Rebalancing the Encounter between Science Diplomacy and International Relations Theory

Abstract

Whether it is in climate change negotiations, pandemic scares, security threats or sustainable development agendas, science and technology are today at the heart of international affairs. Yet there is still limited academic work that deals with the complex relationships between international diplomatic and scientific endeavours. How can we bridge this divide and possibly ‘rebalance’ the encounter between the practice of science diplomacy, its practitioner-driven literature, and the discussions of international relations theory (IR) that underpin the study of world politics? Here we propose that this move could start from a more explicit placing of science diplomacy discussions across the IR spectrum. We pose that taking seriously science ‘diplomacy’, whilst undoing conventions around the hitherto limited ‘IR’ reading of science in its literature, would do well in establishing this reality not just as a domain of reflective practitioners, but as an effective launchpad for international theorizing as much as more academically-driven practice.