Global Institutions and Social Knowledge: Generating Research at
the Scripps Institution and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission,
1900s–1990s. By Virginia M. Walsh. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
2004. 208p. $50.00 cloth, $20.00 paper.
What is the interrelating link between institutions and knowledge,
primarily scientific knowledge? Conventional international relations
literature focuses typically on the impact of knowledge on institutions.
Virginia Walsh's interest, however, is to “turn the causal
arrow” by focusing on the “institutional dimension” of
knowledge creation: How do global political and economic, but also
epistemic, institutions shape knowledge generation? (pp. 4–5, 38,
128, 130). Here, the scientific disciplines qualify as epistemic
institutions (p. 34). From that point of departure, underscoring an
institutional perspective, the emphasis concentrates on the
“institutional mechanisms” through which knowledge is being
formed. Groups leverage institutional mechanisms to “generate
knowledge and fix beliefs” for the purposes of 1) establishing
common understandings, 2) repairing uncertainties, and 3) directing
inquiry by “fixing its direction” (pp. 3, 9, 38).