Identifying and Evaluating Strategies for Constructing Serviceable Truths

将专业知识与权威的政治决策相结合的问题由来已久，但一直令人烦恼。 在描述技术咨询和评估机构并使其合法化方面，学术传统并没有显著改善传统智慧，即让专家“随时待命，而不是高高在上”。 然而，最近对科学的建构主义理解与对专业知识的传统关注的结合，导致了对所谓的“有用真理”的追求的挑衅性规定。 这些真理包含科学和政治因素，使争端各方能够达成可行的共识。 拟议的研究：1）确定一套策略，以创造有用的真理; 2）寻求这些策略的实证例子; 3）评估它们的使用;和4）阐述和探索关于它们的使用和影响的假设。这些策略来自对当前方法的批评和初步的实证工作。案例的选择包括政治机构和技术机构的决策者所采用的战略。它们是进一步对称的，在每种类型的制度中，一种情况下将包括一个-“纯”战略，从属于机构外部的关注，和一个“混合”战略，试图混合与政治和技术机构相关的关注。 初步的研究已经确定了一个经验的情况下，每一个战略，并评估了战略的分析结构，但不是作为经验的战略。拟议的研究重点是提供额外的分析支持，这些战略，咨询文献的政治决策，科学研究，和其他地方。 更重要的是，它将进行详细的实证工作，主要是精英访谈，在已经确定的情况下，并在相关的地方，增加额外的情况。 它将在决策者部署战略的背景下进一步评估这些战略，以评估它们在背景下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”的概念阐述为一套决策策略来扩展关于技术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益的指导。

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.-