5. Democracy and science.

Both science and democracy has evolved (in Europe, but also within other cultural areas) together with and as a condition for nation states. Today the relationship between science and democracy is changing as the nation state, characterized by democratic governance, is changing. Science is linked more strongly to the international and global economic competition, and to the states' role in promoting economic interests. The Nation state change character from being a democratic state for (in principle) all citizens, to becoming a "competition state" that promotes particular political and economic interests. "Knowledge", especially science, is seen as decisive for the success of the competition state.

The science related to universities and an ever-broader expanding of research-based teaching has, in the post-war period, been seen as a strengthening of democracy. When the science now is related to both the competition state and the international capitalism's interests, it leads the research away from the alliance with and the building of democracy, welfare and civil rights. The focus is now "knowledge-based economy", and various forms of competition between citizens to access this knowledge. Economic / political elites seek to reorganize the university and research for their own purposes, exactly through more competition. A new form of knowledge-elitism, which undermines the democratic influence on knowledge institutions are thus beginning to develop.

This is especially well illustrated in the way scientific-based knowledge now is organized within the EU, and in the way expertise within the EU committees in alliance with expertise within the public administration of the competition state (in Norway), goes outside the democracy and undermines the conditions for democratic decisions. This development also shows in the way the University and research institutes are attempted reorganized as leader-controlled organizations (cf the MacKinsey report on UiO) where the internal democracy is seen as a threat to the advantage of knowledge

Tor Halvorsen works with a variety of projects within this part of democracy research. He is currently responsible for the "Science and Democracy" forum at the University of Bergen, which is a priority area within the multi-faculty programme "Democracy and the Judicial State", he participates in European networks that are doing research on think tanks and their influence on relations between politics and economics, and also networks studying how the multilateral organizations, which mainly rely on financial expertise that promotes "competition state", like the World Bank and OECD, affect the relationship between democracy and state formation in different countries, especially Africa.