ABSTRACT Relying on a neo-institutionalist framework of epistemic governance, this article examines the rhetorical function the term ‘science’ plays in the parliamentary discourse of seven countries. Our analysis confirms that ‘science’ is often referred to by members of parliaments throughout the world and across all policy sectors. We find ample references not just to particular sciences, but also to science in the abstract, and find hardly any contests around the mentions of science beyond technical contests around the credibility of a particular result. Our analysis reveals crucial forms of epistemic work conducted by evoking ‘science’ in the abstract. Drawing on and elaborating Durkheim’s view of morality and the framework of epistemic governance, we argue that much of the work done by references to ‘science’ can be characterised as building a moral authority of science.

Cultural approaches to national policymaking have yielded much empirical evidence that national decision-making is greatly impacted by policy choices made in other countries. Considering that the common explanation of policy diffusion cannot explain all instances of isomorphism, this paper proposes an alternative way of operationalising interdependent decision-making. Drawing on emerging work in neoinstitutionalist world society theory, we suggest that the rise of global policy models can be explained by thinking of the world polity as a synchronised system in which national states keep an eye out on each others’ moves and, often, match them. As a consequence, global models are formed in parallel with their spread. We illustrate this argument by analysing the worldwide institutionalisation of national bioethics committees (NBCs). Using qualitative analysis of official documentation on NBCs, we trace how the institution has evolved into a widely recognised and codified format in four shifts – the appearance of an institutional category, construction of the paradigmatic model, networking and consultation by international organisations. We show how this analysis corrects for the assumption of rigid policy models in most diffusion research and offers new designs for empirical research.

The aim of this paper is to make a meta-theoretical contribution to conceptions of how power and governance operate in contemporary policy-making. Most approaches to governance generally brush aside the actual mechanics of how influence is wielded and social change effected. To fill this gap we argue that society is managed increasingly through epistemic governance, which works on actors’ perceptions of the world and its current challenges. Our point is that regardless of which actors we assume to be influential in affecting public policies, they operate by utilizing a limited number of strategies, in broad paradigmatic as well as in focused practical dimensions. The epistemic work actors are engaged in focuses on three aspects of the social world: (1) ontology of the environment, (2) actor identifications, and (3) norms and ideals, or constructions of what the world is, who we are, and what is good or desirable. As such, we suggest ways to move beyond more or less structuralist explanations of sources and forms of power to reveal the strategies of power at play in attempts to influence policy change in the contemporary world.