The Relational Structure of Corporate Ignorance Production

• In Event: Comparative-Historical Perspectives on Climate Change (Co-sponsored by Environmental Sociology Section)

Abstract

Attempts by corporate actors to influence environmental knowledge production are well documented. Concurrently, it is also well established that political and economic considerations often prevail over scientific claims in regulatory processes. In light of this, do corporate actors enmeshed in controversy truly dedicate substantial resources to interfere in scientific production? Rather, are pressures on regulatory expert organizations sufficient to achieve corporate objectives? In this paper, I ask 1) What types of knowledge-producing organizations are subject to most engagement by corporate actors? and 2) How intensive are relationships between corporate actors and knowledge-producing organizations? I answer these questions with the landmark case of lead in the United States. I rely on longitudinal network data built from the raw text of Toxic Docs, a database that comprises millions of previously classified corporate documents over eight decades. Using a relational event modeling strategy, I find that corporate engagement with scientific organizations is consistently more likely than with other types of actors. In contrast, corporate engagement with regulatory expert organizations is less so. I also find that corporate engagement with scientific organizations is responsive to growing federal interest in the lead problem and anticipates future regulatory developments. Corporate engagement with scientists is thus best described not simply as reactive but also as preemptive. Results from this study have important implications for scholarship on the social conditions of knowledge production.

Author

• Gabriel Venne Lévesque, McGill University