Political Legitimacy in the Democratic View: The Case of Climate Services

Abstract

Wendy S. Parker and I have advanced an inductive-risk approach to the provision of climate information that relies on the contextual values of information users. This approach aims to improve the effectiveness of climate information in social decision making. The approach’s emphasis on user values, however, conflicts with the so-called democratic view: if scientists employ contextual values, they ought to employ democratically endorsed values to preserve political legitimacy. This article draws on deliberative democratic theory to resolve the conflict, demonstrating that whether user values are legitimate to employ depends on the way labor is divided across deliberative moments.