Effective international policymaking about global change requires `sustainable` scientific knowledge that can 1) promote shared and robust understandings of nature and society across disparate cultures and political demands, and 2) create a long-term balance between human and natural systems while accomodating social and environmental change. The task is further complicated by the proliferation of new international expert bodies and advisory processes in which many domestic tools used to incorporate scientific knowledge into policy decisions are weak or absent. Problems of data quality and standardization, and related issues of trust and accountability, are intensified in the arena of global policymaking. To assess these difficulties and assist in their consideration, this project undertakes a comparative study of the way scientific knowledge develops and is used in four international treaty frameworks: climate change, ozone depletion, endangered species, and biodiversity. Preliminary work will also be done on conceptual underpinnings for research on the environmental dimensions of two further treaties: NAFTA and GATT. In testing and developing their theoretical position on the co-production of knowledge and social order, leading to new forms of politics and science, the investigators expect to refine concepts -- including participation and governance -- currently used in different ways in the literatures of science studies, international relations, and environmental policy. The study focuses on two distinct but interconnected questions: one concerning understanding in the social sciences about the processes by which scientific knowledge and social order evolve and sustain each other in international environmental politics, and another asking how this understanding should influence future institutions and processes for undertaking and disseminating science relevant to international policy. It examines knowledge production in each of the regimes, investigating: the development of international expert committees; procedures for standardizing assumptions, parameters, techniques, and methods; the incorporation of knowledge into new market arrangements; legal decisions involving scientific knowledge; and public participation in expert institutions. The project team uses a variety of qualitative research methods, including archival research, textual interpretation, legal analysis, case studies, elite interviews, and participant observation, in a cross-temporal and cross-sectoral comparison. As a cooperative team, they will exchange information throughout the grant period and meet once each summmer for intensive review. Advisors at Cornell and other institutions will also provide critical guidance. The project will create and maintain an archive of the materials relevant to each of the four treaty regimes, and make an electronic index of archived materials available to interested outside users. Project results will be presented at professional and policy meetings, and in peer-reviewed journals as well as more widely circulated publications.
