Epistemic Authority in Global Governance: How Experts Network Knowledge in the Politics of Environmental Migration

The IR discourse widely acknowledges that epistemic communities influence the formation of state preferences, policy outcomes, and norms emergence in international politics. However, analyses have marginalized the importance of internal network dynamics and the role of individual experts in explaining epistemic community influence. This paper discusses how individual experts exercise power in global environmental migration governance and demonstrates how the political success of an epistemic community is determined by the leadership of few. The empirical analysis examines the case of the Nansen Initiative (NI), the dominant intergovernmental organisation dedicated to advancing global protection for people displaced across borders in the context of disasters and the effects of climate change. The analysis is grounded in three years of empirical research, primarily based on real-time participant observations and interviews. Through a process-tracing and social network analysis of the NI, this paper develops a compelling portrait of the characteristics and strategies of individuals who manage the epistemic network and its relationships with state and non-state actors to exert policy influence. The case of the NI holds wider analytical relevance for understanding the role of individual experts in global governance and demonstrates how IR scholarship can benefit from adopting an anthropological tool box.