When Science Meets Power

Science and politics have collaborated throughout human history, and science is repeatedly invoked today in political debates, from pandemic management to climate change. But the relationship between the two is muddled and muddied.

Leading policy analyst Geoff Mulgan here calls attention to the growing frictions caused by the expanding authority of science, which sometimes helps politics but often challenges it.

He dissects the complex history of states’ use of science for conquest, glory and economic growth and shows the challenges of governing risk – from nuclear weapons to genetic modification, artificial intelligence to synthetic biology. He shows why the governance of science has become one of the biggest challenges of the twenty-first century, ever more prominent in daily politics and policy.

Whereas science is ordered around what we know and what is, politics engages what we feel and what matters. How can we reconcile the two, so that crucial decisions are both well informed and legitimate?

The book proposes new ways to organize democracy and government, both within nations and at a global scale, to better shape science and technology so that we can reap more of the benefits and fewer of the harms.

Also available as an audiobook.

Geoff Mulgan is Professor in STEaPP (Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy) at University College London