Description
This article proposes a heuristic typology to describe, categorise, and comparatively analyse the different roles which researchers and scientific experts take on vis-à-vis the policy sphere. I argue that scientists and researcher continuously adopt different roles which differ in terms of their closeness to policy/academia as well as their posture with regard to science communication. Based on this typology, I identify seven ideal types: Six of them have already been used in the scholarly literature (pure scientist, science arbiter, knowledge broker, issue advocate, stealth issue advocate, participatory expert). I further propose the consensus advocate as a seventh role. Empirically, the roles are illustrated by drawing on open text responses (n=68) from a survey among experts on climate change and arms control/disarmament as well as field notes from eight informal conversations. Unlike previous accounts, this article offers a conceptually coherent typology of roles which cover the diversity and breadth of scientific engagement in political affairs. The argument is advanced by merging insights from different disconnected strands of academic literature. Specifically, this article combines insights from role theory in sociology with empirically observed roles, or postures, in the contemporary science-policy literature. Following sociological insights, the roles are conceptualised as ideal types – not ‘real’ manifestations in their pure form – and are seen to be constructed in social interactions as an interplay of role (self-)conception, outside expectation, and role enactment. Roles are thereby necessarily dynamic and coexisting rather than fixed or mutually exclusive.
