International organizations as teachers of norms: the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cutural Organization and science policy

TLDR

New state institutions are typically explained by internal state conditions, but they can also arise from socialization and conformity to international norms. The adoption of science‑policy bureaucracies across states was driven not by domestic functional needs but by the United Nations’ efforts to teach their value, supporting constructivist views that states are shaped by international social action.

Abstract

Most explanations for the creation of new state institutions locate the cause of change in the conditions or characteristics of the states themselves. Some aspect of a state's economic, social, political, or military situation is said to create a functional need for the new bureaucracy which then is taken up by one or more domestic groups who succeed in changing the state apparatus. However, changes in state structure may be prompted not only by changing conditions of individual states but also by socialization and conformance with international norms. In the case of one organizational innovation recently adopted by states across the international system, namely, science policy bureaucracies, indicators of state conditions and functional need for these entities are not correlated with the pattern for their adoption. Instead, adoption was prompted by the activities of an international organization which “taught” states the value of science policy organizations and established the coordination of science as an appropriate, and even a necessary, role for states. This finding lends support to constructivist or reflective theories that treat states as social entities shaped by international social action, as opposed to more conventional treatments of states as autonomous international agents.