theoretical traditions interpret the same variable in different ways (McCarthy & Fluck, 2017). Rationalist analysis looks at transparency and accountability in terms of their functional contribution to solving public action problems, whereas Constructivists tend to treat them in terms of signaling and expressing the performative competence of experts (Adler & Pouliot, 2011) and their discursive practices. Regardless of the differences in social mechanisms associated with these factors, cross tradition consensus exists about the validity of the factors in the eyes of states.

Practitioners and high-profile science panel architects have reflected about the legitimacy needs for scientific institutions, reflecting an awareness of many of the features of legitimacy expressed in the academic literature, and elaborated below (Bolin, 2007; Stafford-Smith et al., 2017; Kowarsch et al., 2016; Kullenberg, 1995; Leemans, 2008; Reid & Mooney, 2016; Tuinstra, Hordijk, & Kroeze, 2006; Watson, 2005). They stress the value of science in mitigating uncertainty and providing a range of policy options for states to choose between.

The institutional designers and members of the science policy community are acutely aware of the need to maintain and preserve the legitimacy of their institutions, and design them accordingly (Watson, 2005). Attention to legitimacy has informed the design of international science panels. They emphasize the need for recruiting scientists based on their professional reputations, as well as on geographic distribution.

For instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has been consciously designed in order to enhance its legitimacy, including inviting multiple stakeholders through two legitimate institutions (International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)) to contribute to IPBES deliberations (Esguerra, Beck, & Lidskog, 2017; Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, 2016). At the Fourth Session of the IPBES the USA and Switzerland emphasized the needs for science to conform to IPBES’ principles of usable knowledge, focusing on scientific independence. credibility and timeliness (Earth Negotiations Bulletin, 2016).

Assaults on Scientific Legitimacy

Targeted assaults on truth and reason in the USA and UK on the legitimacy of science have challenged the legitimacy and authority of scientific institutions (Gauchat, 2012; Mooney, 2005; Oreskes & Conway, 2010). Organized anti-science campaigns targeted the IPCC after it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998, as well as individual climate scientists and climate science more generally, and more recently the role of just about all experts in the US government and in particular those working on a wide array of environmental issues covering species protection, climate change, and air pollution.

Such threats arise from two sources. Deliberate attacks on its legitimacy come from the fossil fuel industry and from conservative republicans who wish to discredit the justifications for environmental regulation. A populist epistemology across societies which values individual experience over professional expertise is a deeper force (Drezner, 2017; Mead, 2011; Nichols, 2017).

Such challenges run the risk of blurring the social domains of science and thus undermining its presumptive authority. Science critics try to supplant hybrid facts which are the domain of expertise and scientific communities with social facts, which are subject to normative and interest based arguments by a wider array of actors. By moving political debate to the realm of social facts, critics seek to undermine science’s privileged position.

Legitimacy Criteria for Defending the Legitimacy of Science

Since legitimacy is itself contested, and there are many plausible criteria for legitimacy, I here provide several of them which states are likely to apply to measure the legitimacy of scientific institutions. In practice, institutions are likely to be regarded as legitimate if they conform to multiple criteria (Bernstein, 2011; Fung, 2006). Usable knowledge (Ebbin, 2012; Haas, 2004; Haas & Stevens, 2011; Mitchell, Clark, Cash, & Dickson, 2006; Cash et al., 2003)—knowledge which is credible, legitimateFootnote 1 and salient—is an example of multiple legitimacy criteria. The greater the legitimacy the more influence and the broader the deference by states to scientific advice and likelihood of converting advice to policy and governance.

The World Values Survey in Figure 7.1 reveals significant heterogeneity between countries in terms of public confidence in expertise from 2010 to 2014. While the questionnaire did not ask directly about legitimacy or confidence in science, expertise provides a good proxy for

Fig. 7.1
A grouped bar graph depicts the political system ratings in percentages in terms of very good, fairly good, fairly bad, very bad, no answer, and don't know in countries such as Brazil, China, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, Sweden, Thailand and the United States where India has the highest percentage of very good ratings.

Confidence in expertise by country. Source: Design by Author. Adapted from World Values Survey: Round Six, by Inglehart et al. (Eds.) (2014, pp. 279–280). Madrid: JD Systems Institute. Retrieved from https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV6.jsp. Copyright 2014 by the JD Systems Institute. Reprinted with permission

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scientific legitimacy.

These findings should be taken with a grain of salt. It is unclear what the survey is truly measuring. Faith in expertise could merely reflect diminished faith in the state rather than a positive endorsement of the legitimacy of scientific expertise.

The World Values Survey findings are confirmed by the International Social Survey Program, which indicates that less than 50% of respondents worldwide believe the modern science will solve our environmental problems with little change to our way of life (Pammett, 2015) with fairly consistent responses occurring from 1993 to 2010, although 70–80% of respondents believe that science does more good than harm (Pammett, 2015). In the USA, highly differentiated responses to science and its claims to legitimacy are based on political orientation (Leiserowitz, Maibach, Roser-Renouf, Feinberg, & Howe, 2013).

Citizens vary regarding their confidence in institutions, and in different scientific institutions as well. According to Gallup polls, Americans express a great deal or quite a lot confidence in the military, well above that of the medical system, and other social institutions (Gallup, n.d.). Confidence in scientific research as a foundation for public policy varies widely by country, although most countries believe that they are better off from the use of science and technology (National Science Board, 2016).

The Pew Research Center suggests that 76% of Americans express a great deal (21%) or a fair amount (55%) of confidence in scientists. Medical scientists claimed slightly more confidence (24% a great deal, 60% a fair amount) (Pew Research Center, 2016). Scientists—medical and nonmedical—were second in social institutions trusted by Americans, with the military at the top and elected officials at the bottom.

On what is the legitimacy of science based? Scharpf provides the standard taxonomy for legitimacy criteria, distinguishing between input, process and output/outcome criteria of legitimacy (Scharpf, 2009).

Inputs

Input legitimacy relates to the background beliefs which other actors apply to the role of science in modern governance and societal relations. Input criteria are typically expressed as functional roles, as broader sociological social facts, and through their affinity with broader generative norms and principles. Inputs include such factors as the social belief in the value of science for governance, the social prestige enjoyed by scientists, the general norm of meritocracy in modern democracies, and the consensual foundation of scientific advice. Processes include a sense of fairness in the universal application of scientific inputs, the transparency of expert selection, the transparency of how scientific advice is provided to deliberative bodies, and the discursive practices of the experts which rest on the narratives of world politics. Outputs and outcomes involve whether the result of the application of expert scientific advice provides public goods and valued outcomes.

Functional Inputs

Historically science has enjoyed a social reputation for providing useful information to the state and decision makers. Science performs many functional roles in modern governance. Sociologists of science argue that science helps ameliorate risk and uncertainty, while also establishing categories to be governed and consolidating the social authority of scientists (Barnes, Bloor, & Henry, 1996; Gieryn, 1999; Nowotny, 2016). Economic historians attribute its legitimacy to the instrumental value that science provides for promoting capitalist power and wealth accumulation (Mokyr, 2017; Mowery & Rosenberg, 1989; North, 2005). Sociologists of knowledge attribute it to the power science grants to the state for controlling its society (Hacking, 1990; Porter, 1986). Moreover, scientists cum scientists have been socially recognized as possessing valuable skills in public administration and governance which politicians in the modern regulatory state regard as essential (Drori et al., 2003; Ezrahi, 1990; Lentsch & Weingart, 2011; Lindblom & Cohen, 1979; Shanahan & Khagram, 2006). Science, along with other bodies of expertise that are overtly nonpolitical allow politicians to resolve debates without “overt expressions of interests and threats of violence” (Kennedy, 2016, p. 48).

Reputation

Science’s legitimacy is a social fact, in so far as the social prestige and authority of science enjoys a taken for granted aspect. Its reputation for expertise underlies its legitimacy (Dunlop, 2000; National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, 2017), just as scientists role as experts rest on their legitimacy. Yet, just as they are experts because they enjoy perceived legitimacy, they are also legitimate because they are seen to be experts in a given domain (Sending, 2015).

Scientists’ legitimacy rests on their social credibility, which in rests on the presumptive competence and expertise of actors. Dan Bodansky argues that scientific expertise enjoys legitimacy in international deliberations because it confers trust in the warranted foundations of collective decisions. Scientists professional pedigrees and reputation for mastery of technical material confers legitimacy (Bodansky, 1999).

The usable knowledge literature focused attention on the credibility of scientists’ expertise, based on their reputation, accuracy, track record, and presumptive impartiality (Clark, 1990; Haas, 2004). Reputation, as well as confidence derives from publications in highly regarded peer reviewed journals, positions at prestigious institutions, and advanced degrees and experience in relevant disciplines. Individuals need not be prominent in their fields, though (Anderegg, Prall, Harold, & Schneider, 2010) impartiality is measured by independence from state sponsors.

However, expertise alone appears to be insufficient for commanding authority. Intuitively, experts must command specialized knowledge in the domain in which they are providing policy advice, as reputation is highly issue specific. Consider the numerous letters to the editor by Nobel Laureates on a broad array of issues of global politics, with little impact. Or the failed campaign by Linus Pauling claiming the benefits of vitamin C, which was well beyond the scope of his professional recognition. When scientists claim authority their claims must reflect competence, which is related to their areas of expertise and experience.

Social Norms, Values and Principles

Science’s affinity with broader social norms, values and principles are likely to enhance its legitimacy to the extent that it explicitly articulates universal goals, or helps member states achieve those goals (Aggarwal, 1998; Reus-Smit, 1997). A number of broad principles have been identified in the IR literature, including multilateralism (Cox, 1992; Keohane, 1990; Ruggie, 1993); embedded liberalism (Bernstein, 2001; Ruggie, 1982); state sovereignty (Biersteker & Weber, 1996); liberal multilateralism (Deudney & Ikenberry, 1999; Ikenberry, 2011) and possibly as an emergent norm, sustainable development.

Mike Hulme, borrowing from the STS literature, argues that science is inherently political and normative—because of its distributional consequences and the ways that it is used in practice by decision makers to advance their prior goals – so that the best science is that which is explicitly linked to shared norms (Hulme, 2012). The legitimacy of science thus hinges on its application to socially shared ends (Turnhout, Dewulf, & Hulme, 2016). In a complementary manner scientific institutions must resonate with domestic norms and goals as well (Cortell & Davis, 1996).

Consensus

One of the major foundations for scientific legitimacy is its ability to project consensus about understanding technical problems. A common front underscore the authority of scientific knowledge and expertise, as well as providing a rhetorical firewall against challenges.

Process

A number of arguments have been presented about social processes which confer legitimacy on institutions and actors.

Fairness—Respecting Alternative Viewpoints

Robert Keohane (Buchanan & Keohane, 2006; Keohane, 2001), Thomas Franck (Franck, 1990), and Oran Young (Young, 1991) speak of the need for fairness as a criterion of the legitimacy of international institutions in the eyes of states, and also presumably civil society. Fairness often has two senses. One is the common usage applied to outcomes, that everyone gets something.

For science, the focus must be applied to the deliberative process by which confident formulations are generated. The process itself must be regarded as legitimate, often by providing for voicing alternative viewpoints, as well as not being biased towards privileged actors. For science panels to enjoy legitimacy they must express consensus while also providing for the expression of a variety of viewpoints.

Transparency of Expert Selection and Expert Consensus

A transparent process by which observers may understand how decisions were reached, and how experts were selected will enhance the legitimacy of a scientific institution. Inclusiveness and participation are particularly valued legitimizing criteria for groups with little ability to promote input based legitimacy, and with limited ability to appraise political processes, such as developing countries, and not state actors including NGOs and the private sector (Kahler, 2005; Scholte, 2005). Geographic distribution of experts is a widely invoked form of procedural legitimacy.

Transparency of the Deliberative Process

The transparency of deliberation and contestation are valued processes for science in international affairs (Stevenson & Dryzek, 2014). Such public revelations confirm the ways in which expertise is performed and conclusive findings are warranted. Beyond immediate transparency, such arrangements also contribute to reflexivity, and thus more effective policy and politically relevant knowledge as second order objectives, which states value (Dryzek & Pickering, 2017; Stevenson, 2016).

Discursive Practices

Agreement on discursive practices may also serve as a key source of legitimacy for scientific expertise (Adler & Bernstein, 2005; Adler & Pouliot, 2011; Börzel & Risse, 2005; Green, Ward, & McConnachie, 2007; Helgadóttir, 2016; Risse, 2003; Steffek, 2003). Discursive practice delimit the parameters of permissible deliberations and the legitimate forms of communication by establishing competent performance. The vocabulary which is used confers legitimacy, such as legality democracy, social justice, progress (Stephen, 2015) and even sustainability. Thus, in UN venues scientific experts must speak the arcane language of UN precedents as well as that of science.

Outputs and Outcomes

Institutions may enjoy legitimacy if they provide valuable outcomes for their constituencies, particularly the provision of global public goods (Hurd, 1999). While one could consider the variety of indirect second order and possibly sinister outcomes which states may desire, such as delaying decisions, creating or breaking up coalition, and simply moving the goalposts of policy deliberations, such choices are beyond the simpler first order outputs and outcomes valued by states. Under such circumstances, such as with central banks, illegitimate processes may be overlooked if the effects of the institutions are believed to work (Vibert, 2007). Functional bodies such as science panels are likely to be valued for their direct contributions more than their indirect political functions (Steffek, 2015).

Tensions Between Legitimacy Criteria

Not all criteria may be obtained simultaneously. For instance, there are tensions and even contradictions between satisfying input criteria for disciplinary expertise and inclusive process criteria favoring multiple stakeholders, when some civil society stakeholders enjoy less legitimacy than scientists in the eyes of most states. Similarly, equity concerns with inclusive geographic distribution may run up against notions of competence and expertise unless great care is taken in the selection process. Deliberative transparency may contradict expert authority. By being honest about the degree of consensus and contestation within the scientific community, they may run the risk of undermining their reputation for authoritative understanding. Scientific independence may be at odds with states’ desires for maintaining sovereignty and a range of political control over domestic policy.

Restoring Scientific Legitimacy

Strikingly, efforts to undermine the legitimacy of science have relied on a relatively small number of critiques of climate scientists: questioning the consensus within the scientific community, the accuracy of their predictions, and their impartiality. Given the wider array of social legitimacy criteria, defenders of scientific legitimacy can organize more compelling responses by invoking multiple justifications for scientific legitimacy. Ten criteria for legitimacy were cited in the legitimacy literature in IR, associated with input, process and output/outcome measures. The following Table 7.1 summarizes these legitimacy criteria.

Table 7.1 Legitimacy criteria for organized science in world politics
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Defenders of science can offer a discourse which stresses multiple benefits from structured scientific environmental advice, including the record of its association with more effective environmental treaties, the high degree of consensus amongst peer reviewed published climate change research, the excruciating detail and process of IPCC reviews, the growing geographic equity of scientists involved in science panels, and the underlying norms of modern public policy resting on expertise.

Scientists should focus on two audiences for such campaigns: government elites, and mass publics. For dealing with government elites, scientists should provide clarity on the process of developing consensus and advice, explaining clearly why they believe what they do in nontechnical terms. For dealing with mass publics that are experiential in their epistemology, scientists should tell stories and offer clear examples (Weiler, Keller, & Olex, 2012).

Conclusion

In a post truth era where expertise is under siege, what are the prospects for the future of science diplomacy and of deference to international science panels? Science’s role in world politics is challenged, but not irreversibly. Critics have principally focused on the input criteria of accuracy and reputation. The extent to which these challenges may fully undermine science and science panels’ legitimacy may be exaggerated, given the much wider number of legitimacy criteria which science panels continue to reflect than the narrow ones on which they are attacked.