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Knowledge
and Power
Christina von Furstenberg, Chief of the Policy
and Cooperation in Social Sciences Section, Division of Social
Sciences Research and Policy, UNESCO.
 he
relationship between knowledge and power is not always straightforward
and unproblematic. A considerable amount of research is financed
with a view to maintaining pre-existing views and decisions. And
yet, there is a lack of high-level state-of-the-art studies on
issues when and where they are most needed. As new technology
outpaces the legislators and policy makers who have to deal with
the consequent change, the integration of new ideas in policy
formulation and their subsequent implementation require tremendous
efforts of mediation.
It
is mediation that is at the very heart of the United Nations specialized
agencies' mandate. As the intellectual arm of the United Nations,
UNESCO has always played an important role in the social sciences.
Indeed, working towards synthesizing the best of the different
international, regional, national and local networks, it provides
an open forum for all interested parties.
Decision-makers
cannot do without the benefit of relevant social science research
that is interdisciplinary and, through its methodology, capable
of understanding trends both local and global, responding to basic
research issues, and proposing clear solutions of wide-ranging
relevance. It was therefore with this aim in mind that UNESCO's
MOST (Management of Social Transformations) Programme was designed
in the early 1990s. The study of social transformations can perhaps
be considered as a critique of the traditional approach to development.
The MOST Programme thus attempted to create a new theoretical
framework for finding new ways of understanding emerging socio-political
issues, the driving force behind them and what identifies them.
Now
in its second phase (2004-2009), the work of the MOST Programme
is devoted entirely to the transmission of relevant knowledge
to established players in the policy field as well as to those
who are new to policy-making. The users of social science research
as well as national and local government representatives and NGOs
must be closely integrated in a structured way into the MOST networks
and work with researchers from the outset. International coalitions
within and between the different fields of research, lobbying
activities and assistance in decision-making are being launched
at national, regional and international level to support the development
of a political culture based on expertise.
This
issue of the Courrier de la plančte is the outcome of one
such alliance. Its contribution in terms of content highlights
the power of scientific analysis, from the study of representations
and of social behaviour, norms and cultural values, institutional
dynamics and economic processes, to the relationships between
society and nature in the great development panorama and the various
theories propounded thereon over the past fifty years. Its contribution
in action terms sheds light on and gives rise to processes that
are likely to nurture the development of public policy and debate:
lobbying, mediation, conflict resolution, policy development,
seminars, self-assessment, target groups, etc.
This
issue is one of the reference documents for the International
Forum on the Social Science - Policy Nexus, co-organized by the
MOST Programme of UNESCO's Social and Human Sciences Sector and
the Republic of Argentina. The Forum, which will take place in
Buenos Aires from 5 to 9 September 2005 (see below), is organized
to allow different categories of decision-makers to coordinate
their efforts in developing methods which will encourage participation
and make better and more systematic use of social science research
when it comes to defining policy.
By
creating new public areas outside the constraints of technology
and by giving new impetus to old-style democracies, society is
reinventing itself in a decisive way. The social sciences must
respond to this challenge and help societies generate, absorb
and implement this innovation process. They must form an integral
part of the social innovation process from the outset and contribute
to a truly definitive plan for a "different modernity".
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INTERNATIONAL FORUM ON THE SOCIAL
SCIENCE - POLICY NEXUS 5 - 9 September 2005 Buenos Aires
- Argentina
Taking up
the challenges
of social transformations
The first truly global society in the history of humankind
is facing major challenges which call into question its
nature, its democratic potential and its very survival.
These challenges are global since their driving force is
widely shared: urbanization, demographic and technological
change, and environmental transformation brought about by
man. The intensification of global exchange has a bearing
on the slightest of local processes.
At a time when there needs to be
an increase in action, we find ourselves confronted with
a lack of knowledge about these challenges and an incapacity
to respond to them. Mass urbanization appears to be an uncontrollable
phenomenon that slips through any collectively thought out
process. Mass education has brought literacy to the global
population but new technologies and new forms of learning
bring with them a need to rethink what that education is
all about. The development of an increasingly coherent structure
of international juridical regulations has won the support
of many new States which have gained their independence
over the past fifty years. This development has shaken up
the traditional concept of sovereignty without providing
any alternative State structure. We often seem to have a
fatalistic view of increasing global wealth and its consequent
inegalitarian development processes; it is as though we
lack both the knowledge to understand the reasons behind
it as well as the ability to change it.
Rigorous,
hence
serviceable social science
In all these fields and in others as well, policy
stakes are inseparable from social science stakes. Only
a rigorous analysis of social dynamics can give decision-makers
and civil society representatives the tools to show why
well-intentioned reforms can founder, what the effects of
suggested action might be, and even how best to attain the
socially desirable objectives. Without such rigorous study,
it would all be left open to prejudice, dogma and simplistic
options which, in themselves, may aggravate the very problems
they are designed to solve.
The fact that in major policy-making
we tend to disregard what a rigorous, relevant science can
bring to the field can be attributed not so much to the
failure of scientists or decision-makers as to the inadequacy
of relations between these two groups. Social scientists
and policy makers inevitably pose different questions, intervene
with different time frames and are judged by different criteria.
They are nevertheless part of the same society. The knowledge
sought by the social sciences is precisely that needed by
policy in order to be effective and democratically accountable
for its action.
Thus it is a question of filling
the gap between the social sciences and policy, making policy
implications intelligible for the social sciences and retranscribing
in policy terms the knowledge produced by the latter.
An
innovative
institutional plan
The Social Science - Policy Nexus is doing exactly that:
opening up a new possibility for this translation exercise.
Its international steering committee brings together representatives
of institutions and networks of social science professionals,
national and international funding agencies and concerned
NGOs. Although not an academic-style forum, its level of
excellence will be just as high since the plan is to bring
together representatives from the world of social science
and policy to seek a common language and terms of reference.
The Forum will include plenary sessions
with high-level speakers, seminars with international experts
on the Forum's four main themes, workshops conducted by
researchers, activists and policy makers who will have responded
to the call for papers, and also closed discussion meetings
will be held to facilitate contacts between the key players
of this nexus between research and policy.
The aim of the International Forum
is to recreate the link between social science research
and social policy, in particular through a wide dissemination
of its findings on the many aids adapted for different categories
of users, in supporting the networking of relevant actors
and through its own continuity. The challenges posed to
our global society far exceed the fields of the social sciences,
but without the social sciences, these challenges simply
could not be met.
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This first Forum will focus on four key themes:
1) social policies
2) decentralization and urban issues
3) global dynamics
4) regional integration processes
www.unesco.org/shs/ifsp
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