Is Science a World Culture? Restricted Actorhood and Public Trust in Science

• In Event: 30468 - Interrogating the Relationship between Politics and Culture

Abstract

Despite the worldwide expansion of science across a diversity of social domains, previous studies mainly focused on the ideological polarization of public trust in science in the United States, not on the sources of public trust in science on a world scale. World polity theorists suggest science has gained its cultural authority through stateless globalization and the rise of liberal actorhood in the post-war era. However, we argue that public trust in science emerges not from highly rationalized societies and empowered individuals with unbridled rights and capacities, but rather from restrictive conditions for actorhood: fragile states, marginalized ethnic groups, and restrictive nationalism. Using latent class analysis and multi-level logistic models on data from 45 countries in the World Values Survey, we discover that fragile states and marginalized ethnic groups exhibit higher levels of public trust in science. Additional analyses show that restrictive nationalist groups (with lower institutional pride and exclusive boundaries) further drive public trust in science in fragile states, whereas liberal nationalist groups (with higher institutional pride and inclusive boundaries) show a higher level of public trust in science in secure states. Our findings suggest opposing social-psychological pathways leading to the distinct cultural meaning of science in world society.

Authors

• Jungsik Choi, Pennsylvania State University

• Ibrahim Enes Atac, Pennsylvania State University