Strategic ontologies - how to agree on what we even communicate about?

Political disagreement occurs often because actors might use the same words but they’re talking about very different things. Adam Lerner and Ben O’Loughlin have published an article explaining this, entitled, Strategic Ontologies: Narrative and Meso-Level Theorizing in International Politics. Read it here in International Studies Quarterly. Ben also made a podcast explaining the idea — listen to it here — kindly hosted by Will Youmans at George Washington University.

This is a very basic point. What drives many disputes is nobody can agree what actually exists, so they argue about different processes, entities, and experiences. UK leaders talk about climate change in terms of new technology, new jobs, changing energy supplies. In other parts of the world, if you ask about climate change people will talk about lives already lost, not being able to leave the house, likely migration to places on earth where its not 40-50 degrees, and their fear of conflict and war that migration could cause. They talk about the loss of land that is sacred and fundamental to their identity. Its a completely different conversation. Chinese leaders bring in ideas about nature's relationship to man, but downplay any question of responsibility. Every region has its own way of classifying what exists and where attention must focus. 

Political leaders do some of this deliberately. Western and Chinese leaders don't want to talk about how poor countries understand climate change because if those leaders accept that poor countries’ stuff is what is actually happening, the West and China would be legally liable, and have to pay reparations on a huge scale for many decades. Hence, this talk about what 'stuff' counts, or what ontology, is strategic.

Ben has observed this often when working with policymakers. Many decide first what counts, which implies what they will model, what targets they could aim for using that model, and they base decisions on those targets. Anything else, they ignore. But people in other countries prioritise what our leaders ignore even on the same issue.

How anyone can bridge this is a big debate in the field of ethics right now. How to entertain multiple ontologies at once so that we can create dialogue? We live in a pluriverse of competing ontologies that few can comprehend. This is where communication could help, but only when people are open to moving towards that wider comprehension.