Science Policy-making in Latin America: International Organizations, National Governments, and Scientific Communities

Author:
  • Jorge Manuel Escobar Ortiz
DOI 10.22430/21457778.641


 

EDITORIAL

Science policy (or science and technology policy, or S&T policy) is first and foremost a type of public policy. Hence, a possible strategy for understanding its historical transitions is to draw a parallel between the analysis of public policy in general and that of science policy in particular. There are two elements to this analysis: one conceptual (the definition of science policy) and another historical (the transitions in the styles or ways of doing science policy). Both elements are complementary to each other. As for the conceptual side, the main point is that of science policy as a type of public policy. Its specificity has to do with its scope of action, since it aims to guide state and government actions that benefit various social areas in issues of science and technology. And since science and technology are omnipresent components of contemporary societies, science policy is conceived as a policy-medium, namely, as a linking factor between various public policies, assuming that, at some level, they are all connected with scientific and technological issues.

Yet science policy is not neutral. Instead, it reflects the vested interests of the actors responsible for defining, designing and managing it, in conformity with their own political, scientific, philosophical, social and economic projects, and so forth.  But such interests do not always match those of the social actors on whom the actions undertaken will impact. This gives rise to internal tensions related to two specific aspects. On the one hand, science policy is portrayed as something that intrinsically benefits all social actors equally. But, on the other hand, its real and immediate target is the scientific and technological communities, which tend to use policies to protect their autonomy, when making decisions on science and technology, from the intervention of other social actors. This conceptual component leads us to the historical element. In this sense, it can be shown that transitions in the way science policy is made are a reflection of how other public policies are actually made, and can be described as supply and demand processes: Supply of social problems and demand for concrete government solutions through the design and management of public policies. In this case, the difference is that supply refers to changes in the dynamics of scientific and technological knowledge production, while demand calls for the design of scientific policies that would capture these changes in favor of the economic and social development of States. As Velho (2011) puts it, the changes in the concepts of science and technology that have occurred since the mid-20th century have always been accompanied by paradigm shifts in science policy.

Understanding how these transitions have occurred in the shaping of science policy in Latin America has been a constant, though not necessarily dominant, theme in Latin American studies of science, technology and society since the time of PLACTS (Pensamiento Latinoamericano en ciencia, tecnología y sociedad) (Herrera, 1995; Dagnino & Thomas, 1998; Dagnino y Thomas, 1999; Albornoz, 2007; Velho, 2011; Jaramillo, Villaveces & Cantor, 2013; Feld, 2014; Guzmán-Tovar, 2015; Kreimer, 2015; Feld, 2016; Mercado & Casas, 2016; Orozco et al., 2016). Although with different emphases, which depend both on the historical moment and national contexts in which they appeared, and on the theoretical commitments of those who drafted them, these studies coincide in the same basic explanatory structure with which such transitions are described.  As an invitation to think about this Trilogía issue, and in that general framework, I will follow here, specifically, the work done by Bagattolli et al., (2016), since it is the most complete overview I know of this explanatory structure. However, I will be complementing it with the work by Baptista and Davyt (2014), which includes an element not usually highlighted by the accounts I have just mentioned.

Bagattolli et al., (2016) state that the development of Latin American science policy has been characterized by the intervention of three actors: international organizations, national governments and scientific communities. International bodies are of a different nature. Some are multilateral (e.g., OECD, UNESCO and OAS), and are characterized by offering advice, recommending S&T studies, and promoting good science policy practices. Others are banking institutions (e.g., IDB and World Bank), and are characterized by promoting their own models of scientific policy in exchange for financial resources. Finally, the regional integration organizations (e.g., Pacto Andino and Mercosur) are characterized by promoting the harmonization of the policies of the member countries and the development of common actions. All these bodies exert various types of pressure in the region to introduce the main aspects of the global context that I have just mentioned. In other words, to ensure that these forms of S&T knowledge production and associated science policy models are transferred from the international to the regional level.

However, this transfer is never complete, but always mediated by two competing filters.  On the one hand, national Governments, which respond to the dynamics of their own state bureaucracy and their own political and economic interests.  On the other hand, the Latin American scientific communities, which support their own research, political and economic agenda, rarely agree with that of the Governments and society in general (Dagnino & Thomas, 1998; Dagnino & Thomas, 1999). In this way, a situation is reached in which each actor seeks to make his particular interests prevail over those of the others. According to Velho (2011), international organizations are trying to transfer to Latin America a certain concept of science and technology and a certain paradigm of science policy associated with it.  In trying to do so, however, they are confronted with debates generated by scientific communities and national governments about who should have control over science and technology and how that control should be exercised. This contributes to an understanding of both the similarities and the differences in the design of science policy in the countries, as they all retain some common aspects arising from that global context, while at the same time introducing others stemming from the discussions between scientific communities and Governments.

For Bagattolli et al., (2016) the relationships between these actors give rise to three periods in the development of science policy in Latin America, according to the relative influence that each of them acquires in comparison with the others. The first dates back to the processes of independence from Spain and ends in the 1950s. Some countries with a certain degree of institutionalized science and technology can be identified in this period.  However, this institutionalization is the result of the interest of certain groups of people and emerging scientific communities, who are trying to imitate the processes carried out in North America and Europe. The second period encompasses the 1960s and 1970s. During this period, international organizations such as the OECD, UNESCO and the OAS began to influence governments' plans and actions, but also to create links with the increasingly consolidated academic communities in the region.  Finally, the third period begins in the 1980s and tends to stabilize completely from the 2000s onwards. During this time, regional integration organizations have a strong influence, particularly through credit agencies which, through conditional loans and various forms of restriction, tend to homogenize scientific policy in the region. Bagattolli et al., (2016) summarize this whole process as follows:

In short, throughout the short history of these relations 'à trois' between scientists, international bodies and governments, the vision of national technocrats and bureaucrats gradually increased, with the conceptual and financial support (i.e. sometimes offering advice, sometimes granting credits) of the technocracy of international bodies, to the detriment of the strong initial impact of the incipient national scientific communities. This does not imply an actual predominance of the former, but rather a permanent conceptual and political conflict with uncertain and variable results in each country (p. 209).

Baptista and Davyt (2014) share this comprehensive view of the processes experienced in Latin America, but establish somewhat different time frames, and also highlight transfer between the countries of the region as a fundamental aspect of understanding these processes. Their focus is what they identify as knowledge flows on science policy in Latin America.  These flows would occur in three stages. The first stage, called decontextualized one-way transfer, takes place during the 1950s to 1970s, and is characterized by the fact that the flow of knowledge on science policy is only one way, from North to South, through the intermediation of international organizations such as OECD, UNESCO and OAS.  At this stage, Latin America primarily functions as a recipient of models developed in other parts of the world, while at the same time the first institutional capacities in science policy are being created in the region. There are also a number of criticisms, mainly in academia, of these models and their transfer, although at the government level these criticisms have little impact.

The second stage, called transition, takes place between 1980 and 1990. Here, the flow of knowledge on science policy continues to move, especially from North to South, with the participation of the same international organizations as in the previous phase, but also with the introduction of others such as the IDB. However, the region's economic and political instability during this period, which manifested itself differently in each country, as well as the influence of Latin American critical thinking from the previous stage, resulted in a differentiated development of capacities in science policy issues. As a result, a second type of knowledge flow was produced, not only from North to South, but also from South to South, although still incipient, from some countries that began to emerge as leaders in science policy to others that were initially seeking to strengthen their academic and institutional capacities. The third stage, called interactive regional learning, began in the 2000s and has been ongoing since then. Here the shift towards a South-South flow of science policy knowledge is reinforced. Without completely ending the North-South flow that prevailed in the previous stages, with their international organizations as intermediaries, the emphasis, and even the predominance of this flow, was now mediated by the interregional relations established among the Latin American countries themselves.  The South-to-South flow then becomes the dominant mechanism in this third stage, which includes the coexistence of countries with diverse capacities in science policy.  This means that some countries are able to identify themselves as leaders in areas where others have either not developed or are just beginning to develop.

Regardless of the time differences, which in any case have a purely analytical and not strictly historical pretension, these reconstructions coincide in showing how the processes that occurred in Latin America have their own particularities when compared to North America and Europe. The Latin American context is characterized by the way in which each of the three actors, international organizations, national governments and scientific communities, alternate their influence on the definition of the concept of science and technology and the science policy paradigm that is to be established in the region. This leads to the emergence of a supply of forms of scientific and technological knowledge production different from that which could be found in other regions of the planet during the same period. The consequence is a demand for science policy models that reconcile these other forms of knowledge production with the political and economic interests of international organizations, national governments and scientific communities. Let this be an invitation to think about the topics discussed in this latest issue of the Trilogía Journal within that general framework. A general framework in which one can identify the constant involvement of the three actors aforementioned and their attempts to appear as the determining factor in the design of science policy in the countries of the region.

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