Abstract
Introduction
Climate change is one of the most complex sociotechnical challenges characterizing our modern society. How – or whether – to respond to the warming effects from greenhouse gases is an issue of intense debate in the public sphere. Scientists, policymakers and concerned citizens alike express diverse and conflicting social priorities in light of the vast environmental, cultural and political problems climate change poses (Hulme, 2009, 2015). Recently, a number of publicly visible controversies have led to more vocal challenges by actors skeptical of the scientific and political authority underpinning working climate agreements. Key among these is the case, in 2010, of the discovery of several factual errors in the
Researchers have only recently begun to develop frameworks to understand contests for authority in the climate change debate from a social scientific point of view (Hoffman, 2011, 2015). On the one hand, research has found that the debate is increasingly polarized, marked by extreme positions for and against action to address human-induced climate change. Like other social issues such as abortion, there are entrenched sides of the debate, where actors simply talk past each other and no amount of scientific evidence will change the opinion of either side. On the other hand, research has also found a range of more nuanced positions ‘in the middle’ of the extremes (Leiserowitz, Maibach, Roser-Renouf, & Hmielowski, 2012) and even some willingness to talk across entrenched divides (Pearce, Holmberg, Hellsten, & Nerlich, 2014). Actors holding more nuanced positions are thought to be more likely to engage in reasoned societal debate about the feasibility and desirability of solutions to the problem of climate change (Hoffman, 2012). However, in light of pressures from the more polarized extremes (Brulle, 2014; McCright & Dunlap, 2010), deliberative practices for dealing with climate change are fraught with tensions as actors with opposing worldviews, knowledge and values compete to ensure that their own truth claims are recognized as facts (Hoffman, 1999).
At stake in moving the climate change debate forward is a better understanding of the organizing practices of actors who engage in contests for authority. Issues of authority have long been of concern to scholars in organization studies (see Grimes, 1978); however, organizing authority in public controversies goes beyond an actor’s legitimate or authentic representation of a group. In public controversies it is often not clear which actors or interests are capable of authoring those decisions – in other words, the locus of authority is ambiguous – and, in this ambiguity, actors make
We analyse the authoritative moves of climate policymakers, mainstream scientists and skeptics in the Netherlands, following a controversy over perceived factual errors in the
Our study makes several contributions to the literature on the climate change debate and to research on authority in organization studies. First, we advance understandings of the social organization of the climate change debate and the consequences of the interplay between polarized and more nuanced positions for consensus-based debate (Hoffman, 2012). Second, we frame authority as the ongoing product of a struggle over meanings, highlighting communicative practices where actors seek to ‘author’ the trajectory of a collective; in so doing, we contribute to recent work seeing organizing as an unfolding process of tension between order and disorder (Hernes, 2014; Tsoukas & Chia, 2002).
This paper is organized as follows. First, we briefly introduce research on positions in the climate change debate. Second, we introduce the concept of authority in organization studies, followed by a more detailed description of our approach to authority, conceived here as the ongoing and provisional product of contests over authorship. Next, we introduce the context of our empirical research and our approach to data collection and analysis. We then present our analysis of authoritative moves in the climate change debate in the Netherlands, followed by a discussion of the study’s contributions.
Positions in the climate change debate
Climate change emerged as a well-recognized social and political problem around 1988 (Jaspal & Nerlich, 2012) when the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) founded the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC was formed to assess climate change research and provide the world ‘with a clear scientific view on the current state of knowledge in climate change’ (IPCC, n.d.).
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IPCC ‘Assessment Reports’, authored by over 800 contributing writers, represent the latest scientific knowledge on climate change. IPCC reports have maintained one very important claim: a scientific consensus (95% confidence) exists that more than half of the observed temperature increase from 1951 to 2012 was caused by anthropogenic (human) activity (
However, a growing segment of the public has expressed considerable doubt, cynicism and skepticism towards the issue (Painter, 2011; Whitmarsh, 2011). Organized climate change denial, fuelled by a large network of organizations and foundations, has resulted in a conservative counter-movement to attack the scientific consensus on climate change (Brulle, 2014). Climate change denial is supported by institutional and organizational arrangements favouring businesses that seek to block the institution of climate change policies (Besel, 2011; McCright & Dunlap, 2010; Nyberg, Spicer, & Wright, 2013). Hoffman (2011) finds that polarized positions exist in a ‘logic schism’, where actors in the debate simply talk past each other because they seek only information that supports their position and disconfirms their opponents’ arguments. The presence of mutually exclusive conceptions suggests little possibility of encountering anything other than an impasse in climate change debate.
Yet research has also begun to show a more nuanced view of the positions. There is a larger ‘skeptical’ group that includes people who are doubtful about climate change without simply denying it. For example, Lefsrud and Meyer (2012) examined the frames of experts in the oil and gas industry in Canada and found that 99.4% of those who agreed that the climate is changing actually held five very different, and quite skeptical, framings of the problem and potential solutions for climate change. Similarly, Hobson and Niemeyer (2013) employed a discursive approach and found that skeptics in Australia employed five different skeptical discourses, based on whether or not they believed in the reality of climate change, whether it was human induced, and whether the impact of climate change was a problem. Finally, Leiserowitz et al. (2012) found six different positions on climate change in the United States, with 76% of Americans not falling into either of the categories of complete agreement or complete disagreement.
Overall, this research suggests that climate change, as a social issue, is marked by a heterogeneity of nuanced positions. Rather than two entrenched sides talking past each other, we might envision a debate between a variety of actors on the values that underlie their positions. However, imagining such deliberative practices is difficult because polarized positions receive greater media attention (Moser & Berzonsky, 2014). To know how, or if, it is possible to move the debate forward from the vision of entrenched sides, more knowledge is needed of the actual practices comprising the debate. How do actors from a diversity of positions in the climate change debate interact to advocate their own position and alter the positions of others? How do these claims to authority influence the assumptive ground upon which policy is written?
Organizing authority
To examine the interplay of diverse positions, we start by viewing climate change as an
In colloquial use, authority is seen as an attribution people make about a particular actor based on either role or ability to provide reliable information; it is a source of power that allows an actor to give orders and enforce obedience. Theorists of organization such as Weber (1978) and Barnard (1938) reframed authority as less the possession of an individual and more a characteristic of the
Public controversies such as climate change differ markedly from those occurring ‘inside’ conventional organizations. In public controversies, actors are likely to disagree over both the present state of affairs and the direction public action should follow. They lack a shared organizational context, and therefore possess no agreed-upon resource with which actors might claim authority
It is reasonable, then, to ask whether the notion of authority is a relevant construct for such practices. We hold that it can be useful, but using the concept requires revisiting conceptual roots. Those vying to author the public’s trajectory cannot expect to have the ‘last word’, as in a formal organization (Simon, 1997, p. 182); nor can they assume that invoking topical expertise will sway action, given widespread decreases in trust regarding institutions (Latour, 2013). We start, therefore, by redirecting attention from authority (rendered as a possession) to the practice of
The question that flows from this reframing is how certain actors are able to guide and direct a collective’s trajectory better than others, especially in the absence of organizational resources to induce compliance (Benoit-Barné & Cooren, 2009). Drawing upon scholarship on argumentation and advocacy from the public administration field (e.g. Martin & Richards, 1995), we posit that authoring – and, concomitantly, organizing – hinges upon a
Authoritative moves and dialectical tensions
These contests over authorship are, at base, processes of communication. Communication, here, refers not to the symbolic expression and transmission of the (pre-existing) contents of actors’ cognition, but to a discursive-material practice in which positions, meanings and actions emerge (Ashcraft, Kuhn, & Cooren, 2009; Cooren, Matte, Benoit-Barné, & Brummans, 2013). The construct we introduce to understand elements of this communicative practice is the
Authoritative moves marking contests over authorship of public decisions respond to, and engender,
Research suggests that actors may make a
In the remainder of this paper, we examine the contests for authorship between actors in the climate change debate in the Netherlands following a public controversy over the IPCC’s
Research Context
In January 2010 the IPCC’s authority came under intense scrutiny in the Netherlands when the media reported two factual errors found in the IPCC’s
Following these reviews, the Dutch Parliament asked the Dutch government ‘to also involve climate skeptics in future studies on climate change’ (Dutch House of Representatives, 2010b). In response, the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment announced a number of projects aimed to increase skeptics’ involvement, one of which was a weblog called
Methods
Data collection
Our data collection began with in-depth interviews with ‘key actors’ who had extensive experience in the field of climate change science and policy, with the initial aim to become broadly sensitized to the field of climate change in the Netherlands. During these initial interviews the controversy over IPCC errors surfaced as a major theme. Because of this, we chose to focus the rest of our data collection more directly on this issue, targeting interviews with climate scientists who had served as IPCC authors and, in many cases, were also involved in the Dutch review of the IPCC procedures. We also targeted interviews with policymakers who played a role in facilitating the Dutch review. These interviews gave us insight into how Dutch actors within the IPCC dealt with challenges to authority. During these interviews we also learned of the specific details of Climate Discussion, which at the time of our data collection had just launched the first topic for discussion. We then sought out further interviews with the climate scientists and climate skeptics who were involved in the design of the Climate Discussion blog. We gained an in-depth understanding of authority struggles as members of the Climate Discussion editorial and advisory committees negotiated the format and participation of contributors to the blog. Using a snowball sampling method, a total of 24 interviews were conducted with 23 participants iteratively over time. 9 See the Appendix for an overview of the interview participants and details of their professional roles.
Data were also collected directly from the Climate Discussion blog. Between November 2012 and May 2014, the blog included a total of 18 posts organized around four controversial climate change topics. These blog posts generated some 577 comments at the time of our analysis. For our analysis we chose only to examine the comments of the most popular topic, which generated 304 individual comments. This subset of comments was chosen because it included the widest range of views. We also analysed the blog pages explaining the organization and rules of the blog.
Finally, relevant documents were collected for analysis. Official documents of the IPCC were collected – for example, documents on the history of the organization, as well as official documents from the Netherlands’ national climate organizations, such as the official Netherlands report on the state of climate science and the Netherlands and IAC assessments of the IPCC report procedures. 10
Data analysis
We began with an inductive approach to analyse the negotiation of authority in our data (transcribed and anonymized interviews, blog data and documents). First, open coding of the data was performed. Open coding usefully shows what is present in the data with the goal to describe ‘who, what, and where’ (Tracy, 2013, p. 189) from the point of view of the actors themselves. All of the data were read thoroughly several times and marked using actors’ first-order meanings, or their own terminology, to code. In this process, each new code was compared to previous codes to ensure that new codes represented new meanings (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Open coding revealed that actors in our data set held a multiplicity of different and often very conflicting views. We found that most of the open codes were linked to actors’ conflicting interpretations of two events: the IPCC errors and subsequent formation of Climate Discussion. Specifically, we found that the IPCC errors occasioned debate over what counts as ‘policy-relevant climate science’ and Climate Discussion raised controversy around what ‘openly debated climate science’ should look like. These observations led us to focus the rest of our analysis on these two points of controversy because they provided rich information on the negotiation of authority. We call the first controversy over policy-relevant climate science the ‘controversy of translation’, and the second controversy over openly debated climate science the ‘controversy of transparency’.
We then zoomed in on the dialectical tensions in each controversy. Using a form of axial coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), we arranged open codes into categories informed by theoretical concepts, representing a combined inductive/deductive approach. We started by identifying opposite poles, or binary relationships, in our data (Putnam, Fairhurst, & Banghart, 2016). For example, we found that the IPCC was understood by some actors to be a completely legitimate institution while for other actors the IPCC was considered as entirely illegitimate. We created a category for this binary called ‘IPCC Legitimacy-Illegitimacy’. Through this process, the controversies that preoccupied the actors in our data set crystallized into four dialectical tensions. Of the four dialectical tensions, two were related to how to define the problem of climate change, which we call
Next, we examined how actors specifically positioned themselves in relation to these dialectical tensions. We took a closer look at the language, logics and texts (Putnam et al., 2016) actors used to describe these controversies and their views and found four distinct discursive positions:
Finally, we examined how actors in the four discursive positions managed dialectical tensions through communicative interactions. Our analysis assumed that actors were aware of tensions and make choices to ‘call into question, respond, and move forward amid contradictions and tensions’ (Putnam et al., 2016, p. 82). Unlike discursive positions, which delineate similarities and differences between an actor’s orientation to dialectically opposed problems and solutions, authoritative moves focus specifically on how actors interact to manage these tensions. We found that actors in the four positions managed dialectical tensions through three authoritative moves,
Results
The climate change debate in the Netherlands following the discovery of errors in the IPCC’s
Dialectical tensions
The first step of our analysis identified dialectical tensions. We found four dialectical tensions: two diagnostic tensions regarding the definition of the problem of climate change and two additional prognostic tensions regarding the appropriate social responses to the problem (Wilson, 1973).
Diagnostic tensions
The first set of dialectical tensions centred on the way in which the problem of climate change should be defined, which we call the
Efforts to define the problem were also characterized by a second diagnostic tension regarding how to make attributions about the human impact on climate; we call this the
Prognostic tensions
The second set of tensions centred on social responses to the problem of climate change. Social responses were characterized by a tension in how the IPCC should be characterized, which we call the
Social responses were also characterized by a second tension regarding how the climate change debate should be characterized, which we call the
Discursive positions
By mapping actors’ discourse in relation to these four dialectical tensions, we found four positions in our data:
Discursive Positions.
Scientific conviction
Actors in this first position shared the view that the problem was simple: the climate was changing at an alarming rate. Certainty about climate science was stressed in favour of a strong version of the CO2 hypothesis. They also vigorously defended the IPCC and the view that the Assessment Reports provided an authoritative depiction of the current state of affairs. Questions about the truth of climate science were settled, which meant that controversies were nonexistent, thus scientific debate was unnecessary.
Scientific criticality
Actors in this second position shared the view that the problem was complex: climate change included a variety of different factors and known unknowns. However, they maintained that these complexities could be tested and modelled to better understand climate changes. They also emphasized the certainty that CO2 plays a role in the recent climate changes. Like those in the position of scientific conviction, they believed in the science and that the IPCC retained its legitimacy, however, they acknowledged that the institution was ‘vulnerable’ in light of the errors found in the Assessment Report. Actors in this position were open to debate in so far as actors participating in the debate focused on scientific truth.
Scientific rejection
Actors in this third position shared the view that the problem was simple: the climate was not changing at an alarming rate and thus, further inquiries into the finer complexities of the climate system were unnecessary. Unlike the two previous positions, uncertainty about climate science was stressed and the impact of CO2 on the climate was considered an unimportant factor. They rejected the authority of the IPCC and its’ reports. They shared the view that questions about the truth of climate science were not reasonably worth a debate because climate science was already politicized, co-opted by policy.
Critical skepticism
Finally, actors in this fourth position shared the view that the problem was complex: climate change includes a variety of different natural and human factors that were beyond science’s ability to fully test and model. For this reason, it was impossible to make predictions about CO2 impact with any accuracy; the impact of CO2 on the climate was still an open question. Like those in the scientific rejection position, they were skeptical of the IPCC and largely believed it had lost its legitimacy. They believed that the larger public debate has been misguided by politics, however, they stressed that what really matters was scientific debate and uncovering the truth. Thus, they had a keen interest in debate of climate science.
Authoritative moves in the controversy of translation
Now that we have outlined the dialectical tensions and discursive positions, we can show the interplay between positions as actors made three kinds of authoritative moves:
Authoritative Moves in Controversy of Translation.
Communication Practices of Authoritative Moves.
Bridging
The creation of policy-relevant climate science bridged actors in positions of scientific conviction and scientific criticality who shared a belief in the CO2 hypothesis. However, producing policy-relevant climate knowledge was a significant challenge because the worlds of climate science and policy are very separate. As one climate policymaker explained, ‘There is a lot of distance between climate system knowledge and climate policy’ (Roger, climate policymaker, interview). While climate scientists in the scientific criticality position valued the complexities of the climate system, policymakers in the position of scientific conviction valued only the aspects that would support their policymaking.
You have a hundred different complex issues in climate change. They [policymakers] really can’t absorb it, they just want to know, in five years’ time, ‘do we need to invest ten million Euros to strengthen the dikes?’ (Brodie, climate scientist, interview)
As a result, the translation of climate science into a policy-relevant format was an exercise in bridging two very different positions.
Central to bridging were dialogic communication practices that helped to integrate and reframe the tensions between these positions (Arnett, 2001; Putnam et al., 2014, 2016). A very important practice included face-to-face meetings in which actors in positions of scientific criticality and scientific conviction shared information to find common ground – and thus to integrate their perspectives.
We do a number of things to engage policymakers. We have had a series of meetings in October where we meet with policymakers and representatives and then we have a dialogue. And those are really successful, because then you meet the people, you find out what they know and what they are interested in and so on. We continually try to engage with the policy system. (Frans, climate scientist, interview)
One of the results of these dialogues was explicit efforts to overcome the simplicity-complexity tension, as seen in this excerpt:
The challenge is to explain a very complicated issue in a clear way, without exaggerating or underplaying the severity of it. So there are two dimensions to that, it is the complexity and making simple, and of course then it’s never completely right, because then it is too simple. Trying to explain complex issues in a simple way that is both relevant to policymakers and to the public, it’s a communication skill that we try to work on and try to improve. (Luke, climate scientist, interview)
Actors in the position of scientific criticality reported painstaking efforts to translate scientific knowledge into something that could be ‘read’ by actors in positions of scientific conviction through careful wording of the Synthesis Report. In these two excerpts, we see the two types of promises of value introduced above. Claiming a capacity to translate complex (and vital) issues so that they are understandable is a claim of a social benefit – one that, it is implied, only legitimate representatives can provide.
An important aspect of bridging was that actors in both positions had roles in authoring the report. Policymakers played a key role in reviewing the report, participating in the final approval of the report’s wording. As a result, the Synthesis Report became a central resource in climate policy and, over time, a policy infrastructure was built around its conclusions.
There is a strong demand for this [IPCC] in policy circles. So the people who live from making climate policy, they always need these assessments and by now we have a self-sustaining climate bureaucracy. (Rick, climate scientist, interview)
Scientists who contribute to the IPCC report are also awarded legitimacy as representatives of climate science, with the expectation that they can speak for this set of interests in conversations about climate policy. ‘The IPCC lends legitimacy to certain academics. Because you are in the IPCC you are invited to brief the cabinet about something’ (Rick, climate scientist, interview).
In summary, though actors in the positions of scientific conviction and scientific criticality had contrasting visions of the climate system, they engaged in communication practices to overcome their differences towards creating something they both valued: policy-relevant climate science. Bridging organized a relationship between these two positions through communication practices that
(De)coupling
The ability for actors in these two positions to overcome their differences was enabled, in part, by their positive history of working together and the success of the Synthesis Report in policy circles. However, after the IPCC
The authors of the Synthesis Report described how they dealt with uncertainty by being more careful in how they worded scientific uncertainties in the Synthesis Report. An IPCC author explained the challenge: ‘IPCC reports make a reasonable attempt (though not perfect) to attach likelihoods to their statements, but these uncertainty messages are almost always lost in communication. Quantification and communication of uncertainty remains a challenge’ (George, climate scientist, interview). Using different ways of portraying the complexity of climate change risk by, for example, stating this in terms of likelihoods or scenarios (Collins & Nerlich, 2015), was part of the struggle to deal with uncertainty messages in such a way that accurately reflected the science but did not exaggerate uncertainty that actors in the position of scientific rejection could use to spread doubt in the wider public. Careful wording of uncertainties in the report protected the bridged actors’ view of the certain role of CO2 in climate change against those who promoted the CO2 problem as uncertain. Further, papers promoting uncertainty messages were generally not included in the IPCC Report, as they were often outside the recognized climate science, or their scientific basis was questionable. ‘If you are not in the IPCC, we are going to ignore [you], whether that is appropriate or not, but that’s the way it is’ (Rick, climate scientist, interview).
In summary, in the broader landscape of the growing climate debate, the process of translation was more sensitive and thus required actors in bridged positions to protect policy-relevant climate science from potentially harmful tensions. Decoupling organized the exclusion of actors in opposing positions through communication practices that
Resisting
Though (de)coupling had kept actors in opposed positions at arm’s length, this was met by resistance from those in positions of critical skepticism and scientific rejection. For these actors, policy-relevant climate science was an object of controversy, gone that they sought to disrupt. A common practice of these actors was casting doubt on the legitimacy of climate scientists. They sought to capitalize on the Dutch Parliament’s response to the IPCC errors as a signal of distrust of the scientific institution (Latour, 2013). They used the smetaphor of the ‘battle’ to position climate scientists as ‘protagonists’ of climate change, against their own positions as ‘antagonists’. Instead of doing ‘genuine’ science, these actors portrayed climate scientists as engaged in a politically motivated battle to spread alarm about human-induced climate change. ‘There is really a fierce battle, a very unpleasant and uncivilized battle between the protagonists and antagonists of man-made global warming’ (Harrold, skeptic, interview).
Actors in positions of critical
In summary, though bridged actors had attempted to protect policy-relevant climate science, such protection fuelled opposing actors to resist. Resistance was an effort to break down the promise of value created by bridged actors by casting doubt on the legitimacy of their roles and their framing of the problem. Resisting actors engaged in communication practices to
Authoritative moves in the controversy of transparency
The second prominent controversy that preoccupied actors in our data centred on ‘openly debated climate science’; we term this the
Authoritative Moves in Controversy of Transparency.
Bridging
Openly debated climate science formed a bridge between actors in positions of scientific criticality and critical skepticism who shared a belief that debate was an important part of science. However, these positions entailed different views with regard to the legitimacy of the IPCC. Actors in the position of scientific criticality maintained the IPCC as legitimate, whereas actors in the position of critical skepticism believed the IPCC to be illegitimate. Thus, actors in these positions were fundamentally opposed in terms of what constituted an appropriate social response to the problem of climate change. As a result, facilitating transparent discussion between these two positions required bridging two different positions.
Central to this bridge were dialogic communicative practices to integrate and reframe these tensions (Arnett, 2001; Putnam et al., 2014). Lengthy discussions via email and the occasional face-to-face symposium brought actors together to discuss and better understand each other’s view on the problem.
Jarrod went to the NMA and he said, ‘So, [skeptical scientist] will be in the country, and it would be nice if he could give a colloquium at NMA.’ That was fine, so [skeptical scientist] gave a colloquium and after the colloquium we had lunch with a couple of people from NMA and we were sitting there for three hours. (Mike, climate skeptic, interview)
Through these interactions, actors in both positions had come to understand that openness to debate with the opposing side had a purpose. For those in the position of scientific criticality, engagement with skeptics outside the IPCC was viewed as ‘healthy’ for checking science.
You need people that attack your science and say, ‘No, it’s not true, because if I do this calculation then I get something else.’ And then you have a debate and this is how science should work in general. So skeptics are necessary and they are also quite helpful and highly underestimated and wrongly seen as the animal. I think they are an asset. (Luke, climate scientist, interview)
By aligning with a higher-order principle (here, both science and reasoned debate) these actors make claims that their interaction will produce social good.
Actors in positions of critical skepticism also learned that actors in positions of scientific criticality inside the IPCC were willing to discuss the science in detail, so long as the discussion stayed within their scientific specialty.
They are opening up the debate and they invite skeptics to participate. This will already give more information which adds to the IPCC report, so I’m very glad about this, because I don’t want to have this fight; we behind the wall and they behind the wall … what’s the point? (Mike, skeptic, interview)
Actors also integrated their differences by collaborating on the parameters for the blog, including what topics to cover and whom to invite as expert contributors. In Mike’s quote, the metaphor of the battle lurks, rejected in favour of collaboration:
They call each other, ‘Hey how are you?’ They were really working together and all these people they sit together to work on Climate Discussion. We are a team and that’s extraordinary. That’s skeptics and mainstreamers working together, not fighting anyone. For me at the moment, the most important thing is that we have scientists with different views around the table, having a constructive dialogue. (Tim, skeptic, interview)
Integration of differences allowed for both positions to have an active role in the creation of the blog. An even mix of participants in both positions of scientific criticality and critical skepticism formed the editorial and advisory board of the blog. Further, the content of the blog focused on scientific controversies, which positioned it as an alternative site to the IPCC, a site where both mainstream and skeptical actors could participate.
In summary, though actors in the positions of scientific criticality and critical skepticism held contrasting visions on the legitimacy of the IPCC, they engaged in communication practices to overcome their differences towards creating something they both valued: openly debated climate science. Bridging organized a relationship between these two positions through communication practices that
(De)coupling
Bridging was made possible, in part, because of initial participants who had a fairly positive history of interaction and had relative success in the creation of the Climate Discussion blog. However, when opening the Climate Discussion platform to a wider audience, they anticipated that the unusual nature of this project might be viewed as controversial. The bridge between these two positions and the idea of openly debated climate science would be viewed as a threat to other positions. The Climate Discussion blog needed to be protected, a protection accomplished through tension negotiation practices that disassociated from actors in opposing positions that might introduce politics into the debate.
To prevent political views from threatening their efforts, actors in positions of scientific criticality distanced themselves from actors in the position of scientific conviction that were associated with political agendas. By depicting themselves as engaged in pursuit of genuine scientific truth, they distinguished themselves from less worthy politically motivated counterparts.
To ‘guard the neutrality’ of the blog and exclude any overt political discussion outside the acceptable boundaries, rules were created and enforced. ‘Ideological and political background of participants in the climate debate is not considered relevant. Please avoid references to political ideas or convictions’ (Climate Discussion, blog rules, paraphrased). It was clear in the blog rules and the content of the posts that the blog would have a very specific focus: science. This expert focus is reflected in the discussions themselves, which remained quite squarely on discussions of the scientific controversies. 12
Though Climate Discussion was open to the public for comments, there were also different categories created for grouping and moderating comments: expert, public and off-topic comments. Any comments deemed politically motivated were moderated to the ‘off topic’ category, which was explained by the moderator of comments, ‘I think it’s very important to separate the public debate from the scientific debate’ (Mike, skeptic, interview). Excluding these political comments prevented direct influence of opposing actors in the main discussion.
In summary, in the broader landscape of the growing climate debate, transparent debate was more sensitive and thus required actors in bridged positions to protect openly debated climate science from potentially harmful tensions. Decoupling organized the exclusion of actors in opposing positions through communication practices that
Resisting
Though (de)coupling had enabled Climate Discussion to temporarily distinguish its scientific purpose from the politics of the broader climate change debate, the blog experienced resistance from actors in the position of scientific conviction and scientific rejection. For these actors, openly debated climate science was an object of controversy, one that they sought to disrupt by introducing tensions. Actors in the position of scientific conviction maintained that questions about the truth of climate change science were completely settled, thus debate between IPCC scientists and skeptical actors was considered risky; engaging skeptics in the scientific process could grant them unwarranted legitimacy. They cast doubt on the legitimacy of the roles of actors in bridged positions by arguing that putting the minority skeptical view of climate change science on an equal footing with mainstream climate science was flawed.
Given that it is about controversial topics and that there are some skeptics involved they [scientist colleagues at climate science institution] are afraid that this might give some justification for, let’s say, for the skeptic cause. (Jarrod, climate scientist, interview)
For these actors, this equal footing would promote a ‘false balance’ (Boykoff, 2007) and thus only undermine the authority of the IPCC. Here, the authoritative move is both about legitimate representation of a group and an effort to discredit the stance of an opposing group.
Further resistance to these ‘equal’ roles was evidenced in attempts to delay or stop the blog’s continuation. When sending out invitations for expert participants, many scientists refused to participate. A board member cited institutional pressure as a reason why they met resistance in finding contributors.
Many of my colleagues, whatever their view is on climate science, actually want to be actively involved in the climate debate but you’re sort of not allowed to. It is an open nerve at [climate research organization] if you talk about scientists talking to the public. I can’t prove it but I think it’s a conscious effort by management to keep a low profile. (Jarrod, climate scientist, interview)
Comments were also made frequently on the blog to discredit the invited experts:
I will quickly lose interest in this site if ‘experts’ are invited who do not have a sustained and relatively recent record of publishing peer-reviewed papers in geophysics and climate science. The mere possession of a PhD does not constitute scientific expertise. (Climate Discussion, blog comment, paraphrased)
Surprisingly, actors in the position of scientific rejection also resisted the establishment of Climate Discussion. These actors cast doubt on the legitimacy of the scientists who participated through blog comments, often arguing that the climate skeptics chosen to participate were simply not skeptical enough.
All three [blog participants] are well known supporters of the idea that adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes global warming. I have great fears that this blog will be just another way of promoting The Cause on behalf of The Team. I hope I am wrong. (Climate Discussion, blog comment, paraphrased)
As indicated above, authoritative moves frequently are attempts not only to assert the supremacy of one’s position, but also to dispute the wisdom of allowing those occupying other positions to engage in authorship.
Doubt was also cast on how bridged actors framed the discussions. Actors in the position of scientific rejection insisted that discussions on the blog were biased from the outset.
I think this whole issue starts with a completely false statement that ‘biases’ any debate that might ensue. If the other topics in this ‘climate discussion’ will also be so badly skewed from the onset in the definition of the topic, then I am one hundred percent sure that the whole project will fail. (Climate Discussion, blog comment, paraphrased)
Many actors in the position of scientific rejection felt that questions about the truth of climate science were not worth a debate because climate science was already politicized.
We don’t need climate discussions. We should try to learn the lessons from the perversion and the corruption of climate science in the past fifteen years, especially about the awful mix of activism and science. (Taylor, skeptic, interview)
Though bridged actors had attempted to protect openly debated climate science, such protection fuelled opposing actors to resist. Resistance was an effort to cast doubt on the promises of value made by the bridged actors by interrogating the legitimacy of their roles and their framing of the problem. Resisting actors engaged in communication practices to disorient, exacerbating tensions and disrupting the promise of value of openly debated climate science.
In summary, in response to the second research question, we found that actors’ management of dialectical tensions entailed three authoritative moves: bridging, (de)coupling and resisting. Each move employed a different tension management approach: integration, selection, or disorientation, respectively. This series of authoritative moves created a ‘vicious cycle’ wherein attempts to overcome tensions ultimately exacerbated other tensions (Smith & Lewis, 2011). Paradoxically, efforts to create shared promises of value failed to engage with – and therefore could not resolve – the sources of the underlying dialectical tensions.
Discussion
Public controversies over complex social problems such as climate change incite the response of actors with a variety of opposing views. We have shown that actors engage in contests for authority – in particular through authoritative moves that manage dialectical tensions to ‘author’ the decisions a public will make and the policy it will implement (Aghion & Tirole, 1997). Our analysis focused on the process by which such authorship is negotiated, showing the dialectical tensions, discursive positions and authoritative moves that managed these tensions in relation to recent controversies over the IPCC’s
Positions in the climate change debate
This paper contributes to calls for more social science research on the conflict over climate change (Hoffman, 2011, 2015). We join a growing number of studies that employ organizational and discursive perspectives showing that the climate debate is far more nuanced than positions simply in favour of, or opposed to, the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change (Hobson & Niemeyer, 2013; Jones & Levy, 2007; Lefsrud & Meyer, 2012; Nyberg et al., 2013). We found four distinct positions in the debate that align with other positions that have been documented in climate change research (Hoffman, 2011), supporting the claim that the climate change debate is more complex and nuanced than its polarized stereotype. However, existing research has often focused on identifying positions based on individual beliefs expressed in opinion polls (Leiserowitz et al., 2012) or on an analysis of individual frames (Lefsrud & Meyer, 2012). This research often fails to consider the interaction between positions, or finds that actors in opposing positions are simply talking past each other (Hoffman, 2011), using frames to legitimate their own positions and delegitimize others.
This study extends our understanding of the climate change debate by showing the
Our aim here is not to suggest that consensus-based discussion (Hoffman, 2012) has little value; rather, our findings compel researchers to further investigate the realities that actors in the climate change debate face when creating interdependencies in a field of dialectical opposition. Future research on
The practice of authority
Second, our study advances theorizing on authority in organization studies. Authority is typically represented as the outcome of the deployment of a resource valued in some relationship (such as expertise, charisma, or role), along with the recognition that possession of the resource grants the holder a legitimate capacity to take decisions on behalf of a collective. Investigations of authority tend to operate on the assumption that individuals or groups
In sharp distinction, analysts note that public controversies such as climate change now occur in a ‘post-truth’ context, where institutions are perceived as advancing sectional interests rather than the collective good (Latour, 2013). Those analysts locate several outcomes produced by such a post-truth regime: an increase in spectacles – with the branding, illusion and celebrity that accompany them – intended to attract public attention (Flyverbom & Reinecke, 2017; Harsin, 2015), the provoking of doubt about science (McCright & Dunlap, 2010; Roper et al., 2016), and the emergence of agents attempting to serve as unbiased arbiters of fact (Sauder & Fine, 2008). By considering authority to be not a possession but as
Specifically, our notion of
For example, in the controversy of transparency, rules were written for the blog that maintained a strictly scientific focus for the content of discussions. This (de)coupling was a proactive attempt by bridged actors to maintain jurisdiction over openly debated climate science by keeping actors in opposing positions from bringing ‘normative’ views to the blog. Actors in public controversies navigate
Our framing of authority as a struggle over meanings seems to be a good fit for the ‘post-truth’ context associated with public controversies such as the climate change debate in the Netherlands, but is increasingly understood as characteristic of formal organizations as well (Porter, 2014; Vásquez, Schoeneborn, & Sergi, 2016). For instance, Clegg, Kornberger and Rhodes (2005) portray organization as ‘an unfolding process of tension between order and disorder that pluralizes and cross connects artefacts and subjects, human and non-human elements’ (pp. 154–155). If organization is to be understood in this way, analysts require a conception of authority with an analogous epistemological grounding. This paper is a step toward creating that foundation.
Conclusion
Complex social problems call for the reconceptualization of social and organizational theory (Wittneben, Okereke, Banerjee, & Levy, 2012). This paper advances one dimension of organizational theory by showing that studies of authority should be attentive to how the notion is accomplished when actors harbour fundamental disagreements over the present state of affairs and the direction action should follow. Detailed knowledge of the communicative practices of actors who seek to ‘author’ the public trajectory provides a means for analysing the complex and often paradoxical efforts for resolution to problems requiring focused collective action. Scholars in a variety of disciplines can use our reconceptualization of authority as an avenue for analysis of complex social problems that both builds social theory and benefits the public good.