Science and technology development in the third world: Competing policy perspectives

A planned strategy of engagement, in order to benefit from, and contribute to Western science and technology, should be the major focus of science and technology policy in the Third World. What is needed is a strategy of vigorous and innovative engagement which will be based on an open approach to Western science and technology, a dynamic model of science-development integration and institutional reforms for qualitative improvements in the social structure of science in the Third World. Muhammad Shahidullah is a research associate at the University Center for International Studies, University of Pittsburgh. His research interests include comparative science and technology policy, organizational behavior, and sociology of change and modernization.     

COMMENTARY: THE IMPACT OF PSYCHOLOGY ON THIRD WORLD DEVELOPMENT

Parts of the basic conceptual framework of Western psychology have been imported, sometimes blindly, into the design of many Third World countries' education, industry, law and health services. Psychology needs to demonstrate its relevance to the particular sociocultural conditions of these countries and to development policy in each of these fields. This requires close collaboration with other social sciences. Theories and techniques developed in Western societies (e.g., pre-school enrichment and aptitude testing) need to be unpackaged so that Third World policy-makers can decide which aspects are most relevant to their goals. Revitalization of endogenous cultural development is essential for developing a valid and socially acceptable psychology. This requires both sensitivity to the cultural load of Western psychology and systematic exploration of distinctive indigenous concepts.     

Religion and Civic Engagement in Muslim Countries

Previous studies of religion on civic and political participation focus primarily on Western Christian societies. Studies of Muslim societies concentrate on Islamic religiosity's effect on attitudes toward democracy, not on how Muslim religious participation carries over into social and political arenas. This article examines the relationship between religion and civic engagement in nine Muslim‐majority countries using data from the World Values Surveys. I find that active participation in Muslim organizations is associated with greater civic engagement, while religious service attendance is not. In a subset of countries, daily prayer is associated with less civic engagement. The main area in which Muslim societies differ from Western ones is in the lack of association between civic engagement, trust, and tolerance. Religious participation is a more significant predictor of secular engagement than commonly used “social capital” measures, suggesting a need to adapt measures of religiosity to account for differences in religious expression across non‐Christian faiths.     

Editorial Overview

Science policy mandates across the industrialized world insinuate more active roles for publics, their earlier participation in policy decisions, and expanded notions of science and technology governance. In response to these policies, engaged scholars in science studies have sought to design and conduct exercises aimed at better attuning science to its public contexts. As demand increases for innovative and potentially democratic forms of public engagement with science and technology, so also do the prospects for insights from science studies to contribute to policy agendas and institutional capabilities. This collection brings together an international set of scholars in science, technology and society who inquire into the meaning, efficacy and responsibility of engaged science studies scholarship as a public matter.     

On Nanotechnology and Ambivalence: The Politics of Enthusiasm

The promise of scientific and technological innovation – particularly in fields such as nanotechnology – is increasingly set against what has been articulated as a deficit in public trust in both the new technologies and regulatory mechanisms. Whilst the development of new technology is cast as providing contributions to both quality of life and national competitiveness, what has been termed a ‘legitimacy crisis’ is seen as threatening the vitality of this process. However in contrast to the risk debates that dominated the technological controversies of the late 1990s the vitality of technological innovation is now cast as vulnerable to lack of public confidence and trust in the regulatory and governance structures upon which such innovation depends. In order to address this deficit in public trust, science policy has increasingly turned to the social sciences, suggesting that public values might be incorporated into the development of nanotechnology at an early stage. Public ambivalence therefore constitutes the problem addressed by the increasingly central role that public engagement and participation play in contemporary science policy. Although the recent proliferation of public engagement activities is premised on the need to address this ambivalence through direct engagement, we re-interpret ambivalence as an engaged – rather than passive – mode of relating to technological determinism. Whilst the move toward forms of direct public engagement might be regarded as symptomatic of the emergence of affective mode of governance we interpret public ambivalence as a nested set of enthusiasms and anxieties. Accordingly we suggest that public engagement might be re-thought, utilising ambivalence as a creative resource, rather than as the problem.

Producing the Post-Fordist Public: The Political Economy of Public Engagement with Science

The commercial exploitation of scientific knowledge and increased public participation in democratic decision-making about science and technology have emerged as the two central themes of contemporary science policy in Britain. We argue that the prominence of participatory discourse in contemporary science policy is primarily due to the close fit of this discourse with the post-Fordist and post-industrial economic strategy of the British state. Participation is a form of immaterial labour which gains currency in this phase of capitalism, blurring the distinctions between production and consumption, and between the economy and the political or communicative public sphere. Participation is cognitive, interpretative, affective, and social work which enters into the construction of technologies as bundled material artefacts and cultural meanings. Participation operates both in the production and consumption of goods and in the legitimation of social and political relations. Public engagement exercises prepare the product for the market and the market for the product. Such exercises therefore instantiate the way in which immaterial labour is both productive and political. Participation activates, but also disciplines, the subjectivities of post-Fordist publics. Contrary to the rhetoric of democratization that has accompanied public engagement efforts, these programmes potentially operate as forms of control and co-optation, and promote the shaping of publics as markets.     

INTO TERRA INCOGNITA: CHARTING BEYOND PETER HARRISON'S THE TERRITORIES OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Peter Harrison's The Territories of Science and Religion throws down a serious challenge to advocates of dialogue as the primary means of engagement between science and religion. This article accepts the validity of this challenge and looks at four possible responses to it. The first—a return to the past—is rejected. The remaining three—exploring new epistemic frameworks for the encounter of science and religion, broadening out the engagement beyond the context of the physical sciences and Western culture, and looking at ways in which scientific and theological practitioners may collaborate on practical problems—are all offered as potential ways in which science and religion may engage with one another, in ways which move beyond Harrison's critique.     

Lab Work Goes Social,and Vice Versa: Strategising Public Engagement Processes

Midstream modulation is a form of public engagement with science which benefits from strategic application of science and technology studies (STS) insights accumulated over nearly 20 years. These have been developed from STS researchers’ involvement in practical engagement processes and research with scientists, science funders, policy and other public stakeholders. The strategic aim of this specific method, to develop what is termed second-order reflexivity amongst scientist-technologists, builds upon and advances earlier more general STS work. However this method is focused and structured so as to help generate such reflexivity—over the ‘upstream’ questions which have been identified in other STS research as important public issues for scientific research, development and innovation—amongst practising scientists-technologists in their specialist contexts (public or private, in principle). This is a different focus from virtually all such previous work, and offers novel opportunities for those key broader issues to be opened up. The further development of these promising results depends on some important conditions such as identifying and engaging research funders and other stakeholders like affected publics in similar exercises. Implementing these conditions could connect the productive impacts of midstream modulation with wider public engagement work, including with ‘uninvited’ public engagement with science. It would also generate broader institutional and political changes in the larger networks of institutional actors which constitute contemporary technoscientific innovation and governance processes. All of these various broader dimensions, far beyond the laboratory alone, need to be appropriately open, committed to democratic needs, and reflexive, for the aims of midstream modulation to be achieved, whilst allowing specialists to work as specialists.     

Biomedical science in supermarket tabloids

Supermarket tabloids present, as truthful, stories about biomedical science that are greatly exaggerated and often fictitious. Apparently a sizable portion of their large readership accepts these stories as correct. This is "scientific journalism" at its worst, but its standards are not wholly different from those of the mainline press. Reprinted from Knowledge and Policy: The International Journal of Knowledge Transfer and Utilization, Fall 1989, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 74–81. Allan Mazur is both a sociologist and a technologist. He received an M.S. in Engineering from UCLA and worked for several years as an aerospace engineer before obtaining a Ph.D. in sociology from Johns Hopkins University. He has been a member of the social science faculties of MIT and Stanford University, and is currently a professor in Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. The Dynamics of Technical Controversy (1981) is his major work on public disputes over technology, and he continues to work in this area as well as in biosociology.     

Center-periphery relations and transformation of post-soviet science

The republics of the former USSR need a new science and technology (S&T) policy. The main question concerns the relevance of innovation studies and practical recommendations in developed countries to S&T policy in the new independent states. The participation of the republics of the USSR in scientific research has been of a dual nature. Sharing the independent S&T policy of the superpower, they were the periphery dependent on the center (in Moscow). Now, the S&T sphere of the former republics should be dependentnot on the political center of the Soviet Union, but on the world science center. The inversion urges an adequate change in the objectives, resources, and mechanism of the transformation of post-Soviet science. Moreover, new S&T policy must be based on the specific socioeconomic situation, including the traditions of the social organization of science. His research interests include sociology of science and science and technology policy.     

The Broad Challenge of Public Engagement in Science

Timely public engagement in science presents a broad challenge. It includes more than research into the ethical, legal and social dimensions of science and state-initiated citizen’s participation. Introducing a public perspective on science while safeguarding its public value involves a diverse set of actors: natural scientists and engineers, technology assessment institutes, policy makers, social scientists, citizens, interest organisations, artists, and last, but not least, politicians.     

Constructing Productive Engagement: Pre-engagement Tools for Emerging Technologies

Engagement with stakeholders and civil society is increasingly important for new scientific and technological developments. Preparation of such engagements sets the stage for engagement activities and thus contributes to their outcomes. Preparation is a demanding task, particularly if the facilitating agent aims for timely engagement related to emerging technologies. Requirements for such preparation include understanding of the emerging science & technology and its dynamics. Multi-level analysis and socio-technical scenarios are two complementary tools for constructing productive engagement. Examination of the emergence of nanotechnologies in the food packaging sector demonstrates how these tools work. In light of recent policy demands for responsible innovation, but also more generally, the role of organizers of engagement activities is one that deserves reflection insofar as it can extend beyond that of preparation and facilitation.     

International–local remuneration differences across six countries: Do they undermine poverty reduction work?

Despite the rhetoric of a single global economy, professionals in poorer countries continue to be remunerated differently depending on whether they are compensated at a local vs. international rate. Project ADDUP (Are Development Discrepancies Undermining Performance?) surveyed 1290 expatriate and local professionals (response rate = 47%) from aid, education, government, and business sectors in (1) Island Nations (Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands), (2) landlocked economies (Mala?i, Uganda), and (3) emerging economies (India, China). Difference in pay was estimated using purchasing power parity, from the World Bank's World Development Indicators 2007. Psychological measures included self‐reported pay and benefits (remuneration), self‐attributed ability, remuneration comparison, sense of justice in remuneration, remuneration‐related motivation, thoughts of turnover and thoughts about international mobility. We included control measures of candour, culture shock, cultural values (horizontal/vertical individualism/collectivism), personality (from the “big five”), job satisfaction and work engagement. Controlling for these and country (small effects) and organization effects (medium), (a) pay ratios between international and local workers exceeded what were perceived to be acceptable pay thresholds among respondents remunerated locally; who also reported a combination of a sense of relative (b) injustice and demotivation; which (c) together with job satisfaction/work engagement predicted turnover and international mobility. These findings question the wisdom of dual salary systems in general, expose and challenge a major contradiction between contemporary development policy and practice, and have a range of practical, organizational, and theoretical implications for poverty reduction work.     

SOCIALIZATION IN TRADITIONAL SOCIETY: A CHALLENGE TO PSYCHOLOGY

This paper discusses problems of Third-World psychology and its potential relevance for development. Child socialization in the traditional society is discussed as an example of a problem area where psychology could have an impact in the Third World. Specifically, the concept of autonomy is analyzed within the context of socialization as an illustration of the difficulty faced in the unquestioned application of Western psychology in non-Western society. Some of the findings of the cross-cultural Value of Children Study are examined as a case in point. On the basis of the above discussions, a challenge to psychology is put forward both for its own sake as a science of human behavior and also for the sake of humanity.     

The new technology and its human impact

In the years that have passed since publication of the Club of Rome's seminal report “Limits to Growth,” the issues raised in terms of development, resource use and the environment have become ever more pressing. The potential of advances in science and technology to affect all aspects of life, including development, was then little understood. Today's unparalleled burst in scientific and technological creativity has given new options and opportunities to the world economic system.

Central to this process is a series of concepts which includes the scientification of technology, by which technology is increasingly generated and developed on scientific bases, the breaking down of interdisciplinary barriers and mankind's new found capacity literally to invent resources, leading to the emergence of whole categories of new materials. These changes make possible a new approach to economic growth, relying on decentralization and flexibility and the selection of technology mixes best suited to different socio‐economic and cultural contexts. In parallel, the key importance above all of the information technologies is producing a dematerialization of goods, a trend exemplified by the shift from product oriented to function oriented industries.

The new technologies of the 1980s are cross‐fertilizing and self‐disseminative. They are creating an exceptional number of innovative options in processes, products, services, organization and markets. Mature industrial sectors can undergo a process of rejuvenation to recover competitiveness by the grafting of advanced technologies onto traditional activities. The results are already evident in industrialized countries, such as Italy. The flexibility offered by the new technologies offers perhaps our best hope for a solution to the widening gap between rich and poor nations, contrary to the belief that identifies in advances in science and technology the seeds of a process of polarization dividing the world.

The countries of the United States, Japan and Western Europe—the so‐called Triad Power—dominate the emerging technologies and their applications. In fact, given the pace of today's technological revolution, developing countries are effectively excluded from active participation in the process of technological change. New technologies are not “off the peg,” they have to be learned and controlled, to be introduced into an existing flexible system possessing trained manpower and an adequate capital base. Introduction into the Third World, where these essential conditions are frequently lacking, will not be a painless process. Technology transfer without adaptation is likely to have undesirable cultural and societal disadvantages.

North and South are simultaneously experiencing radically different processes of evolution: the former, through restructuring and innovation; the latter, through the drive for more quantitative growth. Continuing stress on quantitative growth carries with it the risk that other goals—environmental quality, even the eradication of poverty—may suffer. Here lies the possibility that unless economic patterns change, today's imbalance between the haves and the have nots may be perpetuated or even consolidated.

The countries of the North individually all face problems in addressing these issues. The international banking system is hamstrung with the problems of Third World debt. Primary producers no longer command high prices for their raw materials on world markets and so this source of development funding is also drying up. The need is therefore for a global approach. In each Third World situation, specific needs and requirements must be identified to be tackled via technology blending, whereby a mix of emerging and traditional technologies is selected to raise the quality of output to the levels now demanded by a sophisticated world economy.

Another important area is that of energy, together with the worsening environmental and even climatic effects of energy policies. The need is for a long term strategic view to marshall the contribution new technologies can make to improving the lot of mankind in full respect for his environment.

Technological change also implies societal change. In labor markets, labor mismatch creates pockets of employment which are difficult to eradicate. Yet, overall, the hope is that expanding economic horizons will create unlimited opportunities for new jobs and new skills. The key is education and training. A feed and feedback mechanism between education and the economy represents an intangible investment in the future.

Economic growth, technological innovation, development of culture and society, have always moved together with synergism. Current changes are not so much just physical as conceptual. We are passing from a mechanical (or mechanistic) society to one that can be termed cybernetic. Causality, sequentiality and hierarchy are giving way to a functional interdependence at a systems level. Greater participation will produce more opportunities for self‐fulfillment. As old social equilibria collapse, management of social change can be seen to be as important as management of technological change.

The technological revolution has deep roots in Western culture. It is a liberating force that can lead to greater cultural enrichment. By understanding the changes now underway, we can ensure that the new pattern of society that emerges from exploitation of the new technologies retains man at its center and so benefits the whole of humanity.     

Good governance,law and social reality: Problematic relationships

This article examines the ways in which the linkage between good governance and economic development has originally developed as alegal discussion constrained by the constitution of the World Bank. This normative character of the linkage has subsequently shaped discussions about good governance. It is here argued that this tends to lead these discussions to focus on selective and normative aspects of the interrelations between economic, political and legal-administrative structures and institutions. While the role of law is increasingly acknowledged in more recent debates and policy statements, law tends to be approached from a normative economic or legal perspective that does not provide much insight into the social significance of law. Too little attention is given to anthropological or sociological approaches to legal pluralism in society. These factors combine to detract attention from the fact that governance issues in reality deal withbad rather than with good governance. Franz von Benda-Beckmann is professor in the department of Agrarian Law of the Agricultural University Wageningen and teaches on law and rural development in Third World states and anthropology of law. He holds a doctorate in law and aHabilitation in anthropology. His primary research interests are issues of property rights and social security in rural development, legal pluralism and legal anthropological theory. This is a revised version of a paper presented in the 1993 RAWOO (Advisory Council for Scientific Research in Development Problems) lecture series.     

WONDER SUSTAINED: A REPLY TO CRITICS

A set of science‐inspired cosmic narratives referred to as the Epic of Evolution and the Universe Story or, collectively, the new cosmology, proposes to bring humans closer to nature by placing us into the broader narrative of the cosmos. This article responds to commentary and critique on my book Consecrating Science: Wonder, Knowledge, and the Natural World, which critically examines these science‐based cosmic narratives and their particular and problematic modes and objects of wonder. Themes include the relationship of wonder to science and ethical engagement; the question of whether wonder, grounded in everyday sensory experience, can scale up to the level of global environmental problems; the relevance of wonder to nonideal environments and negative affects like fear or grief; and the importance of humanistic and religious studies scholarship for critiquing grand narratives of science, among other themes. I also respond to claims that my book misdiagnoses and distorts the work of the new cosmology and its claims to wonder.     

Engagement for progress: applied philosophy of science in context

Philosophy of science was once a much more socially engaged endeavor, and can be so again. After a look back at philosophy of science in the 1930s–1950s, I turn to discuss the current potential for returning to a more engaged philosophy of science. Although philosophers of science have much to offer scientists and the public, I am skeptical that much can be gained by philosophers importing off-the-shelf discussions from philosophy of science to science and society. Such efforts will likely look like efforts to do applied ethics by merely applying ethical theories to particular contexts and problems. While some insight can be gained by these kinds of endeavors, the most interesting and pressing problems for the actual practitioners and users of science are rarely addressed. Instead, I recommend that philosophers of science engage seriously and regularly with scientists and/or the users of science in order to gain an understanding of the conceptual issues on the ground. From such engagement, flaws in the traditional philosophical frameworks, and how such flaws can be remedied, become apparent. Serious engagement with the contexts of science thus provides the most fruit for philosophy of science per se and for the practitioners whom the philosophers aim to assist. And if one focuses on contexts where science has its most social relevance, these efforts can help to provide the thing that philosophy of science now lacks: a full-bodied philosophy of science in society.     

The long past and the short history of social psychology

In 1908 Ebbinghaus distinguished between the long past and the short history of psychology. The short history dated from 1879 when Wundt established a psychological laboratory at Leipzig. The long past concerns the time when psychology was a branch of philosophy. Implicit in such a break with the past is a positivist philosophy of science. I show how this philosophy of science distorts the historical record. I then analyse the history of social psychology. Unwittingly Lindzey and Aronson (1985) distinguish between the long past of social psychology as part of the Western intellectual tradition and its short history as an experimental science that is mainly American. Murchison's Handbook of Social Psychology (1935), whilst marking the boundary between the long past and the short history, belongs to the long past. The break with tradition came in 1954, when Lindzey published the first Handbook in the modern series. There is a self-conscious need, in the post World War II era, to train a whole new generation of social psychologists. The Lindzey series of Handbooks meets that need. The ‘progress’ of modern social psychology is now measured in terms of its distance from the Murchison milestone of 1935.