The Dramaturgy of Science and Expertise at the World Anti-Doping Agency: Civic Epistemologies for Anti-Doping?

Abstract

Anti-doping policy is a key component of integrity in sports, and one for which science and technology are central resources. It represents a genuinely transnational sector of policy-making that so far has received little attention in science and technology studies. Anti-doping has evolved into a worldwide detection and sanctioning system, supervised by a central regulatory body, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Looking at anti-doping as a case study of regulatory science in action, we analyze how WADA portrays and uses science and expertise in policymaking. We interpret these practices as performances directed toward the agency’s various audiences, which reveal its modes of producing and legitimizing knowledge and shaping its civic epistemologies. We are working from publicly available WADA meeting minutes, regulatory documents, and other communications released by WADA. We use the rise of contamination concerns—from WADA’s creation in 2000 through 2023—as a prism of study. Contamination was chosen as a sensitive and complex issue that shows the dilemmas that WADA faces, as it mobilizes science and expertise and exposes boundary conflicts in scientific advice. Our analysis illustrates how transnational policymakers participate in configuring civic epistemologies specific to an international community bound by a common legal and moral order.