Learning from the Pandemic: Scientific Knowledge and Political Decision- Making Processes

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the issue of the relationship between political decisions and scientific knowledge it focuses on the way in which the Italian Governments that faced the Covid-19 pandemic resorted to expert advice, in order to obtain the data, indicators and knowledge necessary to provide evidence-based decisions. The contribution offers an excursus of the reasons why part of the Italian doctrine theorized the existence of a constitutional principle of «science reserve», underlining how the principle itself stems from the constitutional case law. The analysis of the ways in which the relationship between scientific knowledge and political decision-making processes unfolded during the pandemic is conducted in order to draw some suggestions for the future from the experience still in progress. © 2022 Societa Editrice il Mulino. All rights reserved.