Regulating Scientific Research: A Constitutional Moment?
| Published date | 01 July 2018 |
| Author | Gert Verschraegen |
| Date | 01 July 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12108 |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 45, ISSUE S1, JULY 2018
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. S163±S184
Regulating Scientific Research: A Constitutional Moment?
Gert Verschraegen*
This article discusses how and to what extent a transnational societal
constitution for science is emerging. It outlines how specific norms and
rules secure the autonomy of science (the `constitutive function') as well
as defining the limits of the operations of science with respect to other
social systems and the individuals in their environments (the `limitative
function'). It also discusses to what extent complex trends and dynamics
in the current science system can be understood in terms of a con-
stitutional recalibration, in which the unleashed dynamism of scientific
and technological innovation is counteracted by a varied array of norm-
producing initiatives, such as the increasing importance of ethics bodies
in research, public engagement strategies, and initiatives aimed at `open
science' and `responsible research and innovation'.
INTRODUCTION
The emergence of modern science is tied up with an extension of the social
space of the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. This means disputes and
questions about knowledge are resolved by reference to observation and
theory, without resorting to arguments about the desirability of particular
outcomes from a political, religious, or any other extra-scientific point of
view. The early demarcation between science and other societal spheres was
drawn in the seventeenth-century scientific academies like the Florentine
Accademia dei Lincei (1603) or the London Royal Society (1662). Although
the seventeenth century was also a period of frequent disputes between
science, politics, and religion (for example, Galileo's Dialogo appeared in
S163
*University of Antwerp, Department of Sociology, Sint-Jacobstraat 2B,2000
Antwerpen, Belgium
gert.verschraegen@uantwerpen.be
This article benefitted from the various suggestions of the participants at the conference
`Societal Constitutions in Transnational Regimes' (Cardiff University, 30 June±1 July
2017). In particular, I would like to thank Gunther Teubner for his feedback on an earlier
draft.
ß2018 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2018 Cardiff University Law School
1632), the academies provided a first blueprint for scientific communication,
relatively disengaged from religious and political preoccupations. By
mobilizing themselves around a conception of distinctive methods for
scientific activity (primarily experimentation) and focusing on the produc-
tion of new knowledge (`innovation') instead of guarding and commenting
on the old one, academic scholars were able to generate a convincing
organizational alternative to the hierarchical universities, and could present
themselves to the rest of society as a distinct community.
1
In the centuries
that followed, the idea of scientific research focusing on the production of
new, yet socially corroborated knowledge, slowly but surely became the
province of the professional figure and social role of the `scientist' (a term
first used by William Whevell in 1833 to describe the participants at a
meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science).
2
With
the institutionalization of the modern `research' university (itself dependent
upon government patronage, or, alternatively, funding by the private sector),
universities provided the main organizational form in which the practice of
science could become a full-time career ± by providing wages, fusing
research with teaching, and allowing (ironically) the historic prestige of
universities as centres of scholasticism to valorize the new science.
The autonomy science acquired in the nineteenth century soon led to the
insistence on `academic freedom', or the professional autonomy of the
`academic scholar' to freely define the objectives and approach of his or her
research.
3
It is to be noted that, as a fundamental right, academic freedom
guards the individual autonomy of the scholar, but also facilitates functional
differentiation of societal systems, in this case, protecting science against
unwanted intrusions from politics, economics or religion.
4
Characteristically,
individual academic rights became balanced by academic duties and were
embedded in the `ethos' of the academic community, which had the potential
to regulate, restrict or sanction academic behaviour, thereby interfering with
individual academic freedom. The professional autonomy of academics was
in turn buttressed by the autonomy of the university, its freedom from
political or other interference, and its autonomy to hire whomever fulfilled
its professional criteria.
5
In a limited number of countries, such as Germany,
academic freedom became undergirded by written, constitutional law. The
modern German constitution, for example, includes an important paragraph
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1 S. Shapin, The Scientific Revolution (1996) 131±5.
2 M. Bucchi, Science in Society. An introduction to social studies of science (2004) 12.
3 J. Ben-David, The Scientist's Role in Society. A Comparative Study (1971).
4 N. Luhmann, Grundrechte als Institution. Ein Beitrag zur politischen Soziologie
(1965); G. Verschraegen, `Human Rights and Modern Society: A Sociological
Analysis from the Perspective of Systems Theory' (2002) 29 J. of Law and Society
258.
5 M. Tight, `So what is academic freedom?' in Academic Freedom and Responsibility,
ed. M. Tight (1988); E. Shils, `Academic Freedom and Permanent Tenure' (2004) 33
Minerva 5.
ß2018 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2018 Cardiff University Law School
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