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13 books match the query 'Technology and state'

cover of Beyond Sputnik: U.S. Science Policy in the Twenty-First Century

Beyond Sputnik

U.S. Science Policy in the Twenty-First Century

Homer A. Neal, Tobin L. Smith, and Jennifer B. McCormick

University of Michigan Press, 2008

Science and technology are responsible for almost every advance in our modern quality of life. Yet science isn't just about laboratories, telescopes and particle accelerators. Public policy exerts a huge impact on how the scientific community conducts its work. Beyond Sputnik is a comprehensive survey of the field for use as an introductory textbook in courses and a reference guide for legislators, scientists, journalists, and advocates seeking to understand the science policy-making process. Detailed case studies---on topics from cloning and stem cell research to homeland security and science education---offer readers the opportunity to study real instances of policymaking at work. Authors and experts Homer A. Neal, Tobin L. Smith, and Jennifer B. McCormick propose practical ways to implement sound public policy in science and technology and highlight how these policies will guide the results of scientific discovery for years to come.

Homer A. Neal is the Samuel A. Goudsmit Distinguished University Professor of Physics, Interim President Emeritus, and Vice President for Research Emeritus at the University of Michigan, and is a former member of the U.S. National Science Board.

Tobin L. Smith is Associate Vice President for Federal Relations at the Association of American Universities. He was formerly Assistant Director of the University of Michigan and MIT Washington, DC, offices.

Jennifer B. McCormick is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Ethics in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Mayo College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota, and is the Associate Director of the Research Ethics Resource, part of the Mayo Clinic's NIH Clinical Translational Science Award research programs.

GO BEYOND SPUTNIK ONLINE--Visit www.science-policy.net for the latest news, teaching resources, learning guides, and internship opportunities in the 21st-Century field of science policy.

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cover of Citizen Participation in Science Policy

Citizen Participation in Science Policy

Petersen James C.

University of Massachusetts Press, 1984

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cover of Disaster Nationalism: Tsunami and Civil War in Sri Lanka

Disaster Nationalism

Tsunami and Civil War in Sri Lanka

Vivian Y. Choi

Duke University Press, 2025

In Disaster Nationalism, Vivian Y. Choi examines how the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami fostered new forms of governance and militarization during Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war that led to enduring forms of precarity and insecurity. Tracing the development of disaster management projects following the tsunami, Choi demonstrates how these projects rest on a logic that treats natural disasters and terrorism as inevitable risks in need of management. The tsunami’s destruction foreclosed the possibility of political resolution to the war, as the state leveraged these projects to justify its militarized aggression in the war against the Tamil Tigers and a new construction of the Sri Lankan nation. Choi reveals how, paradoxically, state-sponsored disaster management projects—from new buffer and border zones to early warning systems—created more insecurity. Choi amplifies the experiences of those affected by the tsunami, particularly Tamil and Muslim communities. In so doing, Choi shows how life perseveres against perpetual uncertainty and danger—caused by natural disasters and state-sanctioned violence alike.
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cover of Frontiers Of Illusion: Science, Technology, and the Politics of Progress

Frontiers Of Illusion

Science, Technology, and the Politics of Progress

Daniel Sarewitz

Temple University Press, 1996

For the past fifty years, science and technology—supported with billions of dollars from the U.S. government—have advanced at a rate that would once have seemed miraculous, while society's problems have grown more intractable, complex, and diverse. Yet scientists and politicians alike continue to prescribe more science and more technology to cure such afflictions as global climate change, natural resource depletion, overpopulation, inadequate health care, weapons proliferation, and economic inequality.

Daniel Sarewitz scrutinizes the fundamental myths that have guided the formulation of science policy for half a century—myths that serve the professional and political interests of the scientific community, but often fail to advance the interests of society as a whole. His analysis ultimately demonstrates that stronger linkages between progress in science and progress in society will require research agendas that emerge not from the intellectual momentum of science, but from the needs and goals of society.

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cover of Infrastructural Attachments: Austerity, Sovereignty, and Expertise in Kenya

Infrastructural Attachments

Austerity, Sovereignty, and Expertise in Kenya

Emma Park

Duke University Press, 2024

Set against critiques of neoliberal capitalism in the present, Infrastructural Attachments argues that the technopolitics of austerity have been the organizing logic of statecraft in Kenya since the late nineteenth century, calling into question the novelty of austerity as a mode of governance and a lived experience. Using infrastructures as a lens to explore state formation over the long twentieth century—roads in the early colonial period, radio broadcasting from the interwar through the postwar periods, and mobile phones and digital financial services in the present—historian Emma Park reveals that as the state drew on private capital to make up for limited budgets, it inaugurated a peculiar political-economic form: the corporate-state. For more than a century—in pursuit of minimizing costs and maximizing profits—the corporate-state crucially relied on the exploitation and expropriation of its subject-citizens. By foregrounding these workers, Park interrogates how Kenyans’ knowledge and expertise has been rescaled and subsumed, quietly underwriting the development of infrastructural expertise, the circuits of finance upon which (post)colonial infrastructural expansion has been premised, and the forms of profit-making it has enabled.
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cover of Mobilizing Science: Movements, Participation, and the Remaking of Knowledge

Mobilizing Science

Movements, Participation, and the Remaking of Knowledge

Sabrina McCormick

Temple University Press, 2009

Mobilizing Science theoretically and empirically explores the rise of a new kind of social movement—one that attempts to empower citizens through the use of expert scientific research. Sabrina Mccormick advances theories of social movements, development, and science and technology studies by examining how these fields intersect in cases around the globe.

Mccormick grounds her argument in two very different case studies: the anti-dam movement in Brazil and the environmental breast cancer prevention movement in the U.S. These, and many other cases, show that the scientization of society, where expert knowledge is inculcated in multiple institutions and lay people are marginalized, give rise to these new types of movements. While activists who consequently engage in science often instigate new methods that result in new findings and scientific tools, these movements still often fail due to superficial participatory institutions and tightly knit corporate/government relationships.

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cover of Presidential Management of Science and Technology: The Johnson Presidency

Presidential Management of Science and Technology

The Johnson Presidency

By W. Henry Lambright

University of Texas Press, 1985

How do science and technology issues become important to a particular presidency? Which issues gain priority? How? Why? What is the role of the presidency in the adoption of national policies affecting science and technology? In their implementation? How does the presidency try to curtail certain programs? Eliminate others? Or rescue programs Congress might seek to terminate? How does implementation vary between a president's own program and one that is inherited?

Such are the questions raised in this book, one of the first to address the relationship between scientists, few of whom have political backgrounds, and presidents, few of whom are knowledgeable in matters of science and technology. Drawing on extensive research performed at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Austin, Texas, and the National Archives in Washington, as well as on secondary sources and interviews, W. Henry Lambright describes, discusses, and analyzes this relationship and shows how one presidency set its agenda, adopted, implemented, and curtailed or eliminated science and technology programs.

Twenty-four case studies of specific decision processes occurring in the era of Lyndon Johnson anchor the book in the world of real events. Some programs adopted under Johnson are now all but forgotten, such as the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, nuclear desalting, and electronic barrier. The effects of many more, initiated, maintained, or enlarged under LBJ, lasted far beyond his administration. These include environmental pollution control, Project Apollo, and the application of Agent Orange in Vietnam. Finally, there are those that were redirected, placed on hold, or terminated under Johnson, such as the supersonic transport, antiballistic missile, and Project Mohole.

In this important book, Lambright has provided a framework for analyzing how the presidency as an institution deals with such issues, and he has established a strong foundation on which all future students of presidential policy management can build.

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cover of Prometheus Reimagined: Technology, Environment, and Law in the Twenty-first Century

Prometheus Reimagined

Technology, Environment, and Law in the Twenty-first Century

Albert C. Lin

University of Michigan Press, 2013

Technologies such as synthetic biology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and geoengineering promise to address many of our most serious problems, yet they also bring environmental and health-related risks and uncertainties. Moreover, they can come to dominate global production systems and markets with very little public input or awareness. Existing governance institutions and processes do not adequately address the risks of new technologies, nor do they give much consideration to the concerns of persons affected by them.

Instead of treating technology, health, and the environment as discrete issues, Albert C. Lin argues that laws must acknowledge their fundamental relationship, anticipating both future technological developments and their potential adverse effects. Laws should encourage international cooperation and the development of common global standards, while allowing for flexibility and reassessment.
 

 
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cover of Science and Technology Policy in the United States: Open Systems in Action

Science and Technology Policy in the United States

Open Systems in Action

Kraemer, Sylvia

Rutgers University Press, 2006

During the latter half of the twentieth century, federal funding in the United States for scientific research and development increased dramatically. Yet despite the infusion of public funds into research centers, the relationship between public policy and research and development remains poorly understood.

How does the federal government attempt to harness scientific knowledge and resources for the nation's economic welfare and competitiveness in the global marketplace? Who makes decisions about controversial scientific experiments, such as genetic engineering and space exploration? Who is held accountable when things go wrong?

In this lucidly-written introduction to the topic, Sylvia Kraemer draws upon her extensive experience in government to develop a useful and powerful framework for thinking about the American approach to shaping and managing scientific innovation. Kraemer suggests that the history of science, technology, and politics is best understood as a negotiation of ongoing tensions between open and closed systems. Open systems depend on universal access to information that is complete, verifiable, and appropriately used. Closed systems, in contrast, are composed of unique and often proprietary features, which are designed to control usage.

From the Constitution's patent clause to current debates over intellectual property, stem cells, and internet regulation, Kraemer shows the promise-as well as the limits-of open systems in advancing scientific progress as well as the nation's economic vitality.

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cover of Shaping Science and Technology Policy: The Next Generation of Research

Shaping Science and Technology Policy

The Next Generation of Research

Edited by David H. Guston and Daniel Sarewitz

University of Wisconsin Press, 2006

With scientific progress occurring at a breathtaking pace, science and technology policy has never been more important than it is today. Yet there is a very real lack of public discourse about policy-making, and government involvement in science remains shrouded in both mystery and misunderstanding.  Who is making choices about technology policy, and who stands to win or lose from these choices?  What criteria are being used to make decisions and why?  Does government involvement help or hinder scientific research?  

Shaping Science and Technology Policy brings together an exciting and diverse group of emerging scholars, both practitioners and academic experts, to investigate current issues in science and technology policy.  Essays explore such topics as globalization, the shifting boundary between public and private, informed consent in human participation in scientific research, intellectual property and university science, and the distribution of the costs and benefits of research. 

Contributors: Charlotte Augst, Grant Black, Mark Brown, Kevin Elliott, Patrick Feng, Pamela M. Franklin, Carolyn Gideon, Tené N. Hamilton, Brian A. Jackson, Shobita Parthasarathy, Jason W. Patton, A. Abigail Payne, Bhaven Sampat, Christian Sandvig, Sheryl Winston Smith, Michael Whong-Barr

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cover of Technology, Pessimism, and Postmodernism

Technology, Pessimism, and Postmodernism

Yaron Ezrahi

University of Massachusetts Press, 1995

This collection of essays from international scholars across various disciplines addresses the compelling theme of technological pessimism—the conviction that technology has simultaneously given humanity the means to achieve unlimited progress while simultaneously providing the tools for self-destruction and the degradation of our most cherished values.

Edited by Yaron Ezrahi, Everett Mendelsohn, and Howard P. Segal, this intellectually rigorous anthology examines the paradoxes and contradictions inherent in contemporary technological society through a postmodern lens. The contributors explore how technology shapes human experience, culture, and social structures in the late twentieth century, questioning the foundational narratives of technological progress and enlightenment that have dominated Western thought.

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cover of The New Politics of Science

The New Politics of Science

David Dickson

University of Chicago Press, 1988

How science "gets done" in today's world has profound political repercussions, since scientific knowledge, through its technical applications, has become an important source of both economic and military power. The increasing dependence of scientific research on funding from business and the military has made questions about the access to and control of scientific knowledge a central issue in today's politics of science.

In The New Politics of Science, David Dickson points out that "the scientific community has its own internal power structures, its elites, its hierarchies, its ideologies, its sanctioned norms of social behavior, and its dissenting groups. And the more that science, as a social practice, forms an integral part of the economic structures of the society in which it is imbedded, the more the boundaries and differences between the two dissolve. Groups inside the scientific community, for example, will use groups outside the community—and vice versa—to achieve their own political ends." In this edition, Dickson has included a new preface commenting on the continuing and increasing influence of industrial and defense interests on American scientific research in the 1980s.
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cover of The Technology of Transition: Science and Technology Policies for Transition Countries

The Technology of Transition

Science and Technology Policies for Transition Countries

David A. Dyker

Central European University Press, 1997

This book addresses the crucial question of how countries which have suffered losses in productivity levels and innovatory momentum over perhaps twenty-thirty years can rediscover their dynamism. Because the contributors have the immediate experience of tackling such complex problems and possess first-hand knowledge of a wide range of developmental patterns, each is well-placed to advise on the search for comprehensive solutions. The book not only focuses on the problems of innovation and technology transfer as they are reflected in the experience of the transition period to date, but also develops conceptual and strategic approaches to problems which will take a generation or more to resolve.
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