ABSTRACT
The content of a knowledge order may be influenced by the use of the communicative mechanisms described without changing the structure of this knowledge order. Knowledge politics – understood as the intentional change of knowledge orders – implies that actors pursue the enforcement of specific political objectives, which in turn are relying on particular causal assumptions and normative orientations as well as evidence on which they are based. Knowledge politics can pursue two different goals, depending on whether there is already a conviction of the meaningfulness of competing available knowledge or whether there are doubts as to the meaningfulness of dominant knowledge. Knowledge politics can make use of the communicative mechanisms of formation, reproduction, and transformation of knowledge orders by consciously using the mechanism of observation and orientation of others through benchmarking, best practice and other comparisons.
