The term transgressive competence as used by Helga Nowotny implies that many experts make decisions basing on the benefits that they will reap regardless of what their certified knowledge base recommends. The term transgressive refers to actions that involve a violation of the social and moral boundaries. On the other hand, competence is the quality of being capable, qualified or having enough knowledge, skill or judgment of a particular issue. From this definitions, it can be deduced that Helga Nowotny defines experts as individuals who have sufficient knowledge and are qualified to perform appropriately, however, many choose to be influenced by their desires and thus do not help societies in the way that is required (Nowotny, 2000: 5).
According to Nowotny’s article, “Transgressive Competence” she explains how political, legal and social authorities make decision in the name of science or rather evidence based facts but they go beyond the limits of their expert knowledge to pursue their own desires (Nowotny, 2000: 5). In her article, Sonia Sodha asserts that the anti-lockdown experts’ decisions and recommendations could have been more convincing only that majority of the information was not fully explored and lacked a sound basis. She adds that the policies that were put in place to manage covid-19, particularly the recommendations regarding the significance of changing behaviors in combating the virus were half baked and thus bad science (Sodha, 2020: Np). According to the author, the political experts who are represented as scientists or rather experts in Nowotny’s work were competent enough and knew that the decisions made were not effective, however they adopted these decisions due to shady ideological interests (Sodha, 2020: Np).
Transgressive competency in decision making structure within the western liberal democracies and the transformations in the production of knowledge hinder the authority of scientific expertise while heightening the context dependency of expertise. As a result of these influences, the decisions made are altered from the actual facts that could have brought positive changes (Nowotny, 2000: 5). Usually, many experts, inclusive of politicians have a scientific background, however, they fail to use their scientific knowledge and on the contrary, they advocate for social movements and their causes. This is an aspect that is very clear among politicians. Daniel Sarewitz’s article “The trouble with climate science” illustrates the difference between scientists’ day jobs as scientists and their roles as experts. In his article, he also shows how governments make wrong decisions and what is needed to better decisions to be reached. For instance, he provides the example of Nevada’s Yucca Mountain (Sarewitz, 2010: Np). The example of this mountain is a good illustration of experts as “transgressive competence.” The Yucca Mountain stands as one of the most studied places in the world with a lot of government money used to fund the research. However, nothing much has been attained regardless of the immense knowledge that science has provided. Even though much has been learned on this particular location, science has not been able to defeat opposition that has been driven by the locals and environmental groups. Many politicians have used the discoveries made in this mountain to grow their political careers instead of advocating for positive societal change. The mountain is a political quagmire due to the manner in which the congress rammed it down Nevada’s through in the year 1987 and not the complexity of the science involved. This example shows how politicians care about social movements and their causes thus disregarding what science informs about a subject (Sarewitz, 2010: Np).
It is apparent that scientists have failed in their roles as experts due to the influence from the society and greed for power. However, it is also clear that scientists perform quite well in their daily jobs but the discoveries fail to come to light due to their transgressive behavior that hinders their competence. There is evidence that whenever people, particularly leaders make decisions based on scientific facts, and consensus and good decisions are reached. However, many governments fail to seek expert advice appropriately due to transgressive competence. Therefore, it is appropriate to assert that transgressive competence changes how governments seek expert advice and expert advice can only be useful in the case whereby governments can be able to separate facts from values (Nowotny, 2000: 6).
The contemporary society inclusive of governments have been significantly affected by the unwelcome influence of individual values towards the role of scientific arguments in the cause of structuring daily social decisions. Nowotny (2000: 11) notes that the rise of the individual rational decision making has played a significant role in reducing the harm that is being posed by transgressive competence in governance. The growth of individual rational decision making has been fostered by the wide increase of both scientific and technological knowledge and the possibility of unprecedented types of intervention, nature manipulation and control. However, even though individual rational decision making has progressed significantly, governments still make bad choices because individualized decision making structure does not have the potential of replacing the culture of public expertise and the level of professionalism coupled up with scientific authority (Nowotny, 2000: 14).
Summing up, the provided analysis clearly shows that transgressive competence has significantly changed how governments seek expert advice. Even though many leaders and politicians are experts, they fail in their duties and responsibilities due to individual interests and values since they do not use scientific knowledge as required. On the contrary, they base their claims on scientific facts to convince people so that they can advance their political and legal abilities. There is a wide deviation between scientists in their day jobs and their roles as experts. This is an aspect that has been made evident through how many governments make decisions.
List of references
Nowotny, H. (2000). Transgressive competence: The narrative of expertise. European Journal of Social Theory, 3(1), 5-21.
Sarewitz, D. (2010). The trouble with climate science. Print.
Sodha, S. (2020). The anti-lockdown scientists’ cause would be more persuasive if it weren’t so half-baked.
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