I've following climate negotiations through the analysis of publicly available documents, internal drafts, and interviews with negotiators from Brazil and other countries. I've also had the chance to help other sectors of the government to align their strategic plans with a better understanding of the international context. Since I'm still involved in this process, I did not have the chance to reflect deep and hard this issue, but I have developed some preliminary thoughts that could address your question:

1) International negotiations are extremely hermetic to outsiders (including policy-makers): UN institutions are a complex web of interlocking agreements, work groups, groups, frameworks, each one embedded in long-standing arguments;

2) Scholars are not doing a good job in untangling this process: in the view of negotiators, the bird-eye view accounts provided by political scientists fail to grasp the intricacies of the negotiation process. For instance, a senior Brazilian negotiator (with a PhD in political science) has said explicitly that in his view scholars "do not have a clue of what is going on". I believe this is partly due to the complexity of the negotiations, but also due to the dynamics of publishing which are more interested in papers that are short in size and broad in scope, than studies focusing on specific controversies;

3) Very few people make very important choices: given the distance between negotiators and government officials and the general public, quite often negotiators (and ministries of foreign affairs) promulgate their own agendas simply because they have not received orders to do otherwise. Of course, on broader issues such as targets, higher levels of government are involved, but "the devil is the detail", and many decisions about crucial issues, such as MRV, are left to "technicians" with little democratic interference;

4) Social scientist could play a key mediating role: give the above, social scientists could have a more central role in climate politics. But for that we would need to reconsider our publishing strategies and collaborate more closely with NGOs and journalists to give publicity to our findings and analyses.

I hope it helps!

Thanks, Raoni.

You have given a telling account of what gets in the way of gathering formal knowledge, both the coal-face of international negotiations, and in relation to the contextual factors which seem to constrain social scientists from being in a position to make a contribution, even if they were better informed.

I am hearing from you that broad-based, bird's-eye views of complex political processes are not capable of making a significant contribution. It raises again for me a concern that the terms intellectual and responsibility do not easily co-exist.

Ian

Maybe a more critical perspective on intellectuals would be good in order to understand their role. So, why not understand them as "second hand dealers in ideas" as Hayek (yeah, I guess that one is burned in academia) does? Marie Laure Djelic does so in an interesting way.

Chapter Spreading Ideas to Change the World – Inventing and Institut...

Thanks, Philipp for the observation and the reference. I agree that a critical perspective is required, particularly when funded think tanks effectively pay for the promulgation of ideas, in what is clearly, and ironically, a skewed market place.

Let's see. As far as I can judge, negotiators who may be intellectuals or other academically educated people, sent to negotiate on behalf of their respective governments, or other bosses.  Which means that, in fact, they're told by politicians what they should aim at, and what's the range of compromise they're allowed to negotiate. They cannot be influenced by external intellectual reasoning. Only if the bosses themselves do the negotiations and they're not just politicians, but true statesmen, they might listen to such reasoning and be influenced by it.

On the other hand, most intellectuals, however broad minded and well informed, are nontheless biased to that or other degree. This stems from (1) their personal (family, national, social, religious, etc., background, and (2) ideological/political persuasion, and even agenda. While equipped with all the tools for objective and analytical thinking,  they carry on their backs haversacks full with various "a priori" assumptions and conditions, which is difficult for them to get rid off.

From time to time, however, appear true intellectuals, wise, objectives, and brace enough to tell us the truth, hover bitter, in the face. Such were the biblical prophets. Unfortunately, politicians and other rulers seldom listen to them and even more rarely follow their advice. They often find themselves in jails or in exile.        MB-Y

I agree, Menakhem. The more truthful, the more difficult a role it is!

I agree with Menakhem.  I'm currently bridging these two roles (though not to the extent in your question- I am a mere researcher and also working providing technical advice to a government department reporting to the UN and other organisations) and I think that yes, there is a place for intellectuals to hold a moral 'high ground' or to hold tight to the values they have within themselves or have developed as a consequence of the research and thought they have put into things such as climate change.  But the cost of working as a negotiator for a state or working within the structure of government is that you are required to be apolitical.  That means sometimes having to deliver policy that goes completely against your own morals.  But the reward can also be that you have the chance, however small, of making a difference, or convincing someone who has the power to make a difference, of your argument.  It is a tightrope that must be managed and when the cost outweighs the benefit, then it's time to get out.  I think intellectuals do have a moral imperative but the issue with that (unless we're talking about climate change which is indisputable) is I would ask whose morals, whose values?  Does spending years researching a topic make us more correct than someone else?  Are we defending the dominant discourse?  Who are we to say what is right and what is wrong?  For example, I'm writing a paper for a government department on the gender based income gap at the moment with policy suggestions to bridge that gap, which has been discussed ad infinitum but everyone has a different idea about what will help and what will hinder- would it help or hinder if positive discrimination were to become law for example?  how about if women were mandatorily given a year's paid maternity leave?  Would this further the cause of women in the workplace or hinder it?  The answer varies all over the world.  Ask many Americans for example, and they will say any maternity leave is likely to negatively impact on a woman's prospects of employment.

Anyhow, what I'm trying to say, is that you assert that the intellectual is 'without' where the government is 'within', that the intellectual is someone 'who can be expected to apply reliable and consistent methods of analysis'.  Yes, that's true, but I would assert that what they choose to analyse, what they choose to see is reflected by the discourse within themselves, which is neither perfect, nor perfectly independent.

From this, I would argue that ALL people, intellectuals, politicians, government employees, NGOs, all have a moral requirement to stay true to their values and truths.  The further responsibility of the intellectual is to point out each side of the argument, provide advice as much as possible and know they have done their best to provide those 'non-intellectuals' (many of whom have doctorates, masters, honours etc themselves) with as much information as they can to make the best decisions they can within the confines of each states agendas, relationships and other agreements.

I hope I didn't ramble too much there!

regards,

Brigette

Dear Brigitte,

Thank you for such a thoughtful answer. Your position as both an insider and an outsider does produce dilemmas and hard choices. In that situation, it is also a question of whose voice is heard, and the case for 'being there' as a woman in relation to discussions of gender is extremely strong, in my view.

I agree that we have a personal responsibility to stay true to themselves and their values. At the public level, I incline to the view that such values need to be made transparent and open to challenge, along with an account of the interests of the person presenting themself as a public intellectual, plus accountability for views and advice in the light of the question of 'who benefits'.

You have given me more to think about, and I thank you for that.

All the best,

Ian