Forschungsinstitut für Nachhaltigkeit Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam

Power and Truth in Science-Related Populism: Rethinking the Role of Knowledge and Expertise in Climate Politics

Populism is often characterized as a rejection of scientific expertise and a key obstacle to societies’ ability to address the climate crisis today. I challenge this account, arguing for a more inclusive conception of populism and a more critical account of expertise. Consistent with this, I delineate a range of responses to the challenges of climate politics in populist times. In doing so, I have two primary aims: first, to highlight limitations of “anti-populist” responses among proponents of climate change action, and, second, to lean into populist criticisms of elite expertise, by delineating how some challenges to dominant forms of science and elite power are themselves expert knowledge and integral to promising movements that address climate change. This can allow expertise to be distinguished from elitism and to be recognized in caring relations to the subjects of knowledge. Here, expertise is not manifest as separation from the common world, but as immersion in it.

Publikationsjahr

2023

Publikationstyp

Zitation

Meyer, J. (2024). Power and Truth in Science-Related Populism: Rethinking the Role of Knowledge and Expertise in Climate Politics. Political studies, 72(3), 845-861. doi:10.1177/00323217231160370.

DOI

10.1177/00323217231160370

Staff Involved

Share via email

Copied to clipboard

Drucken