Networks, Expertise and International Governance

Abstract

For some time now, many authors have linked the more fluid and — it is generally argued — more uncertain international environment associated with globalization with a corresponding shift in the modes and methods of international governance. This is also seen as having led to a rapid increase in transnational policy interactions and to the emergence of transnational and transgovernmental policy-making networks. The analysis so far has identified that drug enforcement policy-making has been largely determined through intergovernmental negotiation. It is therefore particularly important to examine accounts that seek to identify any changes in the nature of contemporary policy-making between governments and the actors who are most prominent in this process. A particularly important dimension of this debate concerns the role and power of ‘knowledge-based’ policy actors who frame and shape the ideas that inform decision-making. Advocates of the epistemic communities model, outlined in Chapter 5, claim that it enables empirical study of the role of ideas in policy-making and in generating international cooperation. Before examining these claims, let us first consider a range of viewpoints on the changing nature of international governance and the role of networks and expertise in this process.