What sparked your interest in applying for a PhD at INTED?
The opportunity to work with philosophy in a very practical way. I was also attracted by the chance to study political systems and examine problems within those systems, especially in relation to climate policy.
Can you tell us a little about your PhD project?
The project is still evolving, but at the moment it focuses on the role of interdisciplinarity in political decision-making processes, particularly in expert panels and government commissions. I examine how these bodies function today, which types of expertise tend to dominate within climate policy, and some of the philosophical questions related to expertise. Who has relevant expertise when it comes to climate issues? Many disciplines do, but economists and political scientists tend to dominate.
What are the interdisciplinary elements of your project?
Interdisciplinarity is a central premise of the project. As I mentioned, Norwegian public commissions are expected to have sufficient breadth of expertise when producing Official Norwegian Reports (NOUs). This raises important questions about how experts from different disciplines work together.
In climate policy, an economic framework is often taken as the starting point. Climate change is frequently understood as a negative externality that requires correcting market failures through measures such as carbon taxation or emissions trading systems. From this perspective, the problem is that nature does not have the “right” price.
When this understanding forms the basis of discussions, it can be challenging for other disciplines to participate on equal terms. Researchers from fields such as sociology, philosophy, and the natural sciences may have valuable contributions, but they are often required to articulate their insights in economic terms. In many cases, they are not included in expert commissions, as politicians and ministries do not consider their expertise relevant.
What drives your interest in interdisciplinarity?
On a personal level, it comes from a growing realization that if we want to understand society and politics, it is not enough to approach them through a single discipline or perspective. Throughout my studies, I have moved between different fields because neighboring disciplines often had important insights into the same issues. My primary interest has always been understanding society and politics, and that requires engaging with history, social sciences, philosophy, psychology, law, etc. As society becomes increasingly complex and specialized, it becomes more difficult to see the bigger picture.
What do you see as an important next step for advancing interdisciplinarity?
There are many ways to answer that question. In the context of policymaking, a policy domain like climate clearly calls for experts from various fields, but communication problems arise almost immediately. Different disciplines have their own fundamental assumptions about what counts as knowledge and which methods are considered valid. Scholars come from different intellectual traditions, and meaningful communication across disciplines or faculties cannot be taken for granted. I am interested in how interdisciplinarity can raise the deliberative quality of expert commissions.
At the same time, interdisciplinarity is not always automatically better. It may be that a committee consisting of five environmental economists sometimes produces better outcomes than one consisting of two ecologists and three economists. When everyone in a group belongs to the same discipline, reflection can become more limited because there is less need to question underlying assumptions. This leads to an important question: what is the value of expertise if it never reaches beyond one’s own disciplinary bubble?