Book to Note

Roger A. Pielke, Jr. The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 198 pp. $91 cloth, $31.99 paper, $24 ebook.

Reviewed by Jody A. Roberts

The Honest Broker is part of a growing cadre of books working to elucidate the complex and sometimes contentious relationship between science and politics. However, Roger Pielke doesn’t assume that science and politics ought not play together; rather he focuses on the different ways scientists can or cannot engage in policy and politics. The book examines four core roles that scientists play in politics: “pure scientist” (uninterested in policy and politics); “science arbiter” (will engage in politics, but generally uninterested); “issue advocate” (engages policy with an agenda); and “honest broker” (engages, but without an agenda). The book, though, is really only about two of these roles: the issue advocate (and the even more nefariously named “stealth issue advocate”) and the honest broker (with heavenly bells ringing in the background). While this approach helps unfamiliar readers gain perspective, it is also counterproductive. In boiling down the complexity of these four types Pielke runs the risk of convincing people that these roles actually exist. His ahistorical account confuses more than it clarifies. In reality the roles scientists play are much more complicated. Ironically, Pielke’s not-so-subtle endorsement of the “honest broker” model can be seen as his own form of stealth issue advocacy.