ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Science Diplomacy: Cooperation, Competition and Crisis 3

Session Submission Type: Organized Session

English Abstract

Fifteen years after the Royal Society and AAAS first defined science diplomacy (2010), both organisations have returned to the subject to reassess its role amid ongoing geopolitical upheaval. In an era marked by plural worldviews and contested scientific authority, they, alongside actors such as the European Commission, have acknowledged that science diplomacy has too often been framed through an overly optimistic lens that privileges cooperation while downplaying enduring realities of contestation, competition, and crisis. Moments of geopolitical disruption reveal not only the necessity of scientific cooperation but also its fragility, exposing asymmetries of power, divergent national priorities, and tensions embedded within transnational scientific exchange.
This symposium examines how science diplomacy has operated historically across shifting geopolitical landscapes: from the power dynamics and national interests that shaped scientific internationalism in the pre-WWII era (Session 1), to the historic roles and limits of international organisations in mediating scientific cooperation (Session 2), to the diplomatic trajectories of East Asia (Session 3), and finally to historical cases, contemporary challenges and ongoing lessons (Session 4). Together, the panels foreground how diplomatic discourse intersects with national priorities, scientific authority, and global power struggles, illuminating the plural worldviews, perspectives and interests that have shaped scientific engagement.
By combining deep historical perspectives with contemporary conceptual shifts, this four-panel symposium offers a comprehensive reconsideration of science diplomacy as a site of negotiation, competition, and adaptation. It highlights how crises, whether geopolitical, social, or technological, expose the power dynamics embedded in international scientific engagement across more than two centuries.

Sub Unit

• Organized Session

Chair

• Aya Homei, The University of Manchester

Individual Presentations

• Navigating the waves of interwar Pacific Rivalry: the Bishop Micronesia Expedition - Lisa Yoshikawa, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

• Science Diplomacy, and Empire in East Asia: The Establishment of the Shanghai Science Institute (1931-1945) - Shigeo Kato, School of Human Sciences, Waseda University, Japan.

• Biosafety as Political Discourse and Diplomatic Symbol: China’s Encounter with International Genetic Engineering Culture in the 1970s - Amanda DeMarco, UC San Diego; Gao Lu, Tsinghua University

Session Organizer

• Alice Naisbitt, University of Manchester