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Journal ArticleDOI

"Opening up" and "closing down" power, participation, and pluralism in the social appraisal of technology

Andrew Stirling
- 01 Mar 2008 - 
- Vol. 33, Iss: 2, pp 262-294
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TLDR
In this article, the authors focus on the role of power in science and technology and identify key commonalities transcending the analysis/participation dichotomy, concluding that greater appreciation is required in both analytic and participatory appraisal to facilitate the opening up (rather than the closing down) of governance commitments on science and technologies.
Abstract
Discursive deference in the governance of science and technology is rebalancing from expert analysis toward participatory deliberation. Linear, scientistic conceptions of innovation are giving ground to more plural, socially situated understandings. Yet, growing recognition of social agency in technology choice is countered by persistently deterministic notions of technological progress. This article addresses this increasingly stark disjuncture. Distinguishing between appraisal and commitment in technology choice, it highlights contrasting implications of normative, instrumental, and substantive imperatives in appraisal. Focusing on the role of power, it identifies key commonalities transcending the analysis/participation dichotomy. Each is equally susceptible to instrumental framing for variously weak and strong forms of justification. To address the disjuncture, it is concluded that greater appreciation is requiredin both analytic and participatory appraisalto facilitating the opening up (rather than the closing down) of governance commitments on science and technology.

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References
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TL;DR: Giddens as mentioned in this paper has been in the forefront of developments in social theory for the past decade and outlines the distinctive position he has evolved during that period and offers a full statement of a major new perspective in social thought, a synthesis and elaboration of ideas touched on in previous works but described here for the first time in an integrated and comprehensive form.
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TL;DR: The Eye of Power: A Discussion with Maoists as mentioned in this paper discusses the politics of health in the Eighteenth Century, the history of sexuality, and the Confession of the Flesh.
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The Constitution of Society. Outline of the Theory of Structuration

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Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience

TL;DR: In Frame Analysis, the brilliant theorist wrote about the ways in which people determine their answers to the questions What is going on here? and Under what circumstances do we think things are real?.
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Clio and the economics of QWERTY

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