Identifying and Evaluating Strategies for Constructing Serviceable Truths

将专业知识与权威的政治决策结合起来的问题由来已久，但一直令人烦恼。在描述技术咨询和评估机构并将其合法化方面，传统的学术传统并没有显著改善传统智慧--让专家‘随时待命，而不是处于顶端’。然而，最近将对科学的建构主义理解与对专业知识的传统关注结合在一起，导致了一种具有挑衅性的处方，目的是追求所谓的“有用的真理”。这些真理包含科学和政治元素，使争端各方能够达成可行的协商。拟议的研究：1)确定一套策略，以创造有用的真理；2)寻找这些策略的实证例子；3)评估它们的使用；以及4)阐述和探索关于它们的使用和影响的假设。-这些策略源于对当前方法和初步实证工作的批评。-选择案例以包括决策者在政治机构和技术机构中部署的策略。它们还具有对称性，因为每种类型的机构中的一种情况将包括一种“纯粹”战略和一种“混合”战略，前者从属于机构外的关切，后者试图将与政治和技术机构有关的关切混合在一起。初步研究已经为每种策略确定了一个经验案例，并将这些策略评估为分析结构，但不是经验策略。-拟议的研究侧重于为这些策略提供额外的分析支持，-参考政治决策、科学研究和其他方面的文献。更重要的是，它将在已经确定的案件中开展详细的实证工作，主要是精英访谈，并在相关情况下增加更多案件。它将在决策者部署这些战略的背景下进一步批判性地评估这些战略，以努力评估它们在背景中的成功是否符合对它们的充分性、价值、有效性和合法性的预测。-这项研究不仅将通过将“有用的真理”的概念详细阐述为一套决策战略来扩展关于做出技术上复杂的政治决策的学术传统，而且通过明确的传播计划，它还将为寻求解决政治和科学边界问题的政治和技术机构的决策者提供有用的指导。

The problem of marrying expert knowledge to authoritative political decision making is ancient but continually vexing. A tradition of scholarship in describing and legitimating technical-advisory and assessment institutions has not significantly improved upon the conventional wisdom to-keep experts `on tap, not on top.` However, the recent joining of a constructivist understanding of-science to traditional concerns of expertise has led to a provocative prescription for the pursuit of what-have been called `serviceable truths.` These are truths that contain both scientific and political elements that allow parties to a dispute to achieve a workable concensus. The proposed research: 1) identifies a set of strategies to-create serviceable truths; 2) seeks empirical examples of these strategies; 3) evaluates their use; and 4)-elaborates and probes hypotheses about their use and impact.- The strategies derive from a critique of current-approaches and preliminary empirical work.- Cases are selected so as to include strategies deployed by decision makers in political institutions and those in technical institutions. They are further symmetric in that one case in each type of institution will include one-`pure` strategy, which subordinates concerns from outside the institution, and one `mixed` strategy, which-attempts to blend concerns relevant to both political and technical institutions. Preliminary research has-identified one empirical case with each strategy and has evaluated the strategies as analytical constructs,-but not as empirical strategies.- The proposed research focuses on providing additional analytic support to these strategies,-consulting literature in political decision making, science studies, and elsewhere. More importantly-it will conduct detailed empirical work, primarily elite interviews, in the cases already identified and, where-relevant, add additional cases. It will further appraise the strategies critically in the context in which-decision makers deployed them, in an effort to evaluate whether their success in context comports with predictions about their adequacy, value, effectiveness and legitimacy.- This research will not only extend a tradition of scholarship about the making of technically-complex political decisions by elaborating the concept of the `serviceable truths` into a set of decision-making strategies but, through an explicit dissemination plan, it will also provide helpful guidance to-decision makers in both political and technical institutions who seek to resolve problems at the-boundaries of politics and science.-