Politics and Technology

Call for Papers Technology and politics are interrelated in many ways and in different arenas. The section will deal with this complex relationship at several analytical levels: - Technological development often creates negative externalities calling for political control and regulation, and government frequently play the role of regulators. In some areas, however, regulation takes place in the form of “sponsored self-regulation” by interest associations. Such control and governance mechanism can be studied at the national and international level. - Since technological development has become a key factor for global competitiveness, governments in almost all advanced industrial countries established programs to support innovation and R&D at the national as well as the international level. - In the area of large technical infrastructures, governments for a long time have played the role of infrastructure providers. Within the last decades however, this role has been significantly reduced through liberalization and privatization. But, as the debate on “critical infrastructures” in the US shows, the appropriate role of governments in the control and management of infrastructures is still in discussion. - Finally, governments or politics is also influencing the way, users or consumers of technology are able to articulate their concerns and voice their interests. Political systems often provide for a variety of mechanisms by which users or consumers are incorporated in public policy-making related to the regulation or the support of technological development. In this respect there is also the question, how democratic systems are able to solve technological conflicts that are based on time horizons that are much more extended than conventional electoral politics. The different roles, relations and performances of political systems in the role of regulators, supporters, providers and users of technologies will be discussed and evaluated in several panels. All the topics that are listed below should be treated with either a clear-cut conceptual or empirical focus.