Framing science: the Endangered Species Act and the Scientization of Politics

Abstract

ABSTRACT Science is a potent policymaking tool. This dynamic has been exacerbated by evidence-based policymaking, which requires that policymaking participants utilize scientific claims in their engagement to combat issues of uncertainty and ignorance. However, there is little understanding of how participants in EBPM interpret and deploy the science relevant to policies. Thus, this paper asks: how do evidence-based policymaking participants frame science? To identify scientific frames, I deployed structural topic modelling on 500,000 comments submitted by EBPM participants with regards to the Endangered Species Act, a powerful environmental law that is structured by EBPM requirements. Analyses find a diversity of scientific frames in ESA public comments, which have distinct styles and forms based on the types of commenters deploying them. These framings coalesce not only around scientific claims relevant to policymaking, but also varied understandings of legitimate forms of science. This indicates that science is a powerful framing resource that is adapted to meet contextual policymaking demands, interpreted to match actors’ interests, and intertwined with other framing resources, like moral, risk, or narrative claims. This paper thus identifies important dynamics regarding different actors’ responses to policymaking under uncertain conditions and poses fundamental questions of science’s use in policymaking.