Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Global environmental problems as Ozone depletion, contamination of toxic chemicals in food chain, and climate change are some of the biggest environmental challenges of this century. In international context, these global environmental problems are tried to be commonly governed by international regimes as Montreal Protocol, Stockholm Convention on POPs and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change / the Kyoto Protocol. In all these regimes scientific knowledge have been major part of the negotiation processes and scientific community knowledge is carried on by members of the Epistemic communities, which representatives have actively participated for the negotiation processes, and at least in some degree, have been influencing outcomes of the regimes. However, it is important to keep in mind that, these negotiations, as any other environmental treaty making process, are just combination of complex interests of different actors, where actors and promoting their political goals and highlighting their own views over the bargained regime: rules, norms, economics, science, protection of nature and human health etc. Original idea of scientific information within the regime was to be tool for policymakers that through reducing scientific uncertainty, policymakers could have clear and solid ground for decision making. However, it has started to be clear, at least for some scientists, that this neutral non-political role is not enough for them and they are participating processes to ensure that scientific information is truly carried, in proper way, on to the tables of decision makers. My research focus is how Arctic actors, especially the Arctic (Polar) epistemic communities, have influenced outcomes of global Climate, POPs and Ozone regimes. What are their roles in international environmental politics and how the Arctic message and knowledge of local environmental changes are carried on to the global forums? What can be learnt from role of the Arctic epistemic community, when scientific knowledge and capacity building has started to be driving force building process of international environmental regimes. Generally, my research paper try to seek answers for following questions: 1) The role of scientific knowledge in the context of global environmental change 2) The role of media in constructing public awareness 3) Pressuring the inter-state system 4) National interests and regional coalitions 5) The disputed roles of epistemic communities: Scientific uncertainties, 6) The limits of the political processes. Through comparable research approach, I believe that it is possible to learn something new information about role of Arctic actors, especially the Arctic epistemic community, in international negotiations. This information could be useful for possible new global treaty making processes, which may lie ahead of us.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Since the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, which brought into being the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the path of European integration has meant the difference between a strong and secure Europe and the disintegration of a grand, idealistic experiment. In this post-9/11 world, with recent terrorist attacks in Madrid and London, and several attempted terrorist plots foiled, Europe now faces a critical juncture when it comes to dealing with the problem of security. Sovereignty is the key obstacle to security integration because security has traditionally been the prerogative of individual member-states. Are strongly held beliefs about sovereignty ceding ground to an untested supranational order? I argue that key epistemic communities of military strategists, technology experts, and diplomats are already breaking down this resistance because they are in a unique position to persuade others of certain shared norms.
These knowledge-based networks, or “epistemic communities”, are comprised of non-governmental professionals who share policy relevant expertise, and have actually gained acceptance for the beginnings of a European homeland security. I seek to explain why they are succeeding in pushing forward security integration despite the strong inclination for national governments to hold onto this authority. In this paper, I compare three epistemic communities – military strategists, technology experts, and diplomats – to shed light on the interaction of competing epistemic communities with different motivations and norms. A shortcoming of the current epistemic community literature is that it tends to assume that each epistemic community is operating in a transnational vacuum. Even though I demonstrate that all three epistemic communities support further security integration, their motivations, preferences, processes of socialization, and shared norms vary immensely.
I engage in process-tracing and comparative case-studies for each of these epistemic communities to determine the origins of their allegiance, the social background of their membership, the creation and evolution of norms, their overlap with other epistemic communities, and the subsequent success or failure of their efforts to persuade and socialize others. In particular, I seek to determine the degree of impact these norms have had on the general political will for security integration. In this regard, I focus primarily on elite-level acceptance, and whether this has led to particular policy outcomes that support the gradual development of a kind of homeland security in Europe. The implications for sovereignty, democracy, and the limits of integration cannot be ignored.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper begins with the following question: How do cultural producers attempt to understand what their audiences want? Using the case of the U.S. motion picture industry, this paper explores how notions of “the audience” are socially constructed by decision-makers working in the world of commercial film production. Participant observation data is gathered from a number of sites, including a Hollywood talent company and courses offered through a major film school on the business of filmmaking. The study not only looks at the content of these social constructions of the audience, but also at how these constructions are created and affirmed in the everyday world of movie production. It is argued that the processes of constructing audience attributes, behaviors, and tastes are embedded in the epistemic culture(s) of Hollywood. These notions of the audience, it is shown, are consequential in deciding what films are ultimately produced by the U.S. film industry.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Of the multiple and complex institutional processes shaping the emergence of a new international regime to provide global governance for information and communication infrastructure (Krasner, 1986, 1991; Cowhey, 1992; Cogburn, 2003; Braman, 2004), international conferences focused on information and communication technology policy play a critical role. By bringing together policy-actors from multiple sectors and involving them in formal and informal negotiations, these international conferences provide a location for contestation and convergence around the policy preferences that will shape the principles, values, norms, and rules of the emerging regime (Cogburn, 2004). These policy-actors are often members of geographically distributed policy networks, which are in turn frequently associated with specific epistemic - or knowledge producing - communities. This paper explores the impact of policy-actor networks and epistemic communities on satisfaction and policy preferences in one such international policy conference, the United Nations-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). WSIS is organized as a genuine multi-stakeholder policy formulation process, involving governments as well as the private sector and civil society in its two phases (Geneva 2003; and Tunis 2005). Four primary research questions are explored in this study: (1) to what extent are policy-actor networks engaged in WSIS?; (2) what is the character and structure of these policy-actor networks?; (3) to what extent are these policy-actor networks linked to specific epistemic communities; and (4) what impact do these policy-actor networks and epistemic communities have on satisfaction and policy preferences within WSIS? Qualitative and quantitative data for this study are drawn from a larger study being conducted by the author called From Pawns to Partners: Policy Collaboratories and the Global Governance of Cyberinfrastructure. The qualitative data consists of participant observation notes, interviews, and content analysis. The quantitative data consists primarily of an international survey of ICT policy leaders (N=322) from the public, private, civil society, and international organization sectors participating in WSIS. Key findings include the following: There are a significant number of policy-actor networks working within the WSIS. Participants from both developing countries and civil society are involved in policy-actor networks and epistemic communities. The majority of these policy-actor networks are linked to specific epistemic communities. Finally, membership in these policy-actor networks and linkage with epistemic communities are both significant factors in determining satisfaction and the policy preference within the WSIS process.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Between the early 1960s and the early 2000s, tobacco control evolved towards a global treaty, when the 56th World Health Assembly (WHA) unanimously adopted the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) on May 21, 2003, the first global public health treaty initiated and negotiated under World Health Organization (WHO). This study analyzes how tobacco control epistemic community contributed to global tobacco control using World Conference on Tobacco OR Health (WCTOH) proceedings, WHO archival documents on tobacco control, interviews of tobacco control experts around the world and tobacco industry internal documents. We found that members of the tobacco control epistemic community influenced global tobacco control from outside the United Nations (UN) system through WCTOH, occupation of influential positions in international organizations and advisors to governments around the world. The members of the tobacco control epistemic community also influenced global tobacco control from inside the UN system through WHO expert committees on tobacco control issues, bureaucrats of UN agencies, national delegates and representatives of governmental and nongovernmental organizations to World Health Assembly and international negotiations on tobacco control. We further found that WCTOH activities and WHO tobacco control policy making processes are intertwined because of the involvement of the same tobacco control experts in both venues of tobacco control activities. We conclude that the activities of the tobacco control epistemic community provided knowledge on tobacco and tobacco control for many decades, which created legitimacy for tobacco control within the UN system and led to the adoption of the FCTC in 2003.