Global Institutions and Social Knowledge

Global Institutions and Social Knowledge: Generating Research at the Scripps Institution and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, 1900s–1990s. By Virginia M. Walsh. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. 208p. $50.00 cloth, $20.00 paper. What is the interrelating link between institutions and knowledge, primarily scientific knowledge? Conventional international relations literature focuses typically on the impact of knowledge on institutions. Virginia Walsh's interest, however, is to “turn the causal arrow” by focusing on the “institutional dimension” of knowledge creation: How do global political and economic, but also epistemic, institutions shape knowledge generation? (pp. 4–5, 38, 128, 130). Here, the scientific disciplines qualify as epistemic institutions (p. 34). From that point of departure, underscoring an institutional perspective, the emphasis concentrates on the “institutional mechanisms” through which knowledge is being formed. Groups leverage institutional mechanisms to “generate knowledge and fix beliefs” for the purposes of 1) establishing common understandings, 2) repairing uncertainties, and 3) directing inquiry by “fixing its direction” (pp. 3, 9, 38)

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