University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
Soc Stud Sci. 2022 Aug;52(4):603-617. doi: 10.1177/03063127221093397. Epub 2022 May 5.
In many countries, attempts to suppress scientists as public experts have become more prevalent. In democratic countries, environmental scientists have been a particular focus of control. This article looks at structures and mechanisms of suppression of government researchers. It is based on a qualitative analysis of ten in-depth interviews with environmental researchers being employed or engaged in government science. The analysis is influenced by a power-theoretical perspective on the suppression of science. By analyzing the interviewees' accounts, it scrutinizes the different ways in which political and economic control can trickle down in research organizations such as state research institutes and come to affect individual researchers. The focus is especially on the interlinking of political and economic influence of external actors with different forms and practices of control at the organizational level. Three forms of such trickle-down are identified and discussed: internalization of political and economic control, external influencing and bureaucratic control, and economic/interest group influence in research organizations. We argue that these forms of control function as a filtering layer of suppression between political and economic control and individual scientists out of the public eye regarding government science.
在许多国家，压制科学家作为公众专家的企图变得更加普遍。在民主国家，环境科学家一直是控制的特别焦点。本文着眼于政府研究人员压制的结构和机制。它是基于对十名受雇或从事政府科学工作的环境研究人员的深入访谈的定性分析。该分析受到权力理论视角对科学压制的影响。通过分析受访者的叙述，仔细研究了政治和经济控制可以在州立研究所等研究组织中逐渐渗透，并影响到个别研究人员的不同方式。重点特别放在外部行为者的政治和经济影响与组织层面上不同形式和实践的控制之间的相互联系上。确定并讨论了三种这种渗透形式：政治和经济控制的内化、外部影响和官僚控制以及研究组织中的经济/利益集团影响。我们认为，这些控制形式在政治和经济控制与公众眼中的政府科学之外的个别科学家之间起到了抑制层的作用。
