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The Structures of Knowledge

and of Knowledge Production

Armin NassehiAlma von der Hagen-Demszky

and Katharina Mayr

Literature review(part 8)

Literaturereview

June 2007



Table of contents

1. Basic definitions: Data, Information, Knowledge........................................ 160

2. Information-society, network-society or knowledge-based society?.......... 162

3. Sociological approaches concerning the role of knowledge in the society .. 165

4. Human sciences, power-knowledge and governmentality.......................... 167

5. Bourdieu’s analysis of the scientific field within/ in competitionwith the field of power............................................................................. 173

6. Theory of social systems and a many-contextual society ........................... 174

7. The scientific field ...................................................................................... 176

8. Science and political decisions ...................................................................178

9. Some critical remarks................................................................................. 182



The Structures of Knowledge

and of Knowledge Production1

Armin NassehiAlma von der Hagen-Demszky

and Katharina Mayr

Highly differentiated modern societies sometimes refer to themselves as „societies of

knowledge“ (Bell, 1985): Knowledge has become a central resource and a form of capital

in these kinds of societies, determining their identities. A society becomes a ‚knowledge

based society‘ if all functional subsystems of the society are knowledge-dependent and

encourage the production of knowledge (Willke, 1999). Knowledge, especially scientific

knowledge, seems to be the last instance with a specific authority – regarding nearly all

the problems of the society that occur.

The intensity and systematically important role of knowledge is novel, and appears in the

modern ‚societies of knowledge‘: Structures and institutions, which produce and require

knowledge, have been extremely extended. Knowledge as a form of regulation and

solution for problems has become a basic principle. Knowledge production is embedded

in the circulation and use of knowledge, through permanent reflection on the operation

modi of the society: its institutions' “reflexivity” became a basic principle. Structures and

processes of the modern society are permanently analysed. The information that results

from the analysis flows back to the working modus of the system. Not only that the

expenditures for science and research are higher than in any historical time before, butalso, durations of education have doubled, and the number knowledge based professions

have increased (Price, 19712); all these processes evoke a new ‚age of knowledge‘. The

1 Thanks to the Hungarian Health Team for their support of the report!

2 Price’s method, called ‚scientometrics‘, shows that scientific knowledge doubles every 15 years since the 17th

century, growing therefore three times as fast as the world’s population.



The structures of knowledge… Nassehi – von der HagenDemszky - Mayr

160

increasing knowledge base of the functional systems of a modern society became in the

last decades an evolutionary and transformative process.

1. Basic definitions: Data, Information, Knowledge

Although knowledge, information or information society are public and seem to be a

matter of course, these terms are not clear-cut and often not distinctively defined. For a

better understanding, we determine a few basic distinctions.

‚Knowledge‘ and ‚information‘, just like ‚experts‘, have a reputation of ‚objectivity‘ and

seem to be free of ideology, being comprehensible from many different points of view.

Data is expected to be independent of those who collected them. Critical voices warn of

such an unsophisticated approach, which is often concealed by the use of concepts like

the ‚information society‘. They emphasise that „information is never independently

available , something that just can be evoked, but it has to be generated through the

active commitment to interpretation rules with regard to situations, actions and

purposes“ (Krallmann and Soeffner, 1973: 56). Information and knowledge can never be

independent of the social circumstances in which they have been generated, nor of the

actors they have been created by.

Willke differentiates between data, information and knowledge ( Willke, 2002). Data can

be created through any method of observation: investigation, analysis or inquiry. Willke

also stresses, that data are not ‘just out there’ in the world to be observed; data are

created by the observers through their theoretical approaches and their technical

procedures. Medical instruments of investigation, like ultrasound or x-ray, create data

that had not existed before. Not only the technical apparatus influences the generation of data but just as considerable are the ‘mindmaps’ in the head of the researcher – like

theories, prejudices, previous knowledge and experience.

Data have to be coded: through numerals, codes, text or figures. Uncoded data cannot

be communicated and are therefore non existent. The scientific and social problem is not

the generation of data but the overflow of data: nowadays societies have the problem of

too much data, not the lack of data.

Data go through a filter of relevancies and create information. If data are bound in a

context of relevancies and are built into a specific system, they become information.

Bateson defines information as “a difference which makes a difference” (Bateson, 1972:S. 453). It is therefore a significant difference, which creates information from data. The

definition shows also, that ‘differences’ can only be significant in a system of references,

that is, in one specific field of knowledge or action. Information is therefore inherently

system specific (dependent on the system and relative concerning the system). This is

reason why ‘exchange’ between different information-systems is per definitionem

impossible (Willke, 1998a). A system ‘A’ gives an information 1, coded in its own




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system of relevancies. For the receiving system ‘B’ this is not an information, but data, it

has to code according to its own system of relevancies. It is obvious, that this newly

generated information 2 cannot be identical with the information 1 – otherwise there

would not be two separate systems, but only one.

Knowledge is generated from information, if it is bound in a second context of

relevancies. This second system is not based upon differentiated criteria of relevancies

but upon meaningful patterns that are created through previous experiences

(Erfahrungsmuster) accumulated in a system specific memory. Knowledge is therefore

bound to ‘memory’ and emerges from the implementation of information in record-

contexts (Erfahrungskontexte). Knowledge is important for the survival and the

(re)production of the system. “Knowledge is always bound to a certain objective and

does receive its specific meaning from the grammar of the objective.” (Willke, 1998b:

12)

The term knowledge is bound to praxis and action. Knowledge is the emplacement of information in the conditions of action (Willke, 2002). Knowledge can be defined as a

communicative and confirmatory praxis based on experience. It even can be seen as a

condition for action, and be defined as a capability for action or a possibility to change

something (Stehr, 2001)

Knowledge is not a homogeneous but an originally heterogeneous term. Knowledge can

be classified inter alia as explicit vs. implicit, individual vs. organisational, theoretical vs.

practical knowledge. One of the most wide spread classifications is the distinction

between implicit (or tacit) knowledge and explicit knowledge of Mihály Polányi (1985).

Implicit knowledge as a form of unreflected and partly unconscious ‘know how’, which

can become ‘explicit’ knowledge through a problematic process of explication and

translation. Nonaka and Takeuchi (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995) analyse the

transformation processes between implicit and explicit and between personal and

organisational knowledge. They point out four intersections and call them socialisation,

externalisation, combination and internalisation.

Fig.1 Modes of generation of knowledge (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995)

Transition

From ↓ to →

Tacit knowledge Explicit knowledge

Tacit knowledge Socialisation Externalisation

Explicit knowledge Internalisation Combination

Socialisation records the adoption of tacit knowledge through practice. Externalisation

details the translation of tacit knowledge in explicit knowledge. Combination is the basis




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of institutional and organisational communication of explicit knowledge The last step is

the individual internalisation of the acquired knowledge.

2. Information-society, network-society

or knowledge-based society?

The diagnosis concerning the major social changes in contemporary society are neither

new nor unambiguous. Are we now living in a post-modern post-industrialist knowledge

society, or else, in an information society? The labels are so multifaceted that it is worth

considering their definitions in order to be able to differentiate between them.

The sociological and – just as influential – economical debate about actual changes of the

social structure and the main economic logic began in the late sixties. It also has to be

recognized, that transformations characteristic of an ‚information society‘ came about not

so much incidentally, but were promoted and financed by national governments and

international organizations. The Japanese government, for example, demanded scientific

investigations from the Research Institute of Telecommunication and Economics on the

‚information society‘. In, 1971 they set up an action-plan for creating an information-

society before, 2000 (Knoblauch, 2005). In a similar way in France in the mid seventies

Nora and Minc created the term of ‚information society‘ and took part in the politically

promoted reorganisation of the French society (Nora and Minc, 1979). In the nineties

these political efforts hit their peak on the level of international organisations. In, 1994,

the EU set up the ‚Information Society Project Office‘ and invested great resources in its

realisation. The G-7 peak of, 1996 established a programme called ‚information society‘

and ensured the financial support for its implementation (Knoblauch, 2005). The ‚new

age‘ or the ‚new society‘, what ever one might call it, arose not by chance but wasconsciously supported or even enforced by (supra)national governmental power.

This governmentally enforced implementation of the ‚information society‘ is tightly linked

to a ‚technocratic‘ or sometimes even ‚techno-idealistic‘ approach: Not unlike the

positivist view of Auguste Comte (Comte, 1974) the notions of social and technological

progress are hidden behind this point of view. For both Comte and generally in the

Nineties of the twentieth century, the hope in the leading role of knowledge and technical

achievement inspired the imagination not only of the political leadership but also of the

international stock exchange markets. This hope seemed to evoke a new peak of the

Kondratieff waves (Kondratieff, 1998). Information and knowledge would revolutionisenot only the economic sphere but also modify the entire social structure: „The

information society is aware of the importance of information in every aspect of its

functioning, an attitude of mind that makes efficient, productive and broad use of the of

information in every aspect of life.“ (Dordick and Wang, 1993: 22)

Where are the differences between the concepts of the information-society, knowledge

based society and of network-society? The concept of the information society




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emphasises the economic changes, highlighting the diverse modes of production.

Deutsch defines the information society as a „society, which obtains more than half of its

national income from the diffusion of information and where more than half of the

employees are occupied in information-professions“ (Deutsch, 1984: 33). Information

professions cover activities that either generate or transmit any kind of information orknowledge. The OECD distinguishes between four kinds of information professions: 1.

Information producers like scientists, engineers, architects or doctors; 2. Information

processors like judges, managers and civil servants; 3. Information distributors like

journalists or teachers; 4. professions that structure information, editors, electricians or

cinematographers (Knoblauch, 2005). Information societies can be defined through their

social structure if information professions represent the majority. Social change can be

in this view better apprehended than by taking into consideration only technical

measurements.

Critics of technocratic and sometimes techno-optimistic touch of the concept of the

‚information society‘ evoke various alternative approaches. Amongst others the concept

of the ‚network society ‘ (Castells, 2001). Castells diagnoses the crisis that western

capitalism has been gone through in the seventies, but assumes that it has been resolved

since by the rebuilding of the economical, political and social sphere. His diagnosis is not

mainly based on the technical side of the changes, instead, it stresses the social and

global-geographical shifts. As an effect of globalisation, the geographical bondages seem

to weaken and to loose dominance, politics and political concerns have been gaining

international significance. Castells defines the changes not through the different modes of

production, but through the change in the relationships between actors. Constitutive for

the new order is in his eyes not the role of knowledge or information in the society, but

the information based interconnectedness in the form of networks. Castells defines

networks as adaptable organisations which are composed of junctions. Such junctions

can be stock markets or telecommunication systems. For Castells cross linking changes

not only the social structure but revolutionises the ways of thinking as well. “The new

power is to be found in the information codes and in the figurative representations

around which societies organise their institutions and people build their lives. The seat of

this power is to be found in people`s heads and minds.” (Castells, 2001: 376) All social

spheres like politics, culture and human relations are affected by these changes. Personal

relations are not based on real encounters, while economics is getting informational and

interconnected through global networks, and the labour market is becoming

individualised and adapted . It needs self-programmed manpower. The national state isdissolving in favour of national and supra-national networks of political actors. Even the

most personal spheres like family go through modifications; the traditional family shifts

to a network of related and non-related persons.

Castells is not uncritical of the changes he diagnoses. The negative side of these changes

are the huge expectations individuals have to face, and therefore the growing chances




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of failure, leading to psychical stress and disorders. Not only the single individuals but

the entire social structure is distressed: The enlarged social inequality leads to

polarisation and to new forms of social tension.

The term of the knowledge based society focuses neither on the macroeconomic changesof the labour market and of the modes of production, nor on the new ways persons and

institutions are bond with each other but on the transformation of the relevance of

knowledge (Willke, 1998a). The German term “Wissensarbeit“ which can be translated as

‘knowledge labour’, is the most important and widespread form of activity. Significant for

this new form of labour is that the knowledge used cannot be possessed once and for all,

but necessitates life-long learning: It cannot be applied unaltered. Knowledge labour is

based upon a knowledge which is permanently revised and needs to be perfected

permanently. It is principally not considered as ‘truth’, but as a resource. It is inseparably

bound to the consciousness of not knowing. Knowledge labour is a specific form of labour

in the knowledge based society which carries unsolvable and immanent risks (Willke,

1998a).

One of the oldest usages of the knowledge society was introduced in the sixties by Lane

(Lane, 1966). Lane's ‘knowledgeable society’ is very much linked to ideas of the

illuminating role of science and knowledge. In Lane's view, members of a knowledgeable

society question their basic thoughts and beliefs about men, society and nature and are

lead in their search by objective knowledge standards of science. They gather, organise

and interpret knowledge permanently and make great efforts to increase their

knowledge.

The concept of the knowledge based society is therefore revolves around the role of

knowledge in the functioning of the society. Not only the technical progress, but also the

politically implemented and forced expansion of education and knowledge lead to the

changed circumstances, because knowledge workers constitute a majority over workers,

just a workers over capitalists. Knowledge workers would build a new form of ‘capitalism

without capitalists’ (Drucker, 1969).

Bell’s conception of the post industrial society (Bell, 1985) strongly influenced the

debates on knowledge society. According to his thesis knowledge plays a central role in

the new social order. “First, the sources of innovation are increasingly derived from

research and development and second, the ‘weight’ of the society – measured by a larger

proportion of the Gross National Product and a larger share of employment – isincreasingly part of the knowledge field.” (Bell, 1968: 214) Bell’s conception emphasises

also the macro-economical changes in the mode of production, and is therefore close to

concepts of the information-society above described. Bell derives the changes not only

from the formation of new sectors in the economy – he defines the third sector as traffic

and recreation, the forth as banking, insurance, the fifth as health, education, research

and government –lit up by new way of labour. In his eyes contemporary society is a




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society of “head and mind workers”. The new modus of labour creates even a new social

structure of classes with upper and lower classes, with their own way of recruitment, of

exercising power and with specific norms and values .

Many authors are concerned with the topic of the knowledge society. However, there arecommon points in the heterogeneity of their views: Firstly, they derive the knowledge

society from the existence of a great pool of ‘knowledge’ – by this definition most of the

western societies should be considered as knowledge societies, at least since the church

reform . But more importantly, at least for their theoretical approach, they emphasise

the spread of scientific knowledge on other fields of the society: the methods of scientific

approach seem to domesticate other subsystems and transform their functioning

according to the logic of their methods. Secondly, the dispersion of the sciences changes

basically the structures of knowledge. Thirdly, this seems to be a reflexive process,

where these processes retroact on the sciences themselves and alleviate the differences

between scientific and everyday knowledge (Knoblauch, 2005).

Sometimes the growth of the knowledge basis of a society and the dissemination of the

functioning of sciences seems to be an overall positive tendency. But the increased

knowledge basis creates more uncertainty than certainty: „The growth and broader

dissemination of knowledge paradoxically produces greater uncertainty and contingency“

(Stehr, 1994: 222). The positivist view according to which more knowledge and science

would lead to a better regulated and clearer world, seems to be idealistic. The

penetration of reflexive knowledge about the society itself increases the autonomy of

individuals and sub-systems and tends to destabilise the system as a whole.

3. Sociological approaches concerningthe role of knowledge in the society

The sociology of knowledge has it roots in the early twentieth century in the works of

Max Scheler (Scheler, 1926) and Karl Mannheim (Mannheim, 1970). It deals with

different topics, which claim the status of ‚knowledge‘ in many ways. Since the

beginning, it is concerned with the knowledge conditioned on being (Seinsgebundenheit).

Knowledge is always context-bounded, without the possibility of “objectivity” understood

in a universal sense.

The German tradition of the sociology of knowledge is based on the perception of

knowledge as an essentially social and societal category. Knowledge is conceived of in

Durkheimian term as a „social fact“ (Durkheim, 1976). In no way it can be independent

of the social circumstances of its formation. Max Scheler (Scheler, 1926) argues against

the aura of science like the only or the essential form of knowledge and establishes a first

differentiation between forms of knowledge. Karl Mannheim (Mannheim, 1931)

comprehends knowledge as an expression of the bondage of being „seinsgebundenheit“

of the knowledge producer. In his eyes the sociology of knowledge has to dissociate




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itself from traditionally accepted worldviews, in order to point out the relative, or rather,

the relational nature of all statements with regard to its social coherences and

backgrounds, and to show the non-universal character of their ambit.

Issued from the tradition of the sociology of knowledge, Nico Stehr analyses thepossibility of social science knowledge as practical knowledge (Stehr, 1992). He defines

knowledge outright as capacity for action, therefore, he rejects the instrumental view of

the social sciences, as well as the sharp distinction between theoretical and applied

sciences, where theory and practice would be separated. For him, knowledge enhances

the capacity for action, therefore it can essentially be understood as practical knowledge;

whereas knowledge actually translated into action is action knowledge, but this is just a

variation of the previous one. Moreover, “knowledge is both a medium of social action

and the result of human conduct”. “Knowledge can lead to social action and is at the

same time result of social action.” (See also Stehr, 2001.) But under what conditions can

these types of knowledges be realised? Stehr deals with the possible translation of social

scientific knowledge into action. This raises questions about the possibility of realisation

of scientific knowledge in general. According to him, knowledge is dependent on the local

circumstances of the context of use: he emphasises the logic of practice. This approach

does not envisage science as destined explicitly for policy action, for it presupposes that

all knowledge (regardless the fact that it is theoretical or applied), by its very nature, can

serve practical action, and thereby, policy.

Other approaches emphasise the particular nature of modern knowledge intertwined with

practice, while they do not conceive of the relationship as a generally valid one. Stehr

emphasises for example the contradiction between a certain critique of the positivist

truth claims of the human sciences, and the belief in their effectiveness. For example, thecritique of ideology approach of the Frankfurt School becomes contradictory when it

hypothesises the effectiveness of the social sciences. In their theoretical analysis of the

human sciences, Adorno or Marcuse, take an anti-positivist stance (cf.: Adorno et al.,

1969): they doubt whether social sciences can pretend to real scientificity in a positivist

sense, whereas they assert their effectiveness in practice. This would mean that

instrumental reason does function as a means of domination, as a form of social

technology, and that the positivist criteria of truth are valid, or, at least, they function in

practice. That social science can be employed according to the model of instrumentality,

despite the intentions of critical theory of establishing knowledge as guided by interest

(cf.: Adorno et al., 1969, Habermas, 1964). The same contradiction can be found inSchelsky (Schelsky, 1964), who deplores that political and economic decisions are

deduced from technical data, knowledge becoming the more and more technical, men

being the more and more subjected to calculability. For him, social sciences are

becoming almost as effective as natural sciences. Social sciences become productive, as

they are capable of inducing social processes; but this presupposes the belief in its

potentials to do so.




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4. Human sciences, power-knowledge and governmentality

After having examined the characteristics of knowledge societies and that of social

scientific knowledge in general, we need to turn our attention to approaches dealing with

the specificities of knowledge and policy in our contemporary societies. In order to beable to analyse the relationship between knowledge and policy, one should be more

specific than the sociology of knowledge, as well as more explicit on the status of

knowledge, in order to not to get into contradictions as presumably did the Frankfurt

School's critical theory. Therefore, knowledge should not be considered as something

that can reach “objectivity”, nor as something purely instrumental, or as something

directly used to ensure domination. This does not mean that the sciences could not

become effective in reality, or that modern power or politics could be imagined without

recourse to them. But, there is no place for an epistemological critique of the human

sciences, as there is no place for a critique of ideology approach either. More precisely,

the critique of the sciences and the critique of the policies cannot be independentlyconducted.

Michel Foucault's contribution is significant in this regard, for his conceptualisation of the

human sciences comprises outright their relationship with power understood in a

particular sense. He does not only establish a relationship with the social context,

showing that all knowledge is embedded in social relations, nor his concern is the

ideological concealment of the use of social sciences in order to ensure domination or

control. Rather, according to him, when one analyses the human sciences, it is not

possible to separate between epistemological and political concerns. For sure, his

investigations are directed by the consciousness of the relevance of the human sciences;

it is important to study them as long as they contribute to the regulation, to the controland to the shaping of the human subject. But this importance in control and regulation,

their embeddedness in power relations contribute to their scientific make-up. In other

words, it is not an instrumental view of the human sciences, whereas their effectiveness

can be explained through the intertwined nature of power and knowledge.

However, the negation of the interwoven nature of power and knowledge can sometimes

be an important characteristic of the policies themselves; therefore we can talk about the

ideological usage of knowledge. For example, when knowledge does not intervene in the

formation of decisions, and serves policy practices only as a legitimating factor, without

really taking part in its creation. There is also an opposite ideological use of knowledge,

when it is promoted to the level of objective truth, where public policy and thus the

notion of politics are shown in the light of neutral knowledge, and power as only an

instrument for implementing it. The goal, then, for them, is to solve problems without

ideological debates. This can be so, because knowledge has become a primary source of

legitimation in contemporary society; and, by the same token, this means that the

culture of rational discourse becomes preponderant after the natural sciences even in the




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social sciences by the end of the nineteenth century (Merton, 1970, see also Márkus,

1987). The knowledge used is implicit also when there is no time (for administrative

reasons) or money to gain appropriate information to back a decision. Thus, the expert

knowledge might arrive only after that the policy has been implemented. This does not

mean that knowledge would not play a key role, but only that it remains tacit and stereo-typical, and that on another level (when it turns out to be conspicuously explicit) it gains

an ideological and legitimating importance.

According to Foucault, politics and policies in modern societies are always policies of

knowledge with a claim for ‚truth‘ (Foucault, 1974). He analyses forms of knowledge in

discourses and their societal regulation, which mark a specific socio-historical „order of

discourse“ (Foucault, 1974). In his “archaeological” period, epitomized by The

Archaeology of knowledge (Foucault, 1988 [1969]), he describes the immanent control

mechanisms of discourses and the social regulation processes. This dimension of

discourse analysis is searching for regularities of statements on specific issues. Foucault's

analysis assumes the fundamental societal nature of knowledge. The central category of

his archaeology is discourse. The discourse, as Foucault defines it, is a specific formation,

a system of rules, that decides about the communicability of certain contents in a

historical epoch. The discursive formation of a certain age is “the rule of what can be

said” (Foucault, 1988: 42).

In the second period of Foucault’s work, in his “genealogy”, and especially from Discipline

and Punish, the emphasis shifts from discourses to power (Foucault, 1977, 1978b), and

to applied social sciences, which have regulatory effects not only in theory, but also in

practice. Discourses are not any longer only orders of thinking, but also formations,

agents and contents of power. Power and domination are expressed in certaintechniques: “techniques which permit one to determine the conduct of individuals, to

impose certain wills on them and to submit them to certain ends or objectives” (Foucault,

1999: 162). This omnipresent power has a double function with regard to knowledge: on

the one hand, knowledge can produce techniques of power, on the other hand, these

techniques influence the production of knowledge. In addition, power means also the

power of definition of truth. Truth in this sense is not external to power relations, but is

inherent to them. „I believe that the problem is not to make the division between what

belongs to scientific basis and truth and what belongs to something else in a discourse,

but to see historically how truth-effects are produced inside discourses, which are not in

themselves either true or false.“ (Foucault, 1979: 36)

The „genealogy of power “ (Foucault, 1978b) searches for „micro-practices“ constituting

certain types and fields of knowledge. This dimension of the analysis emphasises that

knowledge and discourse are embedded in the structures of power: knowledge and

power are in Foucault´s view immanent to each other. The mechanisms of knowledge

production, variation, selection and agenda-setting are intrinsically tied to the structure

of power. Power relations determine the forms of knowledge allowed to be articulated,




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the persons entitled to speak, the possible forums, and the agenda for certain topics,

while banning others.

Michel Foucault’s conception of power-knowledge was born from the insight that in

modernity there is major need for knowledge in order to discipline, to regulate and tocontrol individuals and populations. Subjects and groups are to be known, for the new

paradigm of control is rather inclusive than exclusive, having essentially an integrative

function (which does not make it less subjugating). This conception of his appears first in

the description of the birth of the human sciences and that of the ‘anatomo-politics’

(mainly in Discipline and Punish), where the pre-conditions of obtaining knowledge are

found in the characteristics of the power relations. These relations, in turn, are

transformed by the knowledge acquired. The question is, how social scientific knowledge

is forged, and what is its nature? The knowledge gained about individuals is not

something that pre-exists the functioning of the sciences. What is important here for our

research, are the techniques of differentiation and categorization, which gain significance

regarding the problematic of government. Government is constituted of heterogeneous

parts, for instance, elements of regulation or policy cannot be strictly separated from

scientific techniques of categorization an treatment. Therefore, education, therapy, and

techniques of control and regulation should be examined together. Foucault’s question is

how individuals are categorized, and in order to obtain what kind of behaviour from

them? There are reciprocal relationships among the individuals and the categorizations of

which they are subject. The idea is that there is no independent social scientific activity,

free from concerns of control, meaning also that the objects of these sciences do not

have an independent existence either: those are the human sciences that create

categories of persons.

So how do disciplinary human sciences (psychiatry, psychology, criminology, pedagogy,

etc.) proceed in the description of Foucault? First, they produce the confessing subject,

and after they transform its researched and constructed properties into substantial ones.

For example, according to Discipline and Punish, the object of criminology and the

treatment in prison is not the perpetrator of the crime. Rather, criminology strives to

gain knowledge of the “delinquent personalities”: it will inquire into the supposed

subjectivity of the individuals. In turn, these personalities, constructed subjectivities, will

be scientifically categorised, and will be attributed a certain treatment according to their

established nature. It is the prison that makes the delinquent by constructing the

subjectivity corresponding to the concept of delinquent, by the extortion of confession.What is more, their subjectivity will be analysed in naturalistic terms, as if it was not the

result of interpretation, but something objective and pre-existent.

So the disciplinary order becomes a productive type of power when the interaction with

the scientific classification gains significance. In this case, we encounter constructions

that do not solely come into being on the level of interpretation. But for Foucault, the fact

that human sciences proceed by constructions, does not prove their anti-scientific




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character, on the contrary, it epitomizes the main characteristic of the human sciences.

Objects are therefore not ‘real’ in an ontological sense, but designate objects of

knowledge, which become part of social practices. There are no ‘real’ pre-discursive

subjects – for instance ‘real’ criminals, perverse, lunatics, feeble-minded etc., however,

these practices can render them effective. The human sciences create the conditionsunder which their objects can appear as natural objects, as if those pre-existed their

work. Individuals actively participate in their scientific objectification, for a. there are

particular conditions, arrangements for that subjects obey to the intentions of a given

scientific institution, b. they are influenced by their categorisation, which become part of

their self-interpretation. These conceptualisations are not linked in any way to the

framework of the state or of explicit policy measures, but they concentrate on the nature

of contextually-driven human scientific knowledge linked to implicit strategies of control.

However, this line of thought is pursued by Foucault in his theory of ‘biopolitics’ and that

of ‘governmentality’ as well, pertaining directly to problems of the regulation of

populations, where considerations of security and dangerousness prevail in a probabilistic

framework (Sécurité, territoire, population and La naissance de la biopolitique). In this

later conceptualisation, Foucault examines more the role of the State and the specific

means to construct policies that can be successful, whereas in his theory of the

disciplinary human sciences regulation seemed to be built in the functioning of these

sciences themselves. For the sciences of ‘governmentality’, the important thing is to

gather knowledge in order to be able to influence the behaviour of the citizens, without

having a direct grasp on their bodies or on their subjectivity. The knowledge with regard

to policy means essentially knowledge about the population in question: 1. suppositions

about its possible conduct, its socio-economic structure, its interests, etc., and 2. the

appropriate measures destined to influence the given population along these lines, and in

order to obtain the desired goals. This approach takes into account the point of view of

the actor, or, at least, reflects upon the fact that policies in general do so. This

conjecture has been developed by many authors since. Actions are manipulated by

policy: by authority, incentives and capacity tools, and their need to be a calculus to

choose from alternative instruments (Schneider and Ingram, 1990). So the reason why

knowledge and policy are intertwined is that policy actors need to know the population

they regulate. However, this knowledge is not fixed once and for all. Rather, it is under

constant change. For there is no something independent outside that policy makers or

experts would reveal while investigating it, which means that the constructivist

perspective is preserved. The population, or its pertinent characteristics do not pre-existthe implementation of the policy, but they both are formed as a result of their

interaction.

Andrea Louise Campbell (Campbell, 2003) shows that policy tools can transform a mere

demographic category into a politically relevant group. She examined Social Security

measures effecting a specific cohort, and found that they have become politically active,




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which was in line of specific party interests. This is a perfect example of constructing a

group by specific policy measures. Targeting operates by segmenting populations and

providing different levels of opportunities and services to these groups. To think about

and act on population segments becomes the main means employed by policy sciences,

calculating risk, possible action, costs and benefits, etc. which allow categorization and ‘social sorting’ processes (Paul Henman, 2004). Marketing practices segment populations

into geographical and customer profiles. Risk rationalities provide a scientific basis for

understanding the differences of individuals and population segments.

Hacking shows (Hacking, 1999) that the groups which are objects of knowledge are not

natural, but constructed within the framework of interaction between knowledge that

strive to know the humans for medical or regulatory reasons and the subjects of

knowledge. These latter, those humans categorised, he calls “interactive kinds”, for they

interact with their categorisations, reflect upon it, and for this reason, can change their

properties that were the basis of categorisation. Hacking does not concern himself with

policy or with questions of government, however, this perspective can be fruitfully

employed in policy studies as well. There is an ever growing need to gather knowledge

about the populations subject to policy measures; this practical knowledge together with

the objectives to be attained constitutes the targeting. Populations have to be

constructed on the basis of the goals intended to be achieved (Schneider and Ingram,

1993). This can be completed by Hacking's perspective. According to him, the

populations always change, because the categorisations affect them: they are “moving

targets”. This phenomenon demonstrates the dynamic nature of all sciences that deal

with humans, which entails the dynamic nature of the policies as well. Policies have to be

reformulated from time to time in order to capture again or reconstruct the target

population. Furthermore, policies can also strive to modify explicitly the characteristics of

a population, and sometimes this is their ultimate goal.

Now, other authors emphasise the policy side of regulation, and the characteristics of

policies destined to influence action. According to some of them, European states are

moving more and more towards a ‘governance’ mode of policy, characterized by the

development of forms of action (ranging from exhortation to incentives, negotiated

settlements, public/private partnerships, etc.) that do not really fit in the traditional

legalistic frameworks for policy analysis. (Féron and Crowley, 2003) Therefore, the

relevant areas can best be defined by reference to the kinds of policy objectives that

shape them. In line with Foucault on governmentality, they say that the majority of contemporary policy priorities cannot effectively be achieved by banning things or

making them compulsory. Objectives in fields such as public health, education or

research are population variables: individual behaviour is relegated to the background,

while systemic responses become preponderant. A conceptual shift from ‘government’ to

‘governance’ can be observed, where ‘government’ summarizes conventional policy

concern with the production and formulation of rules forbidding or compelling actions or




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classes of actions; the monitoring of compliance; and the implementation of sanctions. In

contrast, ‘governance’ describes more complex patterns of policy formulation and

implementation, which cover more positive and differentiated objectives than the

command/compliance relationship. These involve the production and formulation of

sector-specific objectives; the search for models that point to means of achievingobjectives; the administration of stimuli (including, but not limited to, commands);

continuous monitoring of objectives versus outcomes. This is in line with Foucault who

defines government in a wider sense as “techniques and procedures designed to direct

the behaviour of men” (Foucault, 1999: S. 154). Government is therefore tightly bound

to both techniques of domination and to techniques of the self-conduct3. The way

individuals are driven by others is tied to the way they conduct themselves. The

characteristic of what Foucault terms as governmentality, is the ways that self

construction and perception are integrated into structures of domination. Government

takes into consideration the population, and by social sciences, strives to know it. For

Foucault the point of contact between these two logics is government: “Governing peopleis not a way to force people to do what the governor wants; it is always a versatile

equilibrium, with complementarity and conflicts between techniques which assure

coercion and processes through which the self is constructed or modified by oneself.”

(Foucault, 1999: 162)

Nikolas Rose develops this view of “governmentality” in the same vein. In his

interpretation, the “welfare state” is a state formation where expertise and political

apparatus are connected in novel ways (Rose, 1993). This expertise means mainly the

proliferation of practical knowledge about social behaviour. For sure, this perspective has

been introduced already in the seventies and eighties by some of Foucault's French

disciples (Donzelot, 1977, Ewald, 1986). According to Rose, “power is not so much a

matter of imposing constraints upon citizens as of 'making up' citizens capable of bearing

a kind of regulated freedom. Personal autonomy is not the antithesis of political power,

but a key term in its exercise, the more so because most individuals are not merely the

subjects of power but play a part in its operations.” (Rose and Miller, 1992) Now this

type of freedom can be made effective for matters of governance in different ways. In

modern States governance can be realised by acting upon the relation to social norm

(through disciplinary institutions or social work), that is, governing through society,

which is the characteristic of the welfare state, or else, by making use of the regulated

choices of the individual citizens, which is characteristic of advanced liberal (or neo-

liberal) government (Rose, 1993). These would be two ideal-typical modes of moderngovernance, but in reality they are not separate, but linked to each other, both

characteristic of “liberal” governmentality (in the large sense). This govermentality is

3 In Foucault’s words techniques of the self; these are operations on the own bodies, thoughts and souls of

people, to conduct themselves (Foucault, 1999).




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realised through the insurance system, the family, the complex apparatus of health, etc.:

it problematizes life and acts upon it. Health and safety legislation are very important

regulatory devices, which impose forms of sociality and of responsible autonomy. It was

first in the welfare state that experts who can speak and enact truth, were massively

accorded a new role in implementing policies. According to Rose, “liberal” forms of government (comprising the welfare state as well) depend on positive knowledge of

human conduct: their main characteristics are the power of the experts and the authority

of truth.

5. Bourdieu’s analysis of the scientific field within/ in

competition with the field of power

We should envisage as well the competition between different knowledge producers of

knowledge. Therefore, it important to consider the position of the different scientists in

the field of scientific production. Not only different scientists in the same discipline, butalso, different disciplines might emulate for recognition in the given policy field.

Bourdieu's aim is, in the wake of Merton, to reconcile external and internal analysis in the

sociology of science, namely to not to cast doubt on the validity of scientific results, even

if they are subject of sociological analysis in terms of interest, power, domination,

publicity, etc. (Bourdieu, 1994). On the contrary, those social conditions of obtaining

recognition and reputation in the scientific field, become the epistemological

preconditions of obtaining results pretending to objectivity in the scientific field. It seems

if there was a cause-effect relationship between the sociological regularities of the

scientific field (power relations, legitimation of success through the promotion of

competition and of ascetism, etc.) and the effective scientific results (the progress of

science). Therefore, the scientific field is constituted in such a way that social factors not

hinder, but promote epistemological ones; the structure of the scientific field, with the

particular interests and habit of the scientists and the objective requirements of the field

make scientific results possible. Therefore social conditions not only contribute to

scientific results, but seem to be their precondition.

Shall we suppose that there is a certain autonomy of the social scientists vis-à-vis the

policy experts, as Bourdieu's theory of the field would suggest (Bourdieu, 1975)? And

that scientific research has an autonomous logic, partly independent from that of the

government experts? For in the case of social sciences this autonomy is even harder to

accept than in the case of natural sciences. In fact, Bourdieu had in mind the naturalsciences while writing his theory of the scientific field.

Social sciences might be less autonomous. Shall we say that they are less objective as

well? - if we accept that the degree of independence is tantamount to the degree of

objectivity, for the more independent is the field, the more the participants invest in

those stakes and conform to the internal regularities that have been defined as




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promoting objectivity. But the factor with which Bourdieu does not seem to deal with is

the specific content of the discipline. Shall we say that even if the objectives of the

human sciences are tightly linked to the exercise of power, the organisation of the

knowledge production can be independent from power? We can proceed by this

hypothesis if we consider only the formal structure of the scientific field: the internalstakes, the struggle for recognition, instead of the specific content of the discipline. For

sure, there are different types of scientists: autonomous, semi-autonomous, and working

directly for government. Also, if we do not consider the competition within the given field

and between the field of power and that of science, we fall short of understanding why

certain policies will be adopted and not different ones. Therefore, the scientific field can

be autonomous in an institutional sense. Scientists enter into competition for the

monopoly of scientific competence, which is identical with the authority that can be

gained in the field. It is never a pure authority in the political sense, for a research

program is in need of a legitimate definition, which has to be a rational one. Also,

recognition can only come from other scientists, which is an additional proof of its beingautonomous. Members of the field struggle to impose the definition of the problematics,

methods, theories pretending to scientific status. Pretenders and heretics try to cast

doubt on established authorities in order to accumulate symbolic capital. Therefore, the

criteria of objectivity in a given scientific field (that is, the status of propositions that can

pertain to being true/false) can perhaps be analysed in terms of the formal-institutional-

sociological structure, even if the objectives never can be ascribed in a totally

autonomous way.

6. Theory of social systems and a many-contextual society

The theory of social systems as a theory of knowledge and knowledge production shows

several similarities to Foucault’s approach, insofar as this theory does not operate any

more with a positivist, quasi ontological understanding of truth or rationality. What is

foreshadowed in Foucault’s sentences about the interconnection of discourse and

knowledge has a name in the theory of social systems: the “observer”. “Observation”

could be called the elemental category (“Letztbegriff”), Fuchs, 2004) of this theory,

because it is taken in a radical constructivist manner in the sense that every observation,

every description always refers to an observer, to certain circumstances, to a certain

context. That is also true for sociological observation. As the idea of the possibility of

external observation of society is negated, sociology gets visible as a social practice and

the entanglement of sociology with its object gets a theme (Nassehi, 2003). According to

this theoretical frame, the theory of social systems as a theory of knowledge is strongly

aligned as a sociology of science and a sociology of sociology (Nassehi, 2003; Nassehi,

2006). The impossibility of a privileged observer’s position reflects a deeply modern

experience and shows the historical conditionality of social theory.




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But what does observation mean? Following George Spencer Brown (Spencer Brown,

1971) Niklas Luhmann conceptualises observation as description by a distinction. While in

Luhmann's earlier work the principle of “reduction of complexity” is the prior focus of

analysis (Luhmann, 1968), the later work is more focused on autopoiesis, strongly

inspired by the research on cybernetics (Maturana and Varela, 1982; von Foerster,1993). First, Luhmann's attention was drawn to the capacity of social systems to reduce

complexity, to enable new complexity, that he regarded as functional due to the limited

cognitive capacity of man. Later his theory changed into a theory of autopoietic systems,

systems that reproduce themselves in a circular structure-determined manner.

Autopoiesis of social systems happens by the process of communication, the self-steering

process of observation, without the possibility of simultaneous control (Baecker, 2002).

The theory of autopoietic systems is an operational theory that destructs the dualism of

structure and process. In communication there are produced values, descriptions,

distinctions – knowledge – that have to be stabilised for that they endure. The original

sociological question, how order is possible, is reformulated insofar, as social change nolonger seems to be in need for explanation, but stability, repeatability. This disagrees

with Talcott Parsons' conception of order (Parsons, 1951), who was the intellectual father

of the theory of social systems, and whose work still influences immensely the reception

of the following conceptions.

The term of autopoiesis is not only an analytical or explaining term, it wants to describe

that something happens and happens in concrete situations under concrete

circumstances, something that enables itself. According to Armin Nassehi this is the

point, where theory has to be linked to empirical research (Nassehi, 2003).

Processing “sense” or “meaning” refers to practise, here the theory of social systemsshows a parallel to Bourdieu’s understanding of sociality. The Theory of social systems or

autopoietic systems is often classified as a typical kind of macro-sociology, but Luhmann

draws our attention to the fact that communication always has to take place in concrete

situations. He turns away from the structural top-down-logic to what could be named a

theory of practice, with analogies to Bourdieu’s theory of habitus and social fields

(Nassehi and Nollmann, 2004a). A difference between Luhmann’s and Bourdieu’s analysis

can be seen in the fact, that Bourdieu strongly focuses on – how Luhmman calls it – the

“social dimension”. Besides “time” and “object”, the “social dimension” is one of the three

dimensions of sense that Luhmann differentiates. Research about the linkage of science

and policy should also be sensible for the different handling of time and the differentdealing with arguments in different contexts, so Luhmann’s distinction could be a fruitful

supplementation.

Another distinction relevant for empirical research is Luhmann’s differentiation between

three emergent levels of production of social order, different types of social systems:

interaction, organisation and society (Luhmann, 1975). Interaction is a mode of

communicating, that is structured by the mutual perception of individuals and therefore




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requires presence, while organisations (an evolutionary newer form of sociality) can also

operate in anonymous forms, e.g. written communication, reproducing themselves by

processing decisions (Luhmann, 2000). Society means the horizon of all “possible”

communicating. Every level raises different conditions under which communication has to

take place, and they can not dominate each other as well – an interaction in anorganisational context is still an interaction, setting specific limitations to “what can be

said and done”, but also the Organisation sets its limits, or degrees of freedom.

Organisations are of an increasing importance in a modern many-contextual society

(Nassehi, 2003;, 2005;, 2006) as they relate different forms of knowledge (Nassehi,

2004b) and give knowledge a reproducible character (Nassehi, 2005). Political decisions

occur in political organisations and not only the political context or the “objects” form the

processing, decisions and results but also the restraints and demands of the

organisational embedding.

7. The scientific field

When we are talking about ‘knowledge’, we mostly have in mind scientific knowledge or

expert knowledge. Although knowledge is constantly produced and reproduced in every

social operation, it does not seem to be any more pre-reflexive available. Rather

systematic production of knowledge gains importance to cope with the fact that

knowledge gets more and more visible as ‘knowledge’ in modern society.

As there is no direct access to the world, science gets possible and necessary (Nassehi,

2003) since it produces methods that simulate to bridge the gap – more or less

successful. Efforts to describe scientific work often depart from the observation of a

functionally differentiated society, a society, in which different fields have emerged andoperate under a certain logic or “illusio” (Bourdieu). Luhmann describes science as a

binary coded system that operates along the code truth/untruth. This code works as a

“frame” or has an “anchoring effect” for the communication within the system and

determines what will be treated as information (Luhmann, 1990: 271sqq). Of course

other contexts do also deal with the term of “truth”, for example in contrast to a lie, but

in the scientific context “truth” always keeps a hypothetic meaning insofar, as the testing

of truth can never conclude. Following Luhmann, science operates recursive and

functional self-contained, in other words: truth/untruth can only be produced out of

truth/untruth, and science produces and solves scientific problems, not political, medical

or economic ones. In a functional differentiated society, the autonomy and mutualdependence of the subsystems increases at the same time (Luhmann, 1990: 289).

Nobody would negate that research is dependent on money and political decisions, but

the result of research can only be – preliminary – truth.

In contrast to a very common understanding, Luhmann argues, that scientific knowledge

is less sure than every-day-knowledge as normally there is no doubt about




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interpretations of every-day perception. Through scientific observation not security but

insecurity increases (Luhmann, 1990: 325). First of all, knowledge refers to the

knowledge you do not (yet) have and still all knowledge has to be treated temporarily

because doubt is institutionalised in the scientific self-reflection.

Scientific results are not only judged by the distinction truth/untruth, but also by the

scheme old/new. These observations affect what Luhmann identifies as the second Code

of the scientific system: reputation. Reputation can only be established within science

(Luhmann, 1990: 352), but this code reduces the complexity of appreciation and makes

judgement possible for actors beyond a scientific community. Pierre Bourdieu shows in

“Homo academicus” (Bourdieu, 1984), that the scientific field on the one hand produces

a certain habitus, but on the other hand also requires a certain habitual imprinting, hence

people belonging to a middle or upper class are empirically more successful in this field.

So science constructs a certain milieu that is also shaped by interaction, organisational

and societal factors. For example the constraint, that research more and more takesplace in projects, that are determined by a strict temporal limitation, brings to science a

new way of selectivity (Luhmann, 1994: 338).

Other theories stress the scientific field as a field of micro politics and scientific results as

result of strategic action. The network perspective treats the emergence of new theses

and theories first of all as a result of the co-action of scientists and other actors (Collins,

1998). Through communicating and through exchange new network structures emerge,

that consist in knots, centres and peripheries, as well as stars, members and wannabe-

members. The networks contain coalitions as well as oppositions of the participants and

also horizontal relations between coeval and vertical relations relative to forerunners.

The stages for communication are conferences, debates, discussions and all kind of

media. The institutionalised forms of networks are universities, chairs, institutes or

master-learner-relationships. Growth of knowledge comes about through both rivalry and

alliances: disparagement and controversies force the scientists to underline differences in

order to demarcate themselves from others while alliances and group building can lead to

more creativity and increasing efficacy.

Dealing with scientific knowledge is often implicit or explicit connected to the idea of a

superior scientific rationality. Against this idea of scientific results as output of a

cognitive, linear process turn the works of Bruno Latour (Latour, 1997) and SteveWoolgar (Woolgar, 1979; Woolgar, 1988) and Karin Knorr-Cetina (Knorr-Cetina, 1991;

Knorr-Cetina, 1995) by showing the social constructedness of scientific knowledge. They

focus on the process of knowledge production and deconstruct – in first line the natural

sciences – as social activity. Karin Knorr-Cetina forms the concept of the “epistemic

cultures” (Knorr-Cetina, 2002:, 19sqq.): different fields of research are dominated by

different practices of constitution of knowledge and the constitution of objects of




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knowledge. Epistemic cultures are first of all well established patterns of knowledge

production and the meaning of non-knowing.

An empirical loss of believe in the superiority of scientific knowledge is described by

Ulrich Beck’s theory of Reflexive Modernisation (Beck, 1986). In the first part of modernisation process (1.Moderne) the scientification generates a unlimited authority

and a myth of superiority. During the second part of modernisation process (2. Moderne)

due to its own success scientification gets reflexive. While the dependence on scientific

knowledge grows, also the scepticism towards science and its visible getting side-effects

increases. Beck postulates a de-monopolisation as laypersons make themselves

independent of science through knowledge. Michael Gibbons and Helga Nowotny et al.

(Gibbons and Nowotny et al., 1994; Gibbons and Nowotny et al., 2001) do not describe

different evolutionary stages of science, but a pluralisation, different modes of knowledge

production that are coexistent. Mode 1 refers to disciplinary, homogenous forms of

knowledge production, which quality is tested by an interior peer-review. However Mode

2 describes a new form of knowledge production that takes place in the application

context whereas heterogeneous actors with different experiences, expertises and

knowledge take part. Criteria for quality control are not clear and keep implicit. Another

characteristic is the changing relationship between science and public: science has to

consider at a progressive rate external expectations and claims. Scientific projects get

more and more aware being object of observation and align with a self-constructed

audience, named as “Imagined Laypersons” (Imaginierte Laien) by Nowotny (Nowotny,

2004; Nowotny, 2005). She sees in an emerging “imagined dialogue” between “science”

and “society” a functional development with political consequences. With the “Imagined

Laypersons” as product of the scientific functioning, also a new kind of knowledge is

produced, here called “social robust knowledge” (sozial robustes Wissen), that anticipates

non-scientific perspectives, increasing the chances to stand the test of time in a

multicontextural society.

8. Science and political decisions

The production of “social robust knowledge” needs the contextualisation with the

application context and does not align with the “pipeline-model” of an one-way

knowledge transfer from science to the application context (Nowotny, 2005). Different

models of the relationship between scientific expertise and a political context are

discussed in the literature concerning their implications and their ability to describe thesocial reality. Jürgen Habermas (1966) identifies two models dominating the discourse:

the decisionistic model and the technocratic model. In the tradition of Max Weber’s

distinction between scientific knowledge and cultural determined values the decisionistic

model paints a picture of a policy that sets goals and a serving science that rationalizes

the instruments for achieving them. The enhancement of this principle leads to the

technocratic model, where the options are reduced to one best solution and politicians




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get totally dependent on experts. Political decisions are replaced by a rational scientific

bureaucracy. Both models are facing a lack of legitimacy, on one side the lacking

rationality of decisions made by politicians and on the other side the lacking democratic

legitimacy of experts. Habermas himself creates the “pragmatistic model” as an answer

to these legitimacy problems. He pledges for a strict separation of political actors andexperts by a process of mutual criticism and draws up a symmetrical picture of the

relationship of expertise and political decision.

Carol H. Weiss also analyses different ways the concept of using science and the

connection between science and policy in general is being thought. Instead of offering

one universal model she examines seven different models that are associated with the

concept.

The first she identifies is the knowledge-driven-model, which Godîn describes as a linear

model postulating an unilateral connection between basic research and application.

(Weiss, 1979: 427). This model is inspired by the physical sciences. In Weiss’ opinion itisn’t suited for the social sciences as the transfer of knowledge is much more complex

and depends on the willingness of the policy-making bodies to apply the findings of the

research. These problems of implementations are invisible to this model.

The problem-solving-model is another kind of linear model with a different chain of

events. A political decision has to be made, scientific research helps to fill the gaps in

knowledge and allows the formulation of a solution and based on that input, policy is

made. This model implies a consensus on goals and it is the task of social sciences to

provide the tools to reach an agreed end. The knowledge can predate the policy problem

or can be produced especially for the problem by requesting reports and commissioning

dedicated research on the subject at hand. This model remains popular despite reality

often disappoints policy makers and scientists both. As Weiss argues, successful scientific

influence depends on a multitude of favourable factors that are seldom met (Weiss,

1979: 428).

The interactive model sees all people involved in an issue “pool their talents, beliefs, and

understandings in an effort to make sense of a problem” (Weiss, 1979: 428) without

social scientists taking a superior position in the discussion. There is no linear

progression but a back and forth instead. Weiss doesn’t judge the model though it is a

model commonly practised by decision makers. The description of an iterative process

reminds on Habermas’ pragmatistic model and implies a participatory turn that isconnected to the discussion about democratisation of expertise.

The political model understands scientific findings as ammunition in the debate between

policy makers with differing opinions. Science is utilised to back up arguments and gain

support for the point of view taken by the policy maker. Weiss argues that this isn’t

automatically an illegitimate use of scientific research but points out that all sides




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should have equal access to the available information and should refrain from distorting

the findings (Weiss, 1979: 429).

The tactical model doesn’t aim at the results of social science research but the mere fact

that it is being done. “Sometimes government agencies use research to deflect criticism” (Weiss, 1979: 429) by claiming that actions were based on the recommendations of

social science research studies. Funding research and individual researchers serves to

increase the prestige of an agency and to produce a group of loyal scientists that can be

called upon.

The enlightenment model sees the connection between science and policy makers to be

an indirect one. Results of social research diffuse along a multitude of different channels

into public consciousness and raising the awareness of issues. “Research sensitizes

decision makers to new issues and helps turn what were non-problems into policy

problems” (Weiss, 1979: 430). The indirect influence of policy makers doesn’t require the

scientific findings to be in line with their values and goals. A failing of this model is itsinability to explain how just valid generalisations gain hold in the public consciousness

and how bad science is prevented from being more exposed to the public than more

correct findings. Another problem as Weiss notes is the slow speed of the dissemination

of information that sometimes is out of date when it reaches the policy makers.

A last model understands research as part of the intellectual enterprise of the society.

Social science and policy interact, influencing each other and being influenced by the

larger fashions of social thought (Weiss, 1979: 430). While often motivated by policy

makers seeing an emerging problem, research swiftly widens its horizons and often

redefines the problem at hand, inspiring the policy makers in turn. Interesting about this

last model is the fact, that here the relationship between science and policy seems to be

embedded in a larger social context.

The survey of these different concepts shows, that some of them do not rule each other

out. This aligns with the argument of Peter Weingart (Weingart, 2001), that knowledge

has a vast array of functions in the political process of decision making, such as

information and enlightenment but also legitimation and serving as strategic resource. As

Renate Mayntz (Mayntz, 2005) he critisises, that the relationship between science and

policy is seen as a “dual model”, while there is empirically no clear separation – not in

time and not in content – between the production of knowledge and the design of

decisions. The problem of empirical research about the relationship of science anddecision making is according to Klaus Jürgen Henning (Henning, 1994) the fact that the

two systems, science and political decision making, melt together in concrete actors and

institutions and are hard to distinguish.

Peter Weingart (Weingart, 2001) speaks of a scientification of politics and a politisation of

science. He describes how privileged knowledge gets a political resource and names the




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relationship between science and policy a recursive coupling of these two interdependent

processes. Weingart starts his diagnosis with the assumption that the growing demand

for scientific knowledge in political decision making has led into a paradox: the provoked

competition for expertise and the interplay of expertise and two-way expertise do not

lead to decisions that are more rational, more secure and more consensus, but intensifythe controversies and so make visible the lacks of knowledge, the insecurity and the risks

behind the knowledge (Weingart, 2001: 123). Nevertheless political decision making

keeps seeking for scientific knowledge. But the political requests on knowledge do not

follow the rules of the scientific disciplines, and in the moment, scientists enter the

political stage, they can not keep the neutral scientists, their arguments get shaped by a

politic discourse. In consideration of the operative interdependence some authors speak

of “hybrids” of “blurring of the boundaries”, but Weingart argues, that these notions are

convincing at a superficial view, but mislead as they suggest a kind of de-differentiation

(Weingart, 2001: 141). Also Sheila Jasanoff (Jasanoff, 1990) describes how the

interdependency of scientific and political work leads to an affirmation of the boundaries(“boundary work”), the boundaries are made explicit and visible.

In the course of the changing relationship of science and policy the role of experts is also

slightly changing. The practise of expertise derives from the emergence of the classical

professions, like the doctor, the priest and the lawyer that work on the basic human

conflicts in a society that has relocated the idea of behaviour control in the individual self

(Foucault, Elias) facing a multiplicity of choices released from traditional institutions and

direct external force (Beck, 1986). Usually the performance of these professions allowed

them to present knowledge in a way that made it seem more certain than it actually was.

The absorption of uncertainty can still be seen as a latent function of expertise

(Weingart, 2001) but the business of experts is obviously getting harder. Every expertise

can be devaluated by another and the power of expertise meets with criticism. But

Alexander Bogner and Helge Torgersen (Bogner and Torgersen, 2005) point out that the

animadversion on experts comes from experts. And still scientific expertise is an

important resource and belongs to the routines of administrative political decision making

(Murswiek, 1994). Nevertheless, the practice of expertise is changing. Nowotny

(Nowotny, 2005) argues that expertise gets “transgressive” as the distinction between

knowledge and values is loosing plausibility and the audience of scientific results

changes. Weingart speaks of the same phenomena when he says that scientists exceed

the boundaries of their discipline when they speak as experts and face to a

democratisation and inflation of expertise (Weingart, 2001) the competition betweenexperts always leads to newer, more uncertain knowledge. The dynamic of this

development is circular self-engergising without any possibility to control it.




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9. Some critical remarks

Which undiscussed assumptions lie behind perceptions of knowledge and of the

relationship between knowledge and policy? Why do we unconsciously imply that more

knowledge and more information would lead to a more efficient and better politicalculture? Why do we think that basic research and social diffusion of knowledge is an

undoubted value for itself which can legitimise the spending of public money?

One of the roots of through and through positive picture of knowledge may lie in the

Enlightenment world view. The traumas of the, 20th century, the World War II and the

Cold War – strengthened the notion that objective public knowledge and free, reliable

information is the best protection against the dangers of mass passions and extremism.

Knowledge can liberate citizens from depending on power – political power and the power

of knowledge – and from being vulnerable. Well informed and enlightened citizens could

make independent choices and legitimate democracy and political institutions. But may

these presumptions remain undiscussed? Does more information and knowledge linearlylead to fair-minded decisions in the political sphere and to a broader legitimisation?

Some actual discussions arise doubts and force to uncover presumptions. They critically

illuminate the function of information in the political process and the role of media in

delivering information. Science seems to loose its function as a legitimation of policies

and of public choices and as making them appear impersonal, objective and/or technical.

Science is no longer such in important component of modern state authority as in former

times.

The modern mass media reached a new importance in nowadays society, though they

play a key role in spreading information. Even more, the media make information. Not

known by anybody, information wouldn’t be information. Mass media are the bridge

between the different spheres of the public and are the megaphone of information. Only

information picked up and spread by the mass media is heard a receives his special

character as information.

Mass media trans-mit and trans-form information and the dispatches of the scientific

field. Ezrahi sees a new form of information government: ‘outformation’ (Ezrahi, 2004).

Outformations are a constant flow of inanimate and animated images, a diffused

configuration of pictures, sounds, narratives and frames. They combine cognitive,

emotional, aesthetic and other dimensions of experience and are disconnected templetsof stimuli. Outformation mix the transmission of information with affective, aesthetic and

entertaining effects. Just like the term ‘infotainment’ stresses, outformations combine

ways of entertainment like music, drama and visual beauty with norms of accurate

accounts of reality in the tradition of the culture of science (Ezrahi, 2004: 258).

Even more like information, outformations mediate between ‘reality’ and the public

opinion. Outformations are genuinely ambiguous between being able to show ‘reality’ as




183

it is and creating fantasy. Outformation producers, especially news agents or

documentaries persistently worry about their viewers faith and belief in the ‘facts’ they

show. The television screen seems to be a ‘window into the real’, but at the same time, it

represents also its fiction-character like a theatre, which the spectator may leave

whenever he likes to. Outformations make spectators therefore easier to become actors and co-authors of the ‘reality’ they see, they make them conscious of the fact that great

parts of our culture are fictions and some fictions are even more informative than

supposedly direct informations. Outformations make the political and cultural world to

seem extraordinary accessible. Shifting from passive to active engagement seems to be

enormously simplified, introducing the element of play into political engagement.

“Universal accessibility is apparently more important for the legitimation of contemporary

constructions of reality than accuracy, impersonality, ‘rationality’ and other such criteria

that relate to the culture of scientific representations.” (Ezrahi, 2004: 260).

The radical inclusiveness and accessibility of outformation gives public discourse and

action the required legitimation in opposite to former periods where this was guaranteed

through knowledge according to the norms of the scientific culture. Current definitions of

reality as shared references of collective political imagination represent a postmodern

shift from foundational to non-foundational and dynamic concepts of the political worlds.

The move from reason to imagination may reflect the “intuition, that collective imagining

is a more participatory medium for constructing the political universe than public reason”

(Ezrahi, 2004: 260). It may represent a postmodern remake of the social contract, in a

form of a great spectacle of ongoing construction and de-construction of the public

sphere. In this spectacle participation is possible for most diverse actors of the public, of

laymen, scientists and experts. The state and the political sphere attend to be the

outcome of artificial creation, imagination and performance, where everyone can feel free

to know, to judge and to construct. Being able to spread information, imagination and

ability of performance are skills actually needed in the public and represent new forms of

power. Imagination and outformation has the power to lift political agents, authorities

and institutions into being.

This form of legitimation through collective political imagination represents a break with

the Enlightenment vision of democracy and government controlled and legitimised by

educated and knowledgeable citizens. This – never really realised concept – collapsed not

at once but seems to forfeit actuality in actual political staged appearance. Arranged

scenes like G. W. Bush’s ‘Top Gun’ landing on the carrier Abraham Lincoln represent ashift between alternative modes of legitimation. Legitimation through groundedness in

knowledge based decisions is – at least partly – deplaced and supplemented by

legitimation through outformation, participating of imagination, virtual accessibility and

the sense of witnessing. Visibility and immediacy of low-cost and low entry-treshold

realities create the feeling of a seemingly familiar world where everyone knows, can

decide between right and wrong and can participate.




184

This historical shift can be seen as a gain and a loss at the same time. Compared with

former more ‘impersonal’ and ‘objective’ forms of knowing the (partly) new form can be

regarded as a more participatory modus. While knowledge is discerned as created and

possessed by scientists and experts, information and outformation appear as from

individuals more independent and easier accessible representations and imaginations of the world. Feeling better ‘informed’ and therefore enabled and empowered for making

decisions acts in fact – just like Foucault described – as a deception of hierarchies and

power relations. Concepts like the ‘informed concern’ in the medicine want to make

citizens and consumers feel as well informed autonomous decisionmakers – while in fact

they often act against their own values and interests. “The working of ‘informed consent’

in medical practice can illustrate the ways in which making laypersons, or for that matter

the public at large, ‘informed’ can actually generate decisions or actions which, while

being more legally, morally and also politically acceptable, are at the same time less

rational, instrumental or beneficial to lay people in the strict sense of the word.” (Ezrahi,

2004: 266) Information and outformation can act as rituals of legitimation that facilitatethe camouflage of the working of inequalities and power hierarchies. The politics of

outformations falls short of basic democratic ideas but may represent also a democratic

gain by supporting the sense of the autonomy and dignity of the individuals,

decentralisation, publicity and accessibility. The democratic gain is represented by the

enhanced accessibility, the democratic loss is produced by the diminished possibilities of

control mechanisms and of criticism. Outformation provide a smaller basis for distancing

and critical control because they are less based on controllable knowledge production but

on enabling ‘insight’, virtual participation and the belief of witnessing.

Behind the concepts of knowledge, information and outformation there lie four different

notions of liberty (Ezrahi, 2004:271). First the freedom of knowledgeable and informed

citizens of making themselves independent of the power of defining reality through

authorities (type A). This is the classical concept of the Enlightening role of knowledge in

liberating citizens and controlling power. Type B is the freedom to escape the constraints

of reality via poetry, arts, mysticism, internet and drugs. Third (type C) is the freedom of

a state of affairs collectively imagined and recalled to life by free citizens of their own

gusto. The potency of collective imagination was attested by thinkers like Vico and

Rousseau. The fourth type of freedom represents the freedom of switching between the

three first types: the freedom through knowledge, the freedom of fantasy and the

producing freedom of collective imagination. In some respects this is the type of freedom

represented by the modern mass media and the outformation politics: the freedom toswitch “at will between alternatives modes of imagining the world and the self in relation

to it” (Ezrahi, 2004: 272). This modus appeals to the human play impulse and may

therefore partly explain the extraordinary attraction of outformations. The convergence

of playful aesthetic orientations and politics have both democratic and anti-democratic

implication.




185

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