Premium
Three Cultural Boundaries of Science, Institutions, and Policy: A Cultural Theory of Coproduction, Boundary‐Work, and Change
Author(s) -
Swedlow Brendon
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
review of policy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.832
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1541-1338
pISSN - 1541-132X
DOI - 10.1111/ropr.12233
Subject(s) - coproduction , boundary work , work (physics) , boundary (topology) , sociology , science policy , political science , epistemology , environmental ethics , public administration , social science , mathematics , engineering , mechanical engineering , mathematical analysis , philosophy
To help explain the role scientists play in policy change, concepts such as coproduction, boundary‐work, and pollution and purity claims as they are used in science studies should be incorporated into policy theory. Moreover improved policy theory should specify the kinds of boundary‐work that can occur and the kinds of values and beliefs that drive boundary‐work, explaining how boundary‐work leads to policy change. The cultural theory (CT) developed by Mary Douglas, Michael Thompson, Aaron Wildavsky, and others can help specify conditions for coproduction and change in science, institutions, and policy when recast as a theory involving three critical institutional boundaries. This theory‐development article uses this recast version of CT to help explain the most recent dramatic shift in federal land and wildlife management policy in the Pacific Northwest. The article illustrates how cultural combatants use boundary‐work including pollution and purity claims to align themselves and the domain of authoritative science with scientists whose constructs of nature and policy prescriptions are functional for their preferred institutions.