Science and Public Reason (The Earthscan Science in Society

Science and Public Reason (The Earthscan Science in Society Series)

This essay collection explores how democratic governments construct public reasonâ€”that is, the forms of evidence and argument used in making state decisions accountable to citizens.Â The term public reason as used here is not simply a matter of constructing principled arguments that respect the norms of democratic deliberation.Â My objective is to investigate what societies do in practice when they claim to be reasoning in the public interest.Â Reason, from this perspective, comprises the institutional practices, discourses, techniques and instruments through which governments claim legitimacy in an era of potentially unbounded risksâ€”physical, political, and moral.Â Those legitimation efforts, in turn, depend on citizensâ€™ acceptance of the forms of reasoning that governments offer.Â Included here therefore is an inquiry into the conditions that lead citizens of democratic societies to accept policy justification as being reasonable.Â These modes of public knowing, or â€œcivic epistemologies,â€ are integral to the constitution of political culture as described in this book.Â Methodologically, the book is grounded in the field of science and technology studies (STS).Â It uses in-depth qualitative studies of legal and political practices to shed light on the cultural construction of public reason and the reasoning political subject. It employs comparative analysis to illuminate the diverse ways in which science and expertise are factored into democratic decisionmaking; and it illustrates how STS scholarship can use comparison without falling into rigidly structural analysis.Â The collection as a whole contributes to democratic theory, legal studies, comparative politics, and ethnographies of modernity, as well as STS.
Country USA
Brand Routledge
Manufacturer Routledge
Binding Paperback
ReleaseDate 2013-09-22
UnitCount 1
Format Illustrated
EANs 9780415624688

Country	USA
Brand	Routledge
Manufacturer	Routledge
Binding	Paperback
ReleaseDate	2013-09-22
UnitCount	1
Format	Illustrated
EANs	9780415624688

Science and Public Reason (The Earthscan Science in Society Series)

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