Breaking the expertise barrier: understanding activist strategies in science and technology policy domains

Abstract

This article develops a classificatory framework for analyzing advocacy group strategy in S&T policy domains — an area of increasing citizen activism since the 1960s. In such domains, activists may be locked out by what I call the ‘expertise barrier’, which blocks those lacking specialized knowledge from full participation. This article argues that activists' strategies to break through the expertise barrier can be classified into four categories: deploying established expertise, introducing new kinds of facts, introducing new policy-making logics, and attacking bureaucratic rules. It suggests further that focusing research on these four categories can facilitate hypothesis generation and future avenues of inquiry, including comparison among advocacy challenges in diverse technical domains. To illustrate this framework, I present examples from activism in two areas: breast cancer research and patents on life forms.

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