Epistemic communities, epistemes and the construction of (world) politics

Global Society

Volumn 17, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 21-38

  Antoniades, Andreas ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK; GEOPOLITICS;

EID: 28344435231     PISSN: 13600826     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/0953732032000053980     Document Type: Review

References (133)

1. See Peter Burger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (New York: Anchor Books, 1967);
2. Alexander Wendt, "Constructing International Politics", International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (1995), pp. 71-81;
3. Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999);
4. John Ruggie, Constructing the World Politics: Essays on International Institutionalisation (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 11-36;
5. Emanuel Adler, "Seizing the Middle Ground: Constructivism in World Politics", European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1997), pp. 319-359;
6. Joel Charon, Symbolic Interactionism: An Introduction, an Interpretation, an Integration, 6th edn (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1998), pp. 42-44.
7. See also Nicolas Onuf, World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989);
8. Nicolas Onuf, "Constructivism: A User's Manual", in Vendulka Kubalkova, Nicolas Onuf and Paul Kowert (eds.), International Relations in a Constructed World (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998);
9. Friedrich Kratochwil, Rules, Norms and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989);
10. Peter Haas, "Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination", International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 1 (1992), pp. 21-26.
11. A powerful statement on the same issue, from a philosophical standpoint, is made by John Searle. See John Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (New York: Free Press, 1995).
12. For the same argument see also Burkhart Holzner, Reality Construction in Society (Cambridge: Schenkman Publishing, 1968);
13. Jeffrey Checkel, "The Constructivist Turn in IR Theory", World Politics, Vol. 50, No. 2 (1998), pp. 324-348;
14. and Stefano Guzzini, "A Reconstruction of Constructivism in International Relations", European Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2000), pp. 147-182.
15. In this article the terms "social reality" and "world politics reality" are used interchangeably. It should be underlined that the term social reality is not used to describe a "national reality", but any reality that is characterised by the principles of the structuration process. In this manner world politics reality is a social reality and that is why the two terms have been used interchangeably. Moreover, the distinction between a "national" and a "world politics" reality does not imply that these can be studied and understood in isolation from each other. World and domestic politics dialectically exist in a constitutive relationship. Wendt, as far as constitutive relations is concerned, notes: "To say X ... constitutes Y ... is to say that the properties of those agents are made possible by, and would not exist in the absence of, the structure by which they are 'constituted'". Wendt, "Constructing International Politics", European Journal of International Affairs, op. cit., p. 72 (footnote 6).
16. Alexander Wendt, "The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relation Theory", International Organization, Vol. 41, No. 3 (1987), pp. 358-361;
17. Alexander Wendt, "Constructing International Politics", International Organization, op. cit., p. 71.
18. Although all constructivists agree that the structures of reality and thus of world politics are social, not all of them agree on the ability of their reconstruction. For the different approaches see Timothy Dunne, "The Social Construction of International Society", European Journal of International Relation, Vol. 1, No. 3 (1995), pp. 382-383.
19. See Anthony Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory (Berkeley: University of California Press);
20. Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (Cambridge: Polity Press).
21. Wendt, "Constructing International Politics", The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration, op. cit., pp. 73-74;
22. see also Robert Cox, "Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory", in R. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986).
23. For an opposite approach see Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 6th edn (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985), pp. 4-10.
24. Wendt, "Constructing International Politics", Politics among Nations: the Struggle for Power and Peace, 6th Edn, op. cit., pp. 71-72;
25. Charon, Politics among Nations: the Struggle for Power and Peace, 6th Edn, op. cit., pp. 161-168.
26. John Ruggie, "Collective Goods and Future International Collaboration", American Political Science Review, Vol. 66 (September 1972), pp. 874-893.
27. Michel Foucault, The Order of Things (New York: Random House, 1970).
28. Holzner, The Order of Things, op. cit., pp. 60-71.
29. Ruggie, Constructing the World Politics, op. cit., p. 55.
30. Ruggie, Constructing the World Politics, Ibid., p. 69.
31. International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Winter 1992).
32. Haas, "Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination", International Organization, op. cit., p. 6;
33. Emanuel Adler and Peter Haas, "Conclusion: Epistemic Communities, World Order, and the Creation of a Reflective Research Program", International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 1 (1992), pp. 368-371.
34. Haas, "Introduction", International Organization, op. cit., p. 3.
35. Haas, "Introduction", International Organization, p. 3, Ibid.
36. For the debate on technocracy and the new politics of expertise see Frank Fischer, Technocracy and the Politics of Expertise (London: Sage, 1990);
37. Claudio Radaelli, "The Public Policy of the European Union: Wither Politics of Expertise?", Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 6, No. 5 (1999), pp. 757-774;
38. Claudio Radaelli, "Networks of Expertise and Policy Change in Italy", South European Society and Politics, Vol. 3, No. 2 (1998), pp. 1-22;
39. Giandomenico Majone (ed.), Regulating Europe (London: Routledge, 1996).
40. Paul Sabatier, "The Advocacy Coalition Framework: Revisions and Relevance for Europe", Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 5, No. 1 (1998), pp. 98-130;
41. Paul Sabatier and H. Jenkins-Smith (eds.), Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993).
42. Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998).
43. Diane Stone, Capturing the Political Imagination: Think Tanks and the Policy Process (London: Frank Cass, 1996);
44. Diane Stone, Andrew Denham and Mark Garnett (eds.), Think Tanks Across the World: A Comparative Perspective (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998).
45. Thomas Risse-Kappen (ed.), Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-state Actors, Domestic Structures, and International Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995);
46. T. Risse-Kappen, "Ideas Do Not Float Freely: Transnational Coalitions, Domestic Structures and the End of the Cold War", International Organization, Vol. 48, No. 2 (1994), pp. 185-214;
47. Matthew Evangelista, "The Paradox of State Strength: Transnational Relations, Domestic Structures and Security Policy in Russia and the Soviet Union", International Organization, Vol. 49, No. 1 (1995), pp. 1-38.
48. Haas, "Introduction", International Organization, op. cit., p. 18.
49. Claire Dunlop may be right in arguing that Haas, by underlining the importance of "causal beliefs", does not aim at making a claim about how "truth can be achieved" but rather aims to rigorously define epistemic communities. See Claire Dunlop, "Epistemic Communities: A Reply to Toke", Politics, Vol. 20, No. 3 (2000), p. 138.
50. But in the end Haas does make a claim to how "truth can be achieved" or at least what the 'epistemic' is about. For a similar point, see the (rather exacerbated) critique on "epistemic communities as legitimate bearers of truth" by David Toke. D. Toke, "Epistemic Communities and Environmental Groups", Politics, Vol. 19, No. 2 (1999), pp. 97-102.
51. See also Dunlop, Politics, op. cit., p. 142.
52. Ernst Haas, "Science and Progress in International Relations: Conversation with Ernst B. Haas", available at: 〈http://globetrotter. berkeley.edu/people/Haas/haas-con3.html〉 (6 October 2001), p. 3.
53. James Sebenius, "Challenging Conventional Explanations of International Co-operation: Negotiation Analysis and the Case of Epistemic Communities", International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 1 (1992), p. 325.
54. Stone, International Organization, op. cit., pp. 3, 86-87.
55. Sebenius, International Organization, op. cit., p. 324.
56. John Kurt Jacobsen, "Much Ado About Ideas: The Cognitive Factor in Economic Policy", World Politics, Vol. 47, No. 2 (1995), p. 302.
57. Toke, World Politics, op. cit., p. 101.
58. See also the well-developed critique of Bernstein, and his counter proposal for a socio-evolutionary approach. Steven Bernstein, "Ideas, Social Structure and the Compromise of Liberal Environmentalism", European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 6, No. 4 (2000), pp. 464-512.
59. Anthony Zito, "Epistemic Communities, Collective Entrepreneurship and European Integration", Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 8, No. 4 (2001), pp. 600-601.
60. Dunlop, Journal of European Public Policy, op. cit., p. 142.
61. Ludwig Fleck, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), pp. 45, 158-159.
62. We use the German term "Denkgemeinschaft" in order to indicate that we are referring to a thought (denk) "gemeinschaft" (as the meaning of the latter has been established in Political Science). See Ferdinand Tonnies, Community and Society (New York: Harper, 1963).
63. In this context Wittrock and Wagner note that it was during the first half of the 19th century that scientific "knowledge came, maybe for the first time, to be recognized by its institutional locus of production - and this in an institution which had, at best, marginal and more normally an adversary role in almost all major intellectual innovations in Europe since the Reformation". See Bjorn Wittrock and Peter Wagner, "Social Science and Building of the Early Welfare State: Towards a Comparison of Statist and Non-statist Western Societies", in D. Rueschemeyer and T. Skocpol (eds.), States, Social Knowledge and the Origins of Modern Social Policies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. 100-101.
64. In addition, for the concept of knowledge structure see Susan Strange, States and Markets, 2nd edn (London: Pinter, 1994), pp. 119-138.
65. Haas, "Introduction", States and Markets, 2nd Edn, op. cit., p. 3.
66. An example used by Haas himself, when he tries to distinguish epistemic communities from similar or relative concepts. Haas, States and Markets, 2nd Edn, Ibid., p. 19.
67. To argue that epistemic communities are distinguished from other agents such as advocacy coalitions and transnational networks does not mean that epistemic communities are defined in opposition to these agents. Thus, members of an epistemic community can also be members of an interest group or of an advocacy coalition.
68. See Emanuel Adler, "The Emergence of Co-operation: National Epistemic Communities and International Evolution of the Idea of Nuclear Arms Control", International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 1 (1992), pp. 101-145.
69. Peter Haas, "Banning Chlorofluorocarbons: Epistemic Community Efforts to Protect Stratospheric Ozone", International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 1 (1992), pp. 187-224.
70. Adler and Haas, "Conclusion", International Organization, op. cit., p. 371.
71. Ruggie defines constitutive rules as "the set of practices that make up any particular consciously organised activity - that is to say, they specify what counts as activity" (emphasis in the original). See Ruggie, Constructing the World Politics, op. cit., pp. 22-25 (the quotation is from p. 22).
72. Jones, as far as political life is concerned, distinguishes: "a foundational level, identifying the 'legitimate' members of any political order and the 'proper' patterns of interactions; an institutional or constitutional level, giving form to the fundamental principles of any political order; and a day-to-day level of legislation, regulation and myrial actions intended to manage the affairs of the relevant political 'community'". See Barry Jones, "The English School and the Construction of International Society", in B. Roberson (ed.), International Society and the Development of International Relations Theory (London: Pinter, 1998), pp. 236-237.
73. Steven Lukes, Power: A Radical View (London: Macmillan, 1974), pp. 21-25.
74. By referring to states' decisions we do not mean to personify states. Rather, we imply a complex decision-making process, the final product of which is what we call here a "state's decision".
75. The term "cognitive authority" is used by Barnes and Edge (cited in Haas, "Introduction", Power: A Radical View, op. cit., p. 11).
76. See Barry Barnes and David Edge, "General Introduction", in B. Barnes and D. Edge, Science in Context (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982), p. 2.
77. See Lukes, Science in Context, op. cit., pp. 11-20;
78. Albert Yee, "The Causal Effects of Ideas on Policies", International Organization, Vol. 50, No. 1 (1996), p. 99.
79. Lukes, International Organization, op. cit., p. 24.
80. Stone, Capturing the Political Imagination, op. cit., p. 94.
81. E.H. Carr, What is History? (London: Penguin, 1964), p. 40.
82. E.H. Carr, What is History?, 1964, p. 40, Ibid.
83. E.H. Carr, What is History?, Ibid., p. 22 (Carr borrows this phrase from Oakeshott).
84. This point is explored further in the section dealing with the struggle among epistemic communities.
85. Yee, What Is History?, op. cit., pp. 95-96;
86. Eva Etzioni-Halevy, The Knowledge Elite and the Failure of Prophecy (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985), pp. 26-27.
87. Roger Tooze, "Ideology, Knowledge and Power in International Relations and International Political Economy", in T. Lawton, J. Rosenau and A. Verdun (eds.), Strange Power: Shaping the Parameters of International Relations and International Political Economy (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), p. 189.
88. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Cornwall: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961), p. 56.
89. This issue is multifaceted and would require more room than is available here. Therefore this section aims only at a concise analysis of the involvement of the epistemic community in policy processes.
90. Haas, "Introduction", Tractatus Logico-philosophicus, op. cit., p. 4;
91. Yee, Tractatus Logico-philosophicus, op. cit., p. 86.
92. Inverted commas indicate the epistemic communities' argumentation.
93. It is true that Greek Prime Minister Constantine Simitis, although a Professor of Law, is not a specialist in International Law, and therefore his belonging to this epistemic community is disputable. Christos Rozakis, on the other hand, is Professor of International Law in the University of Athens.
94. As the failure of privatisation policies in many countries has demonstrated, policy discourses that do not resonate with public discourses and face a hostile press coverage are mostly doomed to fail, even if they are promoted by majoritarian governments.
95. Adler and Haas, "Conclusion", Tractatus Logico-philosophicus, op. cit., pp. 374-375;
96. Stone, Tractatus Logico-philosophicus, op. cit., pp. 89-90;
97. Yee, Tractatus Logico-philosophicus, op. cit., p. 86.
98. See Haas, "Introduction", Tractatus Logico-philosophicus, op. cit., pp. 13-14;
99. Stone, Tractatus Logico-philosophicus, op. cit., p. 89;
100. Adler, Tractatus Logico-philosophicus, op, cit., p. 105
101. For a sophisticated approach to the contemporary conditions of uncertainty see Ulrick Beck, "The Reinvention of Politics: Towards a Theory of Reflexive Modernisation", in U. Beck, A. Giddens and S. Lash, Reflexive Modernisation: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), pp. 8-13;
102. Anthony Giddens, "Risk, Trust, Reflexivity", in U. Beck, A. Giddens and S. Lash, Reflexive Modernisation: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order, op. cit., pp. 184-185.
103. See also Adler and Haas, Reflexive Modernisation: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order, op. cit., pp. 375-387.
104. Amy Verdun, "The Role of the Delors Committee in the Creation of EMU: An Epistemic Community?", Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1999), pp. 308-328.
105. Stone, Journal of European Public Policy, op. cit., pp. 92-94.
106. Here one can include the new framing, by epistemic communities, of existing complex issues. See, for instance, William Drake and Kalypso Nicolaidis, "Ideas, Interests, and Institutionalization: "Trade in Services" and the Uruguay Round", International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 1 (1992), pp. 37-100.
107. Haas, "Introduction", International Organization, op. cit., pp. 31-32;
108. Stone, International Organization, op. cit., pp. 92-99.
109. Peter Haas, "Banning Chlorofluorocarbons: Epistemic Community Efforts to Protect Stratospheric Ozone", International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 1 (1992), pp. 187-224.
110. Adler, "The Emergence of Co-operation", International Organization, op. cit.
111. For the terms, "problem solving" and "critical" see Robert Cox, "Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory", in R. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), pp. 207-210.
112. J. Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), pp. 3-20, 243-296.
113. See, among others, Susan Strange, The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 31-43;
114. and Jennifer Chapman, "The Feminist Perspective", in D. March and G. Stoker (eds.), Theory and Methods in Political Science (London: Macmillan, 1995), pp. 98-106, 109-110. Chapman, in particular, referring to a new feminist definition of politics, notes: "politics is in all the decisions that shape our lives, not only those made in the restricted arena conventionally described as 'politics'" (p. 100) (emphasis in original).
115. For a short review of this thesis see Etzioni-Halevy, Theory and Methods in Political Science, op. cit., pp. 31-34, in which the author develops a counter thesis.
116. Daniel Bell, The Coming of the Post Industrial Society (New York: Basic Books, 1973).
117. See Peter Drucker, The Age of Discontinuity: Guidelines to Our Changing Society (London: Heinemann, 1969), pp. 247-355 (the quotation is from p. 348).
118. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages (New York: Viking, 1970).
119. See John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State, 3rd edn (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), mainly Chapter Six (the quotation is from p. 61).
120. Gouldner argues that there "are at least two elites within the New Class: (1) intelligentsia whose intellectual interests are fundamentally "technical" and (2) intellectuals whose interests are primarily critical, emancipatory, hermeneutic and hence often political". See Alvin Gouldner, The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class (London: Macmillan, 1979), p. 48.
121. For the phenomenon of the "New Class" see also the volume edited by B. Bruce-Briggs, The New Class (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1979).
122. Christopher Hill "Academic International Relations: The Siren Song of Policy Relevance", in C. Hill and P. Beshoff (eds.), The Two Worlds of International Relations: Academics, Practitioners and the Trade in Ideas (London: Routledge, 1994).
123. This article adopts a limited definition of discourse theory, based on David Howarth, "Discourse Theory", in D. March and G. Stoker (eds.), The Two Worlds of International Relations: Academics, Practitioners and the Trade in Ideas, op. cit., pp. 115-133 (the quotation is from p. 132).
124. Andler and Haas, The Two Worlds of International Relations: Academics, Practitioners and the Trade in Ideas, op. cit., pp. 379-380.
125. Martin and Richards, suggest a fourfold approach to the study of scientific controversies in the policy process: the "positivist", the "group politics", the "constructivist" and the "social structural". See Brian Martin and Evellen Richards, "Scientific Knowledge, Controversy, and Public Decision Making", in S. Jasanoff et al. (eds.), Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (Newbury Park: Sage, 1995), pp. 506-526.
126. K.T. Litfin, Ozone Discourses: Science and Politics in Global Environmental Cooperation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), p. 12,
127. quoted in Dunlop, Ozone Discourses: Science and Politics in Global Environmental Cooperation, op. cit., p. 141.
128. See, among others, Lukes, Ozone Discourses: Science and Politics in Global Environmental Cooperation, op. cit., pp. 16-20;
129. and Adler and Haas, Ozone Discourses: Science and Politics in Global Environmental Cooperation, op. cit., pp. 381-384.
130. See Tooze's insightful analysis, "Ideology, Knowledge and Power in International Relations and International Political Economy", Ozone Discourses: Science and Politics in Global Environmental Cooperation, op. cit.
131. Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977 (London: Harvester, 1980), p. 93;
132. see also Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (London: Penguin, 1977), pp. 27-30.
133. Mary Furner, "Social Scientists and the State: Constructing the Knowledge Base for Public Policy, 1880-1920", in L. Fink et al. (eds.), Intellectuals and Public Life: Between Radicalism and Reform (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), p. 145.