Alexander Bogner

The Theory-Generating Expert Interview: Epistemological Interest, Forms of Knowledge, Interaction

Expert interviews are a good example of the way in which the everyday practice of social research and theoretical consideration of this practice do not always run parallel to one another. The use of particular methods sometimes precedes their general theoretical reflection. For many years, the widely held view was that expert interviews were conducted frequently but only rarely thought through (Meuser and Nagel, 1991). Only in recent years has the debate about expert interviews gradually become more concrete (see Bogner and Menz, 2008). However, this has certainly not led to a situation in which the different definitions and methodological conceptions of expert interviews have moved closer together. Even today there are disputes not only about how expert interviews can be placed on a secure methodological footing, but also about whether this is even possible in principle.

Das theoriegenerierende Experteninterview

Experteninterviews sind ein anschauliches Beispiel dafur, dass die Alltagspraxis empirischer Sozialforschung und deren methodische Reflexion nicht immer parallel verlaufen. Manchmal ist die Anwendung bestimmter Methoden ihrer theoretischen Durchdringung voraus. Oder mit anderen Worten: Experteninterviews werden oft gemacht, aber selten durchdacht Obwohl die Bedeutung von Expertenwissen beider reflexiven Umgestaltung moderner Industriegesellschaften kaum umstritten ist (vgl. Beck 1986; Giddens 1995; Bauman 1995: 239ff.), die Literatur zu Expertenbegriff und Expertenstatus in den verschiedenen Teilarenen sozialwissenschaftlicher Forschung stetig anwachst1 und das Experteninterview als Methode der Datenproduktion ohnehin langst eine prominente Rolle spielt, etwa im Rahmen industrie- und bildungssoziologischer, aber auch politologischer und padagogischer Fragestellungen2, wird die methodische Reflexion auch heute nicht zuden vordringlichen Aufgaben gerechnet. Keineswegs soll bestritten werden, dass in den letzten Jahren einzelne aus der jeweiligen Forschungspraxis angeregte Aufsatze mit unterschiedlichen Stosrichtungen und Systematisierungsinteressen publiziert wurden.3Eingang in Methodenlehrbucher haben derartige Uberlegungen bisher jedoch nicht gefunden.4

The Paradox of Participation Experiments

An ongoing trend in technology policy has been to advocate participation. However, the author claims that lay citizens’ participation typically materializes in the form of a laboratory experiment at present. That is, lay participation as currently organized by professional participation experts under controlled conditions rarely is linked to public controversies, to the pursuit of political participation or to individual concerns. Derived from qualitative research on two citizen conferences, the author shows empirically that in practice, this laboratory participation leads to paradoxical effects: successfully carrying out the experiment results in a systematic disappointment of the hope for gains in rationality typically attached to lay participation. Finally, the author relates this result to sociological debates about new modes of knowledge production. Under such a perspective, the author sees a paradoxical development: while society at large is becoming a laboratory in which knowledge is produced, participation practice is retreating from society into the lab.

Introduction: Expert Interviews — An Introduction to a New Methodological Debate

Before we go any further, we would like to begin by providing the reader with a step-by-step introduction to the methodological debate surrounding expert interviews. In doing so, we will start with a brief discussion of the generally accepted advantages and risks of expert interviews in research practice (1). We will follow this by outlining current trends in the sociological debate regarding experts and expertise, since expert interviews are — at least on the surface — defined by their object, namely the expert (2). We will then conclude with a look at the current methodological debate regarding expert interviews, an overview of the layout and structure of this book, as well as summaries of the 12 articles it contains (3).

How Politics Deals with Expert Dissent: The Case of Ethics Councils

Over recent years, science and technology have been reassessed increasingly in ethical terms. Particularly for life science governance, ethics has become the dominant discourse. In the course of this ‘‘ethical turn’’ national ethics councils were set up throughout Europe and in the United States to advice politics in ethically controversial issues such as stem cell research and genetic testing. Ethics experts have become subject to traditional warnings against expertocracy: they are suspected to unduly influence political decision-making. However, any reliable ethics expertise has to reflect societal disagreements in moral issues. Therefore, expert dissent is a normal feature of legitimate ethics expertise. Based on theoretical considerations we argue that in principle, expert dissent does not cause problems for political legitimacy; rather, it enhances the salience of politics: obviously decisions on ethical issues cannot be taken on the basis of expert knowledge alone. We therefore conclude that expert dissent, not consent, supports politics. Focussing on Germany and Austria, we show how politics deal with expert dissent in practice. While in Germany politics acknowledge dissent and use it to foster a fundamental political debate, Austrian politics attribute authoritative power to ethics expertise and try to construct an overall consensus. This illustrates how the drawing of boundaries between politic and expertise differs.

Expertenwissen und Forschungspraxis: die modernisierungstheoretische und die methodische Debatte um die Experten

Experteninterviews1 erfreuen sich in der Sozialforschung groser Beliebtheit. So gibt es wohl nur wenige empirische Untersuchungen, die nicht an irgendeinem Punkt des Forschungsprozesses auf das mittels Interviews erhobene Wissen spezifischer, fur das Fach- und Themengebiet als relevant erachteter Akteure zuruckgreifen. Auch wenn im Einzelfall stark variiert, welche Stellung die Experteninterviews im Forschungsdesign haben, wie die Interviews konkret gestaltet werden und nach welchen Methoden die Auswertung erfolgt — es lassen sich verschiedene gemeinsame forschungspraktische Grunde fur die Beliebtheit des Experteninterviews angeben.

Bioethical Controversies and Policy Advice: The Production of Ethical Expertise and its Role in the Substantiation of Political Decision-Making

In: Maasen, Sabine; Weingart, Peter (Hrsg.), Democratization of Expertise? Exploring Novel Forms of Scientific Advice in Political Decision-Making; Dordrecht: Springer, S. 21-40 At the beginning of 2002 the German parliament took a decision on the permissibility of embryonic research. The compromise reached had neither the compelling logic of the liberal position nor the moral consistency of the opponents of research involving the destruction of human embryos: it allows research on imported embryonic stem cells which originated before January 2002. The decision was preceded by a public discussion in talk shows and newspapers where, for a long period before the funda- mental political decision, the most important arguments and positions on the question of the ethical legitimacy of stem cell research were debated. At the end of November 2001 the recommendations of the ethics councils were made available. The Natio- naler Ethikrat (National Ethics Council) and the Enquete-Kommission ‘Recht und Ethik in der modernen Medizin’ (Study Commission on Law and Ethics in Modern Medicine) expressed the anticipated dissent in the commissions by formulating diver- gent positions and documenting them in separate votes. A similar situation occurred a little later in Austria. At about the same time as the German National Ethics Council was being established, the Austrian chancellor convened a bioethics commission which drew up a statement on stem cell research. As in the German case, competing positions were expressed and documented. On the basis of this example of ‘ethical assistance’ to political decision-makers, we discuss in this chapter the following questions: Can one identify a social meaning of the advice provided by expert commissions under conditions of the absence of clarity? Or, more generally: What does the “new institutionalisation of morality” (Kuhlmann 2002) mean for the relationship between expertise and politics? And what follows from the disagreement of the commissions’ experts for the legitimation of political decision-making? Our chapter, dealing with this „new complexity in the relationship between sci- ence and politics“ (Weingart 2001a: 80), is structured in two sections. In the first section, against the background of the sociological tradition, we critically address the basic assumptions of the theory of reflexive modernisation concerning the role of expert knowledge in the face of new risks. In the second section we outline, in the form of a series of theses, some findings of our qualitative interviews with members of the Austrian Bioethics Commission.

Different ways of problematising biotechnology – and what it means for technology governance

To understand controversies over technologies better, we propose the concept of ‘problematisation’. Drawing on Foucault’s idea of problematisation and on the concept of frames in media research, we identify characteristic forms of problematising biotechnology in pertaining controversies, typically emphasising ethical, risk or economic aspects. They provide a common basis for disputes and allow participants to argue effectively. The different forms are important for how controversies are negotiated, which experts get involved, what role public engagement plays and how political decisions are legitimised – in short, for technology governance. We develop a heuristic for analysing the link between forms of problematisation and different options for technology governance. Applied to synthetic biology, we discuss different problematisations of this technology and the implications for governance.

Moralische Expertise? Zur Produktionsweise von Kommissionsethik

Moralische Expertise ist heute Privatsache und offentliche Angelegenheit zugleich. Der anhaltende Trend zur Ethik stellt sich als eine paradoxe Entwicklung dar.

Sozialwissenschaftliche Expertiseforschung Zur Einleitung in ein expandierendes Forschungsfeld

Aller modernen Wissenschafts- und Expertenskepsis zum Trotz ist wissenschaftliche Expertise nach wie vor die wichtigste Ressource fur die Politik, wenn es um riskante und kontroverse Entscheidungen geht. Von der Arbeitsmarkt- und Sozialpolitik bis hin zu Bildungs- und Wirtschaftsfragen gibt es kaum einen Bereich, in dem zur Information und Legitimation von Entscheidungen nicht in irgendeiner Form wissenschaftliche Expertise mobilisiert wurde. Insbesondere in Umwelt- und Technologiekonflikten, die in diesem Buch im Vordergrund stehen, spielen Experten eine zentrale Rolle.