Oxford – Page 37 – a sibilant intake of breath

Draft research design paper introduction

Preamble

‘Policy making’ can be understood as the application of judgment to problems, on the part of those empowered to make choices that will affect the matters in question. Global environmental policy making, in particular, involves heightened difficulties related to the process of acting upon the world. Firstly, with regards to such large and complex matters as climate change and the management of ecosystems, our understanding of the objective nature of the world is uncertain. This applies both to the functioning of the natural world in the absence of specific human prompts and to the impact that choices made by human beings and organizations will have within the context of natural processes. On the one hand, for instance, we have an imperfect understanding of the functioning of food webs in the absence of human involvement. On the other, we have an incomplete understanding of the effects of pesticide use on those processes.

The major vehicle through which questions about the nature of the world and the consequences of human action are accessed is science. ‘Science’ exists as a collection of methodologies, epistemic communities, and ideals. While the role of science as an entity involved in policy making may seem initially straightforward, complexities arise rapidly. Crucially, these involve the balance between making judgments about ontological questions under circumstances of uncertainly and the balance of making judgments between alternative courses of action. On one hand, for example, scientists can assess the distribution of fallout from atmospheric nuclear tests conducted above islands in the Pacific; on the other, groups of concerned scientists can call for the discontinuation of such tests.

The perceived appropriateness of each of those roles, on the part of scientists, is reflective of the credibility of scientists as individuals and members of communities and organizations, as well as the political understandings that exist about the relationship between expert knowledge and power. All viable environmental policies must be created in light of existing and emerging expert knowledge, but the question of arbitration between descriptive and prescriptive claims is one that raises fundamental issues about how science and policy do, can, and should relate.

The question

This thesis will examine the relationship between science and global environmental policy making on two conceptually separable but intertwined levels. It will so so firstly on the practical level of how environmental science and scientists have been involved in the development of laws and institutions and secondly at the more theoretical level of the understood relationship between the actual communities and idealized roles of scientists and policy makers. While the general answers for each level will be generated through different methodological means, it can be hoped that the insights generated will be mutually reinforcing.

In order to engage with the practical questions of how science has affected policy making, this thesis will examine two case studies: the 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The first can be seen as an example of a mechanism where a scientific understanding emerged of the issue in question and a reasonably effective legal regime for its mitigation emerged. The second example demonstrates a situation in which, for reasons which shall be examined, a similar progression from issue identification to effective policy action has not taken place. The contrast between the cases will hopefully allow for the isolation of important variables, on the basis of the comparative study of preparatory documentation and the first-hand impressions of the participants.

The theoretical component of this thesis will use the controversy surrounding the publication of Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist in 2001 as a starting point for addressing the internal debate within the scientific and policy communities about the role that science and scientists should play in the making of decisions that entail both potentially enormous costs and equally serious risks. The theoretical discussion will also involve the examination of the secondary literature on the philosophy of science, as well as the relationship of science and policy in related fields: such as global health and development studies.

The thesis will consider the competing hypotheses that the general understanding of science as a descriptive adjunct to the prescriptive policy making process is broadly valid, that is is overly simplistic given the multifaceted nature of the epistemic communities involved, and that it might be a fundamentally inappropriate way of representing a corpus of thinking, institutions, and individuals which is actually incapable of operating without concealed normative maneuverings. These possibilities will be assessed through consideration of the examples listed above, as well as the analysis of primary and secondary documentation.

See also: Research design essay planning (15 May 2006)

Deflated oval

On account of the gorgeous weather early this afternoon, I took a break from the research design and great powers/unipolarity essays to go cycling. Having already gone out and back to the north and south, I decided to head out west from central Oxford, then divert north, east, and then back south to Church Walk. I went 27km all told, along a route resembling a misshapen oval. Starting by passing under the train tracks beside the Oxford station, I rode west through Botley and Farmoor, before diverting mostly north to Eynsham – where sandwiches were secured. From there, I took the A40 to Cassington.

At the top of the long arc, north of Oxford, I had the misfortune of suffering a puncture in my rear tire. Nervous about ruining the wheel, I walked the bike just shy of six miles: from between Cassington and Yarnton, back into north Oxford. That was necessary because none of the buses entering Oxford from the north are allowed to carry bikes and years of educational videos made me too hesitant to try hitchiking, despite having recently read Kerouac. Thankfully, I was able to do reach Church Walk just before it began to rain.

Fixing a punctured rear tire exceeds my bike maintenance experience. The need to deal with the derailleur is a complicating factor. Additionally, my bike pump has been missing for weeks and I don’t have a suitable wrench, nor plastic levers for the removal of the tire. I will find out how much it would cost to have fixed in a shop, before I decide whether or not to make an oily attempt at it myself. I have already searched my room and all common areas of the house at least three times for the pump, without luck. I’ve also interrogated my roommates and pondered who I could possibly have lent it to. I distinctly remember telling someone that I had my doubts about whether it was really high pressure enough for road bike tires, but that they were welcome to give it a try…

2 Church Walk burgled

Sometime between midnight and 2:00am last night, somebody pried open my roommate Kai’s locked window and stole his laptop. Thankfully, it is covered by the college’s insurance policy, though he still lost about a month’s worth of work – including draft work on the research design essay. With the police arriving at around 4:00am and leaving after 5:00am, accompanied by the sounds of early morning birds, it was another very late night. Given that Kai had to catch a bus to the airport at 8:00am to fly back to Germany, that is especially true for him.

This is the second laptop belonging to a member of the M.Phil in IR program to be stolen from a house on Church Walk this year. It’s enough to make you rather nervous, especially since those of us with rooms on ground level with large windows can do relatively little to deter theft. I shall, at least, resume my practice of twice-weekly backups to the DPIR terminal server.

General 4th week update

Amidst Oxford’s volatile spring weather, most of today was spent reading about the Middle East during the periods of 1945-56, 56-89, and 89-present respectively. With four weeks left in my first academic year – and only two weeks left before the research design paper is due – I am feeling an odd combination of the rush of impending deadlines and the calmness of impending summer. Of course, there remain the serious matters of finding employment, and securing a place to live after September.

Within the program, people seem to have hit a definite stride. Thesis anxieties aside, there is a real sense within the group that we understand the Oxford dynamic and are able to deal with it. Having the thesis as an excuse to do not quite as much reading as we might have in previous terms may also have something to do with that.

Since tomorrow is the big seminar day, and I am meant to serve as respondent to Kate Stinson’s presentation about how regional powers in the Middle East may have manipulated international actors, I should get back to my books and the doing of laundry.

PS. What do fellow Oxford bloggers think about 8:00pm on Wednesday the 31st of May for a third gathering?

Research design essay planning

Having seen the distinction-earning research design essay written by Lee Jones last year, I am now thoroughly fearful about the whole project. The extent of research he seems to have done, and the clarity with which he seems to have understood his question both stand in marked contrast to my present situation.

As such, it is perfectly clear that I really need to get cracking. The essay is due on May 29th.

Research Design Essay Planning

Continue reading “Research design essay planning”

Oxford Natural History and Pitt Rivers Museum

Happy birthday Jonathan Morissette

Visiting the Oxford Natural History Museum with someone who shares an active interest in botany, archaeology, palaeontology, genetics, and geology is quite a fascinating experience. As such, doing so this morning with Antonia was both engaging and pleasant. Partly, the visit was motivated by the desire to see the Kakapo parrot but, since she went on a tour with one of the curators quite recently, she told me a lot more about the collection as well.

For the unfamiliar, the Natural History Museum is housed inside an attractive building on Parks Road, north of Wadham. The main hall is the kind of vaulted steel and glass structure that I associate with the great European exhibitions of the early 20^th century: with crowds goggling over dinosaur skeletons. The collection is certainly quite good, spanning a respectable section of the animal and mineral variety of the planet. Especially worth seeing: elephant skeletons, some of the wide variety of stuffed raptors, the complete bluefin tuna skeleton, some of the large fossil and mineral samples, and the general architecture of the building itself. Note how every pillar in both the lower and upper galleries is made from a different stone, from a different part of the United Kingdom.

Behind the Natural History Museum, and presently under renovation, is the Pitt Rivers museum. A cynic might describe it as an exuberant assembly of the plunder of British aristocrats past. It includes a Haida totem poll, shrunken heads, and innumerable tools, weapons, religious artefacts, articles of clothing, and day-to-day objects from countries around the world. Unusually for a museum, objects are assembled by type, in cases spanning many times and cultures. That allows for an appreciation both of the variety of human creations, and the similar needs and products of diverse cultures. While not large, the place is literally packed, with narrow aisles between well-stuffed display cases. Antonia explained that both the Pitt Rivers and Natural History Museums have far too little space to display their full collections: a partial motivation for the ongoing renovation.

The general lesson – that museums are enormously better in the presence of interested others – is obvious enough. I am delighted that I had the chance to use that insight in practice.

Another Oxford bloggers’ gathering?

The first Oxford bloggers’ gathering happened on 29 October 2005.

The second, on 21 February 2006.

If they are to be quarterly, the third is due fairly soon. Provided, of course, people are still interested. I am perfectly willing to shift from the format of meeting in the evening at The Turf, if people prefer something else. Indeed, meeting at The Perch on a sunny afternoon seems much more spring-like.

Remember, those who show up automatically get a spot at the top of my list of Oxford blogs.

[Edited on 15 May 2006 to add] I propose Wednesday of sixth week (the 31st of May) as the date for this event. Additionally, I propose that it take place at The Turf, as in the two prior instances. I’m not sure many people would be willing to make the trek to The Perch, much as I think it would be nicer. How is 8:00pm for a starting time?

[Edited on 17 May 2006 to add] Because The Turf will probably be packed with finalists, we have decided to relocate the gathering to The Bear: south of the High Street and fairly close to Merton College.

PS. On an unrelated but amusing note, thanks to the new Google Trends service, I can prove that more people are searching for love, but there is consistently more news about money.

Presentations on Africa and the environment

My mother kindly sent me another book today: Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. I’ve heard a bit about it before, but remember virtually nothing of what was said. As I recall, The Economist was quite critical, but they don’t seem to have a great deal of patience when it comes to a number of alternative views about globalization. Once I finish On the Road and The Skeptical Environmentalist, I look forward to going through it as the next object of discretionary reading.

Aspects of today’s Environment Centre colloquium were quite good. I enjoyed the Vancouverite atmosphere, as well as the presentation by Guardian columnist George Monbiot. Particularly impressive were his historical asides, though his main argument came off as a bit of an afterthought. Spending time with so many people doing environmental studies was a reminder of just how completely outside the discipline I really am. The contrast in the kind of discourse that took place there and the kind in our various seminars was considerable. I’ve never heard the term ‘environmentalisms’ so many times in one day. Some of the presentations struck me as interminably long, lacking in direction, and somewhat pointless: especially one in which the presenter literally skimmed through a 16 page Microsoft Word document he had on screen, correcting the spelling of words as he went, and making general comments about what was written.

The event at Rhodes House was informative but largely unsurprising – except where it was dramatically punctuated by the thunderstorm that materialized as it was ongoing. I had seen two of the speakers before, at a previous Global Environmental Governance seminar, and the presentations they gave were quite similar to those I saw before. I did enjoy the presentation on AIDS by Mandisa Mbali, a Rhodes scholar and organizer of the Stop AIDS Society at Oxford.

Meeting Taylor Owen, a fellow Oxford blogger, both at the Environment Centre event and, subsequently, after the Africa panel was good fun. Speaking with someone else who went to UBC – and who has a number of unexpected connections to Emily as well – is a reminder of how small a place Canada can be.
Likewise, I enjoyed Mandisa Mbali”s presentation on HIV/AIDS: delivered as part of the aforementioned Africa panel at Rhodes House. Tomorrow, I am going to an event being run by the Stop AIDS Society at 8:00pm tomorrow at Hollywell Manor, one of the buildings owned by Balliol College.

Before and after OUSSG

I am going to have to be a bit cryptic tonight. The last six hours or so have demonstrated both how rapidly possibilities that seemed to exist can suddenly disappear, as well as how unknown prospects of different kinds can soon replace them. It may have something to do with the sheer compression of Oxford: compression of space, talent, ideas, ambitions, and interest. The only thing for it is to stick to what you are and your hopes about what you may become.

That, and make sure to invite staggering pairs of relative strangers home for tea, at around midnight on a Tuesday. Therein may lie the redemption of at least a day.

Oxford spring

Living in leafy northern Oxford as everything is coming to life again is quite lovely. Taking a break from working on my paper, I went for a bit of a walk this evening and discovered a whole district of intriguing houses to the northeast of Church Walk: the sort with unusual architecture, big gardens, and streets that are not subject to the indignity of traffic. There were even the semi-circular sweeping rows of connected houses that seemed to be so common in Bath, but which I had not yet seen here. The next time I am ambling with someone, I will try to find the place again.

The best place to experience Oxford in the winter, I think, is the Christ Church Meadow. Walking along the Isis in the chilly wind, looking up at denuded trees which readily reveal the mistletoe colonies inside, there is a sense of pristine desolation. The waterfowl, then, seem like sympathetic fellow victims of the cold and gloom. It isn’t clear to me yet where the embodiment of spring in Oxford will reside, but it may well be in some leafy suburban street, amongst the twittering of birds in the evening.

Tomorrow, I have most of my week’s mandatory activities compressed together over a period of about twelve hours: the core seminar, the Changing Character of War seminar, the research design seminar, the strategic studies dinner, the strategic studies meeting, and the obligatory brief strategic studies foray to The Turf. During that time, perhaps I will meet someone interesting again this week.

Possibly as the result of trying to work on an essay for most of the day (with welcome conversations with Kai and Emily as asides), my brain is feeling a bit like a slightly crushed paper cup: as though it has had too much caffeine or too little, or is trying hard to suppress a relatively mild illness. It doesn’t make me keen on the process of finalizing and editing my Cold War paper tonight, but that’s my own fault for not getting it done earlier. Oxford has definitely been worsening my study skills; work I would have once done well in advance and had checked gets finished at the last minute instead. When the workload is just a series of hurdles and none of your work actually gets graded, the incentives tend towards encouraging such an approach.