With the COVID pandemic unfolding, the relation between science and politics has moved into the spotlight, and major characteristics of this complex relationship were revealed as if through a magnifying glass.
Expectations of the public from science are generally very high, but less so from politics.
Results from scientific research on a new topic typically differ considerably among scientists and often there is not even consent on the proper empirical basis.
The spread [SI1] of scientific findings becomes even wider when referring to future events.
Often a process of ‘ideologization’ of different scientific findings takes place.
The more prominent a topic becomes, the more scientific ‘experts’ on this topic ‘pop-up’.
Generally, different scientific findings imply different recommendations for action.
Politicians, as public decision-makers, have to make decisions for one or the other action. (This includes taking no action at all.)
When making decisions, politicians or their political advisors will evaluate the different scientific recommendations from various perspectives. Usually, they will not have the scientific competence to judge on the scientific validity of the different recommendations, but they will appreciate easy readability, clarity of thought and convincing arguments based on sound empirical data of the underlying research reports. Moreover, they will examine scientific recommendations in the light of their government and party programs and consider the chance to win sympathy and votes in the short and in the longer run. However, winning sympathy and votes will strongly depend on the impact their decision has on different stakeholders (entrepreneurs and laborers, different kinds of industries, young and old people, etc.). But this is a question which often cannot be answered easily and might need further scientific research, with all the caveats mentioned already. Finally, we must not forget interest groups and lobbyists trying to influence political decisions in favor of their clients.
Given this very complex decision-making process, it is evident that the impact of science on politics is limited, with its weight depending partly on its quality, but the relative weight of other decisive factors as well.
Now, let us look at the topic from a scientist’s point of view.
My perspective is that of an economist focusing on international relations (trade and investment) at an independent research institute. Public projects are a major source of income for this institute. Major ‘clients’ from politics are the European Commission and the Austrian government.
When receiving an inquiry or a contract for a research project from a public institution, the first step for the scientist is to analyze the current situation of the research object, for instance, trade flows between Europe and China. Often, no proper data at a more disaggregated level necessary for scientific research are publicly available. Sometimes, the public client has the necessary (often confidential) data and is ready to share, sometimes the collection of missing data for the future can be encouraged – anyway, cooperation between science and politics to develop a sound data base is important.
In a second step, a proper theoretical model is chosen to answer the research question. When selecting the model, scientific criteria are applied, but implicit value judgments play a role as well which may lead to different models chosen by different scientists.
In a third step, ideally, empirical data and the model are combined, leading to a more or less clear (quantitative) result. However, more often there is not sufficient empirical data for a proper quantitative model and findings are qualitative only and sometimes highly ambiguous. In this case, depending on the research question, various forms to present the results are used, such as drawing up different scenarios, attaching different probabilities, SWOT tables (showing ‘strength’, ‘weaknesses’, ‘opportunities’, ‘threats’) etc. All these have a commonality that even within the scientific framework, they leave some choice for the public client.
Sometimes, a chapter on the probable impact on stakeholders is included in the contract (in development studies, for instance, the analysis of the impact on women is a frequent request). However, as this question is often beyond the main competence of the scientist in charge of the research project, the topic is typically covered in rudimentary form only, leaving the rest to the client.
The final chapter of a research project is typically titled: ‘policy implications’ or ‘recommended action’ etc. Sometimes it is easy for the scientist to derive recommendations for policy actions from the analytical part. But if the topic is very complex, the results found are not very clear, the future development is highly uncertain, the number of stakeholders is large and probably some of them are highly sensitive, making recommendations for policy actions is very hard for the scientist, even though he does not have to take care of party politics or future elections.
My conclusion:
Science can support politics, but it cannot deliver ready-made solutions. Politics should not expect ready-made solutions from science but take it as a guide and basis for its decisions.
[SI1]Discrepancy?
Waltraut Urban is senior research associate at wiiw. Currently, her research interest focuses on China in the global economy, the Chinese ‚New Silk Road Initiative’, economic relations between the EU and China, respectively between Austria and China. Ms. Urban was a researcher at wiiw from 1995-2011, dealing with the economic development of China on the one hand and industrial restructuring in the Central- and East European countries on the other. She has published many articles and given numerous lectures in that field, including lectures at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, the University of Vienna and the Johannes Kepler University in Linz. In prior positions she was an economist at the Austrian Institute of Economic Research (wifo) and at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs (aiia). Waltraut Urban has obtained her master’s degree in economics from the University of Vienna.