Academic freedom is vital; without it, science, democracy and open debate risk collapsing under political and ideological pressure.
In recent editorials, we have repeatedly touched upon issues of academic freedom as a fundamental value that is a necessary requirement for doing accurate academic research and teaching. Academic freedom is essential for the functionality of science as a systemic search for (often incomplete and preliminary) truth because it is a prerequisite for any open debate on how to best interpret the available evidence and on how to separate the epistemic judgements associated with this interpretation of the evidence from other forms of judgement that are based on, say, political, religious, aesthetic, or moral attitudes and convictions.
Heterodox Economics Newsletter
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All this is not to say that science should be (or could be) unrelated or devoid of moral considerations in a broader sense. Rather, as the history of science indicates that the innovation in and impacts of science always happen conditional on historically established power structures, it seems important to recognize that striving for open debate and mutual criticism is what makes science as a social system as well as a discursive formation unique and distinct. In this vein, skepticism towards any kind of dogmatism is, in my humble view, a key constitutive element of science. Such a view, by the way, also underlines a key source of legitimacy for heterodox economics (as we challenge the established dogmas ;-)), while at the same time raising some criteria for what constitutes good heterodox economic research (e.g., as we claim so to ‚real-world‘ economics, we are somewhat compelled to take the empirics seriously ;-)).
While my recent comments (see, e.g., here or here) focused mostly on the instrumental, economic value that emerges from well-functioning scientific institutions, it is important to see that there is a broader take on this story: open thought, free speech, and mutual criticism in academia do not exist independently of the rest of society, but instead build on societal features. Among such features are individual rights of free expression, public discourses that are sensitive to both, scientific facts as well as corresponding uncertainties, and autonomous governance systems in academia that ensure at least some alignment between contributed academic merit and achieved career progress. Taking these considerations into account, we find some correspondence between the idea of ‚open science‘ (in the more traditional sense of being open to criticism and alternative suggestions & viewpoints) and an ‚open society‘ (that tries to resolve conflicts by means of argument and compromise). In other words, science and democracy have somewhat good prospects for being a happy couple.
It is, of course, evident that the current attacks on science in the US constitute an attack on both, ‚open science‘ as well as ‚open society‘, a connection that is ever more pertinent in the context of the more sensitive topics addressed by social science, economics, and humanities. However, against this backdrop, it seems even more alarming that similar trends on subverting open science are on the rise in other countries, including not only typical suspects, like Turkey or Russia, but also more established liberal societies, like Japan.
Indeed, in the last few weeks, troubling news has reached our editorial office, which indicates that the Japanese government has for some years now refrained from formally appointing nominees for the „Science Council of Japan“, which have in the past spoken out against the leading party’s (LPD) actions and policies. This development has alarmed scholars affiliated with the Japanese Society for Political Economy (JSPE), who brought this subject matter to our attention (see this entry for more details). In this context, our colleagues pointed out that the political intentions displayed by the Japanese government will probably negatively affect scholars involved with the issues of „Historical awareness, Nuclear power and nuclear fuel waste disposal, Social science content related to gender and diversity, Scientific discussions related to industry regulation of specific products (e.g. tobacco)“ as well as „Dual-use regulatory content“ (as related to military applications).
This list of topics is a clear-cut example of how political attitudes can substantially affect and bias the focus of (visible) research and teaching in a way that undermines the autonomy of scientific judgements on what is relevant. And although the efficiency-mantra that dominates academic economics illustrates that self-governance does not per se guarantee nuanced results, such autonomy is at least a necessary condition for approaching political and moral aspects and questions with a solid conceptual and empirical foundation.
All the best
