IGLP/CIGI Advanced Faculty Research Colloquium: “Knowledge as Power in Today’s World”

The Institute for Global Law and Policy and the Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) hosted a three-day Advanced Faculty Research Colloquium, Knowledge as Power in Today’s World, May 16 – 18, 2024 in Waterloo, Ontario. Here is brief description of the event’s theme:

The authority of knowledge is widely felt but poorly understood.  The expertise of technical specialists of all kinds impacts our world: economists, lawyers, scientists, and soldiers alike.  Alongside the ‘expertise’ of those who claim to speak for the layperson.  Knowledge underwrites the authority of all these people as they pursue projects on the global stage.   But how exactly?  How do ideas about what is natural, right, or true become powerful, commonsensical, hegemonic?  In our discussions, we will reach back into social theory and forward toward the potential of today’s new technologies in the search for answers.  

Meanwhile, policy experts everywhere, vie to assert, channel and harness their technocratic authority and to manage its relation with the authority of democratic voices. Nefarious actors may seek to undermine “science policy” via disinformation that can undermine efforts to use science to support policy decisions.   We aim to examine the potential – and the dark sides – of “science policy,” interrogating its possibilities from the vantage point of alternative disciplines and adjacent fields of inquiry not usually brought to the table when matters of ‘technical’ or ‘scientific’ authority are under discussion.