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Climate change, governance and knowledge

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 1
2 1 Climate change, governance and
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4 knowledge
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6 Nico Stehr and Alexander Ruser
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13 In the 1998 Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster movie Armageddon humanity is faced
14 with the most serious threat: an asteroid the size of Texas is on a collision course
15 with the earth. The effects of such a collision would be nothing short of disas-
16 trous: the end of the world as we know it. In this situation people do the obvious:
17 they turn to a hero (naturally: Bruce Willis) who eventually saves the planet.
18 If one believes in the IPCC reports and listens to the speakers at the numerous
19 climate summits in the past two decades humanity is facing an equally serious
20 crisis: the dangers and risks of anthropogenic climate change.1
21 Unlike the impact of an asteroid, the effects of climate change are not
22 immediately catastrophic. Likewise, it is hard to attribute a particular disaster
23 (say an extreme weather occurrence such as flood or a drought) to climate
24 change. Nevertheless, anthropogenic climate change brings about extraordinary
25 dangers. Another deviation from the Hollywood script is the notable (some
26 might say deplorable) absence of a hero. Decisive policy action is still lacking
27 and progress in international climate negotiations is slow, fragile and, some-
28 times, thwarted by short-term national interest.
29 Discussions about the governance of climate change in the coming decades
30 increasingly appeal to the strong probability of exceptional dangers that modern
31 societies are bound to face in the not too distant future, unless drastic and
32 immediate action is taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions around the world.
33 What is of interest to us is that the appeal to extraordinary circumstances justi-
34 fies two assertions, that of an inconvenient mind and that of inconvenient social
35 institutions. These deficits in turn allow for and tolerate fundamental doubts
36 about the efficacy of democratic governance to cope with extraordinary dangers.
37 Robert Stavins, director of Harvard’s Environmental Economics Program and
38 a co-author of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Wg 3
39 report might well be quoted as a warrantor of this scepticism about the ability of
40 political decision-makers to come up with timely and determined action:
41
42 This bottom up demand which normally we always want to have and rely on
43 in a representative democracy, is in my view unlikely to work in the case of
44 climate change policy as it has for other environmental problems.… It’s
45 going to take enlightened leadership, leaders that take the lead.2

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 16 N. Stehr and A. Ruser
We can assume that Robert Stavins prefers the scripted reality of a Hollywood 1
movie over the often frustrating complexity of political debate. In fact, when it 2
comes to global climate politics, Bruce Willis is nowhere in sight. This leaves us 3
with some important questions. Who could the enlightened leaders be? And, 4
where would it lead us if we would surrender democratic rules in order to let 5
‘enlightened leaders’ take over? 6
In order to answer these questions we will advance our argument in four 7
steps: first we’ll investigate the relation between scientific knowledge and pol- 8
itics, for scientific experts are instrumental for the enlightenment of leaders, or 9
could become such leaders themselves. We will then outline the historical roots 10
of the inherent tension between the inclusiveness and quality of democratic 11
decision-making to explain (third) the ‘discreet charm’ of expert rule today. 12
Finally, we will point at the problems at risk to indicate the obvious faults of the 13
assertion of an inconvenient democracy. 14
15
16
Scientific knowledge and politics
17
A suitable starting point for investigating the interplay of scientific knowledge 18
and political decision-making is to focus on the evolution of the social sciences. 19
When in the 19th and early 20th century the ‘social sciences’ emerged and dif- 20
ferentiated themselves from the humanities, the vanishing point usually was the 21
natural sciences (Ruser, 2016). August Comte, for instance envisioned a ‘social 22
physics’ rather than sociology. The explicit aim was to subject ‘social phe- 23
nomena, like all others, to invariable natural laws (…) in other words, introduc- 24
ing into the study of social phenomena the same positive spirit which has 25
regenerated each other branch of human speculation’ (Comte, 1855, p. 455). 26
However, since then scholars have tended to emphasise theoretical and epis- 27
temological dissimilarities and differences between the social and the natural 28
sciences (see Snow, 1959). Consequentially most social scientists today are 29
reluctant to make statements about future economic, political and social con- 30
ditions (which at one time were taken to be part and parcel of genuine social 31
science discourse, see Elias, 1987). 32
Modern social scientists have good reasons for their reservations. From the per- 33
spective of philosophy of science, insightful contributions like Robert K. Merton’s 34
‘The self-fulfilling prophecy’ (1948) have revealed that sociological description (of 35
trends) bears the risk of prescribing future developments (Ruser, 2015a). The inter- 36
play between social scientific expertise and public deliberation and decision obvi- 37
ously evades simple conceptions of ‘speaking truth to power’ (Wildavsky, 1979). 38
However, we are confronted with a new situation. Anthropogenic climate 39
change represents a global challenge that transgresses national and disciplinary 40
boundaries alike. Since the 1970s most of the scientific discourse has been 41
devoted to establishing the phenomenon. Now that the phenomenon has been 42
established,3 discussion, as the most recent Assessment Report of the IPCC 43
(2014) demonstrates, focuses on ways of averting or reducing the impact of 44
climate change. Still in the doghouse of the climate change discussion is the 45

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 Climate change, governance and knowledge 17
1 issue of adaption and, significantly, governing (or coping) with the future con-
2 sequences of climate change. It is precisely because the governance of climate
3 change is highly dependent on scientific expertise and has major social, political
4 and economic implications that many people who ‘have the facts’ grow increas-
5 ingly impatient with national and international politics, which fall short of the
6 ‘necessary’ climate objectives. Is it time for scientists to become less reluctant?
7 Should expert knowledge trump public sentiment to overcome cumbersome
8 debates and allow the problem to be tackled?
9 As noted above, circumstances are ‘extraordinary dangers’. Normally, in
10 everyday life in modern society the layperson has but few encounters with, or
11 searches for, novel knowledge claims that prompt the actor to critically reflect
12 on the validity of the claim or question the authority of the expertise of the actor
13 advancing the claim. It is of course not ruled out completely that conflicts
14 emerge in such everyday contexts and searches for knowledge. But such con-
15 flicts tend to be extraordinary. Often, such conflicts are resolved by appealing to
16 the normality of the case (for example, the overwhelming evidence) under
17 dispute. In the case of climate change, and especially its likely consequences, we
18 are confronted with entirely different assertions. Except for reference to singular
19 historical events, for example war, there are no normal experiences to which the
20 claims can appeal, as would be the case, say, in evidence-based medicine. gov-
21 erning the consequences of climate change relates to a time scale and societal
22 transformations that are beyond the imagination essential to cope with everyday
23 life. This implies that the relation between scientific knowledge and power
24 demands particular attention: specialised knowledge that advances claims about
25 far-reaching (political) consequences and makes statements about a distant future
26 directly affect the authority of contemporary (political and/or economic) elites.
27 At least in democratic systems ‘climate expertise’ is inevitably political. Scient-
28 ific knowledge claims can augment or undermine the authority of power elites
29 and electorates alike. Climate knowledge is at the same time a strategic resource
30 and a serious threat depending on one’s position on the political spectrum.
31
32
The inherent tension between participation and expertise
33
34 Voices ready to sacrifice democratic rights and liberties in the face of urgent
35 societal problems are nothing new. Democratic deliberation and universal suf-
36 frage have frequently been called into question, when pressing issues demanded
37 quick and, above all, ‘the right’ decisions.4 The underlying assumption is that in
38 a situation of crisis one cannot afford to make uninformed decisions. However,
39 as John Adams noted: ‘public information cannot keep pace with the facts’
40 (Adams cited in Powell, 1951, p. 531). In different historical context, decades
41 ago, the economist Friedrich Hayek, ([1960] 2006, p. 25) pointed to the paradox-
42 ical development with respect to the relation of knowledge and liberty that tends
43 to follow scientific advances; scientists, as well as others, labour under the
44 illusion that the volume of our ignorance is steadily diminishing with the
45 advance of knowledge. This tends to strengthen that view that we should ‘aim at

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 18 N. Stehr and A. Ruser
more deliberate and comprehensive control of all human activities’. Hayek pes- 1
simistically adds, ‘It is for this reason that those intoxicated by the advance of 2
knowledge so often become the enemies of freedom.’ 3
It is important to note that ‘enemies of freedom’ must not be hostile to civil 4
liberties per se. Rather, it is the circumstances that call for bold and decisive 5
action, even if this means (temporarily) suspending basic democratic rights. This 6
line of argumentation derives from Isaiah Berlin’s ([1958] 1969, p. 134) 7
comment that if those who disagree were only more enlightened – that is, pre- 8
pared to take on board the ‘objective’ framing of options – [those] individuals 9
and groups would pursue the same course of action. As Berlin therefore stresses, 10
such a state of affairs ‘renders it easy for me to conceive of myself as coercing 11
others for their own sake, in their, not my, interest. I am then claiming that I 12
know what they truly need better than they know it themselves.’ If people would 13
only understand the causation and the consequences of climate change, they 14
surely would make the inevitable choice to back the goals and policies of global 15
climate politics. What could be wrong with an enlightened elite making deci- 16
sions, if they in fact do know better? 17
As said above, the conviction that knowledgeable people are better equipped 18
to ensure proper government and should, therefore, be allowed to act on behalf 19
of the less educated is not new. In fact, even one of the most prominent figure- 20
heads of liberal thinking, John Stuart Mill shared this point of view. In his 21
thoughts on Representative Government (1861) he directly links suffrage to the 22
(lack of ) intelligence and education, claiming that well-educated voters are better 23
suited to act on behalf of the uneducated mass: 24
25
The opinions and wishes of the poorest and rudest class of labourers may be 26
very useful as one influence among others on the minds of the voters, as 27
well as on those of the Legislature; and yet it might be highly mischievous 28
to give them the preponderant influence by admitting them, in their present 29
state of morals and intelligence, to the full exercise of the suffrage. 30
(Mill, 1861, p. 129) 31
32
It is important to stress that the notion of an ‘inconvenient democracy’ is linked 33
to disenchantment with global climate politics. It is equally important to 34
emphasise that this line of argumentation has a much longer history. 35
Nevertheless, the urgency and the magnitude of the problem understandably 36
worry climate scientists all over the world. The renowned climatologist Hans- 37
Joachim Schellnhuber (2011)5 for instance, is concerned with the progress of 38
global climate politics because ‘my own experience and everyday knowledge 39
illustrate that comfort and ignorance are the biggest flaws of human character. 40
This is a potentially deadly mix.’ In other words, there are considerable obstacles 41
which prevent ‘the people’ from taking on board the ‘objective’ framing of 42
options as longed for by Berlin. 43
So far, voices advocating more technocratic decision-making on climate pol- 44
itics have been only marginal. A notable exception is Evelyn Fox Keller (2010), 45

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 Climate change, governance and knowledge 19
1 who made the strong case for an immediately effective political role for climate
2 science, given the seriousness of the problem of global warming:
3
4 there is no escaping our dependence on experts; we have no choice but to
5 call on those (in this case, our climate scientists) who have the necessary
6 expertise.… Furthermore, for the particular task of getting beyond our
7 current impasse, I also suggest that climate scientists may be the only ones
8 in a position to take the lead. Finally, given the tacit contract between scien-
9 tists and the state which supports them on the other, I will also argue that
10 climate scientists are not only in a position to take the lead, but also that
11 they are obliged to do so.
12 (Keller, 2010, 2011)6
13
14
From discomfort with democracy to an inconvenient
15
democracy?
16
17 To say that technocracy isn’t widely embraced doesn’t imply that there is no
18 criticism of how democratic systems have dealt with the challenge of anthropo-
19 genic climate change so far. Moderate critics point towards the ‘tendency (…) to
20 present (…) preferred “facts” and associated policy as true and obvious’ (Lahsen,
21 2005, p. 141), thus questioning the compatibility of climate science research and
22 democratic decision-making. Likewise, uncritical appraisal of democracy as
23 guaranteeing political participation is rejected as a ‘tendency to celebrate “civil
24 society” without attending to the role of power inequalities’ (Lahsen, 2005,
25 p. 159). The capacity of democracies to address climate change is, from the per-
26 spective of these moderate critics, limited by two aspects: (1) the difficulty in
27 feeding scientific expertise into the political process and (2) the concealment of
28 power inequalities.
29 More fundamental critics deny democratic systems’ ability to cope with
30 global climate change altogether: according to Shearman and Smith (2007) there
31 is ‘much evidence to suggest that liberal democracy – the meshing of liberalism
32 and democracy – is the core ideology responsible for the environmental crisis’
33 (Shearman & Smith, 2007, p. 12). Shearman and Smith argue that democratic
34 institutions are by design incapable of dealing with crisis; that is, to provide
35 working solutions when quick and determined decision is needed (ibid., p. 15).
36 Is the progress of knowledge, especially rapid advances, indeed a burden on
37 an inclusive democracy, civil society and the capacity of the individual to assert
38 his or her will? If there is a contradiction between knowledge and democratic
39 processes, is it a new development, or is the advance of liberal democracies co-
40 determined by the joint force of knowledge and democratic political conduct that
41 enable one to claim that civil society, if not democracy, is the daughter of know-
42 ledge? Is it perhaps a naive faith in knowledge that propels such a conviction?
43 In short, the tension between what would appear to be the growing utilisation
44 of specialised knowledge in governance in knowledge societies and democratic
45 governance is the theme of our contribution. We cannot claim to have a solution

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 20 N. Stehr and A. Ruser
to a conceivable irreconcilability between democracy and specialised know- 1
ledge. The two problems posed by moderate critics cannot be solved and deserve 2
particular attention in any study on climate politics. However, we reject the 3
fundamental criticism denying democratic institutions any problem-solving 4
capacity. This means we reject the thesis of an inconvenient democracy. 5
Throughout modern history, one encounters assertions about a withering 6
away of politics and the substitution for the reign of power of men over men 7
with the authority of scientific knowledge. Without identifying himself with the 8
position in question, the economist Frank H. Knight (1949, p. 271) refers to a 9
naive positivistic conception of the relation between scientific knowledge and 10
societal problems that is repeated many times in the context under discussion: 11
‘Science has demonstrated its capacity to solve problems, and we need only 12
understand that those of the social order are of the same kind.’ 13
With the emergence of urgent global environmental problems, a new vision 14
or a recall of an old vision for the role of scientific knowledge in political gov- 15
ernance is becoming evident. The grand vision for the new political role of sci- 16
entific knowledge is, in turn, linked to a broad disenchantment about the 17
practical efficacy of democracy; the conviction that the public is unable to com- 18
prehend the nature of the problems faced by humankind, but also a misconcep- 19
tion about the societal role of knowledge, in particular scientific knowledge. 20
As a result, convictions expressed about the fundamental deficiency of demo- 21
cratic governance – in light of the profound problems humankind faces and must 22
deal with – stand in essential contradiction to another form of alarm and strong 23
doubt expressed about threats to democracy posed by experts, the very experts 24
who warn humankind and policy-makers about the dangers to modern societies 25
by global warming (see Stehr 2016, p. 202). 26
There is a parallel justification for ‘the power of superior (objective) know- 27
ledge’ and the legitimacy of decisions supported by and derived from such 28
knowledge. Part of such a justification is, for example, a specific understanding 29
of the function of the institution of the state. The famous French sociologist 30
Emile Durkheim refers to this convergence of political legitimacy and know- 31
ledge when he remarks: 32
33
If the State does no more than receive individual ideas and volitions to find 34
out which are more widespread and ‘in the majority’, as it is called, it can 35
bring no contribution truly its own to the life of society.… The role of the 36
State, in fact, is not to express and sum up the unreflective thoughts of the 37
mass of the people but to superimpose on this unreflective thought a more 38
considered thought, which therefore cannot be other than different. 39
(Durkheim [1950] 1992, p. 92) 40
41
Contemporary considerations in the 1920s and 1930s about science, and the ade- 42
quacy and capacity of democratic governance to cope with the rapid advance of 43
scientific knowledge, the accumulation of urgent societal problems, the spread of 44
totalitarian governments and the rapid rise of the complexity of the world as a 45

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 Climate change, governance and knowledge 21
1 result of the growing size of the population, resonate with today’s discussions
2 about the global environmental problems and the capacity of democracy to ade-
3 quately respond. Some scientists in those days, not only Marxists, were prepared
4 to accept, even urge, a stronger regulation of society in the face of massive social
5 and economic problems and hence are prepared to sacrifice some democratic
6 rights.
7 Today, activist climate scientists, politicians and many other observers agree
8 that the previous climate summits in Copenhagen, Cancun, Durban and Warsaw
9 were failures. The summits did not result in a new global agreement to cope with
10 the emissions of greenhouse gases. In the aftermath of these failures, the summit
11 in Paris in the fall of 2015 was increasingly described as a decisive moment in
12 global climate politics. Stakes were high, as were the fears of a renewed failure:
13
14 It’s Paris or bust. Climate diplomats are preparing for a United Nations
15 climate conference in the French capital in December that scientists say is
16 probably the last realistic chance for the world to prevent global warming
17 going beyond 2 degrees Celsius.
18 (Pearce, 2015)
19
20 Accordingly, many observers breathed a sigh of relief when the ‘Paris Agree-
21 ment’ was adopted on 12 December 2015. The Guardian celebrated the agree-
22 ment as the ‘world’s greatest diplomatic success’ (Harvey, 2015).
23 If Hollywood had scripted the Paris negotiations, the successful adoption of
24 the Paris Agreement would indicate not the happy ending, but the moment when
25 scepticism is cast aside and the hero gets the phone call.
26
27
An inconvenient democracy? Maybe
28
29 Unfortunately, the Paris Agreement might not even indicate a turning point in
30 global climate politics at all. Donald Trump’s announcement that the United
31 States would withdraw from the Agreement in June 2017 provoked criticism of
32 the decision and declarations of commitment to fighting human-made climate
33 change from inside and outside the US. Jerry Brown, governor of California, a
34 strong supporter of climate policies, ranted about Trump’s decision even before
35 it was officially announced, adding that ‘you can’t fight reality with a tweet’
36 (Chaitin, 2017). Likewise, the newly elected French President Emanuel Macron,
37 paraphrasing Trump’s campaign slogan, defended the Paris Agreement by
38 issuing a call to ‘Make our Planet great Again’ (Abrams, 2017).
39 Yet it remains to be seen whether the Trump administration’s solo-run indi-
40 cates just a reshuffling of climate alliances, with China and potentially India
41 stepping in and accepting bigger roles in climate politics, or whether the with-
42 drawal of one of the biggest polluters will put the whole international climate
43 agenda in jeopardy. One must not forget that a mere two months after the agree-
44 ment was adopted; that is, long before Trump took office, the tone already began
45 to change:

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 22 N. Stehr and A. Ruser
Euphoria about the diplomatic success gave way to skepticism if the deal 1
will actually have real political power to initiate ambitious climate policy 2
worldwide that can prevent dangerous levels of climate change. 3
(Brauers & Richter, 2016, p. 1) 4
5
Brauers and Richter continue to analyse the conditionalities of the Paris Agreement 6
(Brauers & Richter, 2016, pp. 2–4). They conclude that the Paris Agreement 7
‘should not be seen as reaching the goal, but rather as a starting signal for an 8
increase in the global ambition to prevent climate change to reach dangerous levels’ 9
(ibid., p. 5). One reason for the somewhat cautious optimism is the ‘question of 10
legal bindingness’ (ibid., p. 3) and the problem of ‘objectively’ judging the quality 11
of expert advice. In short, the two problems formulated by moderate critics remain. 12
The two dimensions crystallise when it comes to the future role of markets. It 13
is decisions on energy resources that will fuel economic development. Likewise 14
economic expertise – in favour of or opposing decarbonisation – and climate 15
expertise remain likely battlegrounds for future decision-making on global 16
climate politics. 17
We can glean some insight into these questions via the work of the renowned 18
American economist and political scientist Charles E. Lindblom (1995), who 19
examined the complex interrelations between knowledge, markets and demo- 20
cracy. These interrelations are just as relevant today, and not just because of the 21
serious effects of the recent financial and economic crisis. 22
As anthropogenic climate change aptly demonstrates, the supposed virtues of 23
a free market can easily be questioned. Apparently unrestrained liberal markets 24
couldn’t prevent global greenhouse gas emissions from mounting, and creating 25
problems that might well spiral out of control. Unsurprisingly, policy-makers 26
and climate scientists alike have made proposals to fence market freedom in 27
order to limit its ability to externalise the costs for environmental problems, the 28
most prominent example being carbon pricing (Kossoy, Peszko, Oppermann, 29
Prytz, Klein, Blok et al., 2015). Another example of pronounced scepticism 30
towards the virtues of the ‘invisible hand’ can, for instance, be found in the 31
Fourth Carbon Budget: Reducing Emissions through the 2020s (Committee on 32
Climate Change, December 2010) of the official UK Committee on Climate 33
Change (CCC). Commissioned to advise on how to reach the ambiguous target 34
in reducing emissions, the Committee expresses its doubt about the capacity of 35
an ‘unrestrained’ market to bring about such goals. It therefore advocates the 36
return to elements of ‘political planning’. The report states with respect to the 37
electricity market of the future in the UK that: 38
39
[c]urrent market arrangements are highly unlikely to deliver required invest- 40
ments in low-carbon generation.… given the need to decarbonise the power 41
sector and the long lead-times for low-carbon investments, reform of the 42
current market arrangements to include a system of tendered long-term con- 43
tracts is an urgent priority. 44
(Committee on Climate Change, 2010, p. 239) 45

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 Climate change, governance and knowledge 23
1 It must be noted that the Committee takes no anti-market positions, but rather
2 argues in favour of steering the (electricity) markets towards more sustainable
3 modes of production. Critics might notice the striking similarity between the
4 steering and restricting of the markets and the provision of subsidies for indus-
5 tries that are likely to be affected by climate politics. It remains questionable
6 whether democracies would be capable of enforcing policies against markets to
7 force climate-friendly transition.
8 Moreover, much less common is an open and explicit expression of doubt
9 about the virtues of democracy. In particular, it has traditionally been the case
10 that scientists have rarely raised serious misgivings in public about democracy
11 as a political system.
12 But could this change? What if the Paris Agreement fails to be the much-
13 expected breakthrough? What if the example of the US encourages other coun-
14 tries to deviate from the political guidelines and targets agreed upon in the Paris
15 Agreement? Such developments can become increasingly problematic for demo-
16 cracies. When climate politics are easily thwarted by the (impulsive) political
17 decisions of elected representatives and climate policy change that could come a
18 whole election cycle away, trust in the capacity of democratic institutions to
19 deliver timely and lasting solutions may be weakened.
20 In such a situation, the above-mentioned David Shearman and Joseph Wayne
21 Smith might reaffirm their claim that ‘[w]e need an authoritarian form of gov-
22 ernment in order to implement the scientific consensus on greenhouse gas emis-
23 sions’ (cited in grundmann & Stehr, 2012, p. 182) and reinforce their conclusion
24 that ‘humanity will have to trade its liberty to live as it wishes in favor of a
25 system where survival is paramount’ (Shearman & Smith, 2007, p. 4). Mark
26 Beeson takes the argument even further and adds that ‘forms of “good” authori-
27 tarianism, in which environmentally unsustainable forms of behaviour are simply
28 forbidden, may become not only justifiable, but essential for the survival of
29 humanity in anything approaching a civilized form’ (Beeson, 2010). Should we
30 conclude that authoritarian states such as China, for example, will become the
31 role models of authoritarian environmentalism (gilley, 2012)?
32 Indeed, it remains to be seen whether the Paris Agreement will be able to
33 reconcile frustrated climate scientists like James Lovelock. In his 2009 The Van-
34 ishing Face of Gaia, he emphasises that we need to abandon democracy in order
35 to meet the challenges of climate change head on. We are in a state of war. In
36 order to pull the world out of its state of lethargy, a Churchillian global warming
37 speech offering ‘nothing but blood, toil, tears and sweat’ (Lovelock, 2009,
38 pp. 31–32) is urgently needed.
39 The dominant political approach concentrates almost to the exclusion of other
40 forms and conditions of action, on a single effect that governance ought to
41 achieve, namely a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. By focusing on the
42 goals of political action rather than its conditions, the contentious issue of
43 climate change is reduced from a socio-political issue to a scientific or technical
44 one. In consequence climate politics become depoliticised (that is, the scope
45 of political alternatives is reduced to ‘right’ and ‘irresponsible’ decisions

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 24 N. Stehr and A. Ruser
respectively), which in turn leads to a politicisation of climate science (since sci- 1
entific findings compel political action). Sheila Jasanoff (2012, p. 1) asserts that 2
support for such a conversion comes with the societal ascendency of science and 3
technology generally: issues ‘that matter to the public have been prematurely 4
taken out of politics’. Another significant outcome of the depoliticisation of 5
climate discourse is to more or less openly insist and declare that the social sci- 6
ences are irrelevant to climate discourse. 7
8
9
An inconvenient technocracy? Without a doubt
10
Democratically organised societies are too cumbersome to avoid climate change; 11
they do not act in a timely fashion, nor are they responsive in the necessary com- 12
prehensive manner. The ‘big decisions’ that have to be taken in the case of 13
climate change require a strong state. The endless debate should end. We have to 14
act – that is the most important message. What better solution than to hand over 15
decision-making to experts, right? 16
In this final section we outline that democracy, as inconvenient and frustrat- 17
ing as it can sometimes be, is always preferable to expert rule and technocratic 18
decision-making. We will not root the superiority of democratic processes in 19
normative assumption, but will link it to specific response capacities built in the 20
democratic system. To develop our argument, we will compare technocratic and 21
democratic decision-making along three dimensions reflecting the alleged short- 22
comings of democracy. 23
First, we are informed that, in recent years, the robustness and the consensus 24
in the science community about human-caused climate change has not only 25
increased in strength, but a growing number of studies point to far more dra- 26
matic and long-lasting consequences of global warming than previously thought. 27
Moreover, it is highly likely that the sophistication and depth of our knowledge 28
about global and regional climates will substantially increase in the next decades. 29
Under such circumstances, how is it possible, many scientists ask, that such 30
evidence does not motivate political action in societies around the world? 31
Could this problem be averted in a technocratic system? The answer is no, for 32
the problem of selecting the ‘right’ expert would remain. Over the past decade, 33
publications by climate sceptics and efforts to undermine climate science have 34
also increased (Oreskes & Conway, 2010; Dunlap & Jacques, 2013). The 35
(in)famous climate deniers of the Heartland Institute issue policy papers denying 36
that climate change is a problem and claiming that there is no consensus among 37
climate scientists (see: www.heartland.org/issues/environment). At the same 38
time the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) 39
seeks to establish itself as a reliable source for scientific expertise by publishing 40
reports which find that ‘Nature not human activity rules the climate’ (see: http:// 41
climatechangereconsidered.org/about-nipcc/). 42
Outside of the US, these attempts to establish climate-sceptic counter- 43
expertise have not been very successful. However, the selection bias towards 44
‘mainstream’ climate science is by no means a ‘natural’ result. Instead we have 45

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 Climate change, governance and knowledge 25
1 to identify the selection problem as the main weakness of any technocratic
2 system. It is true that scientific experts have to compete and sometimes fail to
3 gain acceptance in democratic systems. It is also true that the process of expert
4 selection and access to a wider public can be influenced (sometimes heavily) by
5 elite and economic power (Oreskes & Conway, 2010). However, expert selec-
6 tion in technocracies is completely arbitrary. Even if ‘scientific standards’ are
7 invoked there is no truly objective selection. A short example illustrates this
8 aspect: solving a financial crisis by handing over to economic experts clearly
9 would not do the job. To which expert should we turn? A representative of neo-
10 classical economics? A neo-Keynesian? A neo-Marxist? It goes without saying
11 that the different theoretical conviction of the expert would lead to mutually
12 exclusive problem definitions and result in dramatically divergent policy advice
13 (e.g. austerity measures, deficit spending or nationalisation of companies and
14 banks). The same is true for choosing the ‘right’ climate scientist. Despite a
15 general consensus among the international community of climate scientists on
16 the existence and the causes of global climate change, dissenting experts willing
17 to challenge this consensus are conveniently available, especially in the United
18 States (see Oreskes & Conway, 2010).
19 We therefore argue that the procedural dimension of the selection process, the
20 need to (publicly) justify the selection and legitimise the policies derived from
21 expert advice, is the first and most important response capacity of democratic
22 systems.
23 Second, the still-dominant approach to climate policy shows little evidence of
24 success. One result of the recent global recession was the unintended and tempo-
25 rary reduction of the increase of CO2 emissions. However, efforts to overcome
26 the crisis do not foreshadow a fundamental shift in economic policies, e.g.
27 towards post-growth strategies. On the contrary, everything is set in motion
28 worldwide for a resumption of economic growth. Jump-starting the economy
29 means that emissions will rise again. As problematic as this development is for
30 global climate politics, it indicates another response capacity of democratic
31 systems: participation by a wider public in problem selection and agenda
32 setting.
33 Critics of democracy underestimate the fact that modern societies never face
34 one challenge at a time. Instead several problems have to be weighted, balanced
35 and addressed simultaneously. Problem selection and agenda setting cannot be
36 done properly in a technocratic system, because it would pose a second-order
37 selection problem. Instead of having to select experts from within one field of
38 expertise one would have to choose which area of expertise should be activated
39 (whether to deal with the economic or the ecological problem first). Things get
40 even more complicated if one assumes that political challenges can be related or
41 even interdependent, for then experts might disagree on how a set of problems
42 relate to each other. In short, only democracies can meaningfully address the
43 problem of demand for expertise. In technocracies, the demand is either identi-
44 fied by the experts themselves (‘They tell us that we need them’) or is somehow
45 ‘given’.

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 26 N. Stehr and A. Ruser
Third, in the architecture of the reasoning of the impatient critics of demo- 1
cracy, one notes an inappropriate fusion of nature and society. The uncertainties 2
that the science of the natural processes (climate) claims to have eliminated are 3
simply transferred to the domain of societal processes. Consensus on facts, it is 4
argued, should motivate a consensus on politics. We would like to argue that one 5
of the alleged weaknesses of democratic decision-making turns out to be one of 6
its biggest advantages: political competition. While it is true that political com- 7
petition tends to be incompatible with scientific claims to truth, it is also true that 8
consensus on facts often enough does not lead to consensus on policy advice. 9
There is range of policy recommendations among climate scientists even if 10
climate sceptics remain benched. This means that even transferring power to 11
experts wouldn’t prevent debate about appropriate, preferred or ‘necessary’ 12
political action. However, it would suspend public debate on these issues, ser- 13
iously damaging the legitimacy and acceptance of political measures. 14
15
16
Conclusion
17
In this contribution, we outlined and explained the occasional uneasiness of 18
democracies in an era of anthropogenic climate change. Indeed, it is tempting to 19
envision a post-political world to deal with a global environmental crisis. 20
However, post-political governance of climate change is attached to specific 21
conditions: ‘Central to this post-political thesis is that there is a consensual 22
humanity encountering a universal human threat and that everyone is facing this 23
together’ (Urry, 2011, p. 91) We’re back in a Hollywood movie. The inevitable 24
sceptic has just been proven wrong and the camera pans out to Mr President, 25
who is about to finally call the hero. Unfortunately, the post-political thesis, as 26
presented by John Urry, is fundamentally flawed. As we have demonstrated 27
above even if there were universal consensus on facts, there need not be a result- 28
ing consensus on politics. Moreover, ‘humanity’ is far from facing a universal 29
threat from climate change. For example, the ‘Environmental Vulnerability 30
Index’, developed by the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission and the 31
United Nations Environment Programme, shows that vulnerability to climate 32
change varies between countries depending on geographic location and institu- 33
tional capacities to invest in protective measures (www.vulnerabilityindex.net). 34
For the time being climate change will remain an essentially political issue. 35
In this contribution we have made the case for democratic decision-making to be 36
the best option to deal with the global climate challenge. 37
This is not to say that democracy does not have to change in order to cope 38
with climate change. As Timothy Mitchell has aptly demonstrated, ‘[d]emocratic 39
politics developed, thanks to oil, with a peculiar orientation towards the future: 40
the future was a limitless horizon of growth’ (Mitchell, 2011, p. 253). It is likely 41
that this connection cannot be maintained; the democratic vision of the future, 42
which includes limitless fossil-fuel driven growth, cannot hold. However, Mitch- 43
ell doesn’t stop here. He continues to argue that the emergence of this particular 44
vision ‘was the result of a particular way of organizing expert knowledge and its 45

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 Climate change, governance and knowledge 27
1 objects’ (ibid.). Handing responsibility over to experts therefore wouldn’t solve the
2 problem. What is needed is a re-organisation of environmental and economic
3 expertise. As we have argued above, democratic systems are best suited to manage
4 this process of re-organisation. Due to their ‘built-in’ capacities to manage the
5 problem of (first and second order) expert selection and their capacity to guarantee
6 political competition democratic states are in the best position to ‘think ahead’
7 (giddens, 2011, p. 94) The discrete charm of authoritarian environmentalism
8 might be explained by the growing desire for ‘quick’ and ‘decisive’ action.
9 However, it is far from clear that authoritarian regimes would do better in the
10 mid- or long run. One must not forget that Western democracies took the lead in
11 the protection of the ozone layer in the 1980s, forging a mutual agreement in
12 Montreal in 1987. Also, they acted as early movers in the campaign to ban
13 leaded fuels and asbestos. Democratic regimes, at times, have demonstrated their
14 capability to deal with serious threats, forge alliances, implement national rela-
15 tions and agree on international binding regulation. To conventionalise today’s
16 China to a role model therefore is both misleading and ill-advised. Instead of
17 accusing democracy, Ulrich Beck (2008) emphasises that the flaws and short-
18 comings of climate politics can be explained by the predominance of attempts to
19 preserve established ways of living by externalising problems in space (espe-
20 cially to the poor countries in the global South) and time (postponing the solu-
21 tion until future generations have to deal with the problem). So, instead of
22 favouring authoritarian environmentalism and technocratic solutions, climate
23 science must focus on developing credible narratives on future vulnerability
24 (O’Brien & O’Keefe, 2013, p. 115) to support the development of post-normal,
25 yet democratic, risk management mechanisms.
26 Climate policy must be compatible with democracy; otherwise the threat to
27 civilisation will amount to much more than just changes to our physical environ-
28 ment. In short, the alternative to the abolition of democratic governance as the
29 effective response to the societal threats that likely come with climate change is
30 more democracy and the worldwide empowerment and enhancement of knowl-
31 edgeability of individuals, groups and movements that work on environmental
32 issues. ‘There is but one political system that is able to rationally and legiti-
33 mately cope with the divergent political interests affected by climate change and
34 that is democracy’ (Stehr, 2015, p. 450).
35
36
37 Notes
38 1 It was Niklas Luhmann ([1991] 2005, pp. 21–22) who introduced the distinction
39 between dangers and risks. Dangers refer to what individuals are exposed to due to
40 external causes such as environmental conditions; risks refer to losses as the result of
41 decisions individuals made; that is, what people chose to dare.
42 2 As quoted in Andrew Revkin, ‘A Risk Analyst Explains Why Climate Change Risk
Misperception Doesn’t Necessarily Matter’, New York Times 16 April 2014.
43 3 Although ‘climate sceptics’ are still active in public discourses and the political
44 arena in many countries among them, most prominently, the USA see Oreskes and
45 Conway, 2010.

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 28 N. Stehr and A. Ruser
4 A recent example is the ‘eurozone crisis’ in which the alleged need for ‘immediate and 1
appropriate’ responses served as a justification for the deepening of the democratic 2
deficit (Schmidt, 2015) and moves towards more technocratic decision-making (Ruser,
3
2015b).
5 The climate scientist Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, in an interview with DER SPIEGEL 4
(Issue 12, 21 March 2011, p. 29) in response to the question why the messages of 5
science do not reach society. 6
6 Keller (2010; also 2011) arrives at her conclusion about the inseparability of science 7
and politics and the political authority of climate science by suggesting that ‘where the
8
results of scientific research have a direct impact on the society in which they live, it
becomes effectively impossible for scientists to separate their scientific analysis from 9
the likely consequences of that analysis’. 10
11
12
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