Issue 2

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    Science, Technology & Innovation Studies Vol. 5 (2009), No 2 (February)
    (Technische Universität Dortmund, 2010-02-05)
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    Technology adoption in small-scale agriculture
    (Technische Universität Dortmund, 2010-02-05) Yengoh, Genesis Tambang; Armah, Frederick Ato; Svensson, Mats G. E.
    This study sets out to explore one of the most important questions for alleviating poverty in sub-Saharan Africa namely: why are advancements in agricultural technology not taking root in this region? Using data from deep interviews of 42 smallscale farmers in Ghana and Cameroon, a conceptual analysis of drivers and factors of agricultural technology adoption in this region is made and represented as causal loop diagrams. Interviews also provide a basis for weighting factors that farmers consider before adopting a new technology. These weights are then used to run a systems dynamics model with a hypothetical population of 10.000 farmers to see the effects of different drivers of technology adoption on the adoption rate and number of adopters over a 25 year period. Results show that most farmers have a bethedging strategy as they try to minimize risks of production failures. While certain factors like scale of production, long-term considerations, the history of success of past technologies, and the endorsement of technologies by opinion leaders may be important, many other factors do influence decisions to adopt new technologies. This limits any silver bullet strategy towards solving the problem of limited diffusion of agricultural technologies in this region. Addressing such a problem therefore calls for a much more holistic approach.
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    Nanotechnology governance
    (Technische Universität Dortmund, 2010-02-05) Kurath, Monika
    Current discourses in science, technology and innovation policy describe a shift from formal, governmental, or statutory regulation to non-hierarchical, informal, and cooperative self-regulatory approaches. They narrate a turn from government to governance, described as a “governance turn.” Governance as a new and popular mode of regulation, deliberation and shared responsibility is often linked to favored attributes of science and technology development, and policy making such as democracy and responsibility. This article analyzes the connection between governance and ideas of accountable and democratic science and technology development in the case of nanosciences and nanotechnologies. For this purpose, soft law measures, self-regulatory initiatives, and public engagement projects in Europe and the U.S. were analyzed using the concept of social robustness (Nowotny et al. 2001). The study showed that most of the analyzed governance approaches and engagement projects only partially met aspects of social robustness, and that the governance and deliberative turn in science and technology policy has not led, so far, to greater democracy and responsibility in nanoscience and nanotechnology development. As a consequence, the delegation of techno-political decision making to less socially robust governance approaches might lead to a vacuum in science and technology policy and affect not only academic knowledge production but also the innovative force of a society.
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    Mode 2, systems differentiation and the significance of politico-cultural variety
    (Technische Universität Dortmund, 2010-02-05) Hansen, Janus
    The article suggests that research on public engagement with science and technology suffers from an unfortunate deficit of (cross-national) comparative research. It examines the so-called ‘mode 2 diagnosis’ (Nowotny et al. 2001) and the the relevance of the concept of ‘socially robust’ knowledge production for comparative research on public engagement practices. While providing a stimulating perspective on the novel ways in which techno-scientific innovation must be legitimised in contemporary society, the diagnosis suffers from certain conceptual deficits, which inhibit the ability to conceptualise cross-national variation in a systematic manner. Through a confrontation of the mode 2 thesis with competing theoretical approaches, the article suggests that, rather than assuming transgressions between ‘science’ and ‘society’, research must distinguish between societal (de-)differentiation and organisational reconfigurations (Luhmann). Furthermore, the concept of political culture (Jasanoff) is discussed as a tool with which to examine cross-national variation in public engagement practices. Towards the end, suggestions for empirical research building upon the discussed concepts are briefly outlined.
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    Editorial
    (Technische Universität Dortmund, 2010-02-05) Schulz-Schaeffer, Ingo; Werle, Raymund; Weyer, Johannes
    More than 15 years ago, Michael Gibbons, Helga Nowotny and others coined the term “mode 2”, arguing that a new mode of production of scientific knowledge had emerged. In the era of mode 1, science had been able to safeguard its autonomy and almost exclusively relied on internal mechanisms of quality and relevance assessment. Mode 2, however, means that scientific knowledge has to be socially robust, counting more and more on the participation of lay-people from different parts of society. The mode 2 thesis thus reflects a fundamental transformation of the relation of science and society. The current issue of STI-Studies contains two articles that deal with mode 2 issues, one on a theoretical basis, the other presenting findings of a comparative empirical study. Both point at some weaknesses of the mode 2 thesis, thus re-opening the debate. In his article “Mode 2, systems differentiation and the significance of politico-cultural variety”, Janus Hansen argues that the mode 2 thesis is based on an unacceptable generalization and extension of trends to the socio-structural level of society, which mostly take place at the organisational level. Hansen also calls into question the implicit assumption of a universal trend toward mode 2 and a resulting convergence of modern societies as regards the science-society relation. Therefore he calls for an in-depth analysis of cross-national varieties. Voilá! STI-Studies is very proud to present an answer to these questions in the same issue. In her paper “Nanotechnology governance”, Monika Kurath presents the results of an international comparison of deliberation-oriented and public engagement projects in the field of nanotechnology regulation. Her article can be regarded as an empirical test of the mode 2 thesis. She applies a technique of rating the social robustness of different participatory discourses, concluding that selfregulation performs better than deliberation. However, only a few of these new modes of governance can be regarded as – at least partially – socially robust. Thus Kurath pours a lot of water into the wine of mode 2 proponents. The third article also contains a test of a big theory. In their article “Technology adoption in small-scale agriculture”, Genesis T. Yengoh, Armah Frederick Ato and Mats G. E. Svensson investigate the question, why technology adoption in sub-Saharian Africa does not work according to Rogers’ general model of the diffusion of innovations. By modifying the model and identifying additional factors and drivers, they show – via computer simulation – that a refined model can explain the decelerated process of technology adoption, thus identifying loci for political intervention. (Con-)Testing theories via empirical analysis is one of the paramount tasks of scientific research. All authors of the three articles in the current issue contribute to this task and show the productive results of a stimulating combination of theoretical analysis and empirical studies. Many thanks to Peter Goldberg for his language assistance.