The work in the research area ‘Science and Technology Governance’ of the Institute for Science and Technology Studies (IWT)

• focuses on a number of inter-disciplinary and integrative research tasks and questions,
• is on a systematic level guided by comprehensive research interests in general aspects of sociological theory,
• is in its theoretical foundation closely linked with traditions of science and technology studies, social and political theory, legal studies, and social philosophy.

I. Particular research tasks and questions (open to future revision):

1. Concepts, forms, conditions, performance, and impact of technology assessment in all phases of technology cycles (innovation, selection, stabilisation); also international comparison
2. The concept of public, and of public participation; also in comparative view
3. The concept of participation in science and technology policy; also comparative
4. Different forms/procedures of participation; comparison between fields (biotechnology, nuclear power, etc.) and international
5. The interaction (Wechselwirkungen) between scientific advice and regulation; the role of experts in regulatory settings
6. The semantics (Deutungsmuster, Diskurse, social positioning, self description) emerging from the implementation of new technologies as relevant as aspect of governance, in the sense of governmentality
7. Professions as relevant factor in regulating practise and producing social positions/Deutungsmuster
8. Political shaping/construction of science and technology (‘technoscientific normativities’)

1. Societal differentiation and integration; governance as post-interventionist concept of ‘steering’ raises basic issues of an adequate sociological understanding. Here, fundamental questions of theoretical basic orientations have to be addressed. One of these questions refers to the distinction between differentiation and integration theories. The debate about participation clearly shows how much this basic decision influences our understanding of the core processes in participatory arenas.
2. From the perspective of sociological systems theory, participation is described as a particular form of social inclusion. In this context, a number of open questions regarding the theory of inclusion and of the general public need to be addressed.
3. Governance raises the question, how different social systems interrelate with each other. Theoretical issues here are phenomena of structural coupling between science/technology, politics, law, and other functional systems such as media, for instance, but also coupling between organisations and society. Theoretically, also the interplay between interaction, organisation, and society becomes relevant, when we observe arenas of participatory technology assessment, for instance.
4. Knowledge is a dimension that is orthogonal to functional differentiation. Science and technology governance, on the one hand, is always governance of knowledge. It regulates the production, diffusion, and consumption of knowledge in society. On the other hand, the processes of regulation themselves are embedded in and profit from different forms of knowledge. The distinction between laypersons and experts as well as the role of experts in the legal and political system gains increasing interest in this context. Here, the complex relation between semantics and social structure has to be studied and discussed theoretically from the perspective of a sociology of knowledge.
5. In the study of institutions of science and technology governance, the level of organisations and professions has to be taken into consideration. Both are relevant factors of self-description, rule-making, interest policies, and (self-) control. However, both raise serious theoretical questions. The aspect of organisation leads to systems-theoretical, new institutionalist and network-theoretical questions of how organisations observe and influence each other and how they contribute to processes of governance. Professions, on the other hand, might lose relevance in modern society. Here also, theoretical assumptions strongly shape the view on empirical phenomena. A revised version of professionalisation theory allows for new and exciting perspectives on the governance of science and technology.
6. Procedure and procedural justice have been the centre of interest for governance studies for quite a long time. Procedural justice research has gained a remarkable reputation in the United States; yet, it still waits for an adequate theoretical integration in sociological theory. Comparative and empirical studies of different forms of procedure are needed in order to theoretically understand the relation between form, function, and impact of procedures. This field has very strong interfaces with more normative approaches in social philosophy.

III. Theoretical foundation

In applying this structure, the research area ‘Science and Technology Governance’ contributes to a problem-oriented basic research. Embedded in Science and Technology Studies and in sociological thinking, it has interfaces with sociological theory, political theory, legal studies, and social philosophy.

Science and technology are driving forces of modernisation as well as relevant factors of prosperity and welfare. Simultaneously, they produce unintended, risky, or dangerous effects. Especially the most relevant innovations (high technologies) are, therefore, often socially contested. During the last few decades, major social conflicts were triggered by technological innovations, such as nuclear power and biotechnology or by unintended effects of scientific and technological progress, such as problems with the ozone layer or major desertification processes as possible consequences of technological developments. Science and technology studies are engaged in the analysis of these processes, their causes and consequences, as well as the societal reactions to the changing role of science and technology. Therefore, questions of regulation are one relevant field of science and technology studies.

Against this background, social regulation of science and technology emerges from the double need of socially promoting and controlling both fields. This double need focuses a post-interventionist understanding of science and technology policy. Regulation in the broad sense of both promoting and controlling science and technology takes place at every stage of the innovation process, from basic research, selection processes in innovation networks and marketing decisions in the economy, to the classical forms of state intervention by political and financial support on the one hand, and legal control on the other.

These forms of regulation are embedded in the concept of governance. In contrast to earlier approaches built on first order cybernetic ideas of steering, the concept of governance emphasises a more complex understanding of recursive, multi-level and multi-actor relations in regulatory networks. It indicates that new forms of non-hierarchical, de-central, co-operative, ‘enabling’ regulation replace older models of direct intervention. The concept of governance stands for means of political, legal, and social regulation beyond markets and hierarchies. Governance then describes the coordination of new forms of social cooperation, i.e. more horizontal activities between state institutions, non-governmental organisations, private enterprises, and individual actors. In this perspective, governance covers aspects of the state, the market, and the civil society, including the general public.

With respect to civil society, the question of ‘technological or scientific citizenship’ arises. Societal decisions about new science and technology inevitably entail fundamental questions of social inclusion and exclusion, or in a more political language, of the close relation between science, technology, and democracy. Questions of citizenship and governance are both closely interrelated with a demand for democratic participation in this field. Against an older, more trivial model of technological innovation from scientific invention to useful application, technological innovations are now conceptualised as social networks that incorporate a wide range of social actors, including users. Under such presuppositions, the conclusion is drawn that citizens should be involved in decision-making processes.

Participation as a tool for decision-making in science and technology policy is conceptually based on a critique of expertise and on a discourse about ‘democratising expertise’. Here, a hypothesis is that participatory procedures more likely evoke the motivation to engage in decision-making, broaden the basis of knowledge and of the values involved, initiate learning processes, produce new possibilities of conflict solution, realise common interests, and last but not least, increase acceptance and legitimacy of a decision. Therefore, participatory procedures are supposed to improve governance in contrast to older, ‘technocratic’ models. Having said this, it is also necessary to see its weaknesses. Participatory procedures–one might argue–will not develop enough commitments for all parties, unless they lead to a real win-win-solution. Participants’ loyalty against their organisational background will even force them to leave the procedure, if serious conflicts arise. The functional differentiation of society may create insurmountable barriers in communication. Furthermore, these procedures often provoke questions regarding their political representativeness, imbalance of power, a lack of political mandate of those involved etc. One reason for these problems can be found in the lack of embedding them into the institutions of representative democracy.

Expert advice and professionalisation are further means of enabling politics to govern science and technology. Expertise is gaining overwhelming relevance in modern society. An enormous growth of scientific advice in all fields of politics, education, economy, and the law can be observed. Most of the central decisions in national policy-making have been expert-based in the last few years. In a similar way, everyday decision-making in law-courts has become the domain of experts. At the same time expertise is loosing credibility and becomes contested. This is not so much indebted to scientific dissent–a fact that has always existed since the very origin of science–, but much more to the social context in which expert knowledge is produced. From the perspective of governance, the question arises, what kind of expertise might contribute to science and technology governance and how the structure of expert communication can be theoretically described. In this context, the sociological concept of professionalisation is a promising approach in order to improve the understanding of this communicative structure, as well as the social tasks and positions implied.

In all the before-mentioned fields, the issue of knowledge arises. From a sociological point of view, knowledge means any operational schema applied in order to observe and describe the world, including the observing episteme itself. Applying this broad concept of knowledge, which is not particularly bound to any type of scientific knowledge or to the validity claim of truth, sociological theory allows for the reconstruction of interpretive schemata (Deutungsmuster) that constitute social positions in various contexts of communication. With this approach, science and technology studies are closely linked with general sociological theory. With a few exceptions (e.g. governmentality studies, to a certain extent), governance studies have not yet gained from the knowledge approach. In this realm, the analysis of science and technology governance can produce significant innovation, when it applies for instance concepts such as the social positioning approach.

All aspects mentioned are rooted in science and technology studies on the one hand, and in social theory on the other. The particular task of science and technology governance is to identify the regulatory and governance-related aspects in the before-mentioned dimensions, to collect empirical data, and to develop the theoretical understanding of the phenomena in question.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Alfons Bora