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LTW9: Epistemic Communities: A theory of science-based policy making…
LTW9: Epistemic Communities: A theory of science-based policy making
Past Exam Questions
What is an epistemic community? To what extent is the existence of epistemic communities necessary for addressing the international regulation of persistent organic pollutants?
Assess claims that the stockholm convention on POPs showed effective influence of ECs
SP Interaction
How does
science
inform
policy
making?
Current Position:
Based on all the evidence from the course, we're accepting that we're in the co-productionist realm, not the linear relationship one
Complexity of current environmental issues means the interface between SP is blurred
A high degree of expertise needed even just to understand the issue (therefore experts needed to translate the issue into understandable terms - complexity necessitates expert input)
There's lots of interests feeding into knowledge production
Complexity means a lot of uncertainty around cause, extent, consequences and solutions to problems
QUESTION: How influential are these scientific inputters? Is there a pattern underpinning how much influence they have?
School of Thought 1: Regime Theory
Explains why states cooperate in the context of anarchy
Science is a RESOURCE to be used by states to design institutions
Science has no independent role, it's just a tool
I.e. science isn't doing the influencing, state actors use science to support their own decision making
This theory doesn't tell us much about science, more just about how institutions work together
Stems from IR, arguing that international regimes affect state behaviour - assumes regimes are by definition, instances of state cooperation
Realism predicts that conflict should be the norm in international relations, whilst regime theorists say that there's cooperation despite anarchy
Krasner defines regimes as "institutions possessing norms, decision rules, and procedures which facilitate a convergence of expectations"
I think the point is basically that states form regimes which are based on a shared scientific understanding of transboundary consequences of an environmental issue, however, the science/scientists don't do the influencing, they're just drawn on by politicians as a resource
I.e. regime theory is incompatible with Epistemic Community theory as it suggests scientists are just the producer of a resource
School of Thought 2: Public Policy: Political Science
There's lots of different theories within this, and not all agree with the epistemic community approach
It's basically arguing that politics is driven by ideas and how we interpret information - interpretation is influenced by:
Who tells us
The framing of the information
What is revealed and what is withheld
The book, Policy Paradox talks about how ideas are more influential than money and votes for influence
Idea-shapers are incredibly influential in agenda setting
Idea-shapers can set the extent, consequences and what should be done to solve an issue
This puts scientists in a much stronger position to influence society
I.e. is more compatible with EC theory - scientists are dictating and agenda setting themselves and inputting directly into the decision making process
How do
scientists
influence
decision makers
?
Scientists and Experts:
They're the ones who define problems that policy makers and decision makers need to address
They can and are asked for guidance for creating solutions
They may therefore have asymmetric control over the decision-making process and policy agenda
When we say they have control over it, do they actually? Surely there's not a group of scientists agreeing upon a direction that they want to take governance in? Or is that exactly what epistemic communities do? Would imagine that scientists are in control in so far as their direction dictates policy direction, but they actually only loosely control their own direction
POPRC is a good example of a scientific group having asymmetric control over policy - they decide what gets listed and present information to the public, however, their advice isn't acted on immediately - social and economic factors get in the way
Knowledge Brokers:
Technical experts with skills at translating information to policy makers and the public
Many scientists not good at this
Can help advice in the face of uncertainty - something regular scientists aren't used to doing - they like to have all the facts lined up before concluding
POPRC is effectively a knowledge broker
Defining Epistemic Communities
What are they? (Haas, 1992)
Defining Features
'An epistemic community is a transnational network of knowledge-based experts who help decision-makers to define the problems they face, identify various policy solutions and assess the policy outcomes' (
Hsu and Hasmath, 2017)
'...a network of professionals with recognised expertise and competence in a particular domain and an authoritative claim to policy relevant knowledge within that domain or issue-area' (
Haas, 1992)
Networks of professionals with recognised expertise in a particular domain (e.g. biologist, toxicologists) with authoritative claims to policy-relevant knowledge (external recognition needed e.g. degree, PhD etc.)
Translate technical information into usable knowledge - created on basis of shared understanding of what forms validity within their discipline - e.g. subject work to peer review etc., i.e. they all agree on what counts as valid, based on the same set of assumptions
Have procedures to share information with policy makers - e.g. through journals etc. - it's important that they have these channels to share information
Can tell us a range of possible appropriate solutions to an issue
ECs come from the idea of constructivism - all reality interpreted through our filter of our own experience/knowledge gathering (can also be slightly attached to rationalism)
What they are NOT
is an self-labelled thing - they don't say lets form an epistemic community - in the same way that POPRc created criteria to label chemicals that count as a POP, EC theory has created a set of criteria that can be imposed on a group to see if it counts as an EC
4 Key Characteristics:
They are linked by a set of unifying characteristics for the promotion of collective amelioration and not collective gain, aka their 'normative component' (
Haas, 1992)
Shared Normative Beliefs:
Shared understanding of what should happen - provides motivation when pushing for policies (i.e. serves as a rationale for action)
Shared Causal Beliefs:
Their expertise allows them to understand what's caused an issue
If they encounter a flaw in their knowledge, they'll withdraw from the policy making table until fixed/solved
Internally defined standards for research
Abide by Mertonian Norms
Use the peer review process
Policy agenda derived from the EC’s technical understanding of a problem (aka a common policy enterprise)
Makes them very different from any other group that are present in a given policy making context - this is the only one driven by their technical understanding of the problem - everything else comes second for them
I.e. their agenda is the based on the truth of the knowledge, not on anything else
Agenda will change with new information and understanding (Haas, 1992)
Conditions for likely formation:
Form around
substantive
issues with scientific dimensions (i.e. problems for which science is seen to offer useful guidance for policy-makers)
Likely to form in countries with
robust institutional capacity
which facilitates and encourages formal
interaction
between administration and science (notably, rich democracies work best)
Identification of a problem that requires
urgent action or sustained action
or both
E.g. flooding incident in Netherlands:
Gave rise to a couple of ECs - they lasted for a long time - this is typical as environmental problems tend to last for a long time - requires sustained 'maintenance' even after the problem is 'fixed'
When are they likely to be influential? (Antoniades, 2003)
Cognitive Level
I think this is basically the idea that they shape knowledge and collective understandings of reality by being the 'knowledge producers'
They create social facts, structures, identities
They engage in a serious attempt to make sense of the world, for example, creating POP criteria conditions
Non of their efforts are about serving a particular political agenda
ECs are at the forefront of knowledge creation, shaping /working with complex issues that aren't yet well understood
As they define these issues and set their parameters, these ECs are thus the ones that get a lot of influence on the world
Have
asymmetric control
of knowledge - we trust them to explain the state of the world
Socially-recognized expertise gives interpretations weight and authority
Practical Level
Practically affect decision making in 3 key ways:
Defining the problem
(articulating the cause and effect relationship of the problem)
Shaping actor's
understanding of the policy process
(Expert
networks get involved in policy making domain, attending meetings/advising government/ getting jobs in bureaucracy - broader/more diverse means more likely to be successful)
Shaping the
roles played by various participants
(i.e. define whose expertise counts - often are lots of competing claims to authority and ideas - ECs will advocate for action on the basis of understanding of the science, not of a certain agenda - e.g. unlike an advocacy group arguing for the same thing all the time, ECs will change what they're arguing for if the science changes )
3 conditions to remember
: Most likely to be effective in situations of
complexity, uncertainty and crisis
Its in these cases where science may be more important to us than other considerations - i.e. we rely on the 'objectivity' of science to guide us through crisis
E.g. I guess you could think about how in normal economic times, the government does measures that appeal to the voter bloc etc., but in a financial crisis, they do what economic theory says to do, regardless of public opinion, in order to get us through tough times
So when they've got influence, what roles are they playing? (Haas, 1992)
They articulate the cause and effect relationships of problems
Help states identify state interests
Frame issues for collective debate
Propose specific policies
Identify points for negotiation by the state
NOTE 1:
Haas
thinks we must understand ECs from a constructivist approach only, but Jessica argues we need to separate out the ways of knowledge creation into how knowledge is used to meet certain goals - i.e. take a rationalist approach
NOTE 2: Haas describes epistemic communities as “transmission belts” for the transfer of knowledge to decision-makers
(Haas and Stevens 2011)
And what is more likely to facilitate greater levels of influence? (Haas and Stevens 2011)
Scientific bodies need to be able to
set their own agenda
; separation from politics is critical
Is often not the case - e.g. POPRC; even though it's supposed to be a neutral, science-driven body, where lots of steps taken to ensure political neutrality, there's still lots of subtle political influences - too much at stake to allow it to be otherwise
Members of the EC should be selected on merit only
This implies that governments should only select experts, and not 'policy wonks' i.e. not people who are policy makers with scientific expertise - but surely these people are useful as they're more capable of understanding the policy process thus more likely to be influential, not less?
This is something Jessica argues - that pure scientists who aren't comfortable in the policy arena will make little impact
Pure scientists aren't often comfortable proceeding in the face of uncertainty which is a necessary here
But how do we decide what 'merit' entails?
Would end up with very unrepresentative set with unrepresentative understanding of what matters
Small groups of experts are better than open access committees where all parties can nominate experts for participation
I.e. all the values imbued in the Stockholm treaty e.g. gender balance, nation representation, limited period of time served etc. are all dismissed - pure, merit-based approach in which we select people that 'they' think are experts - but this is very political in itself
3 Examples of Epistemic Communities in Environmental Policy
Dutch Coastal Flooding (Meijerink)
Meijerink uses theory on public policy to analyse policy about learning and outcomes
Summarises 2 competing epistemic communities - how they competed and who won
Different ECs gave 'ammunition' to advocacy groups to use
Shows that competing ECs can exist for one issue - it depends what science they're looking at; in this case, one argued for an engineering approach (civil engineers), one argued for an environmental approach (biologists and ecologists)
This shows how even though the statements arising from ECs should be irrefutable, there can still be contestation on who's given primacy
The choice depends on the value policy-makers then place on each statement - in this case, the environmental EC won out
Montreal Protocol negotiations
Obvious example of where experts brought an issue before policy makers (Haas)
Success in establishing protocol due to limited number of actors plus confluence of interests
There were a lot of access opportunities for scientists to be involved in the policy making here
Whaling Regime
Failed effort by an EC to achieve action
Good job of framing the issue, but never got into the policy making process
Didn't have the evidence to make a compelling case
Shows limits of EC's power - if evidence is in doubt, it's not contributing enough to a debate to outweigh the other concerns (E.g. economic, cultural)
Critique of Epistemic Communities
Criticisms
Criticism 1: Only 1 EC can exist in an issue domain'
Berstein (2001)
: An authoritative claim to knowledge shouldn't be contestable by different groups (truth is the truth)
Thus, if multiple ECs exist, their authority is undermined
Rebuttal:
Bernstein doesn't account for disciplinary/sub-disciplinary differences in knowledge production that lead to different formations of knowledge which are still equally valid
E.g. Dutch coastal flooding policy: two different groups pushing two different 'branches' of knowledge - equally valid, but one judged to be more appropriate - social values used to judge
Criticism 2: Epistemic communities always win
As ECs have authority founded on unique knowledge claims, their preferences should always beat those with less technical expertise
Rebuttal:
Scientist concerns may not beat economic/social in competing environments
Frames achieving dominance may be successfully countered at a later date
Higher uncertainty means the odds of the science being countered later on increase
Depends on how effectively the politics are navigated by scientists
Criticism 3: ECs don't exist
Lack of evidence of coordinated action among scientists (Harrison and Bryner 2004; Dimitrov 2006)
Rebuttal:
This is something several people believe but needs further testing
Got to find an example of scientists working together to promote an understanding-based agenda (i.e. aren't just working in parallel)
Others argue important question is not 'do they exist', but 'how much do they influence'
ECs are really informal, almost like social networks, just people talking - therefore, very hard to identify
E.g. with Stockholm convention, Jessica found same people going to Stockholm convention meetings year after year and building up relationships, but didn't find a decisive EC - were a lot of different factions - situation was too political - need more freedom for formation
Is the 'EC' theory valuable to social scientific analysis?
The EC approach helps to advance a 'interest-based' explanation of policy outcomes (i.e. people make choices to advance their own interests):
Alternative approaches and frameworks for understanding how policy decisions are made look at knowledge as the important bit
The EC approach helps us see that it's instead about the effectiveness of the agents in using their political power to shape interests
This also implies knowledge derived through scientific research is not reliable
J argues that agents rationally use information to create a normative agenda (i.e. it all looks like it's logical and objective, but that logic and objectivity is spun into a web that's adopting a certain implicit outlook)
Just the process of looking for an EC can tell us a lot about the role of scientists in policy; lets us observe the role of information and the role of agents and how they're both constrained by structure they operate in
When viewed as an epistemic community, the overall enterprise of the expert members emerges as the product of a combination of shared beliefs and more subtle conformity pressures, rather than a direct drive for concurrence (
Mazarr
)
Lot of criticism that EC approach implies an unrealistic division between S and P, i.e. that S is a 'wisdom' that tells people what to do
Argued that this isn't what the EC approach suggests:
“Epistemic communities may affect the policy process, but so do all other groups of actors involved, and the relative impact of experts remains unspecified” (Dimitrov 2006, p. 31)
Reasons it is valuable:
Highlights differences between the motivations and actions of a) scientists and b) traditional interest groups
By accepting a potential asymmetric access to knowledge possession, it allows us to consider the implications of scientists having that extra possession
Allows us to think about how knowledge may influence the preferences of technical experts
We can use the EC approach to see how scientific knowledge is used in the policy-making process and how it can be used to support policy preferences
Reading: Davis Cross: Rethinking ECs Twenty Years Later
-1
Most research narrowly restricts EC concept to groups of scientists + examines single cases rather than broader comparative work that could reveal new stuff about EC influence
ECs
not
just groups of scientists/technicians
EC actors growing increasingly important (
Point 1
)
Need to look more at internal dynamics to understand strengths and weaknesses/influence (
Point 2
)
Need to reconceptualise the EC framework to consider knowledge and uncertainty (conditions underpinning influence) more broadly (
Point 3
)
Why ECs are an important concept
ECs seek to persuade states AND non-state actors - underpin government policy and shaping governance more broadly --> effectively strengthening the very transnationalism that they represent
There's many other actors/networks shaping global governance - e.g. 'Communities of practise' (Adler and Pouliot), Transnational Advocacy Networks (Keck and Sikkink) - like ECs, all evidence power to shape gov and non-gov organisation's order (non-gov includes multinational corporations, advocacy coalitions etc.)
Braithwaite and Drahos: states increasingly ‘rule-takers rather than rule-makers’: TN policy communities (like ECs) offer up fully-formed laws which states then vote on - e.g. powerful corporations e.g. Microsoft can act as these law creators - 'global privatization of public law’ by powerful ‘webs of influence’
Such TN elites are distinctive from ECs but demonstrate the importance of actors like them
it is clear that actors with recognized expertise, shared policy goals, and a willingness to act are becoming increasingly influential
Research programmes in IR could make more use of the EC concept and its propositions: theories of civil war settlement, alliance formation, identity change, etc. could all benefit from this lens
'In an increasingly globalized world with considerable advances in transnational interaction, the value of expertise and knowledge and the networks of professionals who develop and sustain it are ever more apparent'
Has helped in EU integration, mitigating CC, AIDS issues in Africa
Emergence
Kuhn: Termed scientific community
Holzner: Coined epistemic community - used in context of sociology
Haas: Used EC in context of IR to understand groups of scientists
Ruggie: Broadened the scope of Khun's scientific community idea, arguing that epistemic communities can arise from ‘bureaucratic position, technocratic training, similarities in scientific outlook and shared disciplinary paradigms'
Adler (with Haas): Operationalised the EC concept, defining it as ‘a network of professionals with recognized expertise and competence in a particular domain and an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within that domain or issue area’
Seek to 'benefit human welfare' (Adler)
Inkenberry: Argued group of Keynesian economists formed an EC to persuade governments of their policy goals prior to Bretton Woods agreement
Adler: a domestic, US-based EC of arms control experts persuaded the international community to form a regime under the 1972 antiballistic missile arms control treaty
Kapstein: Central bankers have formed an EC
Concept Development
Verdun: The Delors Committee (group of monetary experts) formed EC, important for European Monetary Fund
Zito: Was an EC underpinning Acid Rain regulations
Under what conditions do ECs matter/when are they persuasive?
Scope conditions: uncertainty from perceived crisis (it's a complex, new issue + decision makers unhappy from previous solutions), continuous uncertainty (issue surrounded by uncertainty + is politically important)
Political opportunity structure: EC has access to top-level decision makers, EC able to anticipate other actor's actions despite fluid political systems
Phase in the policy process: EC able to influence terms of initial debate instead of...
Reading Davis Cross: Rethinking ECs Twenty Years Later - 2
...the decision itself
Coalition Building: High level of shared professional norms and status
Policy Field Coherence: They have respected qualitative data rather than subjective quantitative data, focussing on natural, not social systems and norms/goals comparable with existing institutional norms
Conclusions on 2nd research wave
Uncertainty from Governments continues to remain very important for influence
EC relationships with decision makers also critical
ECs also need to not be giving too radical policies - policy makers want more non-disruptive policy
Lack of competition for influence also important
Criticism of EC concept
Toke and Krebs
: Influence overstated: access to policy-makers often assumed more favourable + also ECs may not be better problem solvers than Govs - govs can be better at navigating in uncertainty - ECs may have personal motivations guiding them
Sebenius and Dunlop
: ECs inevitably engage in political activism --> rely on bargaining like everyone else, not on authoritative knowledge claims + Haas's framework is too ambiguous on influence criteria and which is most important
Developments to overcome criticisms
Adler and Pouliot
: Suggest subsuming ECs into Communities of Practise - practises can range from war to diplomacy - he argues doing so risks losing the distinctive utility of the EC concept - e.g. COP members may not realise they're sharing practises or motivations, let alone specific policy goals
Re-conceptualising ECs
Wants to expand on Haas's definition as people rely on it and it's not good enough
1: EC actors can be governmental or non-governmental, scientific or non-scientific
Authoritative knowledge is the product of social context, not necessarily based on whether it's proven fact or not (
Antoniades
); it's more important that knowledge is socially recognised
Expertise is most powerful when ECs are seen to have integrity and be politics-free (
Haas
) --> regardless of professional fields, if the EC is socially recognised, it has power to influence --> shape worldview (hence why internal cohesion is so important)
NOTE: Still need to be careful on who is an EC - still must be based on motivation of professional expertise, not other interests
NOTE: David Cross argues that multiple ECs can exist within the same discipline as there are disagreements on what constitutes knowledge: Youde finds competing ECs surrounding the causes of AIDS, and Adler finds evidence for them in nuclear weapons and deterrence
2: EC influence largely dependent on internal cohesion and professionalism
Internal cohesion means a shared episteme and ability to speak with one voice
Need personal relationships, sense of community etc. to gain traction in framing social reality collectively
In constructivism terms: social interaction explains actors’ behavior and defines their preferences and interests - ECs help assign meaning to things - 'responsible for developing and circulating causal ideas and some associated normative beliefs, and thus helping to create state interests and preferences'
Can split professionalism into: 1. Selection & training, 2. Meeting frequency & quality, 3. Shared professional norms, 4. Common culture (on a strong-weak continuum, not a sufficiency minimum)
Uncertainty: Davis Cross argues that uncertainty is the norm, not the exception. This means that whilst others think ECs thrive when there's lots of uncertainty, because there's actually always lots of uncertainty, the ECs that thrive are the ones that instead have high internal cohesion --> very influential ECs can thus continue influence when there's actually a lot of certainty - new evidence may arise in areas where certainty was assumed
Main Point
EC literature has too narrow definition of 'knowledge' - ECs
can
be based on non-scientific knowledge as long
Overall take-aways from EC theory
It's a lens to look at groups, not a self-imposed 'profession'
There's a lot of criticism that the reality is often exaggerated to meet criteria - i.e. that groups have more access to decision making than they actually have etc.
There's arguments from Davis Cross that the focus on them has developed to be too narrow and exclusive - more forms of knowledge should be included
The point of it is to be able to identify, define and thus explain certain groups that otherwise get lumped into other categorisations such as Transnational Advocacy Networks, despite having some unique characteristics that should be considered