Epistemic governance: an approach to the politics of policy-making

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to make a meta-theoretical contribution to conceptions of how power and governance operate in contemporary policy-making. Most approaches to governance generally brush aside the actual mechanics of how influence is wielded and social change effected. To fill this gap we argue that society is managed increasingly through epistemic governance, which works on actors' perceptions of the world and its current challenges. Our point is that regardless of which actors we assume to be influential in affecting public policies, they operate by utilizing a limited number of strategies, in broad paradigmatic as well as in focused practical dimensions. The epistemic work actors are engaged in focuses on three aspects of the social world: (1) ontology of the environment, (2) actor identifications, and (3) norms and ideals, or constructions of what the world is, who we are, and what is good or desirable. As such, we suggest ways to move beyond more or less structuralist explanations of sources and forms of power to reveal the strategies of power at play in attempts to influence policy change in the contemporary world.