Robert V. Bartlett

A map of the nanoworld: Sizing up the science, politics, and business of the infinitesimal

Abstract Mapping out the eight main nodes of nanotechnology discourse that have emerged in the past decade, we explore how various scientific, social, and ethical islands of discussion have developed, been recognized, and are being continually renegotiated. We do so by (1) identifying the ways in which scientists, policy makers, entrepreneurs, educators, and environmental groups draw boundaries on issues relating to nanotechnology; (2) describing concisely the perspectives from which these boundaries are drawn; and (3) exploring how boundaries on nanotechnology are marked and negotiated through contestations of power among various nodes of nanotechnology discourse.

Strategic thinking and the environment: Planning the future in New Zealand?

The environmental rationale for adopting a strategic approach to the environment is compelling. But other‐than‐environmental considerations must always play an important role in adoption of environmental strategies, or green plans, and must affect their substance. The political demand or support for strategic environmental planning is nowhere very strong. A strategic environmental plan adopted by New Zealand in 1995, and developed in the context of broader strategic policy efforts, offers insight into the significance and potential of strategic environmental policy making. Its claims to the contrary, New Zealands Environment 2010 Strategy was politically feasible because it is strategic in only a limited sense and because it is subsidiary to the overriding goal of economic growth. The ultimate significance of New Zealands environmental strategy and similar efforts in other nations, then, may lie primarily in their potential for further amendment and development.

From rationality to reasonableness in environmental administration

The administrative state is situated in a physical and ecological context that requires a conceptualisation of rationality broader than the instrumental rationality that characterizes most administrative theorising. Various scholars have contributed to clarifying some aspects of the needed broader conceptualisation, particularly with respect to focuses (system, substance, procedure) and form (social, legal, political, and ecological). But unlike the classical Aristotelian conception of rationality, the goal‐blindness of contemporary rationality still distinguishes it from reasonableness. Rawls and Habermas suggest the recoupling of reasonableness and rationality through political discourse and pursuit of social action that requires reasoning about ends as well as means. The opportunities for deliberative democracy and for furthering environmental justice provided by environmental impact assessment illustrate how rationality, justice, and ecological sustainability can be integrated by breaking down distinctions between decision‐making processes and the substance of decisions. Administration can thus move beyond proverbs to proceed on the realization that the only ecologically rational organization is a broadly reasonable one.

Nanotechnology, Society, and Environment

Nanotechnology talk is moving out of its comfort zone of scientific discourse. As new products go to market and national and international organizations roll out public engagement programs on nanotechnology to discuss environmental and health issues, various sectors of the public are beginning to discuss what all the fuss is about. Nongovernmental organizations have long since reacted; however, now the social sciences have begun to study the cultural phenomenon of nanotechnology, thus extending discourses and opening out nanotechnology to whole new social dimensions. We report here on these social dimensions and their new constructed imaginings, each of which is evident in the ways in which discourses around nanotechnology intersects with the economy, ecology, health, governance, and imagined futures. We conclude that there needs to be more than just an “environmental, legal, and social implications,” or “ELSI,” sideshow within nanotechnology. The collective public imaginings of nanotechnology include tangles of science and science fiction, local enterprise, and global transformation, all looking forward toward a sustainable future, while looking back on past debates about science and nature. Nanotechnology is already very much embedded in the social fabric of our life and times.

Matrix organization theory and environmental impact assessment

Abstract In recent years matrix organization theory has offered an attractive and theoretically powerful alternative to traditional bureaucratic forms of organization. Yet the claims and propositions of matrix theory have not been tested against a broad body of experience, largely because of the widely varying and incomparable circumstances of identified attempts to use the matrix approach. A set of close approximations of the matrix model, namely government efforts to do environmental impact assessment, does exist and available data based on that experience offer the potential for a limited test of the propositions of matrix theory. The authors assess whether such approximations of matrix organization attain any of the benefits attributed to the matrix approach. Our data do not support those claims of matrix theory that we are able to examine. The authors consider a defense of matrix theory and suggest a reconsideration of matrix assumptions and definitions.