Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive of over 1500 titles.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
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Science, in its very basic sense, means knowledge, from the Latin scientia; and democracy, in its very basic sense, means rule of the people, from the Greek demos (people) and kratos (rule). Throughout history, science and democracy have each developed with a keen ability to alter their shape in various contexts. Nevertheless, science has come to denote certain ways of producing knowledge as opposed to others, and democracy is associated with particular modes of governance as opposed to others. The reason why it is impossible to not use the plural in relation to these two concepts – ways of producing knowledge and modes of governance – is simply that there are multiple versions and practices of doing both science and democracy. Even so, science and democracy have taken shape as the grandeurs of modern societies. This suggests there is something fixed about them: science has become established as the best way of producing knowledge and democracy has become established as the best mode of governance. Of course, the grandeur refers to the general ideas and principles that are associated with science and democracy, respectively. Even though these ideas and principles have generated deep thoughts, lengthy discussions, and many thick books, dominating versions of both science and democracy can be summed up in one word: representation. Scientists represent nature and elected politicians represent the people. To gain legitimate authority, however, representations and representatives must resonate with the represented. It is this resonance and the relational aspect involved in both science and democracy that distinguish them as particular ways of producing knowledge and particular modes of governance.
As an interlude, this chapter is an effort to connect, bridge, and provide an overlap between the other two parts of this book: Separation and Co-production. In this work, the picture of a clear division between science and politics is complicated. The focus is on science and politics as two separate activities with their own institutions and practices, but the chapter also turns to the question of how the interplay between science and politics is understood in terms of overlaps and connections. Better communication, increased proximity, or more interaction while maintaining an arm’s-length distance – there are many expressions of how science and politics connect and should be connected; and from the science side, they can be summarized as an ambition to make science relevant to policy, to make it close to politics but not too close (Gieryn 1995: 435, referring to Jasanoff 1990). In other words, policy-relevant research involves a balancing act between separation and integration (Sundqvist et al 2015, 2018). According to this view, research must be sufficiently separate to maintain its autonomy, but integrated enough to be socially relevant. This ambition entails a critique of an overly strong division, but also points out the risks that one side will take command of the other. From this perspective, a scientization of politics and a politicization of science are both highly undesirable and considered as risks. There is thus a need for a proper distance between science and politics. To be fair, it is noted that several of the approaches and perspectives presented in Chapter 3 devote a great deal of effort to understanding the interplay between science and politics.
This book explores the relationship between science and democracy from an STS perspective. Through the focus on the interplay between science and politics and the role of participation when it comes to highly expert-dependent issues, the book contributes important insights into the relation between science and democracy. The book also introduces STS as a field of research and presents an overview of classical and current STS scholarship and debates with a special focus on science and democracy. The main argument is that science and democracy belong together - they are co-produced - and are separate. The book takes the reader on a journey that starts by emphasizing the differences between science and democracy and then introduces their similarities and interdependencies. The journey goes through three parts: separation, overlap, and co-production. The book concludes by summarizing specific contributions of STS research to the discussion of science and democracy, based on four themes: representation and participation; separation and hybridization; situated practices and democratic theory; and STS and normativity.
This chapter goes deeper into the complex relation between science and democracy. Previous chapters discussed how science and politics are separate and that one elite (scientific experts) is delegated the power to represent nature (as knowledge objects) and another elite (decision makers, not only elected politicians but broadly speaking) is delegated the power to represent the people. This double delegation (delegative democracy) is based on a distinction between what is represented and who can represent. These two forms of representation divide the world into the two domains of knowledge and politics and, in addition, create a sharp division between those who are in power (the two elites) and those who are not (the ignorant mass). However, these separate domains are also interlinked, and the boundaries between them and their authority and legitimacy can always be questioned and change over time. The separation between science and democracy, between representatives and represented, is a joint product. One of the most important ideas within STS research is that knowledge and social order are intertwined or, as it is often expressed, co-produced (Jasanoff 2004a). Science and democracy are not independent from each other. Democracies legitimize and back up decisions and reforms with expert knowledge, and an uneven distribution of knowledge and education in a society is seen as a democracy problem (Sismondo 2010: 80). Governing requires knowledge, and science is intermingled with power. Science and democracy may be the result of a joint process, but they are often presented as separate, which has consequences for how practices are performed and leads to what they have in common being concealed. Knowledge is understood and presented as being independent of social order and power, especially in the scientific community.
The concluding chapter weaves together the key themes of the book, to reflect on the interconnection of community, politics and justice in communal growing projects, in the way they claim spaces in the city and their articulation of alternative and autonomous ways of living. It highlights the productive ambivalence of the spaces, particularly knitting together inclusionary and radical reimaginations of the city with boundary work and strategic neutrality that effectively positions the sites beyond politics. It argues that attending to the afterlives of growing, how it moves and changes, is critical both for assessing the politics of growing projects and for attending to their purported place in sustainable cities. The chapter offers reflections on what might be taken forward in such sustainable work and the enduring attraction of communal growing as a research space, as well as the shifting opportunity structure within Scotland’s policy landscape that might facilitate a greater value being placed on communal growing projects as a critical part of the city’s social infrastructure.
What continues and what changes over time in communal growing? Research on communal growing tends to take a snapshot in time, focusing on the phenomenon at a moment rather than considering them over longer durations in more longitudinal research. This chapter unpacks some of the changes over time within the garden, addressing later evolutions in inclusion and transformative projects. Understanding projects as fluid and reactive to the environment, this argues for a longer period of study to think through reactions to the broader urban environment and social milieu. Reflecting on crises faced by the sites in the early 2020s – both the COVID-19 pandemic and a local murder – allows too for the strength and resilience of the sites, their use as social infrastructure, to emerge.
The practices of care that form the bedrock of communality are here viewed from the perspective of escape; and the idea of escaping into responsibility is explored, with reference to community theory and especially Esposito’s work on the munis. This connects ethnographic material on social connection and rhythms of knowing to a discussion of positive freedom as developed in the work of Isaiah Berlin (1969). Instead of a more common notion of negative freedom, this chapter uses Berlin’s delineation of a positive freedom to recognize the liberatory capacity in the obligations and caring that come with social connection. The limits of this are also explored – in particular, the way that the closure within Berlin’s concept of positive freedom mirrors boundary work in communal practice.
Drawing on a concept of a field in which communal growing projects are embedded, this chapter develops an understanding of the ways projects are limited by the conditions of the field. Through developing an understanding of funding and organizational dynamics and the contrast between the two sites, this draws out the implications and meanings of politics in the field. It draws on ideas from social movement theory to understand the implications of these organizational dynamics, especially pressures against social transformation and radical agendas. This is to argue that organizations are pushed towards a stance of strategic neutrality, despite their autonomous and collective internal practices, in part as a way of attracting charity funding and being therefore legible as non-profits within the landscape of third sector funding.
While introducing the case studies and the broad argument of the book, this chapter situates the intervention of the book in the international communal growing literature, explaining the approach to community, politics and justice as empirical phenomena. The introduction introduces the concept of escape as a useful way to think about a series of important questions about how the city is lived. Collective escape centres the relationship between communal growing’s urban intervention and its politics, providing insight into the way people within the urban community projects understand their action. The chapter fleshes out how thinking through escape as an ambivalent practice can move us beyond some of the arguments around politics and subject formation to appreciate communal growing as social action. It also sets out the ethnographic research that forms the methodological basis for the book’s argument.
This book explores the relationship between science and democracy from an STS perspective. Through the focus on the interplay between science and politics and the role of participation when it comes to highly expert-dependent issues, the book contributes important insights into the relation between science and democracy. The book also introduces STS as a field of research and presents an overview of classical and current STS scholarship and debates with a special focus on science and democracy. The main argument is that science and democracy belong together - they are co-produced - and are separate. The book takes the reader on a journey that starts by emphasizing the differences between science and democracy and then introduces their similarities and interdependencies. The journey goes through three parts: separation, overlap, and co-production. The book concludes by summarizing specific contributions of STS research to the discussion of science and democracy, based on four themes: representation and participation; separation and hybridization; situated practices and democratic theory; and STS and normativity.
