The political impact of science: is tobacco control science- or policy-driven?

Tobacco control is often viewed as a clear example of how scientific knowledge can fundamentally change social norms. This article discusses the relationship between scientific knowledge and public policy on the basis of tobacco control and how its development is interpreted quite differently across disciplines. One literature tends to view the impact of science on politics as being almost automatic even in situations where this has clearly not happened. Another literature focuses on the internal obstacles of the political system to let science impact upon public policy. Unfortunately, this division lets each perspective reduce science and public policy to each other all too easily, which this article aims redeem through the use of a Foucauldian concept of the ‘will to knowledge’ as well as a discussion of how the case relates to the broader literature on science and public policy. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.