recruiting members. Those who never apply for or receive grants and
fellowships may be more likely to believe that the allocation system is
particularistic and based on cronyism. Nevertheless, the belief in its
legitimacy is strong enough to animate the general process of grant
7 Implications in the United States and Abroad
The processes of evaluation documented in this chapter apply
to multidisciplinary panels. Unidisciplinary panels follow different
rules.^45 The rule of disciplinary sovereignty, for instance, may not ap-
ply, and there may be more competition to appropriate the right to
speak on a topic when members all are from the same discipline and
know one another, at least by reputation. Moreover, the fact that
panelists must convince one another of the value of a proposal cer-
tainly contributes to their belief in the legitimacy of the process. In
contrast, evaluations of journal submissions are conducted in the
privacy of a reviewer’s office or home and are not defended publicly.
This may leave more room for greater personal arbitrariness.
The analysis in this chapter downplayed the effects of panelists’
disciplines and institutional affiliations on how they are heard on
panels, that is, how much weight is given to their opinion, who gets
the benefit of the doubt, and who defers to whom. It also under-
emphasized the degree to which the same rules apply whether the
knowledge being evaluated is more or less technical. Addressing
these issues would require having detailed observational data on
pecking orders, and paying attention to differences across panels
rather than similarities. Nevertheless, I have provided clear evidence
of the importance of both collegiality and respect for customary
rules. Future research should detail which rules are most faithfully
respected by panelists from various disciplines, and which rules are
most respected across all panels, including those for competitions
not considered here.
158 / Pragmatic Fairness