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epistemic community
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What is an epistemic community?
An epistemic community in international relations is a network of professionals from various backgrounds and countries who possess recognized expertise and authoritative knowledge in a specific issue area. These professionals are united by shared norms, beliefs about central problems, criteria for evaluating knowledge, and a common policy enterprise.
Globalization has amplified the importance of epistemic communities because states increasingly rely on each other's policy choices to address common problems. Epistemic communities influence governance by framing issues, setting political agendas, contributing to policy formulation, and shaping policy choices. Their expertise and knowledge foster social learning and can lead to the creation of institutions that reflect their understanding of particular issues.
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How do epistemic communities relate to international relations?
Epistemic communities are networks of professionals recognized for their expertise and authoritative knowledge claims in specific policy areas within international relations. Globalization has increased their importance as states coordinate policies to solve shared issues like ecological degradation, economic policy, and strategic security.
These communities influence international relations by framing issues, setting political agendas, and shaping policy choices. They offer causal knowledge that helps policymakers understand problems and create solutions. Their expertise aids in developing regulations and promoting cooperation, demonstrated by the scientific evidence they provided regarding the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer and biodiversity management.
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What kind of experts make up an epistemic community?
An epistemic community in international relations consists of a network of professionals with recognized expertise and authoritative claims regarding policy-relevant knowledge in a specific area. These experts may come from various backgrounds and countries, but they share motivations, beliefs, evaluation criteria, and a common policy enterprise.
Feminist philosophers like Sandra Harding, Lorraine Code, and Helen Longino have observed that communities of knowers often display homogeneity in sex, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. They contend that standards for determining credibility are social constructs reinforcing the status quo. They also suggest that the agents of knowledge acquisition are best understood as communities of inquirers and that welcoming diverse voices can help to approximate objectivity.
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How do epistemic communities help shape global policies?
Epistemic communities are networks of professionals recognized for their expertise and authoritative knowledge claims in specific policy areas. Globalization has increased their importance, as states coordinate to address issues like ecological degradation, economic policy, and strategic security.
These communities influence policy by framing issues, setting agendas, and clarifying the consequences of action or inaction. Their expertise and knowledge contribute to policy formulation and innovation, shaping policy choices and fostering social learning through international negotiations and cooperation. By creating institutions that reflect their understanding, epistemic communities ensure their influence endures, shaping how problems are defined and solutions are identified.
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Can you give an example of an epistemic community influencing international decisions?
An epistemic community is a network of professionals recognized for their expertise and authoritative knowledge claims in specific policy areas in international relations.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) exemplifies an epistemic community influencing international decisions. The IPCC's reports, which consolidate scientific and socioeconomic data on climate change, are presented to international organizations and governments worldwide. These reports have helped build a scientific consensus that increasing greenhouse gas concentrations are the major drivers of climatic changes, influencing policy changes.
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Why might governments listen to epistemic communities when making international agreements?
Governments might consult epistemic communities when creating international agreements because of the increasing complexity and interdependence of the world.
These communities consist of networks of professionals recognized for their expertise and authoritative knowledge regarding specific policy issues. Globalization has increased the need for states to coordinate policies and address common problems, such as ecological degradation, economic policy, and strategic security.
Epistemic communities can frame issues, set political agendas, and clarify the consequences of action or inaction. Their expertise and understanding of cause-and-effect relationships provide a basis for social learning and policy formulation.
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epistemic community, in international relations, a network of professionals with recognized expertise and authoritative claims to policy-relevant knowledge in a particular issue area. Such professionals may have different backgrounds and may be located in different countries, but they share a set of norms that motivate their common action, a set of beliefs about central problems in their area of expertise, shared criteria for evaluating knowledge, and a common policy enterprise. The concept of epistemic community was first introduced by John Ruggie and then refined by Peter M. Haas. These scholars focused on the role played by networks of actors and the consensus they hold about causes and effects on state policy and interstate cooperation.
Globalization has increased the importance of epistemic communities by creating a more interdependent and complex world. States increasingly depend on each other’s policy choices in trying to coordinate common policy responses and solve common problems on issues such as ecological degradation, economic and monetary policy, and strategic security. Uncertainty about how to respond to these complex problems generates demand for informed advice about the causes and interrelationships of particular social or physical processes and the consequences of possible responses. Epistemic communities are one provider of this information.
Epistemic communities exercise influence by interpreting these complex problems and possible responses for decision makers within national governments and international organizations. Their influence comes partly from their claim to authoritative and consensual knowledge based on their professional expertise. Epistemic communities influence governance in more direct ways as well, because they shape many of the stages of policy making, both domestically and internationally.
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Epistemic communities can first frame an issue so that policy makers understand that it is a problem, as experts demonstrated in the issues of ozone depletion and biodiversity management. Epistemic communities then help set the political agenda by clarifying the importance of the problem and the consequences of not acting. Their causal knowledge about the sources and remedies of a problem contribute to policy formulation as well as policy innovation. For example, scientific evidence demonstrated that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were depleting the stratospheric ozone layer. A transnational epistemic community of atmospheric scientists and policy makers gathered and spread this information to governments and the manufacturers of CFCs.
Epistemic communities also shape the stage of policy choice, because they use their professional expertise to lay out the consequences of different courses of action as well as of not acting. The ozone epistemic community used its expertise and causal knowledge to help policy makers develop domestic and international regulations on CFC manufacture and consumption. In the case of California biodiversity, epistemic communities demonstrated that, because of the interrelated nature of biodiversity, management of natural resources could not be achieved unilaterally and required interagency cooperation. Epistemic communities then suggested how such cooperation might take place.
Their causal knowledge provides a basis for social learning about what constitutes a problem, why, and what can and should be done about it. This learning, mediated by epistemic communities, occurs through international negotiations and cooperation in formal and informal institutional settings. The influence of epistemic communities outlasts their direct involvement when they create institutions that reflect their cause-and-effect understanding of a particular issue. These causal ideas become institutionalized in organizations and continue to shape how problems are defined and solutions identified.