Abstract
For many years now, there has been a vivid debate on contemporary forms of articulating epistemic critique, especially concerning the peer review mechanism but also dealing with fund mechanisms and, in some cases, focusing on book reviews. As reviews become more frequent and continue to exert considerable infl uence on the political landscape of academia, it is increasingly apparent that a fundamental understanding of the internal structure of articulating epistemic critique long overdue. Against this background, the aim of this article is to put forward two arguments. First, we argue these forms of articulating critique should be distinguished in regard to their distinctive characteristics and respective relations to academia as a whole. In doing so, we construct a research heuristic based on two dimensions, the opportunity to participate and the opportunity to react. Second, in response to an ongoing debate in Critical Policy Studies we conducted a small explorative empirical case study about on how scientific critique is articulated in book reviews. Besides providing a new overall perspective on how to categorize these forms of critique we found notable diff erences corresponding to the varied characteristics of the publication process in two disciplines (sociology/chemistry). We identified three dimensions as central for determining the quality of the expressed critique. As these differences might be related with underlying types of scientifi c communication, we fi nally argue that there is a necessity to take a closer look at how confi gurations of the diff erent forms of scientifi c critique should be analysed and to address these in their full scope as ‘cultures of critique’.
Highlights
For many years there has been a vivid debate on contemporary forms of articulating epistemic critique, especially concerning the peer review mechanism and dealing with fund mechanisms and, in some cases, focusing on book reviews
Within the last 20 years the system of articulating critique within science has undergone fundamental changes. These changes are mainly related to debates about the political reorganization of science, the call for output evaluation of science for allocating resources, the flaws of peer review under the influence of economic or political interests or the critique articulated by scientists themselves who are concerned about the changes in peer-review processes that are currently taking place
In light of these circumstances, we would like to put the argument forward that an analysis of the changes within the system of ‘organized skepticism’ has to take a closer look at the different ways that epistemic critique is articulated and it has to interpret these as a complex set, taking the ways they might interact with each other into account as well
Summary
Within the last 20 years the system of articulating critique within science has undergone fundamental changes. We can observe an important lag and one-sidedness of the scientific debate as it mainly focuses on peer review In light of these circumstances, we would like to put the argument forward that an analysis of the changes within the system of ‘organized skepticism’ has to take a closer look at the different ways that epistemic critique is articulated and it has to interpret these as a complex set, taking the ways they might interact with each other into account as well. We will offer empirical proof of relevance by examining book reviews as one important but not widely discussed form of articulating critique Within this context, in a first step, we develop a typology of forms of critique by taking into account two analytical dimensions: the opportunity to participate and the opportunity to react. We argue that the differences uncovered here may point to more basic distinctions between ‘cultures of critique’ which should be addressed by further research
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