8 - Arenas of interaction: social science and public policy in Switzerland

Summary

The analysis of the Dutch case by Blume et al. (chapter 7) shows a high degree of ‘interwovenness’ of government policy making and socialscience institutions. In Switzerland, the situation is quite different. The level of involvement of social-science institutions with public policy making is low. When individual social scientists give advice to government, even this is relatively rare, it is largely on the government's turf or by the government's rules.

As in other countries, specialists of various scientific disciplines are asked for advice and become involved in most of the policy-making processes on the federal level in Switzerland. The results are bidirectional. In recent decades, the ‘scientification’ of policy making has increased, given the growing complexity and quantity of state activities, especially since World War II. The ‘politicization of science’, on the other hand, is just the natural correlate to policy making becoming more ‘scientific’. Neither world, science, nor politics, can avoid a growing dependence on the other. However, the processes of ‘scientification’ and ‘politicization’ are not necessarily symmetrical. In recent years, Switzerland seems to have witnessed more of the latter than of the former. The prestige of universities and of ‘science’ have somewhat diminished and have become more amenable to political influence than was once the case.

In this chapter I present, first, the three main arenas in which most interaction between scientists and policy makers occurs, that is, the federal bureaucracy, the federal committee system, and the National Research Programmes, all three of which are linked in a multifaceted way.