Peter Weingart

Bio: Peter Weingart is an academic researcher from Bielefeld University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Science communication & Sociology of scientific knowledge. The author has an hindex of 41, co-authored 296 publications receiving 7205 citations. Previous affiliations of Peter Weingart include Max Planck Society & Stellenbosch University.

Risks of communication: discourses on climate change in science, politics, and the mass media

Abstract: This paper summarizes the results of a research project analyzing communication about global warming among those in the fields of science, politics, and the media in Germany between 1975 and 1995. The methodology of discourse analysis has been applied to investigate the changing perceptions of climate change over time and the ways in which it became an important issue on Germany's political agenda. The first part of the paper will briefly introduce the underlying theoretical assumptions and explain the multiple steps by which data covering a period of two decades have been collected and analyzed. In the second part, the paper will provide the reader with the main research results, indicating the usefulness of distinguishing among the separate discourses on climate change in science, politics, and the mass media. The results suggest that there are specific discourse dynamics common to each of the three spheres, as well as some important disparities among them. These findings will be illustrated by a select...

Impact of bibliometrics upon the science system: Inadvertent consequences?

Abstract: Ranking of research institutions by bibliometric methods is an improper tool for research performance evaluation, even at the level of large institutions. The problem, however, is not the ranking as such. The indicators used for ranking are often not advanced enough, and this situation is part of the broader problem of the application of insufficiently developed bibliometric indicators used by persons who do not have clear competence and experience in the field of quantitative studies of science. After a brief overview of the basic elements of bibliometric analysis, I discuss the major technical and methodological problems in the application of publication and citation data in the context of evaluation. Then I contend that the core of the problem lies not necessarily at the side of the data producer. Quite often persons responsible for research performance evaluation, for instance scientists themselves in their role as head of institutions and departments, science administrators at the government level and other policy makers show an attitude that encourages 'quick and dirty' bibliometric analyses whereas better quality is available. Finally, the necessary conditions for a successful application of advanced bibliometric indicators as support tool for peer review are discussed.

Scientific expertise and political accountability: paradoxes of science in politics

Abstract: Two paradoxes form the nucleus of the problems of scientific expertise and policy-making. The first is the simultaneous scientification of politics and the politicisation of science. This has destructive effects: the increased use of scientific expertise by policy-makers has not increased the degree of certainty, in fact it becomes delegitimating. This gives rise to the second paradox: despite the loss of authority of scientific expertise, policy-makers do not abandon their reliance on existing advisory arrangements, nor do the scholars adapt their ideas on science and its relation to politics. How can this stability be achieved? How can science-politics be institutionalised? Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

From “Finalization” to “Mode 2”: old wine in new bottles?

Abstract: Discussions about “new forms of knowledge-production” refer to purportedly fundamental changes in the organization of science. A closer look reveals that these changes pertain to a particular sector of science, i.e. policy-related fields. It is suggested that a better understanding of the kind and scope of changes would be achieved by viewing them as resulting from a “scientification” of society and a correlate “politicization” of science, both of which processes signify the emergence of the knowledge society. Ironically, the “finalization thesis”, which foresaw much of this two decades ago, met with opposition, while the new claims were embraced. This is explained by the context of legitimation

Introduction: epistemic communities and international policy coordination

Abstract: The growing technical uncertainties and complexities of problems of global concern have made international policy coordination not only increasingly necessary but also increasingly difficult. If decision makers are unfamiliar with the technical aspects of a specific problem, how do they define state interests and develop viable solutions? What factors shape their behavior? Under conditions of uncertainty, what are the origins of international institutions? And how can we best study the processes through which international policy coordination and order emerge? While a variety of analytic approaches have been used to address the problems of international cooperation, the approaches have yielded only fragmentary insights. At its core, the study of policy coordination among states involves arguments about determinism versus free will and about the ways in which the international system is maintained and transformed. Among the overlapping topics of debate are whether national behavior is determined or broadly conditioned by system-level factors, unit-level factors, or some complex interplay between the two; whether state policymakers can identify national interests and behave independently of pressures from the social groups they nominally represent; and whether states respond consistently to opportunities to create, defend, or expand their own wealth and power, to enhance collective material benefits, or to promote nonmaterial values.' A related question of

The dynamics of innovation: from National Systems and

Abstract: Abstract The Triple Helix of university–industry–government relations is compared with alternative models for explaining the current research system in its social contexts. Communications and negotiations between institutional partners generate an overlay that increasingly reorganizes the underlying arrangements. The institutional layer can be considered as the retention mechanism of a developing system. For example, the national organization of the system of innovation has historically been important in determining competition. Reorganizations across industrial sectors and nation states, however, are induced by new technologies (biotechnology, ICT). The consequent transformations can be analyzed in terms of (neo-)evolutionary mechanisms. University research may function increasingly as a locus in the “laboratory” of such knowledge-intensive network transitions.

Individualization: Institutionalized Individualism and its Social and Political Consequences

Abstract: Losing the Traditional Individualization and 'Precarious Freedoms' A Life of One's Own in a Runaway World Individualization, Globalization and Politics Beyond Status and Class? The Ambivalent Social Structure Poverty and Wealth in a 'Self-Driven Culture' From 'Living for Others' to 'A Life of One's Own' Individualization and Women On the Way to the Post-Familial Family From a Community of Need to Elective Affinities Division of Labour, Self-Imaging and Life Projects New Conflicts in the Family Declining Birthrates and the Wish to Have Children Apparatuses Do Not Care for People Health and Responsibility in the Age of Genetic Technology Death of One's Own, Life of One's Own Hopes from Transience Freedom's Children Freedom's Fathers Zombie Categories Interview with Ulrich Beck