Structural Approaches to Knowledge and Expertise in International Politics

This chapter gives a brief overview of structural approaches to knowledge and expertise in international politics, which emphasize the impact of diverse social and material structures on the way we know the world(s). Structural approaches discuss and illustrate these larger structural dynamics in processes of knowledge production; that is, they examine the unequal distribution of epistemic agency within the global epistemic order. They study in particular how global hierarchies and inequalities resulting from interlocking systems of oppression (capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, hetero-normativity, militarism, etc.) shape epistemic relations between different forms and producers of knowledge (e.g., between the Global Norths, Souths, and Easts; global and local knowledges; experts and laypersons; and academic-propositional and experiential, and creative-practical ways of knowing, etc.) and influence what knowledge becomes possible. Contributors to this section study knowledge regimes and coloniality of knowledge and how these affect knowing violence, international health metrics, and the governance of asylum. They focus on whose knowledge is dominant and why, which knowledges have been marginalized, and what forms of knowledge can trigger emancipatory transformation. Finally, they underline how the capitalist system undergirds particular ideas of domination that shape knowledge, expertise, and policy.