The Influence of Official Reports on the Making of Public Policies and the Management of Controversies - An Under-Studied Object of Political Science?

Abstract

This panel aims to better understand the influence of official reports on policy-making and controversy processes, as well as the cognitive frames such processes rely upon. Official reports from administrations, experts’ groups, or MPs can be distinguished using a great number of criteria: authorship, type of information, shape, binding nature, etc. The heterogeneity of reports makes it difficult to think of them as a specific group of objects (contrary to laws and other legal acts, which are studied by a vast literature). Yet, official reports have common features, regarding their nature and recipients. At least can they be defined as written materials containing information directed primarily towards policymakers. Such reports appear to be under-analyzed in political science. First, official reports have an intrinsic political value as they contain a certain number of “équipements” (devices) which provide them and their authors with power (Trepos, 1996). A great number of science studies researchers studied how such “équipements” are used in the production of scientific knowledge (e.g.: Latour & Fabbri, 1997). Scarcer publications investigate their use in the production of official reports. In this emerging field, recent progress were made by Charvolin (2003), Fournel (2007), Leclerc (2009) and Gayon (2009). The lack of comparative studies limits greatly attempts of generalization. Official reports are also political as they play key-roles in the making of public policies, the management of controversies and evolving cognitive frames. Here again, a great number of publications investigating the use of scientific knowledge by policymakers can be found in the science studies literature (e.g.: Cash & al., 2012). However, very few researchers have focused on written materials whose authors do not possess scientific credentials. The works of Brown (2004), Parker & Dekker (2009) and Laroche (2009) on the role played by reports appear to be exceptions here. At a methodological level, official reports as a source in social sciences research turns out to be clearly under-studied, when compared to interviews or archives which are studied by a vast literature. (Pollard &Dupuy, 2009). The aim of this panel is to contribute to fill these research gaps with innovative works on official reports around the following research questions: -How do authors give power to their official reports? What role plays the selection of authors in this process? What type of the information is produced? Under which conditions official reports acquire scientific credibility? Social acceptability? -How to assess the impacts of official reports on the making of public policies, the management of controversies and cognitive frames? Which factors influence their entry into the media arena? Into the policymaking process? How to assess the effects of these written materials in the various arenas of the public sphere? What kind of policy narratives do they produce?