Epistemic communities and developmet [sic]: the Davos process and knowledge production

Abstract

ABSTRACT This dissertation seeks to examine the role of an international institution, the World Economic Forum (WEF), its meetings (referred to as the Davos process), in determining the global development agenda particularly that of Africa. The research is anchored in the conceptual framework of epistemic communities, as explored by Peter Hass. This conceptual framework aims to explain how ideational structures routinely influence policy and decision making. The dissertation interrogates why and how actors coalesce around the WEF, and help the WEF in shaping decisive debates which have profound implications for important development issues such as poverty alleviation, debt reduction, private sector development and the future of the global economy. Starting as an informal interaction of leading Western European businessmen, the annual conclave of the WEF at Davos, Switzerland, has grown into leaps and bounds to incorporate core corporate, political and non state actors across the globe in a structured framework of influence and agenda setting. In addition to its influence on contemporary economic debates, the WEF has established formal knowledge creation and knowledge management structures, in which it conducts research across a wide array of domains. The dissertation also examines how the WEF has gradually expanded into Africa, helping shape the discourse at the level of the African Union (AU) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), through the Africa WEF summits and the sub regional WEF summits. The dissertation concludes that although the WEF has been instrumental in shaping knowledge about African development issues, there is need to engage more African voices in future development debates. Yet, the dissertation also concedes that the WEF dominates in the development arena largely because of the persistence of global asymmetries in the global production of knowledge and ideas. So, for Africa to overcome these asymmetries, it will have to evolve sound endogenous sources of knowledge systems.