Scientists as Policy Advisers: the Context of Influence

• Author: Phillip L. Gianos
• DOI: 10.1177/106591297402700304
• Published date: 01 September 1974
• Date: 01 September 1974

SCIENTISTS AS POLICY ADVISERS:
THE CONTEXT OF INFLUENCE
PHILLIP L. GIANOS
California State University, Fullerton
ARTICIPATION
by scientists in government decision making has grown
P
in the postwar period to the point that one is confident in treating it as an
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integral, routine part of the public policy-making process.’ Whereas once
one was justified in saying that such participation was limited in institutional
locus, policy arena, and duration of activity, the scientific establishment is now
firmly entrenched in the structure of the federal government, with widespread
institutional footholds and broad policy responsibilities. Most important, however,
scientists who advise government may be usefully viewed as the harbingers of the
increased use of professional elites by society suggested recently by Eulau and
Apter. 2
To the extent that science advice -
particularly in the form of advisory
boards, committees, and panels -
is now more a part of government rather than
an essentially ad hoc activity to be mobilized when the need is acute, it has become
a kind of bureaucracy in the sense of being a stable, interrelated set of ongoing
institutions. There are, to be sure, differences between a system of advisory bodies
with a relatively high turnover rate and a bureaucracy of classical Weberian
dimensions. Most important of these differences are three: scientists do not
ordinarily devote their careers to the service of one or even several such boards;
their service is not typically continuous over a long period of time; and their
NOTE: This study is excerpted from the author’s dissertation, &dquo;The Scientist as Adviser:
Careers, Values, and the Impact of Government,&dquo; Department of Political Science,
University of California, Riverside, 1971. Thanks are due Professors Harlan Hahn.
Ronald Loveridge, and especially Michael D. Reagan for their comments and aid, and
to the University of California, Riverside, for financial support.
1
Michael D. Reagan, Science and the Federal Patron (New York: Oxford, 1969), Ch. 1.
The emphasis in this paper on the formal advisory machinery should not be taken to
imply that scientists have not been active on policy questions in other ways. Besides
the well-documented efforts of scientists who organized for Johnson-Humphrey in 1964
(on this, see Daniel S. Greenberg, "Venture into Politics," Science, 146 [11 December 1964
and 18 December 1964], 1440-44, 1561-63), the most interesting recent example has been
the role of scientists in the ABM debate. On this see Abram Chates and Jerome
Wiesner, ABM: An Evaluation of the Decision to Deploy an Anti-Ballistic Missile
System (New York: Signet, 1965), and Anne Hessing Cahn, Eggheads and Warheads:
Scientist and the ABM (Cambridge: Science and Public Policy Program, Department of
Political Science and Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology, 1971).
2
Heinz Eulau, "Skill Revolution and Consultative Commonwealth," American Political
Science Review, 67 (March 1973), 169; David Apter, Choice and the Politics of Allo-
cation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), pp. 111-12, 122. This view is, of
course, not universally shared, and in fact Eulau himself argues that his "consultative
commonwealth" "... is not an inevitable outcome of contemporary trends. It is, how-
ever, a plausible construct ..."
(p. 169). As is argued at greater length in the text
below, the entire question of the probability of professional elites holding critical roles
in industrial societies has generated considerable disagreement in the literature. The
assumption of this paper is that Eulau is correct. For another perspective on this ques-
tion, see Francis E. Rourke, Bureaucracy, Politics, and Public Policy (Boston: Little,
Brown, 1969), Ch. 3.
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430
professional identification with the scientific community provides them with a
salient reference group of their colleagues which mitigates against the kind of
identification with the organization that is typical of large bureaucracies.
My purpose, however, is not to argue that the federal science advisory
machinery is somehow directly comparable with much larger and more complex
bureaucratic structures, but simply to note that the process of the institutionaliza-
tion of science advice has perforce made demands on both the institutional net-
work itself and on those scientists who staff it.3 Any social institution which
operates in concert with other institutions in a complex system must routinize its
activity sufficiently to assure some minimal degree of coordination and predict-
ability of behavior. This involves not only structural adjustment but adjustment
on the part of individual members. This clash between the demands of the or-
ganization and the needs of the individual is, of course, a central concern of stu-
dents of administration and policy making, both as an empirical problem and as
a normative dilemma. With respect to scientists, this response to a new institu-
tional setting has largely been examined within the context of the adjustment
of scientists to industrial work. Little attention, however, has been given to similar
adjustments by scientists to work as advisers in government.
Reconciliation between the competing demands of individuals and organiza-
tions is most easily handled by those who have a long-term commitment to careers
in government. Scientists, as noted, typically do not have this commitment. Thus,
precisely because scientists may not have career-based predispositions to adjust to
organizational needs in government, they might be assumed to have an especially
difficult time in reaching an accommodation with these needs. This difficulty in
accommodation might in turn hamper a scientist’s ability to operate effectively
within an organization; in the governmental setting, it might mean reduced in-
fluence for the scientist or professional who doesn’t &dquo;fit in.&dquo; We will return to
this point in more detail below.
In this regard, it is also instructive to note that in recent years there has been
a growing tendency to doubt earlier attributions of substantial influence over policy
by scientists. Sapolsky, in reviewing several case studies, concludes that
The scientific elite appears to have been a partly illusory, partly historical phenomenon.
Ofhcials uncertain about their competence in important policy areas and recognizing the
public’s belief in the authority of scientists in these areas may have for a period sought
the assistance of scientists. As policy rankings shift, it is likely that they will turn to other
groups for assistance and that new elites will arise.4
There is thus the possibility that two sets of factors may be at work to decrease
the incentive for the integration of scientists into the procedures of government
decision making: the limited nature of a scientist’s commitment to government -
buttressed by his identification with a salient reference group of colleagues (what
3
For a more general view of these reciprocal impacts, see Reagan, op. cit., Ch. 3, and Norman
W. Storer, The Social System of Science (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1966), pp. 142-44.
4
Harvey M. Sapolsky, "An Exchange Model of the Science Advisory Process," paper pre-
sented at the 1971 meetings of the American Political Science Association, p. 10.

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431
Marcson has called &dquo;colleague authority&dquo;5) -and the probability that scientists’
influence over policy will be marginal in all cases involving substantive considera-
tions and will be substantial only on narrow issues.~
6
There are, however, several other considerations to note in this regard. First,
despite the strong probability that scientists’ policy advice will be of marginal im-
pact, it is nevertheless true, as Hofferbert has noted, that virtually all policy deci-
sions are marginal ones.7 Hence, it would not be surprising that some scientists
might feel the flame to be worth the candle. Moreover, there is disagreement over
just how influential or non-influential experts are. Wilensky has noted a long
tradition in the social sciences for two quite distinct views on this question. On
the one hand, such writers as Weber, Veblen, Lasswell, Laski, and Burnham have
seen experts and intellectuals gaining increased power and influence, while Mills,
Merton, and Znaniecki have seen opposite trends.&dquo; And at a more basic level we
have the above-mentioned views of Eulau and Apter suggesting a greater role for
professionals in the future.9 If these suggestions are sound, then scientists might
be usefully examined not simply for their own sake but as precursors of many
other professional groups which will be increasingly active in policy making.
A second point requires neither the attribution nor the denial of influence to
scientists in government. Rather, it simply notes that out of a large potential pool
of advisers, only a relatively small number of scientists hold policy-relevant
positions
More important, as work cited below suggests, not all those who serve in
government like it, and many choose to leave. From this point of view, then, the
question is not so much one of who are the potential influencers of science-related
policy but rather one of political recruitment of professionals. What kinds of
scientists are recruited into government work and which ones choose to stay?
More basically, of those scientists in government, which ones feel themselves to be
efficacious and successful policy advisers and advocates?
The focus here...