Can democracy save children’s lives? Addressing the constitutional problem of expertise

Abstract

This comment critically examines Collins, Evans, and Reyes-Galindo’s (CE&RG) concept of ‘virtual diversity’, proposed as a norm to safeguard scientific expertise in policy-making. CE&RG argue that scientists should acquire ‘interactional expertise’ in relevant ‘non-scientific domains’, enabling informed policy advice while preserving scientific integrity. This comment describes CE&RG’s dualist approach, which separates epistemic and political concerns, and discusses its implications. It shows that for virtual diversity to contribute to the quality of and trust in expertise, this approach needs to be radically re-worked to include legitimacy-building processes. Using examples such as South Africa’s AIDS policy and the COVID-19 pandemic, the comment argues that defending expertise requires ensuring the robustness of both scientific and political representations, of, in other terms, addressing expertise as a constitutional problem. Without a broader critical constitutional analysis, CE&RG’s proposal risks reinforcing the crisis of expertise it seeks to remedy.