PUBP
820 SYLLABUS
Technology/Science/Public
Policy
Fall
2002
Course
Description | Grade | Required
Books | Course
Outline | Final
Exam
Location: Mason Hall, #D5
Time:
Wednesday 4:30 PM - 7:10 PM
Instructor: Don E. Kash
Office:
215 Finley Building
Phone:
(703) 993-2279
Email:
dkash@gmu.edu
This
seminar is the first half of a two-semester sequence required of students in
SPP's Science and Technology Policy concentration.
In this seminar, students will read and investigate a broad body of
literature relevant to science and technology policy. During
the second semester, students will prepare a research paper on a science or
technology policy issue or problem with the goal of publishing that paper.
The readings in this seminar are designed to provide an overview that ranges from investigations of what science and technology are and how they are done, to investigations of how science and technology policy is handled in government. As students proceed through the seminar, they should look for a topic that can be the focus of their second semester paper. During the second semester, students will be required to do a research paper in an area of science and technology policy that is different than the area or areas within which they presently work or within which they have recently worked. Students during the second semester must move out of the areas where they already have established competence.
This
seminar rests on the assumption that science and technology have become major
causal forces in contemporary society. Few
important areas of public policy are now free of the influence if not the
dominance of our increasing ability to understand and manipulate nature through
science and technology. Our goal is
to gain some insight into the triangle of nature/man/science and technology and
what that set of interconnections means for both the formulation of public
policy and the ability to accomplish public goals through policy.
At the most general level, public policy can be the product of or
influenced by four interacting factors:
1)
Science and technology,
2)
Institutions,
3)
Culture/values/ideology, and
4)
Individuals.
First,
the ever-advancing frontier of science and technology establishes the boundaries
of many public policy issues and problems and the tangible options for
addressing those issues and problems. Technology
creates many issues, e.g., toxic wastes. Science
discovers many issues, e.g., asbestos. Science
and technology, through the use of existing knowledge or capability or through
R&D aimed at discovering new ways of dealing with issues, provide a diverse
set of policy instruments. Thus, one of the goals of this seminar should be to gain some
understanding of how science and technology evolve, that is how these activities
are developed and used.
Second, policy is influenced by the institutional structure of the policy
system. In the U.S. that structure
is bounded, in part, by the Constitution. The
structure, however, also includes the complex set of special interest policy
systems, often technology based, which link the executive and legislative
branches of the federal government with the state governments, the private
sector, and the university and non-profit sectors.
One special interest policy system has been assembled around science.
There are many special interest policy systems for technology. They are
focused on specific areas, e.g., agriculture, defense, highways.
Third, policy is influenced by culture/values/ideology. Here it seems useful to use culture in the sense of values
and social reference systems, the norms that tell people and societies both what
are right and acceptable and more broadly how social systems work.
Societies, at least what we would call successful societies, have
conceptual models, which tell them how society works, and thus what is wrong
when they do not work. These conceptual systems normally blur the line between fact
and value. In the United States the
distinction between the public and private sectors flows from such a conceptual
model. At any point in time
culture/values/ideology bound both policy making and policy options and
influence how we develop and use science and technology.
Fourth, exceptional individuals sometimes influence policy. This factor is clearly the least predictable in terms of both
policymaking and policy options. It
is useful to note that inside the beltway in Washington it is common to explain
events in terms of individuals, e.g., Senator X wanted this.
Alternatively, the social sciences seldom explain policy in terms of
individuals; rather they go for more general explanations, e.g., interest group
competition, campaign contributions. In
this seminar we want to look at the interplay of these four factors as they
relate to the general role of science and technology in the American policy
system.
In the following, the readings for the seminar are broken down by class
date. Each seminar participant will
be expected to have read all the materials for the session in advance.
At the beginning of each seminar session, students will be required to
submit a two to three page summary of what they have read for that session.
Specifically, the goal is to summarize in these two to three pages the
major points or themes of the material to be discussed in the seminar.
It is important to emphasize that the summaries are not critiques.
Students are to indicate what the authors have to say, not what the
students think of the readings.
During
the seminar sessions, students will be asked to present reviews of books, which
represent investigations of the relationship between public policy and some area
of science and technology. The
students are asked to select the books for this review in consultation with the
instructor.
Your
grade will be determined 80% by a final exam and 20% by participation in class
discussion.
Dupree,
A., Hunter, Science in the Federal Government: A History of Policies and
Activities, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.
Greenberg,
Daniel, S., Science, Money and Politics: Political Triumph and Ethical Erosion,
Chicago: University Chicago Press, 2001.
Kuhn,
Thomas, S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago
Press, 1962.
Mowery,
David, C. & Nathan Rosenberg, Paths of Innovation: Technical Change in 20th
Century America, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Rycroft, Robert, W. and Don E. Kash, The Complexity Challenge: Technological Innovation for the 21st Century, London: Pinter, 1999.
Waldrop,
M., Mitchell, Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Change,
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.
Watson,
James, D., The Double Helix, New York: Atheneum, 1968.
White,
Lynn, Jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change, New York: Oxford University
Press, 1966.
WEEK
1:
August 28
I.
Overview Lecture: What does science and technology policy refer to?
Start
with the system which links science (the understanding of nature) to technology
(the manipulation of nature). Provide
an overview of science, an overview of technology and how they link.
Sketch their interaction in the contemporary period: linear,
chain-linked. Discuss the science
policy system and the multiple technology policy systems: defense, medicine,
transport, etc…
WEEK
2:
September 4
II.
What is science and how is it done?
1.
Ernist Cassirer, “Galileo: A New Science and A New Spirit,”
The American Scholar, Vol. 12, No. 1, (Winter 1942-43), pp. 5-19.
2.
Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago
Press, 1962.
3.
James D. Watson, The Double Helix, New York: Atheneum, 1968.
WEEK
3:
September 11
III.
The Scientific Community and its Relationship to Technology
1.
Hendrik W. Bode, “Reflections on the Relation between Science and
Technology,” in Basic Research and National Goals, A Report to The Committee
on Science and Astronautics, U. S. House of Representatives by The National
Academy of Sciences, March 1965, pp. 41-76.
2.
Joseph Ben-David, “Scientific Growth: A Sociological View” Minerva, 2,
1963-64, pp. 455-476.
3.
Robert Merton, “The Matthew Effect in Science,” Science, 159, (1968), pp.
56-63.
4.
Derek J. de Solla Price, Little Science Big Science, New York: Columbia
University Press, 1963. {Hand out}, pp. 1-33.
5.
Robert Merton, “Behavior Patterns of Scientists,” American Scholar, 38,
1969, pp. 197-225.
6.
Joseph Ben David and Awraham Zloczower, “Universities and Academic Systems in
Modern Societies,” in Norman Kaplan, ed., Science and Society, Chicago: Rand
McNally, 165, pp. 62-85.
WEEK
4:
September 18
IV.
Technology and Social Change
7.
Lynn White, Jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change, New York: Oxford
University Press, 1966.
8.
Chris Freeman and Luc Soete, The Economics of Industrial Innovation, London:
Pinter, 1997, p. 1-54.
WEEK
5: September 25
V.
New Conceptual Approaches
1.
M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity: The Emerging Science At The Edge Of Order and
Chaos, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.
2.
Trevor J. Pinch and Wiebe E. Bijker. “The
Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts.”
WEEK
6: October 2
VI.
The Nature of Technological Innovation
1.
Walter Vincenti, “Technological Knowledge Without Science: The Invention of
Flush Riveting in American Airplanes, circa l930-l950,” Technology and
Culture, vol. 25, l984, pp. 540-576.
2.
Stephen J. Kline, "Innovation Styles in Japan and the United States:
Cultural Bases; Implications for Competitiveness,” Department of Mechanical
Engineering, Stanford University, Ca., Report INN-3.
3.
Fumio Kodama, “The Power of Technology Fusion,” Typescript.
4.
William Kingston, “Antibiotics, Invention and Innovation,” Research Policy,
vol. 29, 2000, pp. 679-710.
WEEK
7: October 9
VII.
Examples of Innovation
1.
Mowery, David, C. & Nathan Rosenberg, Paths of Innovation: Technical
Change in 20th Century America, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
WEEK
8: October 16
VIII.
Innovation of Complex Technologies
2.
Robert W. Rycroft & Don E. Kash.
The Complexity Challenge, London: Pinter, 1999.
WEEK
9: October 23
IX.
The Science and Technology Policy System. To WWII
1.
A. Hunter Dupree, Science in the Federal Government: A History of Policies and
Activities, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, l985.
WEEK
10: October 30
X.
Science, Technology and the Institutions of Government and Society.
A.
Overview
1.
Bruce C. R. Smith, American Science Policy Since WWII, pp.1-158.
2.
Otis L. Graham, Jr., Losing Time: The Industrial Policy Debate,
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, l992, pp. l71-206. 2. Don E. Kash,
Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition, New York: Basic Books, l989,
pp. 83-103.
WEEK
11: November 6
XI.
The Contemporary Situation
1.
Don E. Kash, Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition, New York: Basic
Books, 1989, pp. 83-103.
2.
Excerpts from S&T Indicators, 2002.
WEEK
12: November 13
XII.
Science and Technology Politics
3.
Greenberg, Daniel, S., Science, Money and Politics: Political Triumph and
Ethical Erosion, Chicago: University Chicago Press, 2001.
WEEK
13: November 20
XIII.
Other Nations Policies
1.
To be Added
WEEK
14 and 15: November 27 and
December 6
Student
book reviews
FINAL
EXAM:
To Be Arranged