Description
What roles do international organizations (IOs) have in the processes of developing common science and technology policies (STPs) among their member states? How do states exert influence in priority selection and what degree of agency do IOs exercise as independent actors? How can we typify and explain the different roles that IOs play in STP making? Contributing to the nascent literature studying the regional STPs, this paper examines the STP making process within two consequential multilateral organizations. The principal aim of the paper is to explain the institutional topography member states have developed and ascertain to what extent specialized bureaucracies within the ASEAN and EU can independently influence the decision making. Despite different integrative logics of the ASEAN and EU, the paper identifies similarities in the STPs making and advances a threefold argument. First, the common STP should be understood as a club good. Second, differentiated distribution of participatory and procedural rights within IOs during the STP making is the spillover effect of social closure. Third, functional pressures in the institutional design of common STP reflect the position and interests of the most dominant member states.
