The Role of International Organisations in Global Knowledge Contests

Abstract

Existing International Relations scholarship widely acknowledges that knowledge contests shape processes of global governing. For example, ‘epistemic communities’ offer advice to policymakers based on particular bodies of knowledge; transnational professions leverage what they know strategically for influence or other forms of gain. While knowledge contests among these actor groups feature regularly in the relevant literature, the phenomenon has received scant attention from students of international organisations (IOs), who instead tend to focus on delineating the contours of an alleged neoliberal consensus. By contrast, we highlight that, even when IOs agree on overarching policy goals (what Hall calls ‘third order’), knowledge contests can unfold over the means by which to achieve these goals (‘second’ and ‘first order’ disagreements). Therefore, in this highly technocratic field, contests over knowledge are central to understanding broader competing interests, values and objectives guiding IOs, as well as other relevant actor types. Knowledge contests between IOs, or between IOs and other actors, can manifest themselves in competing problem framings (who defines what the problem is) and policy solutions (which instruments should be used); as well as diverging implementation (how these instruments should be used) and evaluation practices (what counts as ‘good’ or ‘best practice’). This panel proposes ‘knowledge contests’ as a conceptual lens for understanding conflictual and competitive relationships between IOs and beyond. We show that, even within a spectrum of broadly neoliberal policies, IOs do not cling to identical bodies of knowledge. The panel explores the political and institutional implications of the parallel production and provision of knowledge by multiple IOs, as well as other collective actors. The papers speak from different theoretical and disciplinary approaches to these issues by analysing (direct or indirect) instances of knowledge contests involving a variety of IOs.