POLITICS VERSUS SCIENCE: APPORTIONING ... - Buffalo State

To our second question—to what extent might institutional and split competencies
either enhance or diminish the effectiveness and legitimacy of food safety regulation—
we cannot offer a definitive answer. We can, however, suggest possible outcomes, one
positive and exciting, the other troubling.
Scientists, more than any other identifiable professionals, engage in the necessary
socialization and communication behavior needed to build and maintain policy networks.
In our review of the literature focusing on the sociology of science, we learned that
science is guided by a set of shared values ant that scientists form communities—
invisible colleges—in which they maintain constant communication of ideas (hunches
and discoveries) through complex and redundant communication fora and networks —
listservs, computer groupware, professional conferences and workshops, journals, and
exchanges to research institutes. Key scientists occupy central roles, training “apprentice
disciples” 27 who fill academic and government posts throughout Europe. The EFSA
takes positive advantage of these networks. To this we might add Majone’s (1997, 274)
observation that, "As the shortcomings of command-and-control regulation are revealed
by a growing body of empirical evidence, the virtues of regulation by information are
being recognized by policy-makers everywhere." The Commission has assumed the role
of translating knowledge into policy by making itself the main client of an informational
agency staffed by scientists and public health authorities (EFSA 2003).
Yet the arguments against regulation through policy networks and for an
independent regulatory agency seem equally persuasive, no less so because it is scientists
(James et al. 1999) as experienced regulators who advocated this institutional structure.
Disease has been identified as a causal factor in the centralization of government
27 Price called them “sorcerers’ apprentices.”
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