Author: Dolores L. Augustine
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1800731981
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The German abandonment of nuclear power represents one of the most successful popular revolts against technocratic thinking in modern times—the triumph of a dynamic social movement, encompassing a broad swath of West Germans as well as East German dissident circles, over political, economic, and scientific elites. Taking on Technocracy gives a brisk account of this dramatic historical moment, showing how the popularization of scientific knowledge fostered new understandings of technological risk. Combining analyses of social history, popular culture, social movement theory, and histories of science and technology, it offers a compelling narrative of a key episode in the recent history of popular resistance.
Author: Parag Khanna
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780998232515
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
American democracy just isn't good enough anymore. A costly election has done more to divide American society than unite it, while trust in government--and democracy itself--is plummeting. But there are better systems out there, and America would be wise to learn from them. In this provocative manifesto, globalization scholar Parag Khanna tours cutting-edge nations from Switzerland to Singapore to reveal the inner workings that allow them that lead the way in managing the volatility of a fast-changing world while delivering superior welfare and prosperity for their citizens. The ideal form of government for the complex 21st century is what Khanna calls a "direct technocracy," one led by experts but perpetually consulting the people through a combination of democracy and data. From a seven-member presidency and a restructured cabinet to replacing the Senate with an Assembly of Governors, Technocracy in America is full of sensible proposals that have been proven to work in the world's most successful societies. Americans have a choice for whom they elect president, but they should not wait any longer to redesign their political system following Khanna's pragmatic vision.
Author: Victor Seow
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226826554
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 413
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Book Description
A forceful reckoning with the relationship between energy and power through the history of what was once East Asia’s largest coal mine. The coal-mining town of Fushun in China’s Northeast is home to a monstrous open pit. First excavated in the early twentieth century, this pit grew like a widening maw over the ensuing decades, as various Chinese and Japanese states endeavored to unearth Fushun’s purportedly “inexhaustible” carbon resources. Today, the depleted mine that remains is a wondrous and terrifying monument to fantasies of a fossil-fueled future and the technologies mobilized in attempts to turn those developmentalist dreams into reality. In Carbon Technocracy, Victor Seow uses the remarkable story of the Fushun colliery to chart how the fossil fuel economy emerged in tandem with the rise of the modern technocratic state. Taking coal as an essential feedstock of national wealth and power, Chinese and Japanese bureaucrats, engineers, and industrialists deployed new technologies like open-pit mining and hydraulic stowage in pursuit of intensive energy extraction. But as much as these mine operators idealized the might of fossil fuel–driven machines, their extractive efforts nevertheless relied heavily on the human labor that those devices were expected to displace. Under the carbon energy regime, countless workers here and elsewhere would be subjected to invasive techniques of labor control, ever-escalating output targets, and the dangers of an increasingly exploited earth. Although Fushun is no longer the coal capital it once was, the pattern of aggressive fossil-fueled development that led to its ascent endures. As we confront a planetary crisis precipitated by our extravagant consumption of carbon, it holds urgent lessons. This is a groundbreaking exploration of how the mutual production of energy and power came to define industrial modernity and the wider world that carbon made.
Author: Dolores L. Augustine
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1785339044
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
The German abandonment of nuclear power represents one of the most successful popular revolts against technocratic thinking in modern times—the triumph of a dynamic social movement, encompassing a broad swath of West Germans as well as East German dissident circles, over political, economic, and scientific elites. Taking on Technocracy gives a brisk account of this dramatic historical moment, showing how the popularization of scientific knowledge fostered new understandings of technological risk. Combining analyses of social history, popular culture, social movement theory, and histories of science and technology, it offers a compelling narrative of a key episode in the recent history of popular resistance.
Author: Eduardo Dargent
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107059879
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 219
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Book Description
Praised by some as islands of efficiency in a sea of unprofessional, politicized, and corrupt states, and criticized by others for removing wide areas of policy making from the democratic arena, technocrats have become prominent and controversial actors in Latin American politics. Through an in-depth analysis of economic and health policy in Colombia from 1958 to 2011 and in Peru from 1980 to 2011, Technocracy and Democracy in Latin America explains the source of these experts' power as well as the leverage they have across state policy sectors in Latin America.
Author: Eri Bertsou
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000043606
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 243
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Book Description
This book represents the first comprehensive study of how technocracy currently challenges representative democracy and asks how technocratic politics undermines democratic legitimacy. How strong is its challenge to democratic institutions? The book offers a solid theory and conceptualization of technocratic politics and the technocratic challenge is analyzed empirically at all levels of the national and supra-national institutions and actors, such as cabinets, parties, the EU, independent bodies, central banks and direct democratic campaigns in a comparative and policy perspective. It takes an in-depth analysis addressing elitism, meritocracy, de-politicization, efficiency, neutrality, reliance on science and distrust toward party politics and ideologies, and their impact when pitched against democratic responsiveness, accountability, citizens' input and pluralist competition. In the current crisis of democracy, this book assesses the effects of the technocratic critique against representative institutions, which are perceived to be unable to deal with complex and global problems. It analyzes demands for competent and responsible policy making in combination with the simultaneous populist resistance to experts. The book will be of key interest to scholars and students of comparative politics, political theory, policy analysis, multi-level governance as well as practitioners working in bureaucracies, media, think-tanks and policy making.
Author: Massimiano Bucchi
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387895221
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 114
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Book Description
"Will the ordinary man become a scientist?...Bucchi exposes the inadequacy of the ‘technochratic model’ but also the weaknesses of contemporary bioethics when facing the increasing dilemmas posed by science and technology to contemporary society." -Il Corriere della Sera [Italian leading newspaper] "Bucchi provides a clear, rigorous and accessible discussion – often enriched by a subtle irony – of complex and ambiguous issues, showing that science and innovation are not neutral terrains, but rather among the key conflictual contexts in which contemporary social and political changes take place." -Italian Review of Sociology "A dense but accessible book...Bucchi acutely describes the shortcomings of the technocratic and ethical responses to the contemporary dilemmas of science and technology." -Italian Edition of the New York Review of Books Nuclear energy, stem cell technology, GMOs: the more science advances, the more society seems to resist. But are we really watching a death struggle between opposing forces, as so many would have it? Can today’s complex technical policy decisions coincide with the needs of a participatory democracy? Are the two sides even equipped to talk to each other? Beyond Technocracy: Science, Politics and Citizens answers these questions with clarity and vision. Drawing upon a broad range of data and events from the United States and Europe, and noting the blurring of the expert/lay divide in the knowledge base, the book argues that these conflicts should not be dismissed as episodic, or the outbursts of irrationality and ignorance, but recognized as a critical opportunity to discuss the future in which we want to live. Massimiano Bucchi’s analysis covers the complex realities of post-academic science as he: Explores the widely debated theme of science and democracy across a broad range of technological controversies. Overviews issues raised by the current relationship among scientists, policymakers, business interests, and the public. Dispels stereotypes of the detached scientific community versus the uninformed general public. Examines the role of the media in framing scientific debate. Addresses the question of how to move beyond technocracy to a more fruitful collaboration between scientists and citizens. Offers a bold vision for a future in which the scientific and public spheres regard each other as partners working toward a shared purpose. Beyond Technocracy: Science, Politics and Citizens has great value as a postgraduate text for courses in technology and society, political science, and science policy. It will also find an interested audience among scientists, policymakers, managers in the technological sector, and concerned lay readers. "In his brilliant new book, Beyond Technocracy: Science, Politics and Citizens, Massimiano Bucchi opens for the reader the Pandora’s box of the complex relationship between scientists and citizens in contemporary, democratic societies. With major corporations owning university labs and academic researchers (and their institutions) pocketing millions (literally) from the proceedings of patents resulting from their scientific work, Bucchi analyzes the implications of contrasting drives toward for-profit and open science, private and public science. Without pulling his punches, and without hiding behind easy, popular solutions, Bucchi clearly lays out the choices we face when confronted with a science whose potential societal impact – positive and negative – is becoming ever greater (e.g., nuclear energy, genetically modified foods, genetic engineering). Based on a wealth of empirical evidence and case studies, the book is extremely accessible and well written, making it an ideal introduction to the issues. I would highly recommend it to specialists and non-specialists alike!" -Roberto Franzosi, Professor in Department of Sociology at Emory University
Author: Jürgen Habermas
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745686834
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 200
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Book Description
Over the past 25 years, Jürgen Habermas has presented whatis arguably the most coherent and wide-ranging defence of theproject of European unification and of parallel developmentstowards a politically integrated world society. In developing hiskey concepts of the transnationalisation of democracy and theconstitutionalisation of international law, Habermas offers themain players in the struggles over the fate of the European Union(the politicians, the political parties and the publics of themember states) a way out of the current economic and politicalcrisis, should they choose to follow it. In the title essay Habermas addresses the challenges and threatsposed by the current banking and public debt crisis in the Eurozonefor European unification. He is harshly critical of theincrementalist, technocratic policies advocated by the Germangovernment in particular, which are being imposed at the expense ofthe populations of the economically weaker, crisis-strickencountries and are undermining solidarity between the member states.He argues that only if the technocratic approach is replaced by adeeper democratization of the European institutions can theEuropean Union fulfil its promise as a model for how rampant marketcapitalism can once again be brought under political control at thesupranational level. This volume reflects the impressive scope of Habermas?s recentwritings on European themes, including theoretical treatments ofthe complex legal and political issues at stake, interventions oncurrent affairs, and reflections on the lives and works of majorEuropean philosophers and intellectuals. Together the essaysprovide eloquent testimony to the enduring relevance of the work ofone of the most influential and far-sighted public intellectuals inthe world today, and are essential reading for all philosophers,legal scholars and social scientists interested in European andglobal issues.
Author: Alessandra Arcuri
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000390144
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 346
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Book Description
Technocratic law and governance is under fire. Not only populist movements have challenged experts. NGOs, public intellectuals and some academics have also criticized the too close relation between experts and power. While the amount of power gained by experts may be contested, it is unlikely and arguably undesirable that experts will cease to play an influential role in contemporary regulatory regimes. This book focuses on whether and how experts involved in policymaking can and should be held accountable. The book, divided into four parts, combines theoretical analysis with a wide variety of case studies expounding the challenges of holding experts accountable in a multilevel setting. Part I offers new perspectives on accountability of experts, including a critical comparison between accountability and a virtue-ethical framework for experts, a reconceptualization of accountability through the rule of law prism and a discussion of different ways to operationalize expert accountability. Parts I–IV, organized around in-depth case studies, shed light on the accountability of experts in three high-profile areas for technocratic governance in a European and global context: economic and financial governance, environmental/health and safety governance, and the governance of digitization and data protection. By offering fresh insights into the manifold aspects of technocratic decisionmaking and suggesting new avenues for rethinking expert accountability within multilevel governance, this book will be of great value not only to students and scholars in international and EU law, political science, public administration, science and technology studies but also to professionals working within EU institutions and international organizations.
Author: Jeffrey Friedman
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190877170
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 409
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Book Description
Do leading social-scientific experts, or technocrats, know what they are doing? In Power without Knowledge, Jeffrey Friedman maintains that they do not. Friedman shows that people are too heterogeneous to act as predictably as technocracy requires of them. Technocratic reason, then, entails a drastically oversimplified understanding of human decision making in modern society.
