Part VI Actors, Ch.40 Epistemic Communities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haas Peter M
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Epistemic Community ◽  
Epistemic Communities ◽  
Causal Beliefs ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
History Of

This chapter begins with a definition and intellectual history of epistemic communities. ‘Epistemic communities’ is a concept developed by ‘soft’ constructivist scholars of international relations concerned with agency. Soft constructivists in general focus on the role of various types of norms, principled beliefs, causal beliefs, and discourses in establishing roles and rules in international relations: that is, determining the identities, interests, and practices that shape the identification of actors in international relations. The chapter then applies this definition to the study of international environmental law and discusses whether or not international lawyers constitute an epistemic community. It concludes with a discussion of some of the recent challenges to the influence of epistemic communities in world politics more broadly, and thus the future of international environmental law.

Epistemic Communities

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Haas
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Epistemic Community ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Epistemic Communities ◽  
Policy Context ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

As the world becomes more globalised, decision makers grow uncertain about what their interests are and how best to achieve them, and ideas become increasingly important as maps or frames for decision makers in an unfamiliar setting. With the end of the Cold War, decision makers cannot rely on geopolitical doctrines as a guide for various areas of foreign policy and international practice. The environment provides a telling issue area in which to address the role of ideas in an increasingly uncertain global policy context. This article looks at the concept of ‘epistemic communities’, their role in institutionalising ideas in international relations, and, in particular, the role played by ecological ideas in the development of international environmental law and the role played by sympathetic international environmental lawyers in converting such rules of nature to rules of man. First, it considers the concept of epistemic communities and then discusses the intellectual history of scholarship about epistemic communities. Finally, the article examines ecological epistemic community and multilateral environmental governance.

scholarly journals On the concept of international disorder

2020 ◽  
pp. 004711782092228
Author(s):  
Aaron McKeil
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
International Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Order And Disorder ◽  
Recent Interest ◽  
History Of ◽  
International Systems

International relations today are widely considered to be experiencing deepening disorder and the topic of international disorder is gaining increased attention. Yet, despite this recent interest in international disorder, in and beyond the academy, and despite the decades-long interest in international order, there is still little agreement on the concept of international disorder, which is often used imprecisely and with an alarmist rather than analytical usage. This is a problem if international disorder is to be understood in theory, towards addressing its concomitant problems and effects in practice. As such, this article identifies and explores two ways international order studies can benefit from a clearer and more precise conception of international disorder. First, it enables a more complete picture of how orderly international orders have been. Second, a greater understanding of the problem of international order is illuminated by a clearer grasp of the relation between order and disorder in world politics. The article advances these arguments in three steps. First, an analytical concept of international disorder is developed and proposed. Second, applying it to the modern history of international order, the extent to which there is a generative relationship between order and disorder in international systems is explored. Third, it specifies the deepening international disorder in international affairs today. It concludes by indicating a research agenda for International Relations and international order studies that takes the role of international disorder more seriously.

The Intellectual History of International Law as a Research Field—“Lauterpacht and Beyond: Jewish/German Authorship and the History of International Law”

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 793-805
Author(s):  
Felix Lange
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Research Field ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Trade Law ◽  
International Trade Law ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
The Cold War

Publications on the history of international law written during the Cold War can almost be counted on one hand. A pragmatically-oriented generation studied practical areas like UN Charter law, international trade law, or international environmental law, while the theory and history of international law played only a secondary role. An intellectual history of international law, asking which ideas and concepts inspired and formed international law writing, hardly received any attention.

scholarly journals Kazakhstan's soft power: present policy and opportunities

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-31
Author(s):  
Saken YESSIRKEP
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
Power Theory ◽  
Current State ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Russian Language

The article analyzes the role of soft power theory in world politics, the history of its application in the system of international relations, the features of the use of soft power tools by major actors and the current state of soft power theory. The author also spoke about the potential tools of Kazakhstan's soft power policy and the mechanisms for its use. Comparative analysis, summary analysis methods were used in writing the article. Scientific works and articles on the theory of soft power are analyzed. The results of the study suggest ways to achieve success through the use of the Latin alphabet, other ethnic groups immigrated from Kazakhstan, the Kazakh diaspora abroad, tourism, the Russian language.

Conclusion: epistemic communities, world order, and the creation of a reflective research program

1992 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 367-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emanuel Adler ◽  
Peter M. Haas
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Research Program ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
World Order ◽  
Policy Coordination ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Epistemic Communities ◽  
Institutional Processes ◽  
Nation States

Studies in this issue show that the epistemic communities approach amounts to a progressive research program with which students of world politics can empirically study the role of reason and ideas in international relations. By focusing on epistemic communities, analysts may better understand how states come to recognize interests under conditions of uncertainty. According to this research program, international relations can be seen as an evolutionary process in which epistemic communities play meaningful roles as sources of policy innovation, channels by which these innovations diffuse internationally, and catalysts in the political and institutional processes leading to the selection of their shared goals. The influence of epistemic communities persists mainly through the institutions that they help create and inform with their preferred world vision. By elucidating the cause-and-effect understandings in the particular issue-area and familiarizing policymakers with the reasoning processes by which decisions are made elsewhere, epistemic communities contribute to the transparency of action and the development of common inferences and expectations and thereby contribute to policy coordination. International cooperation and, indeed, the development of new world orders based on common meanings and understandings may thus depend on the extent to which nation-states apply their power on behalf of practices that epistemic communities may have helped create, diffuse, and perpetuate.

Idleness and Freedom in Michel de Montaigne’s “Essays”

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-202
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
Spiritual Quest ◽  
Guiding Principle ◽  
Sextus Empiricus ◽  
History Of ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship

The article advances a hypothesis about the composition of Michel de Montaigne’s Essays. Specialists in the intellectual history of the Renaissance have long considered the relationship among Montaigne’s thematically heterogeneous thoughts, which unfold unpredictably and often seen to contradict each other. The waywardness of those reflections over the years was a way for Montaigne to construct a self-portrait. Spontaneity of thought is the essence of the person depicted and an experimental literary technique that was unprecedented in its time and has still not been surpassed. Montaigne often writes about freedom of reflection and regards it as an extremely important topic. There have been many attempts to interpret the haphazardness of the Essays as the guiding principle in their composition. According to one such interpretation, the spontaneous digressions and readiness to take up very different philosophical notions is a form of of varietas and distinguo, which Montaigne understood in the context of Renaissance philosophy. Another interpretation argues that the Essays employ the rhetorical techniques of Renaissance legal commentary. A third opinion regards the Essays as an example of sprezzatura, a calculated negligence that calls attention to the aesthetic character of Montaigne’s writing. The author of the article argues for a different interpretation that is based on the concept of idleness to which Montaigne assigned great significance. He had a keen appreciation of the role of otium in the culture of ancient Rome and regarded leisure as an inner spiritual quest for self-knowledge. According to Montaigne, idleness permits self-directedness, and it is an ideal form in which to practice the freedom of thought that brings about consistency in writing, living and reality, in all of which Montaigne finds one general property - complete inconstancy. Socratic self-knowledge, a skepticism derived from Pyrrho of Elis and Sextus Empiricus, and a rejection of the conventions of traditional rhetoric that was similar to Seneca’s critique of it were all brought to bear on the concept of idleness and made Montaigne’s intellectual and literary experimentation in the Essays possible.

scholarly journals The hierarchical society: the politics of self-determination and the constitution of new states after 1919

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-396
Author(s):  
Maja Spanu
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
World War ◽  
New States ◽  
History Of

International Relations scholarship disconnects the history of the so-called expansion of international society from the presence of hierarchies within it. In contrast, this article argues that these developments may in fact be premised on hierarchical arrangements whereby new states are subject to international tutelage as the price of acceptance to international society. It shows that hierarchies within international society are deeply entrenched with the politics of self-determination as international society expands. I substantiate this argument with primary and secondary material on the Minority Treaty provisions imposed on the new states in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe admitted to the League of Nations after World War I. The implications of this claim for International Relations scholarship are twofold. First, my argument contributes to debates on the making of the international system of states by showing that the process of expansion of international society is premised on hierarchy, among and within states. Second, it speaks to the growing body of scholarship on hierarchy in world politics by historicising where hierarchies come from, examining how diverse hierarchies are nested and intersect, and revealing how different actors navigate these hierarchies.

scholarly journals A legal paradigm shift towards climate justice in the Anthropocene

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-68
Author(s):  
Sam Adelman ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Main Driver ◽  
Business As Usual ◽  
Ecological Catastrophe

Business as usual is widely acknowledged as the main driver of ecological collapse and climate breakdown, but less attention is paid to the role of law as usual as an impediment to climate justice. This article analyses how domestic and international environmental law facilitate injustices against living entities and nature. It calls for a paradigm shift in legal theory, practice and teaching to reflect the scale and urgency of the unfolding ecological catastrophe. Section 2 outlines the links between climatic harms and climate injustices. This is followed by discussions of unsustainable law and economic development in sections 3 and 4. Section 5 examines the potential contribution of new materialist legal theory in bringing about a legal paradigm shift that reflects the jurisgenerative role of nature in promoting climate justice.

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