Science, Technology and Global Governance by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1679628
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

Role of foreign ministries

All of these issues clearly have an impact on the role of foreign ministries in governments usually, as noted, to enhance the importance of the more technical agencies in the determination of policy. This consequence is exacerbated by the intensified integration of economies and societies, one of the more dramatic international effects of technological change. This growth of interdependence necessarily means large increases in the sheer volume and breadth of relationships between and among states. This has the ancillary effect of further undermining the ability of foreign offices to maintain their traditional dominance in the making of foreign policy. The portions of government formerly concerned almost exclusively with domestic affairs - agriculture, industry, health, environment, education, for example - are increasingly engaged in matters that directly affect international relations and a nation's foreign policy. Those 'domestic' departments have become legitimate players in the making of foreign policy; foreign offices no longer can automatically dominate the process as it was once assumed they should do.

The result is that foreign offices are now typically but one among many ministries on a wide variety of foreign policy issues, the actual situation determined by the particular issue and personalities involved (Skolnikoff, 1967: 249-98). The spread of involvement in international affairs across governments cannot be halted or reversed; it is a characteristic of the intensely interdependent world that is continuing to develop. Attempts to reassert the authority of a foreign ministry, typically by moving decision-making processes higher on the organization chart in order to give a Foreign Secretary greater authority, cannot be continued indefinitely without overburdening the available time of senior officials. Ultimately such moves simply recreate lower-level problems at a higher place in the government hierarchy.

This general problem is exacerbated in the US where power is divided between the legislature and executive. The same difficulty of formulation and coordination of policy across widely varying subjects of international affairs is recreated in the even more chaotic policy processes of the legislature, thus making it even harder for the US to develop coherent policy positions.

The dispersion of involvement among agencies in international issues would be enough on its own to bring about the gradual loss of dominance by foreign offices The role of domestic technical agencies is enhanced, however, by the increasing relevance of the technical aspects of issues that play to their greater knowledge of relevant technologies. Technology is never the sole determinant of an issue, but in the policy process knowledge is power, especially if there is significant imbalance among participants in their understanding of a key element of an issue. When a technological aspect is critical, the greater technological knowledge on the part of technical agencies makes it possible for them to bias their representation of those aspects in ways that support their view of the international interests of the nation over that of the foreign ministry. It is difficult for a foreign ministry to counter, or sometimes even to know there may be alternative interpretations.

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