Knowledge Power Europe: What Science Diplomacy Can Teach Us about the EU

Europe is a knowledge superpower. Despite the often negatively framed discourses on knowledge policy, the EU is clearly in a strong second position globally and has strategic ambitions to reach the top. The centrality of knowledge to EU policy since the Lisbon strategy of 2000 is well documented. Knowledge in these discourses is most often is depicted as a tool for achieving competitiveness and other political aims; this we call the ‘knowedgization of the EU’. In this paper we seek to understand how knowledge can be exploited externally. In other words, is there evidence of a ‘Knowledge Power Europe’? In the EU’s 2016 global strategy, the importance of acting on both values and interests is a central theme. Knowledge Power Europe would use science diplomacy to promote core values and interests. Examining food security in Africa provides a case that brings together the core elements needed to better understand how science diplomacy reflects back on the EU itself. Food security has tentacles that tie into all five of the EU’s priorities in global strategy: security, state and societal resilience, conflict resolution, supporting cooperative regional orders, and global governance. Further, food security is broadly seen as a way of addressing the root causes of a broad array of issues including migration, human rights, climate change, and gender equality. As such food security cannot be addressed through a single DG but requires coordinated action. Understanding how that coordinated action is undertaken, is used to provide new insights into current European policymaking in this paper.