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Epistemic Communities, Constructivism and International Environmental Politics brings together 25 years of publications by Peter M. Haas. The book examines how the world has changed significantly over the last 100 years, discusses the need for new, constructivist scholarship to understand the dynamics of world politics, and highlights the role played by transnational networks of professional experts in global governance. Combining an intellectual history of epistemic communities with theoretical arguments and empirical studies of global environmental conferences, as well as international organizations and comparative studies of international environmental regimes, this book presents a broad picture of social learning on the global scale. In addition to detailing the changes in the international system since the Industrial Revolution, Haas discusses the technical nature of global environmental threats. Providing a critical reading of discourses about environmental security, this book explores governance efforts to deal with global climate change, international pollution control, stratospheric ozone, and European acid rain. With a new general introduction and the addition of introductory pieces for each section, this collection offers a retrospective overview of the author’s work and is essential reading for students and scholars of environmental politics, international relations and global politics.
This edited volume advances existing research on the production and use of expert knowledge by international bureaucracies. Given the complexity, technicality and apparent apolitical character of the issues dealt with in global governance arenas, ‘evidence-based’ policy-making has imposed itself as the best way to evaluate the risks and consequences of political action in global arenas. In the absence of alternative, democratic modes of legitimation, international organizations have adopted this approach to policy-making. By treating international bureaucracies as strategic actors, this volume address novel questions: why and how do international bureaucrats deploy knowledge in policy-making? Where does the knowledge they use come from, and how can we retrace pathways between the origins of certain ideas and their adoption by international administrations? What kind of evidence do international bureaucrats resort to, and with what implications? Which types of knowledge are seen as authoritative, and why? This volume makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of the way global policy agendas are shaped and propagated. It will be of great interest to scholars, policy-makers and practitioners in the fields of public policy, international relations, global governance and international organizations.
Through theoretical discussions and case studies, this volume explores how processes of contestation about knowledge, norms, and governance processes shape efforts to promote sustainability through international environmental governance. The epistemic communities literature of the 1990s highlighted the importance of expert consensus on scientific knowledge for problem definition and solution specification in international environmental agreements. This book addresses a gap in this literature – insufficient attention to the multiple forms of contestation that also inform international environmental governance. These forms include within-discipline contestation that helps forge expert consensus, inter-disciplinary contestation regarding the types of expert knowledge needed for effective response to environmental problems, normative and practical arguments about the proper roles of experts and laypersons, and contestation over how to combine globally developed norms and scientific knowledge with locally prevalent norms and traditional knowledge in ways ensuring effective implementation of environmental policies. This collection advances understanding of the conditions under which contestation facilitates or hinders the development of effective global environmental governance. The contributors examine how attempts to incorporate more than one stream of expert knowledge and to include lay knowledge alongside it have played out in efforts to create and maintain multilateral agreements relating to environmental concerns. It will interest scholars and graduate students of political science, global governance, international environmental politics, and global policy making. Policy analysts should also find it useful.
Examines the major theories within international relations, and how these can help us understand the emergence of global warming as a political issue.
Bringing the social sciences to the heart of environmental debate, this book demonstrates the relevance of sociological analysis for environmentally critical issues like energy consumption. Focusing on energy efficiency and the built environment, the authors take a critical look at the production and use of technical knowledge and energy-related expertise. Challenging the conventional assumptions of scientists and energy policy-makers, the book outlines a new role for social research and a new paradigm for environmental policy.
The most significant shift in environmental governance over the last thirty years has been the convergence of environmental and liberal economic norms toward "liberal environmentalism"—which predicates environmental protection on the promotion and maintenance of a liberal economic order. Steven Bernstein assesses the reasons for this historical shift, introduces a socio-evolutionary explanation for the selection of international norms, and considers the implications for our ability to address global environmental problems. The author maintains that the institutionalization of "sustainable development" at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) legitimized the evolution toward liberal environmentalism. Arguing that most of the literature on international environmental politics is too rationalist and problem-specific, Bernstein challenges the mainstream thinking on international cooperation by showing that it is always for some purpose or goal. His analysis of the norms that guide global environmental policy also challenges the often-presumed primacy of science in environmental governance.
Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Politics - Political Theory and the History of Ideas Journal, grade: Eins, LMU Munich (Geschwister-Scholl Institut für Politische Wissenschaft), course: Social Constructivism in International Rel. Theory, language: English, abstract: The goal of this work is to study the Approach of Social Constructivism in International Relations and to anchor this examination to the emergent debate of Feminist Constructivism as an offshoot of Gender in International Relations. To market International Relations as a social construction is to underscore the importance of Interactions, discourse, change and sociality as opposed to Individuality, autarky, power, materiality , rationality and militarism. In this regard Social Constructivism ushers itself in, in the discipline of International Relations as a new alternative to the traditional theories that have hitherto monopolized the way political scientists have been viewing the inter - and intrastate events. Constructivism is the new approach to International Relations. It takes a middle course between realism and liberalism. Constructivism explores the role of ideas, images, symbols, norms, culture and discourse on social life. It stresses that ideational factors such as dialogue and exchange of ideas are more result-oriented in socio-political life than material factors. Constructivism is a social Theory that centers on social life and social change. Focusing on ,,social facts"(Searle 1995) like money, sovereignty and rights which have no material reality but are inter-subjectively made real by shared ideational forces among peoples, Constructivists followed the example of Foucauld who opined that discourse is the root of all successes in human and social relations. Encompassing a broad range of theories that tackle the questions of ontology(the science of being), Constructivism insists that actors are shaped by the social environment in which they found themselves. In this way it researches on how identities and interests are created. Just as we have earlier noted, it handles also epistemological enquiries such as the material versus the ideational debate. Distancing itself from Realism, Neo- Realism and other utilitarian and materialist theories, Constructivism is skeptical about most of their claims such as those bordering on historical and scientific accuracy. For no single observation and account is flawless.
Water resources and related issues are of great significance in 21st century politics. In Africa, for example, hydropolitics affect politics and policymaking at the local, national, and international levels. To investigate water politics, this unique work focuses on the issue transboundary water governance in Southern and Eastern Africa. Based on extensive field research, it offers a comparative study of the Orange Senqu and Nile basins in Africa, arguing that both causal and behavioral factors (such as localization and trust building) drive the multi-leveled development of cooperative management norms and foster the creation of regional communities of interest. The book combines theory, analysis, and fieldwork within the framework of Constructivism as well as a wide range of examples to identify and analyze the nature of norms in hydropolitics. By doing so, it will help shape the debate on how water conflict and cooperative governance should evolve and will interest anyone studying African politics, hydropolitics, and issues of development.
This book examines the process of norm development and knowledge creation in international politics, and assesses these processes in case studies on protection from torture, intellectual property rights and climate change. Drawing on the theories of constructivism and the sociology of scientific knowledge, author Preslava Stoeva demonstrates that international norms are a product of a sequence of closures and consensus reached at different social levels. She contends that it is this process which makes norms permeate the social and political fabric of international relations even before they become official principles of state behaviour. Proposing a theoretical model which indicates the stages of the development of norms, she studies the roles that various actors play in that process, together with the interplay of various types of power. Through this endeavour, this book succeeds in providing the reader with a better understanding of the social processes that lead to normative change in international relations. New Norms and Knowledge in World Politics will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners of international relations, comparative politics, globalization, sociology and anthropology.
The proliferation of environmental agreements is a defining feature of modern international relations that has attracted considerable academic attention. Typically focusing on happy-end stories of policy creation, the cooperation literature often ignores issue areas where policy agreements are absent. Science and International Environmental Policy introduces nonregimes into the study of global governance, and compares successes with failures in the formation of environmental treaties. By exploring collective decisions not to cooperate, it explains why international institutions form but also why, when, and how they do not emerge. Visit our website for sample chapters!
Critical Political Ecology brings political debate to the science of ecology. As political controversies multiply over the science underlying environmental debates, there is an increasing need to understand the relationship between environmental science and politics. In this timely and wide-ranging volume, Tim Forsyth uses an innovative approach to apply political analysis to ecology, and demonstrates how more politicised approaches to science can be used in environmental decision-making. Critical Political Ecology examines: *how social and political factors frame environmental science, and how science in turn shapes politics *how new thinking in philosophy and sociology of science can provide fresh insights into the biophysical causes and impacts of environmental problems *how policy and decision-makers can acknowledge the political influences on science and achieve more effective public participation and governance.