Margins for Survival: Overcoming Political Limits in Steering Technology - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

Margins for Survival: Overcoming Political Limits in Steering Technology is a compendium of analytical case studies dealing with the political aspects of technological decision making. The emphasis is on the political limits that are revealed by institutional behavior in the deliberate act of steering technology to produce socially satisfactory outcomes. The book shows how confrontation with the future is developed in terms of political decision making about the future. Comprised of 11 chapters, this volume begins by analyzing how technology is intertwined with civilization, has shaped culture, amplified political acts, and heightened the role of government. The next chapter is an inventory of global dangers, from nuclear terror to loss of freedom. The way human beings characteristically cope with risk and its management is discussed, including the role of government in affording collective security. The discussion then turns to technology not simply as science and engineering but as a tangled network of social processes and institutions involving everyone and creating a new scale of social complexity and interdependence; why technological decision making has become more political; and the political dimensions of public policy, including political will. Remedies are considered, with emphasis on prevention, the need to image the future, and the roles of shared information and analysis in anticipatory decision making. This monograph will be of interest to political scientists, politicians, and science and technology policymakers.

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