Scientific leadership enables conflict resolution through diplomacy.
Lagenhove et al 22 [Luk Van; Professor at the Brussels School of Governance of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Professorial Fellow at the United Nations University's Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS); Luc Soete; Professor and the Dean of the Brussels School of Governance. He is also a Honorary Professor of international economics at Maastricht University, The Netherlands and currently the Dean of the Institute for European Studies and Vesalius College; Eric Piaget, Visiting Research Fellow at the United Nations University's Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS); 5/5/2022; Frontiers – Policy Labs; “Science Diplomacy in the Age of War”; https://policylabs.frontiersin.org/content/science-diplomacy-in-the-age-of-war]//kaviWaRu
Science diplomacy has many faces. One of them is viewing scientific collaboration as a possible tool to keep dialogue lines open between states in conflict. More often, science is mobilized for diplomatic purposes or conflict resolution, as part of countries’ foreign-affairs apparatuses. The rationale is that scientists speak the same “language”, which can weave cultures together and build trust, irrespective of political animosities between governments. In this context, science diplomacy is frequently considered a soft-power tool. However, science can also be a tool in the hard-power arsenal—instead of stimulating scientific connectivity, science can be targeted by sanctions that make collaborations difficult or impossible. Sanctions could entail cutting funds for international scientific collaborations and isolating scientists in the targeted country from the rest of the world. Sanctions of this nature can, paradoxically, thus be regarded as an alternative form of science diplomacy. While the deployment of coercive power is justified in times of war, one must still ask to what extent science diplomacy should fall within the arsenal of hard-power tools. This article will address this question within the context of the current war in Ukraine.