Ideas, interests, and institutionalization: “trade in services” and the Uruguay Round

Drake, William J.; Nicolaïdis, Kalypso

doi:10.4324/9781315085463-1

Cited by 16 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…On the basis of our negative case, this article proposes an adjustment to the original mechanism: bureaucratic capture, which Haas conceptualized as optional to a continuous provision of framing and learning opportunities, is demonstrated to be an integral part for the "cogs and wheels" of the mechanism to function. To encompass the informal framing and teaching opportunities of the original formulation, this article proposes to rephrase bureaucratic capture as a broader category of "access to decision makers," in line with some of the existing scholarship (Drake & Nicola€ ıdis, 1992). Focusing on the mechanism of influence, rather than on the nature of the community or the policy, changes the thinking about epistemic communities: the move is from a probabilistic view based on conditions for success ("the better their access to decision-makers, the higher the chance of their success") to one where scope conditions and parts of the causal mechanism are clearly separated and their interaction with each other and with overarching scope conditions is specified.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…So far, Haas's initial causal mechanism is empirically validated-all parts are necessary, in their logical order, with one minor adjustment: on the basis of the Czech case, it would seem that the pitchforked third part (either continuing providing learning opportunities or consolidating bureaucratic power, or both) should be considered more broadly as "epistemic community gains access to decision makers" (see Figure 2), as suggested already by Drake and Nicola€ ıdis (1992). Access should be understood as a continuous notion which can include both formal and informal dimensions-the Czech case shows that even high levels of formal access (e.g., members of the epistemic community within top bureaucratic structures) do not necessarily imply effective access, in the sense of having the ear of decision makers.…”

Section: Convincing Decision Makers-or Not?mentioning

confidence: 96%

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When Epistemic Communities Fail: Exploring the Mechanism of Policy Influence

Löblová¹

2017

Policy Studies Journal

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Epistemic communities are an established concept in the study of international relations but can also explain policy change at the domestic level. This article asks why some epistemic communities manage to convince decision makers of their preferred policies while others do not. It suggests that the reason lies in the causal mechanism of epistemic communities' influence on decision makers, mediated by decision makers' demand for expert input. Most epistemic communities scholarship focuses on single case studies where the communities' influence on policy was strong and clear, leading to an overestimation of the groups' influence. To help correct this probable bias, this article compares a successful case of epistemic community influence (health technology assessment in Poland) with an unsuccessful example of the same policy (in the Czech Republic). The juxtaposition allows for unpacking of the necessary parts of the causal mechanism (emergence of an epistemic community, its activity, access to decision makers, and successful suasion) and separating them from the crucial scope condition. Decision makers' uncertainty about the policy issue at hand has traditionally been the key scope condition for epistemic communities but the successful Polish case demonstrates that epistemic communities can be influential even in highly certain areas of routine policymaking, leading to a reconceptualization of uncertainty as policymakers' demand for expert input. Demand can originate from various sources, but any change of it affects individual parts of the causal mechanism, leading to a success or failure of epistemic communities' policy enterprise.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Convincing Decision Makers-or Not?mentioning

confidence: 96%

When Epistemic Communities Fail: Exploring the Mechanism of Policy Influence

Löblová¹

2017

Policy Studies Journal

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“…This could take the form of open plurilateral agreements (Hoekman and Sabel, 2019), or, where feasibleas was the case with trade facilitationthe creation of new multilateral agreements. 54 See, e.g., Drake and Nicolaidis (1992). discusses the GATS negotiations at length.…”

Section: The Broader Challenge: Re-invigorating Wto Legislative Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preventing the Bad from Getting Worse: The End of the World (Trade Organization) As We Know It?

Hoekman

Mavroidis

2020

SSRN Journal

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Recent survey evidence and proposals made in long-running negotiations to improve WTO dispute settlement procedures illustrate that many stakeholders believe the system needs improvement. The Appellate Body crisis could have been avoided but for the use of consensus as WTO working practice. Resolving the crisis should prove possible because the matter mostly concerns a small number of more powerful WTO members. We make several proposals to revitalize the WTO appellate function but argue that unless the WTO becomes a locus for new rulemaking, re-establishing the appellate function will not prevent a steady decline in the salience of the organization. A key challenge is that plurilateral cooperation go beyond a focus on good regulatory practices and coordination failures and address sources of major trade spillovers. Doing so will depend on resolving the dispute settlement conflict given the need for new plurilateral agreements to be enforceable.

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“…Another epistemic communities’ explanation for the long EU silence on HTA goes back to insights from advocacy coalition framework and other policy process theories, namely that epistemic communities are not the only players in town. It sees their success or failure as a matter of competition with other actors, including rival epistemic communities and interest groups, 28 or wider forces, including public opinion and electoral politics. 29 In the case of EU-level HTA, this would mean there could have been active opponents of HTA—or proponents of better ideas.…”

Section: Conditions For Successmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epistemic communities and experts in health policy-making

Löblová

2018

European Journal of Public Health

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The role of evidence and expertise in policy-making has been of interest to public health professionals and political scientists alike. The public health community often sees its efforts as part of a linear knowledge transfer process and tends to blame itself for inadequate communication or translation of its arguments to policy-makers’ language when its efforts fail. Political science, especially theories of the policy process, offer alternative perspectives to explain the success or failure of experts’ preferred policy goals. This paper focuses on the concept of epistemic communities (groups of experts with a common policy goal derived from their shared knowledge) in policy-making, drawing on examples from the field of health technology assessment in Europe. By combining the parsimony and the central focus on experts of the linear knowledge transfer model with the recognition of complexity of political science, the epistemic communities concept provides a useful structure for the public health community to analyze its efforts to influence policy.

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Ideas, interests, and institutionalization: “trade in services” and the Uruguay Round

Cited by 16 publications

References 0 publications

When Epistemic Communities Fail: Exploring the Mechanism of Policy Influence

When Epistemic Communities Fail: Exploring the Mechanism of Policy Influence

Preventing the Bad from Getting Worse: The End of the World (Trade Organization) As We Know It?

Epistemic communities and experts in health policy-making

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