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Internationalorganizations as teachersof norms: the United Nations Educational,Scientific, and Cutural Organizationand sciencepolicy MarthaFinnemore The structureof states is continuallyevolving. Since theirestablishment in Europe some fivehundred years ago and particularlysince World War I, states have grown in terms of both the varietyof tasks they performand the organizationalapparatuses with which they perform these tasks. The researchoutlined below investigatesthe causes underlyingthis process of state change in the case of one recentlyadopted set of statebureaucracies, those designedto coordinatescientific research. In the last fiftyyears science policymakingorganizations have sprungup in virtuallyall developedcountries and in most developingones. Most explanationsfor the appearance of these new pieces of state machineryfound in the political science or economics literaturesdescribe this development as demand-driven,that is, some domestic groupperceives a problemto whicha sciencepolicy bureaucracy is thesolution. Social groups such as producers of science (e.g., scientists)or consumers of science (e.g., technology-intensivebusinesses) may come to perceive that state coordinationand directionof a growingscience establishmentare in theirinterest. State officialsmay come to perceivethat the intimaterelation- ship between science and securitymakes controlof science in the national interest.Depending on the perspectiveadopted, one would predict differ- ent configurationsof science bureaucraciesserving different interests, but in all cases, the impetusfor creatingthose organizationswould be a demand by state or societal actors that the governmentshould direct and control science. This studyquantitatively tests these demand-drivenhypotheses by compar- ing a varietyof indicatorsof stateconditions that have been arguedto prompt demand with the timingof adoption of science policy bureaucracies.The I am gratefulto Laura Helvey, Peter Katzenstein,Steve Krasner,Forrest Maltzman, Rose McDermott,John Meyer, John Odell, FranciscoRamirez, Nina Tannenwald,Kurt Weyland, and twoanonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlierdrafts. IntemationalOrganization 47, 4, Autumn1993, pp. 565-597 ?3 1994 byThe 10 Foundationand the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology 566 InternationalOrganization resultsprovide little support for any of the demand-drivenhypotheses. Consequently,an alternativeexplanation is investigated.Early in thediffusion of thisbureaucratic innovation, several international organizations took up sciencepolicy as a cause and promotedit amongmember states. The article tracesthe process whereby one of these international organizations, the United Nations Educational,Scientific, and CulturalOrganization (UNESCO), "taught"states the value and utility of science policy organizations. I arguethat the creation of this teaching mission, whereby UNESCO would supplythe organizational innovation to states,was a reflectionof a newnorm elaboratedwithin the international community.' This norm held that coordina- tionand directionof science are necessarytasks of the modern state and that a sciencepolicy bureaucracy having certain well-specified characteristics was the appropriatemeans to fulfillthose tasks. States createdscience bureaucracies,with UNESCO's help,to complywith the new normabout states'responsibility for science.Thus, the organizationalinnovation was suppliedto states from outside, from an internationalorganization, rather than beingthe productof anycharacteristics internal to or inherentin the state itself. The articlemakes contributionsto three differenttheoretical debates ongoingin the field.First, the findingsoutlined above lend supportto constructivistor reflective theoretical approaches that treat states as social entities,shaped in part by internationalsocial action.State policiesand structuresin thiscase are influencedby changing intersubjective understand- ingsabout the appropriate role of the modern state. However,in most cases the causes of those changed understandings lienot at thenational level but at thesystemic level: it is an internationalorganization' thatpersuades states to adoptthese changes. Thus, a secondcontribution of this articleis to demonstratethe role of internationalorganizations as principals,rather than agents, in internationalpolitics. Finally,the article raises questions about the nature and roleof epistemic communities.While many of the UNESCO officialsinvolved in this reorganiza- tionof international science had scientificcredentials, their reasons for acting had moreto do withtheir status as internationalbureaucrats than with their professionalsocialization or principled beliefs about science. This suggests that the "epistemic" aspect of groups may not always be their most important featureand thatcaution is warrantedin ascribingcausal status to specialized knowledgewhen explaining political behavior. 1. Forpurposes of this article a "norm"is definedas a rulelikeprescription which is both clearly perceptibleto a communityof actorsand whichmakes behavioral claims upon thoseactors. Althoughcomments of McElroywere influential in formulatingthis definition, McElroy's own definitiondiffers significantly from mine; see RobertMcElroy, Morality and AmericanForeign Plicy: TheRole ofMoral Nonns in InternationalAffairs (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992). UNESCO 567 The developmentof science policy The relationshipbetween states and science by no means begins with the establishmentof formalstate science policy bureaucracies.2National acad- emies and royalsocieties of science,many of whichenjoyed some amountof state sponsorshipand whose memberswere in frequentcontact with govern- mentofficials, date back to the seventeenthcentury. Similarly, state-sponsored universitiesoften housed scientistsand theiractivities. However, state sponsor- shipof the sciencesin thisearly period was understoodto be analogousto state sponsorshipof the arts; greatnessand accomplishmentin arts and sciences reflectedstate power ratherthan being a means to achieve power. Further, patronageof thiskind usuallyentailed minimaldirection and control.Acad- emies and universitiesmay (or maynot) have benefitedfrom state funding, but theywere not part of the state apparatus and wereleft free to pursuetheir work witha minimumof stateinterference. The modern concept of science policy differson both these issues. It understandsscience as a means to nationalpower and consequentlyseeks to bringscience activity under the control of the state. Most oftenthis has entailed the creationof a new piece of state apparatusdedicated explicitlyto thistask. The firsteffort to do thiswas made bythe Britishin 1915when they established the Departmentof Scientificand IndustrialResearch to wean Britishscience and industryfrom continental, especially German, innovations, expertise, and technicalequipment during World War 1.3 A few Commonwealthmembers mimickedthe Britishlead and establishedsimilar organizations, but it was not untilafter World War II thatscience policy bureaucracies became widespread. Before 1955 onlya handfulof countries(fourteen) had such entities;by 1975 eighty-ninecountries did. This researchseeks to explainhow and whythe state interestin and use of sciencechanged in thisway. 2. The historyof states'changing attitudes toward science obviously is muchmore complex than theoverview presented here. For moreon thissubject, see JosephBen David, "The ScientificRole: The Conditionsof Its Establishmentin Europe," Minerva4 (Autumn1965), pp. 15-54; A. Hunter Dupre, Sciencein theFederal Govemment:A Historyof Policies and Activitiesto 1940 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UniversityPress, 1957); Philip Gummett,Scientists in Whitehall(Manchester, England: ManchesterUniversity Press, 1980); Ros Herman, The European ScientificCommunity (Harlow, England: LongmanPress, 1986); Eric Hutchinson,"Scientists as an InferiorClass: The EarlyYears of the DSIR," Minerva8 (July1970), pp. 396-411; Daniel Kevels, ThePhysicists: The Historyof a ScientificCommunity in ModemAmerica (New York: AlfredA. Knopf,1978); Frank Pfetsch,"Scientific Organization and Science Policy in Imperial Germany,1871-1914: The Foundingof the Imperial Instituteof Physicsand Technology,"Minerva 8 (October 1970), pp. 557-80; JarlathRoyane, Science in Govemment(London: Edward Arnold, 1984); Ian Varcoe, "Scientists,Government, and OrganizedResearch in Great Britain,1914-1916: The EarlyHistory of the DSIR," Minerva8 (April 1970), pp. 192-216; and RobertWuthnow, "The World Economy and the Institutionalizationof Science in SeventeenthCentury Europe," in AlbertBergesen, ed., Studiesof the Modem World-System(New York: Academic Press,1980), pp. 57-76. 3. Peter Alter,The ReluctantPatron: Science and theState in Britain,1850-1920 (Oxford:Berg, 1987), pp. 201ff. 568 InternationalOrganization For purposesof thisstudy I definescience policybureaucracies as organsof the state that have as their primarymission the tasks of coordinating, organizing,and planningscientific and technologicalactivities at a national level. I exclude frommy definitionthe followingtypes of organizations:(1) nonstateorganizations (such as scientists'professional societies); (2) organiza- tions dealingwith only one branchof science (such as the National Weather Service or medical and health organizations);(3) educational organizations whose primarymission is to trainscientific and technicalpersonnel rather than coordinateactivities broadly; and (4) researchorganizations whose primary missionis to conductresearch rather than

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