Daniel Lee Kleinman

The Social Construction of Technology: Structural Considerations

Although scholarship in the social construction of technology (SCOT) has contributed much to illuminating technological development, most work using this theoretical approach is committed to an agency-centered approach. SCOT scholars have made only limited contributions to illustrating the influence of social structures. In this article, the authors argue for the importance of structural concepts to understanding technological development. They summarize the SCOT conceptual framework defined by Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker and survey some of the methodological and explanatory difficulties that arise with their approach. Then the authors present concepts from organizational sociology and political economy that illuminate structural influences in shaping phenomena of interest to SCOT scholars. These structural concepts can be applied to the study of the design, development, and transformation of technology. The authors conclude that the limited amount of scholarship on structural factors in the social shaping of technological development presents numerous opportunities for research.

Organizing credibility: Discursive and organizational orthodoxy on the borders of ecology and politics

In the present paper, we show that in its efforts to maintain credibility and claim social relevance, the Ecological Society of America (ESA) and its members repeatedly negotiate a boundary between science and politics. While the boundaries of ecology are flexibly defined, contingent on political context and what is at stake, they are also shaped and constrained by the already constructed social world. Several factors shape the ESA’s boundary-work: (1) historically resonant discourses of both value-freedom and the utility of science; (2) national politics, including social movements and the demands of funding bodies; (3) the structure and actions of other, often more prestigious, scientific societies; and (4) established orthodoxies of scientific behavior. We contribute to the scholarly literature on credibility in science by showing that the construction of boundaries between science and politics is, in some cases, better understood as the reproduction of the already constructed social world than as a product of strategic efforts in pursuit of individual interests.

Engaging citizens: The high cost of citizen participation in high technology

This paper contributes to ongoing discussions on democratic engagement through an exploration of citizen participation in two citizen consensus conferences on nanotechnology, one held in 2005 and the second in 2008. We analyze the factors that motivate citizens to participate formally in debates about emerging “high technologies” and consider demographic and related characteristics of the participants in these two consensus conferences and the reasons they provided for participating. We suggest that in an era in which the barriers to civic engagement—most especially time—are large for many citizens, significant incentives are likely to affect participation. These incentives may be internal (e.g. a personal interest in a topic or an investment in a policy outcome) or external (e.g. money). In this context, we critique the aim of recruiting “blank slate” participants for consensus conferences and other deliberative democratic forums.

Untangling Context: Understanding a University Laboratory in the Commercial World

The past twenty years have been an incredibly productive period in science studies. Still, because recent work in science studies puts a spotlight on agency and enabling situa tions, many practitioners in the field ignore, underplay, or dismiss the possibility that historically established, structurally stable attributes of the world may systemically shape practice at the laboratory level. This article questions this general position. Draw ing on data from a participant observation study of a university biology laboratory, it describes five features of the institutional landscape that shape this laboratorys practice.

Aiming for the Discursive High Ground: Monsanto and the Biotechnology Controversy

The past several years have seen the publication of a great deal of exciting theoretical work on ideology and discourse. There has, however, been much less empirical work in the area. In this essay, we undertake a study of a specific set of discursive products developed by Monsanto Corporation in its efforts to shape public opinion and the terms of debate in the controversy over the development of biotechnology. Drawing on existing work, we suggest that relationships between signifiers and signifieds are not natural, but social creations, and that the creation of signs is often the product of social struggles. We show how Monsanto has drawn on discursive elements with historical resonance to create an image of biotechnology that the company hopes will lead to public support for the technology or, at the very least, will stifle opposition.

Dying Bees and the Social Production of Ignorance

This article utilizes the ongoing debates over the role of certain agricultural insecticides in causing Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)—the phenomenon of accelerated bee die-offs in the United States and elsewhere—as an opportunity to contribute to the emerging literature on the social production of ignorance. In our effort to understand the social contexts that shape knowledge/nonknowledge production in this case, we develop the concept of epistemic form. Epistemic form is the suite of concepts, methods, measures, and interpretations that shapes the ways in which actors produce knowledge and ignorance in their professional/intellectual fields of practice. In the CCD controversy, we examine how the (historically influenced) privileging of certain epistemic forms intersects with the social dynamics of academic, regulatory, and corporate organizations to lead to the institutionalization of three interrelated and overlapping types of ignorance. We consider the effects of these types of ignorance on US regulatory policy and on the lives of different stakeholders.

Be(e)coming experts: The controversy over insecticides in the honey bee colony collapse disorder

In this article, we explore the politics of expertise in an ongoing controversy in the United States over the role of certain insecticides in colony collapse disorder – a phenomenon involving mass die-offs of honey bees. Numerous long-time commercial beekeepers contend that newer systemic agricultural insecticides are a crucial part of the cocktail of factors responsible for colony collapse disorder. Many scientists actively researching colony collapse disorder reject the beekeepers’ claims, citing the lack of conclusive evidence from field experiments by academic and industry toxicologists. US Environmental Protection Agency regulators, in turn, privilege the latters’ approach to the issue, and use the lack of conclusive evidence of systemic insecticides’ role in colony collapse disorder to justify permitting these chemicals to remain on the market. Drawing on semistructured interviews with key players in the controversy, as well as published documents and ethnographic data, we show how a set of research norms and practices from agricultural entomology came to dominate the investigation of the links between pesticides and honey bee health, and how the epistemological dominance of these norms and practices served to marginalize the knowledge claims and policy positions of commercial beekeepers in the colony collapse disorder controversy. We conclude with a discussion of how the colony collapse disorder case can help us think about the nature and politics of expertise.

Virtual deliberation? Prospects and challenges for integrating the internet in consensus conferences

Consensus conferences have functioned well in small, relatively homogeneous countries such as Denmark. In the geographically sprawling and socially diverse United States, however, meaningful citizen deliberation and decision-making on science and technology depends upon the ability to bring more participants “into the room.” The National Citizens’ Technology Forum, held in March 2008, responded to this need by integrating panels of citizens from multiple US cities in structured face-to-face and online deliberation. We analyze the success of this experiment by focusing on the experience of participants during the online deliberation component. We conclude with recommendations for future organizers of online deliberation, focusing on the benefits of combining synchronous and asynchronous engagement and improving facilitation practice and software capabilities.

A Toolkit for Democratizing Science and Technology Policy: The Practical Mechanics of Organizing a Consensus Conference

A widely touted approach to involving laypeople in science and technology policy-related decisions is the consensus conference. Virtually nothing written on the topic provides detailed discussion of the many steps from citizen recruitment to citizen report. Little attention is paid to how and why the mechanics of the consensus conference process might influence the diversity of the participants in theses fora, the quality of the deliberation in the citizen sessions, the experiences of the participants and organizers, and other outcomes that affect democratic decision making within the conference and more broadly over the long term. As an aid to those interested in utilizing the consensus conference format, the authors outline in detail how they set about organizing their consensus conference on nanotechnology in the spring of 2005. They discuss what specific aspects of their consensus conference worked, and why, and also consider what they learned of relevance to future application.

Why Ban Bovine Growth Hormone? Science, Social Welfare, and the Divergent Biotech Policy Landscapes in Europe and the United States

In the late 1980s, proposals circulated in European Union policymaking institutions that called for adding a new criterion—dubbed the ‘fourth hurdle’—to the standard three dimensions across which new veterinary technologies were evaluated for marketing authorization in the EU. To the traditional three criteria of safety, efficacy and quality, some policymakers and activists wanted to add an evaluation of socio-economic effects. That is, proponents of the fourth hurdle wanted the decision to permit commercialization to be based not just on whether the technology was safe, effective, and of good quality, but also on what kind of impact a new technology might have on the social structure of European agriculture if commercialized. In the EU, the ‘fourth hurdle’ became a legitimate policy consideration. Furthermore, despite the failure to formalize the fourth hurdle in the EU’s marketing authorization procedure, there is evidence to suggest that the EU’s moratorium on the use of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH) is based on the fourth hurdle ‘by the back door’. In other words, even when other justifications for banning rbGH were used, the ongoing (and now permanent) moratorium appears motivated, at least in part, by socio-economic concerns. Why did discussions of socio-economic effects have such resonance in Europe and not in the US? Why did a moratorium on rbGH—motivated by socio-economic considerations—remain intact for over a decade in the EU, while in the United States the federal government could not find justification for banning the drug for more than 90 days? And finally, why, despite considerable support