SCIENTIA POTENTIA EST?

Citizen Science (CS) has tried to find a place in the traditionally technocratic and centralized field of Dutch air quality policy for over a decade. CS has shown to be effective in engaging citizens with and educating them on the content and procedures of policy-making by engaging them in the scientific process. Yet, the reasons for and type of political impact of specific CS-projects merit further academic attention. This thesis integrates a typology of political impact of CS-projects into the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), and explores how the particular strengths of a CS-coalition and structure of a policy subsystem, relate to the type of political impact generated by a CS-coalition. To do so, 4 CS-projects in the realm of Dutch air quality policy are studied using a diverse cases design. The thesis finds that CS-coalitions come to make political impact through a process in which they establish and build particular strengths, either through gaining technical expertise, through forging ties with government authorities or other societal organizations, or through strengthening their legitimacy, and find a right mode of interaction with more or less collaborative governing coalitions. Within the technical constraints posed by the characteristics of the air quality policy field, governing coalitions decide to counter expected political impact by maintaining distance from the CS-coalition or through co-opting a CS-project or steer CS-work to benefit their own interests by working closely with a CS-coalition or by educating CS-participants from a distance. In collaborative policy subsystems CS-coalitions serve to gather public support for progressive air quality policy, come up with innovative data-based solutions for policy problems or function as a pilot and enabling actor for future forms of interactive governance. In case of lacking cooperation and political will or potential to accommodate wishes of CS-coalitions, CS-coalitions make an impact through changing the political agenda and mobilizing public pressure or through developing the scientific quality of CS-data. The thesis shows that knowledge gains value when politicized, especially in a highly centralized technocratic field such as the air quality field, where official data are not up for discussion, yet the political desirability of stricter norms and impacts of political decisions on people’s health and everyday lives, should be.