ESPM 169 - Knowledge Politics I: Science and Policy



ESPM 169 - Knowledge Politics I: Science and Policy

October 10, 2002

Logistics

a. Return papers (if desired, will go over some aspects in sections)

b. This Friday section

c. Section reading

d. Group exercise

1. Why are we concerned about knowledge politics?

a. Knowledge politics is defined broadly as the use of knowledge for political ends.

b. Uncertainty in environmental politics, particularly at global levels

i. About workings of ecosystems

ii. About nature of influence of humans

iii. About means to address environmental problems

c. Uncertainty increases exponentially into the future

d. Interdependence of science and policy: policy-makers need scientific knowledge, scientists benefit from policy-derived programs - ‘research thrives on ignorance and uncertainty’

→ Science is one dimension of knowledge

→ Scientists are usually involved in international environmental politics because they may hold important answers. BUT, how are these answers generated, translated, and inserted into IEP?

→ Science is necessary but not sufficient

2. How knowledge politics fits into the IEP puzzle

a. International cooperation

i. Influence at different policy cycles (agenda setting, negotiation, implementation, monitoring)

ii. Influence on determinants of success:

• KHL’s 3Cs: especially concern

• Young’s six determinants: especially simplicity of issues

b. Nature of biodiversity

i. Role of important scientists - EO Wilson, Thomas Lovejoy,

ii. Certainty in habitat loss versus uncertainty in species loss – focus on biodiversity hotspots

c. Evolution of convention

i. Increasing emphasis on biotechnology (are scientists driving the framing process?)

d. Power politics

i. Who holds scientific key to using biodiversity

ii. What role for indigenous technical knowledge (ITK)

e. October 18/21 Section readings: Jasanoff/Haas

3. What counts as science and who are the scientists?

a. Science has evolved in a close, important and yet ambivalent relationship with industrialization. Culture of science – scientific method, science is distinguished from ordinary knowledge on the basis of consensus. BUT, Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions outlining changes in underlying paradigm – ‘normal science’

i. BUT, bias toward what counts as science and who counts as a scientist!

b. Scientists work in public, private, and non-governmental realms, and in basic or applied science. Balance varies across countries. They work at national and international levels.

c. The situation in which scientists work has a large effect on their ability to influence policy.

4. Sources of scientists’ influence

a. Presumed integrity and competence through professional socialization and self-corrective pluralism in the scientific community. Opposite to interest-driven political dynamics.

b. Ability to reduce uncertainty is power (power in a more comprehensive sense that includes knowledge-based power).

c. Scientific globalization: universality of scientific language, international conferences, communications technology allows transboundary collaboration and cooperation, often cutting across political differences (IIASA – International Instituted for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna as a conduit for East West dialogue during Cold War).

d. Challenges to scientific integrity and competence:

i. Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist

ii. Steven Milloy’s Junk Science Judo

iii. Michaels and Balling’s Satanic Gases

e. Politicization of science: when pursuit of interests are served by lack of knowledge among opponents.

f. Question to class: as potential future scientists with knowledge that can be useful to solving environmental problems, how do you see your responsibility in communicating research results to policy makers?

5. Determinants of scientific influence in international environmental policy

a. Overall factors: nature of the problem, problem-solving capacity

b. Institutional environment: how does the organization of the science-policy dialogue affect the role of science in policy and the role of politics in science? Importance of “knowledge brokers.”

c. The role of science can vary from simple acknowledgement of the relevance of scientific knowledge by policy-makers, to acceptance of substantive conclusions, to actual guidance of policy by science.

d. Explanatory factors[1]:

i. Autonomy and integrity

• Selection and funding of scientists involved (by IGO or countries or NGOs)

• Criteria of selection for scientific participants (scholarly merit versus political appointment)

• Operational autonomy (setting their own agenca)

• Main function (production of new knowledge, coordination, translation into policy implications)

• Unity and homogeneity (own coordinating mechanism, scientists versus administrators)

ii. Responsiveness and involvement

• Functional differentiation: who produces knowledge and who advises on policy implications?

• Formal links to decision-making body (two-way communication)

iii. Other variables:

• State of knowledge: the less knowledge, the less influence

• Political malignancy (feasibility of ‘cures’): the more malign, the more conclusive the evidence needs to be

• Public salience: the more salient, the higher the demand for knowledge

6. Theoretical perspectives

a. Epistemic communities – Peter Haas

i. Examination of different international environmental negotiations: Mediterranean Action Plan, Ozone (1974 Rowland and Molina UC Irvine; 1985 study by the British Antarctic Survey finds ozone hole), Climate change (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)

ii. International cooperation in environmental issues has been achieved not under the leadership of powerful states, but through the influence of epistemic communities: “transnational networks of knowledge-based communities that are both politically empowered through their claims to exercise authoritative knowledge and motivated by shared causal and principled beliefs” – both a positive and a normative statement.

• Principles values regarding the enhancement of collective welfare

• Validity of cause-and-effect relationships

• Truth tests (scientific method)

• Common policy enterprise

iii. They are goal seeking actors, with influence following from consolidation of bureaucratic power (budgets, staffing, enforcement authority), both in national administrations and international organizations.

iv. Learning is almost exclusively made possible through epistemic communities

v. Propositions:

• Crises cause search for new information

• Once identified and mobilized, epistemic communities are potent actors

• Rough technical consensus is principal claim to authority

• Access to international and domestic authorities contributes to influence over policy formulation and enforcement

• Scientific advice most effective when provided through domestic channels

• Consolidated bureaucratic power reinforces their influence

• Expanded domestic support reinforces bureaucratic power

• Not all environmental problems require scientific input (e.g. clear winners and losers in environmental catastrophes)

• Process of cooperation is reversible when knowledge base collapses

vi. Criticisms:

• Uncritical view of science itself

• Where does scientific consensus itself emerge

• How much consensus is necessary

b. Science studies (sociology of scientific knowledge, science and technology studies) – Bruno Latour, Sheila Jasanoff, etc.

i. Knowledge never moves freely – knowledge is embedded in social and material context, which needs to be examined (cf. hard versus soft, Western versus indigenous knowledge)

ii. The value of science is the result of negotiations – science does not speak for itself, it is negotiated in social processes that involves other actors

iii. Science and policy are co-produced – policy influences the production of knowledge, while the knowledge simultaneously supports and justifies that policy, people believe certain scientific explanations because they support their interests.

iv. Jasanoff proposes four mechanisms by which science may become policy-relevant:[2]

• If it supports politically accepted forms of discourse and reasoning

• If communities have a privileged right to formulate policy and ratify it

• If convergent economic interests of business and government support it, allowing science to play the role of a visible consensus builder, and

• If it is part of a general technological culture, where technocratic solutions of political problems are supported

7. Examples of scientific arrangements in IEP

a. UNEP

i. Division of Early Warning and Assessment: Promoting availability of, and enhancing access to, the scientific information needed by decision makers for better environmental management; Assessing environmental conditions and threats to alert policy makers, and to facilitate the development of impact reduction strategies; Devising strategies and contributing to early warning to better cope with environmental threats; and Identifying emerging issues

ii. Scientific advisory groups.

b. UNESCO: Programme on Man and the Biosphere (MAB) develops the basis, within the natural and the social sciences, for the sustainable use and conservation of biological diversity, and for the improvement of the relationship between people and their environment globally.

c. GEF: Scientific And Technical Advisory Panel

d. Non-governmental organizations:

i. World Conservation Monitoring Centre

ii. IUCN Red lists (handout) – 11,170 plant and animal species face extinction, established by network of 7,000 experts

8. Knowledge politics in the CBD

a. Role of IUCN in issue emergence

b. Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTA)

i. “open-ended intergovernmental scientific advisory body”

ii. subsidiary body of the Conference of the Parties (COP) and is to report regularly to the COP on all aspects of its work

iii. functions include: providing assessments of the status of biological diversity; assessments of the types of measures taken in accordance with the provisions of the Convention; and respond to questions that the COP may put to the body. How SBSTTA carries out its work is described in its modus operandi (determined by COP)

iv. has met 7 times to date and produced a total of 71 recommendations, ten of which have been endorsed in full by the latter

c. Criticisms

i. Does mostly coordination and translation

ii. Politicized because reps are often politicians not scientists

d. Options

i. Set up parallel but independent body, like IPCC (most costly, politically unworkable in short term)

ii. Make better use of informal scientific espertise through national international academies of sciences

9. In situ versus ex situ conservation

a. Knowledge politics aspects

i. What kind of knowledge is needed by the two approaches?

• Natural science versus social science

• Technical knowledge

ii. Who holds these kinds of knowledge?

b. Complementarity

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[1] From Arild Underdal, “Science and politics: the anatomy of an uneasy relationship” in Steinar Andresen, Tora Skodvin, Arild Underdal, and Jørgen Wettestad, Science and politics in international environmental regimes: between integrity and involvement (2000).

[2] Sheila Jasanoff, “Science and Norms in Global Environmental Regimes,” in F.O Hampson and J. Reppy, eds., Earthly Goods: Environmental Change and Social Justice (1996)

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