Invisible College Research Articles

The Invisible College of International Lawyers in Private International Law Today

These pages elaborate briefly on Oscar Schachter’s celebrated reflections about an invisible college of international lawyers, with a focus on today’s private international law.

Mapping science through editorial board interlocking: connections and distance between fields of knowledge and institutional affiliations

Research is a global enterprise underpinned by the general belief that findings need to be true to be considered scientific. In the complex system of scientific validation, editorial boards (EBs) play a fundamental role in guiding journals’ review process, which has led many stakeholders of sciences to metaphorically picture them as the “gatekeepers of knowledge.” In an attempt to address the academic structure that governs sciences through editorial board interlocking (EBI, the cross-presence of EB members in different journals) and social network analysis, the aim of this study is threefold: first, to map the connection between fields of knowledge through EBI; second, to visualize and empirically test the distance between social and general sciences; and third, to uncover the institutional structure (i.e., universities) that governs these connections. Our findings, based on the dataset collected through the Open Editors initiative for the journals indexed in the JCR, revealed a substantial level of collaboration between all fields, as suggested by the connections between EBs. However, there is a statistically significant difference between the weight of the edges and the path lengths connecting the fields of natural sciences to the fields of social sciences (compared to the connections within), indicating the development of different research cultures and invisible colleges in these two research areas. The results also show that a central group of US institutions dominates most journal EBs, indirectly suggesting that US scientific norms and values still prevail in all fields of knowledge. Overall, our study suggests that scientific endeavor is highly networked through EBs.

An approach to the formation of intellectual academic genealogy using large language models

Today, in the era of transition to the information society, the issue of analysis and processing of scientific information is extremely acute. This is due to the fact that the use of results and processing directly and indirectly affect the country's strategy in the field of educational activities. Direct influence is manifested in the introduction of the results of scientific activity into the educational process in the form of educational material. At the same time, indirect influence involves a more complex mechanism, which was described by the authors earlier and has a more long-term effect due to the implementation of the effects of generational values that are formed at the age of 12–14 years under the influence of existing technological development, family values and the socio-cultural environment, which in turn forms patterns of behavior that affect the process of choosing and studying new information, developing new technical solutions, making key decisions, which directly influence the industrial potential of the country. Currently, there is a fairly large number of scientometric methods for studying scientific information, which, among other things, allow implementing in a limited form the idea of D. Price about the "invisible college", when in the course of analyzing scientific information it is possible to determine the scientific social structure consisting of universities, research institutes, scientific journals, conferences, scientists in individual fields of science. However, all methods use in one form or another formal analysis and a context-free approach to assessing citations, which does not allow for a qualitative assessment of the processing and transformation of information in the process of scientific activity, which is a necessary condition for the development of the country's industry. Creating an algorithm for classifying scientific information by generating prompts for a large language model to ensure contextual analysis of citations in scientific papers and classifying scientific information based on deep semantic analysis. Requirements have been formed for the selection of scientific information that provides the highest quality analysis results from the point of view of expert opinion. The presented algorithm for generating queries to a large language model facilities contextual analysis and classification of bibliographic references in scientific information. The proposed approach for clustering scientific information takes into account the multidisciplinary nature of research and ensures the continuity of research based on multidimensional bases. It is shown that the quality of contextual analysis of bibliographic references due to the developed algorithm has increased by 27% compared to using a large language model without this algorithm. Based on experimental studies, the possibility of predicting changes in the social sphere is shown. The algorithm for generating queries to a large language model is presented, facilities for contextual analysis and classification of bibliographic references in scientific information. The proposed approach for clustering scientific information takes into account the multidisciplinary nature of research and ensures the continuity of research based on linguistic multidimensional bases.

From the National to the Comparative in International Law: Cold War Redux?

Abstract Recent years have witnessed greater attention to the ‘national’ dimension in international law and, in its wake, a move towards comparison. The first section of this article examines the early rise of ‘comparative’ approaches to international law with reference to the pioneering work of William E. Butler during the Cold War and contextualizes the coinage of the term ‘invisible college of international law’ at a time of relative ‘détente’ in the 1970s, suggesting, furthermore, that a pattern of repetition and renewal in engagement with constructions and international legal thought in the Cold War period is currently taking place. The second section examines a move to the national in international law and both the promises and perils of comparative international law, including because of the parallel introduction of the new divisive-prone descriptors of ‘authoritarian international law’ and ‘rules-based international system’. It also highlights the cyclical nature of the ‘comparative’ turn to the national in international law now that the war in Ukraine and the strongly divided reactions to Israel’s protracted military campaign in the Gaza Strip are crystallizing a new Cold War-like scenario in an emerging post-Western-centric and multi-polar order. The conclusion recaps the main findings of the article and suggests that comparative international law should be used to enhance, not to undermine, the language of international law as a two-way bridge between peoples and nations in times of turmoil.

Textbooks as Markers and Makers of International Law: A Brazilian Case Study

Abstract This article challenges conventional views of international law textbooks as mere instructional tools and explores them as powerful sites for shaping knowledge and the discipline. Drawing on empirical methods and critical theory, we analyse the 10 main international law textbooks used in Brazil and conduct interviews with their authors to illuminate the textbooks’ complexities and their potential for shaping the discipline and the profession. The article delves into the tension between the structure of international law as depicted in the textbooks and the agency of their authors, investigating the authors’ identities and backgrounds. Brazil serves as a compelling case study due to its numerous international law textbooks and their widespread use. Our results indicate a predominant universalist approach in Brazilian textbooks and their connection to the French international law tradition. Moreover, the study sheds light on the Brazilian ‘invisible college’ of international lawyers, revealing gender and racial disparities and institutional centralities. It also uncovers crucial omissions in the textbooks, such as the relationship of international law to colonialism, slavery, race, gender and economic inequality. Overall, this study offers a comprehensive understanding of international law as a field in Brazil and provides a valuable methodological framework for future research on textbooks’ role in shaping the discipline.

Arminius Rex: On the Postcolonial Uses of Imperial Languages in, and beyond, International Law

Despite its aspirational name, our discipline has slowly come to understand that ‘international’ law is anything but international. Increasingly, new waves of scholarship have dissected the famous image of the ‘invisible college’, revealing many of its implicit biases and hierarchies in terms of gender, race, or nationality. A promising example of this is the recent surge of interventions that question international law’s Anglo- or Franco-centric past, present, and future. This rising chorus of voices challenge the relevance of French or highlight the violence involved in making English a global lingua franca. While one can sympathise with this critique from a postcolonial perspective, I have grown increasingly wary that some of these contributions end up pleading for an essentialist understanding of local languages in their quest to undermine imperial tongues. Instead, in this essay, I draw from the Germano-Roman mythical figure of Arminius to reflect on the postcolonial uses of imperial languages. Instead of reclaiming the vernacular, I suggest that critical and postcolonial international legal scholars can strategically inherit the legacies of hegemonic languages for anticolonial purposes. Just as Arminius drew from Latin and Rome, the Négritude movement siphoned from French – and even Postcolonial Studies were themselves forged in the crucible of British rule over Egypt and India. We too, I argue, can attempt to use the master’s tools to dismantle his house, at least temporarily.

Opening the Access to International Legal Scholarship – an Introduction

Open Access, understood as the free accessibility and reusability of academic publications online, is hitting the shores of international law. The aim of this brief introduction is to show how the concept has found its way into international legal documents and become a frequently used publication modality for international legal scholars. However, I would also like to argue that treating Open Access as a mere technicality and publication modality does not do justice to its implications. Rather, the ongoing transformation to Open Access is a good moment to take a step back and address some fundamental questions concerning the politics of knowledge production in international legal scholarship and the constitution of the famous ‘invisible college of international lawyers’. As I would like to demonstrate, thinking about what ‘openness’ and ‘access’ to international legal scholarship mean, and should mean, turns our gaze to numerous questions that so far have largely escaped debate; questions seemingly only concerning the ‘backend’ of the knowledge production, but that nonetheless invisibly and often unnoticedly shape and frame our discipline.

Staging grounds: dialectics of the spectacular and the infrastructural in international conference-hosting

Abstract For international lawyers, the international conference appears as a rather anodyne place. While attention has been paid to who partakes in the ‘invisible college’, scant scrutiny has been directed to where we sit. To counter this, I argue we should interrogate conference spaces as material stages for the dramas of global governance.

Hidden knowledge networks: Influence of invisible colleges on scientific research

This review article explores the concept of the invisible college and its fundamental role in the formation and evolution of scientific research. Through an exhaustive analysis of the most relevant literature identified, we examined how these informal networks of scientists and academics facilitate the exchange of information, knowledge, and resources and assess their significant influence on research trends and the dissemination of scientific knowledge. A study was conducted with a qualitative and critical approach, operationalized through a scoping review design. The mechanisms through which these networks foster interdisciplinary collaboration and promote innovations, the challenges and opportunities for scientific policy and research management were analyzed, and strategies were suggested to recognize and enhance their value in the global scientific ecosystem. Finally, future directions are proposed to investigate the impact of these hidden networks on science to improve the understanding of their role in advancing knowledge.

Revisiting the Received Image of Machiavelli in Business Ethics Through a Close Reading of The Prince and Discourses

In business ethics literature, the figure of Machiavelli is often taken as a representation of that which is dark, sinister and negative—a source of inspiration for undesirable and unethical actions. In this research, we examine the evaluation of Niccolò Machiavelli’s thought in extant studies, and posit that Machiavelli’s works consist of ideas that may appear contradictory, which, coupled with historically contextualized close reading of his texts have more to offer. In this theoretical investigation, we construct new conceptual categories of a leader’s decision-making rubric and attempt to provide a structured framework that will allow us to specify the boundary conditions under which the apparent contrary views may be accommodated, by undertaking a close reading of Machiavelli’s texts. Our work contributes to business ethics literature in at least three ways. First, we present a holistic assessment of the research area that applies the tenets of Machiavelli’s writings to business ethics, management, and organizational studies, and delineate the dominant themes. We outline and substantiate the informal research networks, thought structures, and “invisible colleges” that form the intellectual framework of this research area through a bibliometric analysis and literature review. Second, we present a contextualized close reading of Machiavelli’s major treatises. Third, we reimagine the critical landscape of business ethics literature, specifically pertaining to Machiavelli’s oeuvre by shifting the single-minded focus from The Prince, by including The Discourses, which, as we show, has new and unprecedented implications for business ethics. In light of this, the parameters for ethical action by business leaders can be redrawn according to a Machiavellian schema. This marks a radical departure from the long-standing association between Machiavelli’s tenets and the absence of ethics, instead proposing a more positive and affirmative relationship between Machiavelli and business ethics. Specifically, while pointing out that the existing ethical frameworks foisted on Machiavelli’s texts do not do justice to the political philosopher’s worldview, which are complex insights into ideas of leadership, we urge researchers to incorporate the thoughts offered in this research in future investigations.

The social field of international adjudication: Structures and practices of a conflictive professional universe

AbstractThe modern professional world of international adjudication bears little trace of the ‘invisible college’ theorized by Oscar Schachter 50 years go. Instead, it has become a social field marked by a fierce competition among actors possessing unequal skills and influence. Moving from these premises, this article unravels the socio-professional dynamics of the community of legal experts – judges, arbitrators, government agents, private counsel, court bureaucrats, specialized academics, etc. – dealing with the judicial settlement of international disputes on a daily basis. On the one hand, the community has developed a specific set of social structures, practices, and dispositions that distinguish it from the rest of the international legal profession and insulate its activities from outside interference. On the other, it is the site of an endless struggle among its participants, who deploy various forms of capital to consolidate their positions relative to one another. Having outlined the twofold structure of the community – externally autonomous and internally conflictive – the article reflects on how co-operation and competition affect the everyday unfolding of international judicial proceedings and the production of legal outcomes at the international level.

Industry involvement in evidence production for genomic medicine: A bibliometric and funding analysis of decision impact studies.

Decision impact studies have become increasingly prevalent in genomic medicine, particularly in cancer research. Such studies are designed to provide evidence of clinical utility for genomic tests by evaluating their impact on clinical decision-making. This paper offers insights into understanding of the origins and intentions of these studies through an analysis of the actors and institutions responsible for the production of this new type of evidence. We conducted bibliometric and funding analyses of decision impact studies in genomic medicine research. We searched databases from inception to June 2022. The datasets used were primarily from Web of Science. Biblioshiny, additional R-based applications, and Microsoft Excel were used for publication, co-authorship and co-word analyses. 163 publications were included for the bibliometric analysis; a subset of 125 studies were included for the funding analysis. Included publications started in 2010 and increased steadily over time. Decision impact studies were primarily produced for proprietary genomic assays for use in cancer care. The author and affiliate analyses reveal that these studies were produced by 'invisible colleges' of researchers and industry actors with collaborations focused on producing evidence for proprietary assays. Most authors had an industry affiliation, and the majority of studies were funded by industry. While studies were conducted in 22 countries, the majority had at least one author from the USA. This study is a critical step in understanding the role of industry in the production of new types of research. Based on the data collected, we conclude that decision impact studies are industry-conceived and -produced evidence. The findings of this study demonstrate the depth of industry involvement and highlight a need for further research into the use of these studies in decision-making for coverage and reimbursement.

Double Dutch: The Boate Brothers and Colonial Cosmography

The article focuses on two Dutch doctors – the Boate brothers, Arnold (1606-1653) and Gerard (1604-1650) – medical graduates of Leiden University who moved to London in 1630 to work as practising physicians. The brothers contributed to diverse forms of knowledge as part of the new science, including agriculture, anatomy, entomology, geography, industrial history, medicine, metallurgy, mineralogy and theology, but are known primarily for Gerard’s posthumously published ground-breaking book, Irelands Naturall History (1652) for which Arnold did the spadework. The Boates collaborated on some of the most important intellectual enterprises of the seventeenth century, and worked alongside the leading intellectuals of the period, including innovative Irish thinkers James Ussher and Robert Boyle, and Samuel Hartlib, mainspring of a major knowledge network. The Boates’ activities in Leiden, London, Dublin and Paris furnish a prototype for interdisciplinary engagement. The brothers were key members of multiple interlocking extra-institutional groupings. Active as part of a Baconian Office of Address and engaged both in the Hartlib Circle and the more shadowy Invisible College, they laboured in the seedbed of what would later become the Royal Society and the Dublin Philosophical Society. Irelands Naturall History is a model of the regional history that Francis Bacon saw as a vital branch of cosmography.

International Collaboration in Latin American Psychology Through the Analysis of Co-authorship Networks

More than half of a century has passed since a paradigmatic change in the scientific endeavour took place: from science that advanced through the discursive interchange of geographically dispersed research findings and reflections, to highly interconnected and collaborative efforts that transcend borders (Wagner & Leydesdorff, 2005, Research Policy, 34:1608–1618). These new “invisible colleges” have been recognized since the end of the twentieth century as the network structures that emerge from co-authorships in scientific publications. These network structures that also inspire further production of knowledge, diffusion of concepts, methodologies and theories, circulation of scientific metaphors, and, above all, knowledge transfer, transformation, and appropriation. The expected impact of scientific collaboration on the consolidation of national capabilities for producing and absorbing scientific knowledge has resulted in the implementation of diverse instruments that aim at encouraging collaboration, particularly among peers from different countries. Psychology has also seen this increased international collaboration, and to evaluate its impact, we used bibliometric techniques on Latin American articles published between 2016 and 2020 in journals indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) under the subject categories related to psychology, to explore the characteristics and conditions of scientific collaboration in this corpus.

Past, present and future: A systematic multitechnique bibliometric review of the field of distributed work

This review focuses on the growing field of distrubuted work, made even more relevant in light of the current pandemic. Many different definitions, labels, and conceptualizations of distributed work exist, resulting in a fragmented field, threatened by a proliferation of concepts. Prior reviews addressed a limited scope of phenomena or review approaches; are narrative, subjective, or not systematic, lacking objectivity, comprehensiveness, and reproducibility; or are not recent. Our study advances the current overview of the field by presenting a compendious review of the development and current state of the field. We implemented three bibliometric approaches (i.e., co-citation, co-word and bibliographic coupling) and interpreted the results using the “invisible colleges” framework. This produced an integrative and holistic framework of the field of distributed work, portraying its historic development and theoretical background, conceptual space, and nomological net, guiding future research on this and connected research fields.

IDENTITY CRISIS AS A FACTOR OF UKRAINIAN DEMOCRATIC TRANSIT. GENERATIONAL ASPECT

The political identities are interpreted as inner narratives in the article. These discourse formations we analyze as the medium of Ukrainian democratic transition’ institutional memory. The reduction of the political imagination, according to which changes in identity are presented only as a linear processes, is shown; at the same time efforts to overcome this narrative inertia. In the context of this paradigm shift, the achievements of the first post-Soviet generation of Ukrainian political scientists in the field of identity analysis are revised. It is shown that through the conceptualization of challenges, the ‘invisible college’ of researchers managed to reflect the fundamental for the fate of democratic transit connection between the strata of the middle class and students (‘Ukrainian invariant’), which ensures the cooperation of generations in the process of a democratic transition.

The Road to the Future: A Multi-Technique Bibliometric Review and Development Projections of the Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) Research

This study examines the evolution of leader–member exchange (LMX) research. We apply bibliometrics to analyze the extant literature published from the beginning of the construct development, complementing existing qualitative and meta-analytic reviews of the LMX field. We use a combination of three bibliometric techniques—document co-citation analysis, co-word analysis, and bibliographic coupling. Our approach enables us to identify the most influential topics, determine the underlying structure and development of the field by interpreting bibliometric results against the backdrop of the invisible colleges framework, as well as detect emerging topics. We conclude by providing important theoretical and methodological implications, suggesting the emergence of new sub-fields and future opportunities for new connections among specific existing sub-streams of LMX, leadership, and management research.

Problematising philosophical assumptions in EE's Invisible College

PurposeThis paper seeks to energise discussion around philosophical assumptions in entrepreneurship education (EE). Far from being abstract considerations, this paper underscores that philosophical assumptions – which are embodied in research products and inherited from others – have practical implications.Design/methodology/approachThe study’s approach is to purposefully unsettle taken-for-granted assumptions implicit within 44 influential articles which have been said to reveal EE's Invisible College. The authors utilise three heuristic tools offered by problematisation – identifying paradigmatic assumptions, (re)conceptualising subject matter and making a reversal – to explore the implications of the meta-theoretical underpinnings of this body of work. The goal of this paper is not to find a definitive answer to the question “what is EE's underlying philosophy?” but rather ask, “what can we learn about philosophical assumptions by reconsidering this particular set of influential articles at a deep level?”FindingsWith some notable expectations, EE's Invisible College is a place where ideas about an external social reality accessible to the dispassionate researcher are implicitly accepted, where assumptions about the possibility of objective knowledge and the superiority of scientific methodology dominate and where functionalist research products reproduce the social status quo. Thus, whilst the EE research studied might appear diverse at a surface level (topics, research design, inter-disciplinary perspective), diversity is less apparent when considering the deeper, philosophical assumptions which underpin this body of work.Originality/valueRevealing assumptions which are embodied within research products may prompt critical thinking about the practical implications of research philosophies in the field of EE. In considering the implications of philosophical assumptions, a connection is made between problems that are observed at surface level – from lack of legitimacy, criticality and taken for grantedness of the field – to the deeper hidden system of ideas which lies beneath. Having highlighted potential problems of these deeper assumptions, the paper concludes by posing questions in relation to the type of research that is pursued and legitimised in the field of EE, the socialisation of researchers and the implications for criticality in the field. Such issues illustrate that, far from philosophical assumptions being an abstract or unimportant concern, they are highly practical and have the power to constrain or empower action and the social impact of research.

SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION IN THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION AND SOCIAL TURBULENCE

Science in the modern sense as an experimental science was born only in the 16th century. Despite the fact that even in antiquity the process of accumulation and systematization of knowledge acquired a high level of empirical and practical status, it was far from a rational level. The science of antiquity offered solutions to specific problems, while science in its modern sense operates with theorems and axioms. With the development of science, since the 17th century, the practice of scientific communication has been formed in Europe. Scientific communication through correspondence brought together such intellectuals of the New Age as F. Bacon, G. Galileo, I. Newton, R. Descartes and many others. World science works at the global level as a network, the same “invisible college”. Between the “invisible collegium” of the 17th century and its 21st century counterpart there are many common features, they still contributed to the communication of leading intellectuals, they still function spontaneously. The theorist of communicative action J. Habermas said that his original theory should set new meanings for rationality and social architecture related to it. In conditions of social turbulence, there is a growing need for a special kind of heuristic scientist. A scientist guided by a special path of cognition to a deep understanding of the processes. His activity should be based on the already existing experience and be directed to the constructive result of cognition and action. The essence of this view of the process of cognition lies in the dualism of knowledge and understanding, for example, in the dynamic conditions of social turbulence, it is not enough just to look for the right or useful ways to solve the tasks set, it is also necessary to realize, search for meaning.

The Two Faces of the Invisible College: Cooperation and Competition in the International Judicial Community

The Two Faces of the Invisible College: Cooperation and Competition in the International Judicial Community