Science and foreign policy: The elusive partnership: science and foreign policy

摘要

Nearly ten years after Eugene Skolnikoff tagged science, technology, and international affairs the "elusive transformation," the relationship has evolved, but both policy communities remain dissatisfied with the linkages. This may be unavoidable. Science and foreign policy have very different dynamics: one is a networked, peer-based community that holds few traditions; the other is a hierarchy of relationships based on history, protocol, and tradition. Nevertheless, these two systems find that their interests are increasingly overlapping, as the foreign policy portfolio contains issues with a scientific component, and as science grows more international in scope and practice. This article seeks to explicate the foreign policy aspects of science: its policy motivations, structures, and processes, in an effort to explain at least one part of the partnership. Science represents a potentially powerful tool for improving international relations, and learning to use it may benefit both science and international affairs.