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. Reprinted from Knowledge and Policy: The International Journal of Knowledge Transfer and Utilization, Spring 1990, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 3–20. 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.     

Revealing communication constraints in extension communication strategies

A review of diffusion projects in the Third World reveals cause for concern about the nature and quality of development messages delivered to the poorest farmers. These farmers often lack the, cognitive and manual skills necessary to make informed and effective decisions about innovations. An examination of the poorest farmers' comprehension of innovations presented by an agricultural extension team in South India found low comprehension and great variability across all farmers. The results of the study suggest a need for a reorientation in the development communication research from a study of overt behavior as the dependent variable to an examination of receiver comprehension of source messages that may be producing that behavior. Srinivas R. Melkote is assistant professor in the School of Mass Communication at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He received his PhD in 1984 from the University of Iowa. His research interests are in, the area of communication and development in the Third World.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Engaged,Embedded, Enjoined: Science and Technology Studies in the National Science Foundation

Engaged scholarship is an intellectual movement sweeping across higher education, not only in the social and behavioral sciences but also in fields of natural science and engineering. It is predicated on the idea that major advances in knowledge will transpire when scholars, while pursuing their research interests, also consider addressing the core problems confronting society. For a workable engaged agenda in science and technology studies, one that informs scholarship as well as shapes practice and policy, the traditional terms of engagement must be renegotiated to be more open and mutual than has historically characterized the nature of inquiry in this field. At the same time, it is essential to protect individual privacy and preserve government confidentiality. Yet there is a scientific possibility for and benefit to introducing more collaborative and deliberative research approaches between scholar and subject in ways that will not violate these first-order ethics. To make the case, this article discusses the possibilities and perils of engaged science and technology scholarship by drawing on our own recent experiences to conduct and apply STS research while embedded in the National Science Foundation. Brief accounts of these experiences reveal the opportunities as well as the challenges of engaged scholarship. They also provide lessons for those fellow travelers who might follow the authors to this or other like host organizations with ambitions of increasing fundamental knowledge about and applying research to the policies, programs, and decisions of the scientific enterprise.     

Taking Our Own Medicine: On an Experiment in Science Communication

In 2007 a social scientist and a designer created a spatial installation to communicate social science research about the regulation of emerging science and technology. The rationale behind the experiment was to improve scientific knowledge production by making the researcher sensitive to new forms of reactions and objections. Based on an account of the conceptual background to the installation and the way it was designed, the paper discusses the nature of the engagement enacted through the experiment. It is argued that experimentation is a crucial way of making social science about science communication and engagement more robust.     

Avoiding Empty Rhetoric: Engaging Publics in Debates About Nanotechnologies

Despite the amount of public investment in nanotechnology ventures in the developed world, research shows that there is little public awareness about nanotechnology, and public knowledge is very limited. This is concerning given that nanotechnology has been heralded as 'revolutionising' the way we live. In this paper, we articulate why public engagement in debates about nanotechnology is important, drawing on literature on public engagement and science policy debate and deliberation about public policy development. We also explore the significance of timing in engaging the public, and we make some suggestions concerning how to effectively engage publics. Our conclusions indicate the significance of scientific researchers, policy makers and representative consumer groupings in public reasoning towards a better public policy framework for debate about technological development.     

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.     

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.     

Engagement Agents in the Making: On the Front Lines of Socio-Technical Integration

This commentary builds on Haico te Kulve and Arie Rip’s (2011) notion of “engagement agents,” individuals that must be able to move between multiple dimensions, or “levels” of research, innovation, and policy processes. The commentary compares and contrasts the role of the engagement agent within the Constructive Technology Assessment and integration approaches, and suggests that on-site integration research represents one way to transform both social and natural scientists into competent and informed “engagement agents,” a new generation of researchers that possess the knowledge and capacities to forge “novel linkages” between the oftentimes disparate terrains of science, politics, and policy.     

The research values of policy analysts

While there is growing consensus that conventional notions of the scientific method do not exhaust the methodological needs of policy analysis (at least applied analysis), there is less agreement as to what an improved method would entail. As a result, policy analysts must choose among often competing notions of what constitutes valid policy inquiry. Data from a content analysis of six policy journal articles together with responses from a survey of authors are used to determine what choices are made and whether these matter. Two sets of research norms are discovered within the policy studies community’one which mirrors traditional social science values and another which reflects recent attempts to adjust that methodology to meet the information needs of policy actors. Equally important, values tend, albeit slightly, to condition the character (e.g., degree of rigor or focus) of policy research. David M. Hedge is an associate professor of political science and director of the graduate program in public policy at West Virginia University. His research interests include regulatory politics, intergovernmental relations, and state politics/policy. Jin W. Mok is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Northern Iowa. His area of interests are public policy and methodology.     

Utilization of social sciences in public discourse: Labeling problems

This article reports the main results of an empirical research project on the utilization of social sciences in the field of labor market and educational policy in West Germany since the 1960s. The research interest focused upon utilization of social science knowledge in public discourse paralleling policy decisions. The analysis shows that the social sciences are used extensively for labeling social problems. The use made of social science knowledge can be described as a certain combination of instrumental and conceptual utilization. In the concluding section of the article, the innovation problem of social science utilization is considered. Dr. Matthias Wingens is senior research associate with the Sociological Research Center “Social Problems” at the University of Bremen. His main research interests include the utilization of social science knowledge, the sociology of knowledge, and educational research. Dr. Ansgar Weymann is chair of the Department of Sociology and head of the Sociological Research Center “Social Problems” at the University of Bremen. His main research interests include sociological theory, utilization of social research, research on education, labor market, and employment, and research on socialization and life-course.     

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.     

Methodology for studying research networks in the developing world: Generating information for science and technology policy

Science and technology policy in the developing world involves special problems since much of the financial support for S&;T originates outside the countries where research is done. The development of information for policy and strategic planning decisions is therefore critical for national research policymakers, international organizations, and donors. However, prior attempts have been plagued by serious methodological problems. We describe a multifaceted approach for generating systematic information on scientific and technological institutions in developing countries based on the concept of the research system as a multiorganizational network. By providing an account of how this approach was implemented in a three-country study we hope to shed light on several related problems in developing information for policy. First, how can relevant actors in research systems be identified? Second, how can a national research system be systematically surveyed? Third, how can system-wide estimates of organizational linkages and performance be obtained?     

Gender Issues in US Science and Technology Policy: Equality of What?

Fairness in evaluation processes for women in science and engineering is only one of a set of issues that need to be addressed to reach gender equality. This article uses concepts from Amartya Sen's work on inequality to frame gender issues in science and technology policy. Programs that focus on increasing the number of women in science and engineering careers have not generally addressed a broader set of circumstances that intersect with gender at various economic levels and stages of life. The agendas in research and innovation policies also need to reflect these issues, and fair allocation of resources within both science and technology needs to be on the agenda. Getting women into high-level positions is not enough. Articulating the full research and innovation agendas for women will require broader participatory processes.     

Parallel experimentation and the problem of variation

Evolutionary processes have two underlying mechanisms: variation (expanding options) and selection (narrowing options). Darwin and Darwinism focused on the selectional mechanism, i.e., natural selection. If an evolutionary process is seen as pushing towards higher altitudes on a multi-peaked and cloudy “fitness landscape,” then selection is a hill-climbing mechanism while a mechanism for variation would explore to find higher hills. Selection without variation might get stuck on a low hill. Our thesis is that the best solution for the problem of variation is parallel experimentation with the different probes having some semi-isolation from selectional pressure and where results in the experiments can be cross-communicated and compared to ratchet up the performance of the whole group. Our approach is by seeking out the common elements addressing the problem of variation in evolutionary theory (Sewall Wright’s shifting balance theory), in various search procedures, in the selection of economic projects, and in science and technology development. The opposite strategy is series experimentation which assumes that one is already climbing the highest peak so consideration of other peaks is irrelevant. The main critical applications are to global institutions such as the World Bank or IMF who do not condone parallel experimentation since they already “know” what is the highest peak—and, more generally, to those in power on top of a low hill who know that any real variation would be downhill for them. David P. Ellerman works in the fields of economics and political economy, social theory and philosophy, and in mathematics. His undergraduate degree is in philosophy at M.I.T. and he has Masters degrees in Philosophy of Science, in Economics, and a doctorate in Mathematics—all from Boston University. He has been in and out of teaching in economics, mathematics, accounting, computer science, and operations research departments in various universities, founded and managed a consulting firm in East Europe, and worked in the World Bank from 1992 to 2003 where he was an economic advisor to the Chief Economist (Joseph Stiglitz and Nicholas Stern). Now he is a visiting scholar in the Economics Department of the University of California in Riverside, and is consulting on development and worker ownership issues.