When Does Science Matter? International Relations Meets Science and Technology Studies

Under what conditions does science influence environmental policy? International relations (IR) scholars argue that to gain political influence, science should not connect to policy before scientific consensus has been reached. We take this suggestion as a point of departure for investigating how science is and should be connected to policy in international environmental governance. Using insights from science and technology studies (STS), we discuss the contributions of IR, both to present its limitations and to further develop understanding of scientific consensus within IR and the need for separation and connection between science and policy. The organization and performance of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is used as an illustrative case. We conclude that the focus within STS on contextual and informal factors could improve understanding of the science-policy relationship, which tends to focus on the formal organizational design of the interplay between science and policy.