Reviews for Science and Technology Policies for the Anti-Terrorism Era, Volume 51 NATO Science Series: Science and Technology Policy

The average rating for Science and Technology Policies for the Anti-Terrorism Era, Volume 51 NATO Science Series: Science and Technology Policy based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-07-14 00:00:00 Aaron Mccormack If I had to summarize the content of this book in two sentences (which, luckily, I do not), I would describe this as a book in which three technocrats try to convince other technocrats of two things. First, that current institutional democratic structures are illegitimate, in that they frequently come up with decisions that are extremely at odds with what those affected would have come up with by themselves. And second, that technocrats wrongly assume that they are uniquely capable (or even sufficiently capable) of taking such complex decisions as the modern life 'requires.' Because as the authors show, institutionalized decision-makers fail again and again to take all the relevant considerations into account. Now, describing the content of the book, and the aims of the authors, in this way makes the book seem both worse and better than it is, which in a way seems fitting, because I am of two minds when it comes to rating it. Positively, I would say that the reader is being given a decent manual for dealing with the question how to deal with 'uncertainty' politically, and how best to organize groups or settings in which those affected and concerned can work out an agreement. Presenting a number of different cases, the authors fairly convincingly show that the problems associated with 'acting in an uncertain world' can often be resolved or ameliorated by democratizing decision-making procedures further. Negatively, I would say that the concept of 'uncertainty' plays far too central a role in their discussion, and is used as a catch-all phrase that is used to lump together a number of issues which are probably better understood when kept analytically separate: briefly put, their use of the term creates something of a depoliticized conceptual muddle. The use of the word only makes sense to people coming at these issues from the perspective of the technocrats and bureaucrats the authors hope to educate, but by applying the term in the same broad fashion, the authors help perpetuate the myth that (contemporary) politics is (procedurally) apolitical. As such, although the book is a worthwhile read containing decent insights, and although it is quite radical in its aims, I would not consider it a classic, as it is too steeped in a technocratic mentality to properly analyze the shortcomings of that mindset. So how do the authors use and define uncertainty? Let me explain this by discussing of one of the examples from the book. Around 1987, French government scientists and bureaucrats were trying to solve the problem of how to deal with the issue of nuclear waste disposal. This meant that, after "weighing all the options," they decided to deal with the problem by storing the waste deep underground, in a place where it "could be forgotten by everyone without this ever causing problems," and where it could remain stored "forever." Taking this to be the only proper course of action, they told four regions that their departments could gain a wonderful contract, as well as employment opportunities. However, this being fairly shortly after Chernobyl, the plan was not well-received by the population, which did not trust the repeated assertions that there would be 'no' (or negligible) risk. Residents expressed worries that their produce might become unsellable once people figured out that it was produced near a storage of nuclear waste, which led to the local politicians also becoming unwilling to participate. Meanwhile, scientists uninvolved with the plans criticized the idea that "storing it safely forever" was realistic, and asked why other options were never considered (such as storing it in such a way that it could be processed once improved processing technology became available). As a result, a decision that initially seemed straight-forward (to the bureaucrats) spun out of control, ultimately -- after 3 years of resistance -- forcing Paris to decide to start over. It was decided that, on the one hand, there would be a number of permanent research groups looking into various technical solutions, while they also allowed other parties (including 'ordinary citizens') a voice in the deliberative process; because even though they lacked expertise in nuclear engineering, they brought with them expertise on the topic of how to integrate such a solution into a larger society without causing high levels of resistance, resulting in the development of an entirely different plan. One way of understanding these changes is to see them as expressions of the fact that problems change shape (because different issues related to it are brought to the attention of the group) depending on who is allowed to contribute to the discussion. This can lead to quite dramatic changes. But the advantage of this is that if it is done well, it will also mean that the decisions taken and plans made will enjoy far broader support among the population, making them more legitimate. Explaining how this might work, and what advantage this has, is one of the main aims of the book. This plan- and decision-making procedure is generally called consensus decision-making, and ideally, it should lead to the total democratization of the entire process, including the question what information the participants are confronted with (this way preventing cognitive capture by only allowing certain experts to voice their 'opinion' on what is and is not feasible or reasonable. Related to this is the point that there is little to no room for hierarchical distinctions such as those between 'experts' and 'the public'. The reason why this is is because 'experts' are generally only expert in fairly strictly circumscribed topics, and not on the topic of what implementation of a new technology will do to the built environment, or to the way people interact with each other in a given area, etc. So once you allow that the problem is redefined by the participants, it also becomes obvious that you suddenly talking about combining different types of expertise (some on how to use a technology, some on how to it will affect an existing community, etc., making it very hard to say that all you need is simply the 'right' expertise, because the point is precisely that it must be decided how to weigh and combine the various different kinds of information and expertise relevant to the problem at hand). And the answer to the question which kinds of expertise will be important is generally difficult to predict (although experience with dealing with such more broadly defined issues obviously is useful). A further consequence of this is that 'delegative' or representative democracy, as an institutional way of dealing with issues, is also out. The procedures proposed by the authors require much more input than yes/no votes on pre-formulated (by politicians and "policy-makers") "problems." Because once you give the participants the right to decide how to define the problem, and once you give them equal say in deciding what kinds of solutions can come up for a vote, everything changes, and traditional representative democracy becomes largely irrelevant: only once an entire process finishes that voting comes into the picture. It seems fair to say, then, that the procedures proposed by the authors could, if they are taken seriously, and implemented, serve to undermine many existing institutional arrangements, and thus serve as a kind of revolutionary reformism resulting in more democratic control over political decisions. The biggest issue with this book is, as I have suggested, already obvious when we look at the title. As suggested, the book is best understood as giving procedural advice to policy-makers (at any level, though the examples discussed are mostly national), by pointing out that, if the aim is indeed to craft legitimate decisions, then existing institutional arrangements must be shaken up, and different ones must take their place. And the way they try to convince those policy-makers that this is the right thing to do is basically by appealing to professional pride; that is, by trying to show them that the 'uncertainties' involved are insurmountable unless they include more people in the discussions. And that it is impossible to know who will care about an issue as it is recognized (since different formulations of the problem will likely draw different people to the discussion), and how issues will change shape over the course of the solution-finding process precisely because of these changes in the make-up of the group of people involved with it. What this ignores, or leaves unsaid, however, is that, in a lot of the cases in which disliked decisions are made in a top-down fashion like this, this occurs this way precisely because those who wield the institutional power to define the parameters of the problems and solutions do not want others to be able to influence the shape or direction of the discussion, or to suggest other alternative solutions (or readings of the problem). Sometimes this is the case because of outright collusion between politicians and business leaders, who are trying to privatize a railroad network so that the revenues generates are privatized. In others, it might happen that way because the politicians involved do not care about the environment, and because they fear that giving others a voice might prevent their country (or their friends) from becoming more economically successful. But in either case, the point is that their aim often is precisely to make sure that everyone pushes the same agenda; or, to speak in the words of Margaret Thatcher: "There Is No Alternative", or TINA. Now, we can of course happily pretend that such "conflicts of interest" are never due to venality, or it may be that it is simply considered rude to explicitly mention corruption in the literature (especially when talking about western, democratic countries), but in either case, I find it extremely unhelpful that all of these issues are simply presented as examples of where institutional structures are confronted with the problems associated with "uncertainty". I would end by noting that the authors are peculiarly reluctant to form 'alliances' with, or even positively cite, other authors who touch on these issues (the only author they really cite approvingly is Dewey). In the last part of the book, the authors spend a few pages discussing the work of (primarily) Ulrich Beck, Hannah Arendt, John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas. However, most of what do there is try to show how their work is really unique, and they this by giving fairly uncharitable or unfair readings of those authors. So while I agree that Rawls is overrated, I think they could've put the other authors to far more use by looking at different strands of their work. In this light, I found it fairly ironic to see them accusing Habermas of utopianism (with regard to his belief that people are at heart only interested in engaging in "domination-free discourses"). Because I really don't see the difference between that, and their refusal to acknowledge the role played by corruption and willful misrepresentation as important causes of such "bad decisions". Lastly, the authors could've drawn on many other fields in which work has been done on the question how to organize such ad hoc decision-making bodies. (To name two areas that are considered somewhat controversial: anarchism and anarchosyndicalism.) So to sum up: while this book certainly is a useful guide for people interested in the question how to make democratic institutions more democratic, I would not consider it a classic, and readers would do well to read this critically, rather than as a handbook.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-07-17 00:00:00 Jonathan Jeffreys This book mounts a defense of 'dialogic democracy' [as opposed to delegative democracy] in which 'hybrid forums' of experts, and sundry configurations of laypeople coalesce to debate socio-technical controversies, leading to the reconfiguration of social institutions. I thought the first three chapters were the best; these focused on elucidating the relationship between the functioning of science [in its 'secluded' or 'in the wild' varieties] and civil society. The authors propose that hybrid forums be encouraged, and that these enrich democratic institutions by bringing multiple conflicting viewpoints into contact. I especially like the discussion of the 'laboratorization' of society, whereby expertise attempts to reconfigure society to mirror controlled conditions. I also liked the discussion of the relation between representation and expertise. Despite all the emphasis on fluidity and emergence, the second half of the book unselfconsciously proposes what seems like a flowchart for implementing said forums. The two major blindspots in the book seem to be any discussion of the relationship between these forums and the state, and the character of public discourse. The authors seem to accept a fairly conventional view of the state, assuming that the outcomes of hybrid forums can easily be worked back into the formal political process. An obvious way to extend and problematize their framework would be to consider situations in which hybrid forums constitute governing or steering bodies, as well. Bizarrely, Habermas receives only a brief dismissal, and there is no discussion of the many English-language replies to his work by Calhoun, Warner, Fraser, etc. This seems like a huge oversight, given that what would seem to define a hybrid forum is its heterodox nature relative to the conventions of public discourse.