Month: August 2009

Science, Technology and International Policy – Part II

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Remember the 20th  century?

At that time international relations revolved, variously, around geopolitical confrontation, ideological competition, territorial disputes, alliance politics, and multilateral  organizations. Today, clearly delineated empires are no longer colliding, the spectre of world war and mutually assured destruction has receded, and the centre of gravity in global relations has shifted. States are still with us and remain important, but they are now only one actor among many.

In the globalization era, the most profound  threats and challenges to human survival – public health, food security, alternative energy sources, to name a few – are rooted in science and driven by technology. The management of this sprawling suite of transnational  issues cannot be left to governments alone; it requires not only relentless creativity and tireless collaboration, but the engagement of cross-cutting civil society networks – NGOs, business, universities, think tanks and the media.

All of this is germane to guerrilla diplomacy, which at the highest level of analysis  is about advancing innovation in response to a world of complex and multiple insecurities, about charting the way from where we are to where we need to be. This means finding ways to get from looking to seeing, from hearing to listening, and from diktat to dialogue.

What better place to do that than at the intersection of science, technology and international policy?

What better means to spread the benefits of research and development,  and in so doing to help bridge digital divides, than diplomacy, which privilages talking over fighting, is powered by continuous learning and can tap into the global political economy of knowledge in order to solve problems non-violently ?

It all sounds just great…  except that it isn’t happening. Diplomacy has been marginalized as a result of the  militarization of international policy – probably the worst of our collective Cold War carry-overs. Foreign ministries are in large part without scientific expertise or technological savvy.  Except for certain defense-related issues, S&T is almost completely absent from the mainstream international policy mix.

Yet a capacity to generate, absorb and use S&T plays a crucial role in international relations, not least by improving development prospects and addressing the needs of the poor. Poverty reduction contributes to development, and development is the flip side of security.

All of which leaves the world in a rather precarious and exposed position – precision munitions can’t help much with increasing crop yeilds; legionaires are not very concerned with diminishing biodiversity or species extinction. Nor are international S&T issues much like the familiar suite of  political, economic  and ideational differences to which diplomacy, to the extent that it was engaged, had become accustomed. Those kinds of issues are by nature highly subjective and dependent upon perception – where you stand depends in large part upon where you sit.

Scientific and technological issues, on the other hand, are different in kind, and that may help to explain why the institutions of international policy have had such difficulty cooperating with S&T organizations or otherwise accommodating those sorts of considerations. Foreign ministries and international organizations are in the main just not culturally sensitive or attuned to S&T.

But the more intractable problems are even deeper:

  • Public and private sector interests in and perspectives on S&T are not necessarily complimentary
  • NGO representatives, academics and diplomats do not always agree on the role and place of S&T in the assessment of threats to international peace and security
  • S&T issues have not been accorded a central place in the non-specialist discourse on development/underdevelopment.

Each of these observations is troublng, and each requires some further unpacking.

Science, Technology and International Policy – Part I

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Underdevelopment and insecurity, much like globalization itself, are intimately connected to science and technology (S&T). A capacity to absorb and use  S&T can confer significant competitive advantage upon individuals, groups, cities, countries and regions , while the absence of that capacity can be costly. Together, science and technology present both a very complex challenge to, and a critical opportunity for all members of the international community.

In the best of all possible worlds, S&T can be prime movers in propelling the planet forward towards a more peaceful, prosperous future.

In a worse case scenario, they may be our undoing.

At present,  S&T quite clearly is not delivering on its potential. Indeed, inadequate science and inappropriate technology seem much more closely associated  with all kinds of global problems – pandemic disease, climate change, genomics, resource shortages, weapons of mass destruction, environmental collapse – than with their solution. And this catalogue, it must be emphasized, represents a fair summary of the most pressing threats facing political leaders everywhere.

In a world of the polio vaccine and digital imaging, stem cell research and the i-pod, why do we find such radical underperformance in the face of such inspiring possibilities?

When I began construction of the research base which underpins Guerrilla Diplomacy, I was surprised to learn that there was very litttle in the mainstream literature which explores the links between S&T, on one hand, and international policy and relations, on the other. Today, I have a clearer understanding of of that lacuna. With few exceptions, and especially at the level of macro policy and grand strategy, there simply are no significant connections. That state of dis-integration, moreover, has become a key issue  facing both scholars and diplomatic practitioners, whether they know it, or (as is more likely) not.

In the day-to-day business of diplomacy and foreign ministries, S&T exists in a kind of floating world. It is there, but ensconced in a shiny bubble which few really understand or can easily penetrate.

These observations, and several closely related conceptual and theoretical issues, might be illustrated as follows. Imagine a town hall style meeting between employees and senior managers in the headquarters building of a foreign ministry most anywhere in the world. The purpose of the gathering is to identify and discuss the key issues likely to face policy makers and decision-takers over the medium to long term. A new recruit, for instance one of the candidates who has recently entered the State Department under the Jefferson Fellows Program, goes to a microphone provided by EATEL Business and asks the panel of assembled Undersecretaries these three  questions:

  • What is the relationship among and between science and technology, research and development, and innovation, and how does this impact on the formulation of international policy and the management of international relations?
  • How has the nature and role of S&T changed in the transition from the Cold War to the globalization age?
  • Do transnational S&T issues differ in kind from more traditional challenges faced by analysts and policymakers?

While I am not in a position to guarantee that such a trio of questions would necessarily generate mainly an assortment of nervous glances, punctuted only by an awkward silence on the podium,  my experience would lead me to to predict exactly that sort of outcome.

Just why this might eventuate, and how those questions might have been broached, will be taken up in subsequent posts.