Sciences organisée, connaissance utile et gouvernance multilatérale de l’environnement

Par Peter HAAS, professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Sur la base de son article intitulé « Science organisée, connaissance utile et gouvernance multilatérale de l’environnement », Peter HAAS examine les conditions permettant à la science de s’appliquer de manière pertinente à la gestion des menaces globales et transfrontalières sur l’environnement.

Scientific management of international environmental threats has been promoted by such luminaries as Al Gore, Gro Harlem Brundtland, and EO Wilson. All believe that international environmental problems will be better addressed with systematic scientific involvement. This paper (Organized science, usable knowledge and multilateral environmental governance) looks at the various ways in which science is likely to be consulted, and, through an empirical review of existing international scientific advisory arrangements to international environmental regimes, seeks to identify some lessons about the appropriate design and maintenance of such scientific bodies. It addresses arguments about the autonomy of science from politics, reviews the empirical record of institutional design for international environmental science advice, and infers some lessons about institutional design and practices for informed scientific management in international relations (IR). Some policy implications for IPCC and IPBES follow, as well as for global governance writ large.

Peter HAAS is a professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was the Karl Deutsch Visiting Professor at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin in fall 2009. His research concerns epistemic communities, global environmental politics, multilevel governance, and the role of science in global politics. Peter Haas received his undergraduate education from the University of Michigan and his Ph.D. in 1986 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been at Amherst since 1987, and has held visiting positions at Yale University, Brown University, and Oxford University. He is currently a member of the editorial boards of Journal of European Public Policy, Global Environmental Politics and MIT Press series on Politics, Science and the Environment. He is the author of several books (Controversies in Globalization – Contending Approaches to International Relations, CQ Press, 2009, edited with John Hird and Beth McBratney; International Environmental Governance, Ashgate, 2008) and numerous articles and book chapters.