Diane Ring on The Influence of Experts

Diane Ring has a post up over at Jotwell reviewing Mai'a Cross' Rethinking Epistemic Communities Twenty Years Later, which was published last year. Professor Ring says:

Rethinking Epistemic Communities emerges from one broad strand of IR theory, cognitivism, which explores how we know what we want, what we value, and what we seek. That is, even if much of international relations activity concerns the use of power and/or bargaining games to secure “desired” outcomes, how do countries and other key actors determine what they want? Certainly in some cases the parameters of what a country seeks to achieve may seem relatively clear, but in many others the outcome or at least its particular form, is less obvious. 

...As Cross articulates, the study of epistemic communities, particularly in the context of transnational global governance highlights how both state actors and the increasingly important non-state actors are affected by epistemic communities and the constructions of norms, goals, and shared understandings. She acknowledges certain criticisms of the concept but sees them not so much as a constraint on further research but rather a road map of the important questions that future scholarship should address.

Head over to jotwell to read the rest.