When does science persuade (or not persuade) in high‐conflict policy contexts?
| Published date | 01 September 2020 |
| Author | Tanya Heikkila,Christopher M. Weible,Andrea K. Gerlak |
| Date | 01 September 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12655 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
When does science persuade (or not persuade)
in high-conflict policy contexts?
Tanya Heikkila
1
|Christopher M. Weible
1
|Andrea K. Gerlak
2
1
School of Public Affairs, University of
Colorado Denver, USA
2
School of Geography and Human
Development, University of Arizona, Tucson,
AZ, USA
Correspondence
Tanya Heikkila, School of Public Affairs,
University of Colorado Denver, USA.
Email: tanya.heikkila@ucdenver.edu
Funding information
National Science Foundation, Grant/Award
Number: CBET-1240584
Abstract
Researchers struggle to understand the relationship between
science and policy positions, especially the complicated
interplay among the various factors that might affect the
acceptance or rejection of scientific information. This article
presents a typology that simplifies and guides research linking
scientific information to policy positions. We use the typology
to examine how characteristics of both scientific information
and policy actors' existing policy positions affect the likelihood
of changing, maintaining or reinforcing those policy positions.
We analyse data from surveys conducted in 2015 and 2017
of policy actors engaged in contested policy debates over
shale oil and gas development in Colorado, US. Our findings
confirm expectations that policy actors will most likely main-
tain and reinforce their policy positions in response to scien-
tific information. Our data also show that changes in policy
positions depend on policy actors' risk perceptions, perceived
issue contentiousness, networks and experience with science.
1|INTRODUCTION
Scientific information can influence the policy process in diverse and important ways. It can shift attention to
problems and bring those problems onto policy agendas. As science enters the discourse in policy debates, different actors
also frame and shape its meaning and its influence on policy decisions. In that process, science can be used as political
salvo—bolstering the positions of allies against opponents and exacerbating policy conflicts. Yet, science can also contribute
to deliberative decision-making as people use scientific information to inform how they revise and adopt public policies.
While a longstanding literature has developed around how science is used in the policy process (Weiss 1986;
Jasanoff 1990; Sarewitz 2004; Pielke 2007; Bolsen and Druckman 2015) and whether people learn from new infor-
mation in the policy process (Weible et al. 2010; Moyson et al. 2017), limited empirical research has explored the
factors that might condition the effects of scientific information on the positions of individuals who are engaged in
the policy process. This article aims to fill this gap. To do so, we present a typology to illustrate when people are
Received: 1 May 2019Revised: 3 January 2020Accepted: 12 January 2020
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12655
Public Admin. 2020;98:535–550.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd535
likely to change their positions, or when they might reinforce or maintain their existing positions. The typologybuilds
novel insights on the use of science by accounting for the interplay between the characteristics of the source of sci-
entific information and individuals' existing policy positions. We also develop theoretically grounded expectations of
individual characteristics that might condition where they fall on the typology and test these expectations through a
study of individuals involved in a contentious policy debate.
The individuals we study in this research are ‘policy actors’. Policy actors denote a subset of the mass public
who are political experts in a given policy domain and who seek to influence either directly or indirectly policy
processes and outcomes (Jenkins-Smith et al. 2018). As political experts on the issue, policy actors can repre-
sent a variety of affiliations, including—but not limited to—elected government officials, appointed government
officials, bureaucrats, industry leaders, citizen activists, nongovernmental or nonprofit organizational actors,
journalists, consultants and scientists. Given the role policy actors can play in shaping policy processes, numer-
ous studies have sought to explain the dynamics of policy processes, including belief change and learning, by
studying policy actors (Leach and Sabatier 2005; Weible et al. 2010; Henry and Dietz 2012). We therefore build
on this body of literature by studying whether and to what degree policy actors modify their policy positions in
response to scientific information, particularly around a contentious policy issue.
The policy issue we focus on in this study involves shale oil and gas development in Colorado, US. Shale oil and
gas development is a policy issue characterized by rapid growth in the past decade and corresponding uncertainty
surrounding its risks and benefits. This growth has coincided with a proliferation of new science about the issue, and
opportunities for policy actors to use new information in shaping or influencing policy decisions. Using data from
two waves of surveys (2015 and 2017), we explore how policy actors filter different types of scientific arguments
through their policy positions around shale oil and gas development and how characteristics of policy actors affect
the likelihood that they will be persuaded by new information.
2|WHEN DOES SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION INFORM POLICY
POSITIONS?
Scholarship on the use of information by policy actors in the policy process is rich and diverse. One of the common
themes across the literature is the recognition that policy-relevant information, including scientific information, is political
(Jasanoff 1990; Sarewitz 2004). This means that scientificinformation is neither a beacon of objective truth nor are people
perfect at receiving and processing scientific information (Pielke 2007). Instead, scientificinformation is interpreted,
constructed and assimilated into, and by, the mental models of the policy actors through var ious cognitive heuristics and
filters, notably values, beliefs, interests and feelings (Kahan 2016). As scientific information is political, it then becomes an
object of potential strategic use and, thus, a source of power and sometimes a contributor to conflict (Sarewitz 2004).
Even if scientific information is political in the policy process, it remains a principal source of policy learning
(Dunlop and Radaelli 2013; Heikkila and Gerlak 2013; Jenkins-Smith et al. 2018). There are a range of factors that
condition whether, how, and the extent to which scientific information contributes to learning. These include
the institutions and rules structuring the policy context, the nature of the information and its source, attributes of
the people receiving the information, the level of policy conflict and the value of knowledge (Boswell 2009; Leach
et al. 2013; Jenkins-Smith et al. 2018).
Despite these lessons, minimal evidence exists about how these types of factors might interplay with the charac-
teristics of the individuals exposed to the scientific information. Building a theoretically informed model of these
factors is needed to help guide and build understanding of the use of science in policy processes. For example, policy
actors' responses to science, or other forms of policy-related information, depend on whether the information either
supports or counters existing policy positions. The justification for this assumption can be found in the political psy-
chology literature that shows that people often assimilate information through pre-existing attitudes, assumptions
and beliefs (Lord and Taylor 2009; Henry and Dietz 2012). Thus, people struggle to comprehend information that
536 HEIKKILA ET AL.
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