Adler: The Emergence of Cooperation

Adler, Emanuel. The Emergence of Cooperation: National Epistemic Communities and the International Evolution of the Idea of Nuclear Arms Control, International Organization 46 (Winter 1992): 101-146.

Adler approaches the study of nuclear arms control from the perspective of evolutionary changes made on two levels: domestically and internationally. This study emphasizes the causal force of epistemic communities in shaping the rules of the nuclear game. This approach also claims that material accounts of this story can not be fully explanatory as they are lacking a substantive causal driver.

“The epistemic community approach has some clear ‘comparative advantages.’ First, it allows us to understand why superpower cooperation was conceptualized via arms control in the first place. Second, it increases our sensitivity to domestic political factors, especially to the notion that within each national actor different interpretations of the national interest compete for the shaping of international agendas as well as international practices. Third, in ways that allow for empirical research, focusing on an epistemic community draws our attention to the impact of scientific knowledge on international cooperation processes. Fourth, it helps us to see that, in spite of or even because of superpower disagreement over political interests and visions, the fact that [Soviets also understood ideational drivers to be important] was not inconsequential for peaceful change…Sixth, common epistemic understandings proved to be more lasting than disagreements over long-term goals” (104).

Adler then deploys an “evolutionary research framework” for exploring this issue. This framework involves the use of five variables: units of variation, innovation, selection, diffusion and units of effective modification (104).

Who represent the epistemic community for arms control? “Two subgroups constituted this community. One group of experts…considered the underlying cause of international conflict to be the clash between the interests of nations as they pursue their seperat4e goals…The other group…believed that armaments were indeed a serious cause of international tension and that therefore reducing weapons would reduce tensions…These two groups converged into an epistemic community because, surprising as it may seem, they were in agreement about the short-term advantages and necessity of arms control and there was scarcely member of either group who did not concede the validity of the recommendations of the other” (111).

Conclusion:

“First, the community created an intellectual climate favorable to arms control…Second, the members produced the technical knowledge required to deal with nuclear arms control…Third, the community focused attention on cooperative phenomena and helped provide the superpowers with reasons why…it as important that they cooperate…Forth, it paved the way for the creation of vested interests in arms control…Fifth,…[it] helped generate an awareness about arms control that eventually led to public support for it…Sixth, arms controllers helped persuade Congress about the value of specific arms control agreements…Seventh, members were able to propose a logically coherent arms control negotiation agenda and helped think through the bargaining positions to be taken in the ABM negotiations…Eighth, the community helped formulate specific norms and rules, researched and proposed verification means, and suggested posttreaty reviews and conditions for withdrawal from agreements…Ninth, arms controllers in many cases became what Robert Gilpin called ‘full partners with politicians, administration, and military officers in the formulations of policy’…Finally, the community was instrumental in transmitting arms control ideas to the Soviet Union” (140-2).