The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies Part 15 ppt

Wyckoff eds, Trans-forming Enterprise: The Economic and Social Implications of Information Technology Cambridge, MA: MIT Press: 13–24.. 1988 When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking Abo

implications, and building on the conceptual framework advanced here, we wouldlike to suggest three possible avenues for continuing scholarship at the intersection

of STS and communication studies Consistent with our framework, they broadlyconcern the relationship between technology and society, technology developmentprocesses, and the consequences of sociotechnical change

First, with regard to the causal relation between technology and society, and thetension between determination and contingency, given the growing turn to “mutualshaping” or “co-production” approaches, future work might address the particularconditions that may tilt the balance toward determination or contingency, or the spe-cific mechanisms and processes that “harden” sociotechnical configurations undercertain conditions or make them more malleable in other conditions Scholarship thattakes a historical or comparative perspective could be especially useful in both cases.For example, future studies might take as their point of departure a still-emerging body

of research that takes an environmental perspective, analyzing technological systems,social structures and relations, and action together These studies often seek to iden-tify factors that can make such environments more determined, or “closed,” on theone hand, or more contingent or open on the other (Davenport, 1997; Lievrouw, 2002;Nardi & O’Day, 1999; Verhulst, 2005)

Second, regarding the roles of production and consumption in the technology opment process, two complementary directions for further work might contrast cases

devel-in which the boundary between production and consumption blurs or even pears with those where production and consumption are so clearly segregated thatthey have minimal influence on each other For instance, in the domain of so-called

disap-“citizen journalism,” the success of South Korea’s OhMyNews, which thousands of

cit-izens-turned-journalists have transformed into a popular and politically influential

online news site, might be compared with the failure of the Los Angeles Times’s attempt

to utilize WIKI TOOLSto make its editorials user-driven The forum was shut down daysafter being launched because editors felt that some postings had become too aggres-sive The first case demonstrates that people’s engagement with media and informa-

tion technologies is not easily reduced to the roles of producers or consumers,12whilethe second case shows that the production-consumption divide is still an importantdynamic in many media and information contexts Perhaps casting these as a dynamic

of integration and separation could shed additional light on production and sumption as heuristic constructs

con-Third, regarding the consequences of sociotechnical change, the increased sense ofordinariness and banality of media and information technologies could open the wayfor future work that might reconcile or at least recast the relationships betweenobserved continuities and observed discontinuities, whether at the micro-scale ofeveryday life, practice, particular inventions, and meanings or at the macro-level oflarge-scale social relations and change.13 Continuities and discontinuities are bothobservable across many levels of analysis, yet few theorists have attempted to inte-grate or frame them relative to each other

We must add one critical point about all three suggested avenues for study: they must also account for the tightly interwoven relationship between the materialand the symbolic, which, as we noted earlier, distinguishes media and informationtechnologies from other types of sociotechnical infrastructures Although it is tempt-ing to classify and analyze these two dimensions of media and information tech-nologies as distinct phenomena, they are in fact inextricably bound together Futurestudies must confront the ways that meaning and forms of content contribute to influence material alternatives, and by the same token, how the physical materiality,durability, and format of specific technological devices and systems help shape content and meaning This fundamental dialectic is at the heart of the interplay ofdetermination and contingency, production and consumption, and continuity anddiscontinuity.

To conclude, we have proposed that concerns with causality, process, and quences have delineated the domain of media and information technologies acrossSTS and communication studies alike Our aim has been to propose a broad frame-work for articulating shared concepts, problems, and interests in this rapidly growingarea of study Causality, process, and consequences, regardless of the particular con-texts, settings, or applications in question, are fundamental concerns in the under-standing of these and other technologies Building on and transcending the binariesthat have characterized research and scholarship to date may also help build dialogueand collaboration across these two traditions of inquiry and institutional boundaries

conse-Notes

We would like to thank our chapter’s editor, Judy Wajcman, and four anonymous reviewers for theirmost helpful comments We are also grateful for the valuable suggestions made by Jen Light, DougThomas, and session participants at the 2005 annual conference of the Society for Social Studies ofScience, where an earlier version of this chapter was presented In addition, Boczkowski would like toacknowledge the feedback received from the students—Max Dawson, Bernie Geoghegan, Divya Kumar,Dan Li, Limin Liang, Bhuvana Murthy, Ben Shields, and Gina Walejko—who took a quarter-longseminar on the ideas presented in this chapter at Northwestern University in fall 2005 Finally, we ded-icate this essay to the memory of Roger Silverstone, who pioneered the dialogue between Communi-cation Studies and Science and Technology Studies

1 These bridges also correspond to fundamental issues in social, cultural, and historical studies of alltechnologies

2 At several points in this chapter, we make a distinction between two schools of thought or tions of inquiry within communication studies On the one hand is a broadly behaviorist, medium-oriented, social science–based tradition that has tended to focus on the social and psychological effects

tradi-of media and applied research regarding media prtradi-ofessions and industries The other tradition drawsmore from critical/cultural theory and political economy and tends to focus on issues of economicinequities and power, institutional structures, and cultural domination/hegemony We have attempted

to show how both traditions have played a role in the linkages between communication studies andSTS We thank an anonymous reviewer for reminding us that the first tradition, historically located inNorth America and East Asia, is often viewed critically by adherents of the second tradition, which ishistorically associated with the British/Birmingham school of media studies and is the predominantperspective in the United Kingdom and parts of Europe and Latin America

3 In organizational communication research, where a substantial body of administrative researchalready existed regarding the implementation and management of ICTs in the workplace, the move tothe contextual perspective, and the influence of concepts from STS, was particularly significant (see,e.g., Fulk, 1993; Jackson, 1996; Jackson et al., 2002; Orlikowski & Gash, 1994).

4 In addition to illustrating two different treatments of causality in technology-society relationships,these two books are also examples of two ways of conceptualizing technology as an object of inquiry,both discussed in the introductory section of this chapter Einsenstein’s book, influenced by the work

of medium theorists like Innis and McLuhan, is inscribed within the tradition of scholarship that hascharacterized technology in terms of its technical features Johns’s book, drawing from constructivistscholars like Shapin and MacKenzie, is part of a mode of inquiry that has tended to stress issues ofmeaning, practice, and broader cultural connections of technological systems

5 For an extended treatment of this matter, see chapter 7 in this volume For additional discussionsabout this matter in general, see Bijker (1995b), Brey (2003), MacKenzie (1984), Staudenmaier (1989),and Williams and Edge (1996) For discussions focused on media and information technologies, seeDutton (2005), Edwards (1995), Kling (1994), Pfaffenberger (1988), Slack and Wise (2002), and Winner(1986)

6 It is important to note that Edwards’s treatment of the notion of discourse draws partly from caultian theory, which emphasizes the ties between symbolism and materiality in discursive configu-rations We include Edwards’s work as a powerful illustration of the discursive dimension preciselybecause his multilayered attention to symbolism, from micro-level metaphoric language to macro-levelconstructions of popular culture, is not in opposition to materiality but inextricably tied to it For additional treatments on discursive aspects of media and information technologies, see, for instance,Bazerman (1999), Carey (1989), Gillespie (2006), and Wyatt (2000)

Fou-7 For a broader discussion on the “turn to practice” in social and cultural theory, see Schatzki et al.(2001) For additional treatments on practice issues in the study of media and information technolo-gies, see, for instance, Boczkowski and Orlikowski (2004), Foot et al (2005), Heath and Luff (2000), andOrlikowski (2000)

8 According to Akrich (1992: 208), producers “define actors with specific tastes, competences, motives,aspirations, political prejudices, and the rest, and they assume that morality, technology, science, and

economy will evolve in particular ways A large part of the work of innovators is that of ‘inscribing’ this

vision of—or prediction about—the world in the technical content of the new object.”

9 Mackay et al (2000: 737) have argued that this move has been part of a larger shift in social andcultural theorizing: “the turn to ‘the user’ is a feature of broader discourses, including that of the socialsciences, not just the sociology of technology.” For more on this matter in STS, see Oudshoorn andPinch (2003) and chapter 22 in this volume

10 Another early example of this line of work is Rice and Rogers’s notion of “reinvention” in the fusion of innovations, defined as “the degree to which an innovation is changed by the adopter in theprocess of adoption and implementation after its original development” (1980: 500–501) Subsequentresearch on reinvention added significant empirical detail, but provided not so much conceptual elab-oration about the dynamics of user agency

dif-11 “Users” need not be individuals: in her study of the co-evolution of users and technologies in thelife insurance industry, Yates (2005) has shown the value of focusing on a previously overlooked level

of analysis, that of the collective—as opposed to individual—user According to the author, “althoughindividual agents clearly played critical roles, they could not act alone but had to mobilize those aboveand below them in the company hierarchy, as well as their peers, to acquire and apply such technol-ogy This firm and industry focus illuminates a level thus far studied on the producer side but rarely

on the user side” (2005: 259)

12 In communication studies, a reassessment of the notion of “audience,” which equates engagementwith media and information technologies with consumption, has been under way for over a decade(Abercrombie & Longhurst, 1998; Ang, 1991; Gray, 1999; Livingstone, 2004) Interactivity, another fruit-ful window into the production-consumption relationship, has been a locus of STS scholarship sincethe pioneering work of Suchman (1987) In communication studies, interactivity and related concepts,such as telepresence and propinquity, have been investigated since the 1970s (see Rafaeli, 1988; McMillan, 2006).

13 This is not a technology research issue that is new in either communication studies or STS, as denced in both early scholarship such as Marvin (1988) and recent scholarship such as Boczkowski(2004) and Yates (2005) But more remains to be done in specifying the more general mechanismswhereby discontinuity arises from continuity

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I INTRODUCTION

The widespread understanding that nanotechnology constitutes an emerging set ofscience-based technologies with the collective capacity to remake social, economic,and technological landscapes (e.g., Crow & Sarewitz, 2001) has, in itself, generatedtangible outcomes In the first years of the new millennium, governments around theworld created national nanotechnology programs that spent billions of dollars (Roco,2003), reconfigured institutional arrangements, and constructed new sites for researchand development (R&D) Large transnational corporations have similarly made sig-nificant investments in R&D at the nanoscale, and venture capitalists have fundedstart-up companies—often launched by university researchers—specializing in a broadarray of nanotechnologies (Lux Research, 2006) Many of these actors present nano-technology as an enabling platform for other transformative innovations that willbecome even more powerful through its “convergence” with biotechnology, infor-mation technology, and cognitive science The magnitude and speed of such trans-formations demand critical reflection on the role of technology in society and thecomposition of desirable futures The presumed nascent state of nanotechnology sug-gests that critical reflection along with other forms of response may actually contribute

to such outcomes Nanotechnology thus affords crucial opportunities for researchers

in science and technology studies (STS) to participate in the construction of safe, civil,and equitable nanotechnological developments

The future prospects for nanotechnology, or nanoscale science and engineering(NSE), are fundamentally uncertain In its novelty, complexity, uncertainty, and pub-licity, nanotechnology represents “postnormal science” (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1993)

It thus occasions new approaches to the conduct of research evaluation and ment that require the engagement of a variety of potential users and stakeholders inthe production of knowledge (Gibbons et al., 1994), as well as new organizations thatspan the boundary between knowledge production and public action (Guston, 2000).Not only is it unclear which scientific and technological potentials out of the manythat theoretically exist might actually come to pass, but the shape and desirability ofeventual sociotechnical outcomes may in part depend on the work of these new Daniel Barben, Erik Fisher, Cynthia Selin, and David H Guston

assess-interactions and approaches Indeed, nanotechnology can also be thought of as ametaphor for even more inchoate potential futures of other new technologies, thehistory of technological emergence, and the role of technoscience in destabilizingsocial systems—for better and for ill.

The case of nanotechnology thus has broader applicability, for such fundamentaluncertainties pose challenges for science and technology decision making in publicand private sectors, as well as for STS scholarship The challenges for STS include thecontinued consideration of the place of its scholarship, especially when—as exploredbelow—it is invited by policy makers and others to have a role in the pursuit anddevelopment of science and technology Accepting this invitation, as this chapter sug-gests, may mean not only attending to areas of research that are not fully developed,but also attempting to create a different scope, scale, and organization of STS research.Notably, a great deal of the study of the societal aspects of nanotechnology is bound

up in the rhetoric of novelty With this in mind, this chapter provides a brief overview

of how prominent actors define nanotechnology and frame some of the societal issuesassociated with it Set within this disputed context of the novelty of NSE itself and itsattendant societal issues, the chapter then surveys a unique set of policies that hasemerged across several countries Generally, these policies do not presume the auto-matic provision of social goods from NSE research Instead, policy mandates call fornanoscale R&D to be situated within broader social processes Next, the chapter con-siders some of the unique interactions that, in part inspired by these policies, haveemerged among STS researchers and policy makers, scientists, and the public byreviewing and analyzing some key features of foresight, engagement, and integrationthat mark these efforts Finally, the chapter emphasizes the novelty of the scope, scale,reach, and context of much of this STS research Specifically, the authors believe thatthe main contribution of this largely unprecedented multipronged, large-scale STSapproach to nanotechnology is the creation of a broad capacity for “anticipatory gov-ernance” (Guston & Sarewitz, 2002)

II DEFINING NANOTECHNOLOGY AND ITS ISSUES

No definition can encompass the complex research and policy realm that nology signifies (Woodhouse, 2004) Nevertheless, a variety of scientific and bureau-cratic interests seek a concrete definition In the United States, the NationalNanotechnology Initiative (NNI) has tinkered with its original definition, mostrecently defining nanotechnology broadly as “the understanding and control ofmatter at dimensions of roughly 1 to 100 nanometers, where unique phenomenaenable novel applications” (NNI, 2007) The nongovernmental standard-setting body,ASTM International, similarly defines nanotechnology as “a wide range of technolo-gies that measure, manipulate, or incorporate materials and/or features with at leastone dimension between approximately 1 and 100 nanometers (nm) Such applicationsexploit the properties, distinct from bulk/macroscopic systems, of nanoscale compo-nents” (Active Standard E2456-06)

nanotech-Such definitions fall under the conception of “mainstream nanotechnology”(Keiper, 2003), which is largely an immediate extension of chemistry and materialsscience that originally might not have attracted much political attention or funding,and clearly exclude “molecular nanotechnology” (Drexler, 2004), which focuses onlonger-term, directed self-assembly techniques that critics characterize as sciencefiction but which lent a great deal of verve to early nanotechnology promotions TheNNI situated nanotechnology between mainstream and molecular conceptions so thatinvestment, which had in part been conceived as a response from the physical sci-ences to the exploding biomedical research funding of the 1990s, included biology.And like genetic engineering before it, nanotechnology under these definitions blursboundaries not only among technical disciplines but also between science and engi-neering and between research and manufacturing—thus building in the promise ofeconomic payoffs from research at the onset The bridging of disciplines as well as thehyperbolic promises to society mark nanotechnology as the “new frontier.”

However sufficient broad definitions might be for promoting research programs,they are hard for social scientists to operationalize Bibliometric research has struggled

to define nanotechnology in order to track its intellectual and geographic dynamics.Such work (e.g., Porter, Youtie, & Shapira, 2006) has identified four broad and over-lapping areas of inquiry—nanodevices and electronics, nanostructure chemistry andnanomaterials, nanomedicine and nanobiology, and metrology and nanoprocesses.This categorization nearly replicates a taxonomy derived by the Royal Society andRoyal Academy of Engineering (2004) The definition of nanotechnology is further-more expected to change over time For instance, prominent nanotechnology

“roadmaps” predict an evolution from nanomaterials to passive nanosystems to activenanosystems (Roco & Renn, 2006) It is thus more accurate to talk of a plurality ofnanotechnologies, even while acknowledging the prominence and persistence of theabstract singular term resulting from a combination of advances in instruments andresearch communities (Mody, 2006) and political agendas and alliances (McCray,2005)

Frank and brazen optimism on behalf of nanotechnology—even the governmentsponsors who eschew the molecular nanotechnology vision hail it as “the next indus-trial revolution”—contrasts with equally compelling arguments about its unintendedconsequences (Sarewitz & Woodhouse, 2003), giving rise to an urgency to addressissues of equity, ethics, and engagement However, the almost protean form of nano-technologies conspires with broad time horizons to further complicate the recogni-tion and critique of related cultural, ethical, legal, educational, economic, andenvironmental (henceforth “societal”) issues While issues need not be new to warrantconsideration, a particular search for novelty has accompanied the societal debate:What is new about nanotechnologies that leads to pressing societal issues?

As implied in the definitions quoted above, the standard technical explanation for novelty stresses the properties of matter that manifest at the nanoscale Thus,although nanotechnologies reinforce the continuing miniaturization that leads to thepotential unobtrusiveness, embeddedness, and ubiquity of microtechnologies and

nanotechnologies, there are also new electrical, optical, magnetic, and mechanicalproperties derived from surface-to-volume ratios, quantum mechanics, and other rulesthat apply to small sizes, numbers, or aggregates of particles This uniqueness means,for example, that some nanoparticles are able to permeate boundaries previously seen

as impervious, e.g., the blood-brain barrier Much of the publicity accorded to technology has thus been due to a lively discourse on risk assessment that has focused

nano-on the toxicological profiles of a range of engineered nanoparticles (e.g., carbnano-on, silver,titanium dioxide) that may not match that of their larger counterparts

A number of observers have catalogued societal issues that emerging nologies may raise The early treatment by Roco and Bainbridge (2001), for example,includes “implications” of economic, political, educational, medical, environmental,and national security import, as well as potential consequences for privacy and globalequity (the “nanodivide”) and a sea change in what it means to be human throughthe possibilities of nano-enabled enhancements Moore (2002) divides the “implica-tions” of nanotechnology into three categories: social, including environmental,health, economic, and educational; ethical, including academic-industry relations,abuse of technology, social divides, and concepts of life; and legal, including concepts

nanotech-of property, intellectual property, privacy, and regulation

As Lewenstein (2005b) argues, such lists—while thoughtful and relatively plete—frame nanotechnologies in a determinist fashion as things that have “implica-tions” for society but are not themselves influenced by society Similarly, Baird andVogt (2004) reframe most of these issues in terms of “interactions,” and they add totheir list what they call “hypertechnology”—the too-fast pace of innovation Grun-wald (2005) recapitulates many of these issues as well, arguing however that they arenot novel enough to warrant the name “nanoethics,” which now appears in the title

com-of a journal launched by Springer in 2006 and in an entry in Macmillan’s dia of Science, Technology, and Ethics (Berne 2006a).

Encyclope-While the novelty of the societal issues surrounding nanotechnologies may not be

as obvious as the novelty of some nanoscale properties, nanotechnologies clearly haveinspired a great deal of attention The next section picks up on the theme of noveltyregarding the role of STS in the development of nanotechnologies, as national gov-ernments have summoned social scientists to participate in their initiatives

III THE POLICY MANDATE

Since the late 1990s, public and private sector decision makers have promoted NSE as

a linchpin for creating economic wealth and solving a vast number of societal lems Correspondingly, governments around the world have invested heavily in NSE,attempting to create internationally competitive national infrastructures of NSE R&D

prob-by tying together the “triple helix of industry, government and academia” (Etzkowitz

& Leydesdorff, 2000)

The emphasis on economic advantage and the transformative capacities of technologies helped catalyze the rapid growth of NSE R&D and commercialization

nano-programs, but it also took shape against cautionary discursive backgrounds developed

by such prominent individuals as Bill Joy (2000) and Charles, the Prince of Wales(2004), as well as activist groups such as Greenpeace (Arnall, 2003) and the ETC Group(2003) Months after the inauguration of the NNI, Joy presented a catastrophic vision

of self-replicating “nanobots” and considered “relinquishment” as a strategy for ing this disastrous fate (Joy, 2001) Less spectacular than Joy’s “grey goo” scenario,biotechnology also began to be associated with nanotechnology, in particular thewidespread experience of skepticism, criticism, and antagonism in the fields of agri-cultural and food biotechnology and embryonic stem cell research The ETC Group(formerly, Rural Advancement Foundation International, or RAFI), which forged coali-tions between activists in the global North and South to work against agriculturalbiotechnology and related intellectual property rights, has repeatedly called for amoratorium on particular forms of NSE R&D because of environmental health andsafety concerns

avoid-Sensitive to these activist responses, policy makers appear to have been infected with

“nanophobia-phobia” (Rip, 2006) from dystopian doomsday scenarios (Bennett &Sarewitz, 2006) and genetically modified foods in Europe (NRC, 2002) They haveresponded by sponsoring a more proactive approach to societal issues that emphasizesnot only the study of ethical, legal, and social issues but the integration of socialscience research and public interventions into the R&D process (Fisher & Mahajan,2006a) Distinct from policies promoting biotechnology research, nanotechnologypolicy does not approach R&D as if it would automatically produce the most desir-able outcomes Instead, policy makers now endorse a conception of R&D that requiresthe integration of broader societal considerations in order to serve the public goodand support decision making

Under the language of “responsible innovation,” government institutions in theUnited States and European Union, among others, have thus proposed integratingsocial science research into NSE programs at an early stage (Commission of the Euro-pean Communities, 2004; NSTC, 2004) In an effort to advance socially desirable out-comes for NSE, policies have prescribed broader guidelines for integrating societalconcerns and perspectives, thus inviting STS research to play a formative role in thesociotechnical context of developing nanotechnologies

The move is particularly compelling in the case of the United States because it occurs

in a political context that, since the closing of the congressional Office of TechnologyAssessment, has paid little attention to technology assessment Several Europeannations and EU institutions have also become much more receptive to public engage-ment in the aftermath of large-scale technoscience controversies, including HIV-tainted blood, “mad cow” disease, and GMOs Before the U.S Congress passed theTwenty-First Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act in 2003 (PublicLaw 108–153), STS scholars Langdon Winner and Davis Baird testified to Congressabout the integration of STS research with NSE Winner (2003) recommended

“open deliberations about technological choices” that would occur at early, ket stages, yet disparaged the idea of creating a field of “nanoethics” based on the

premar-model of bioethics In order to avoid a “drift toward moral and political triviality” onthe part of social and ethical researchers he suggested engaging broader publics, fromordinary citizens to laboratory researchers Likewise, Baird (2003) proposed institut-ing the collaboration of ethics researchers with nanotechnology researchers in the lab-oratory The criticality of early intervention drew from decades of research into thegeneration and shaping of technologies (e.g., Collingridge, 1980; Dierkes & Hoffmann,1992; Sørensen & Williams, 2002).

The resulting legislation went “beyond assessment” (Fisher, 2005) and differed fromearlier efforts at institutionalizing reflexivity, such as the Human Genome Project’sEthical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) program Significantly, the legislation—and other policies like it around the world—explicitly invoked the notion of “inte-grating” societal research and public inputs into NSE R&D and policy It also impliedthat such efforts should influence NSE (House Committee on Science, 2003), pre-senting practical challenges for STS researchers and creating a new, more active rolefor social science

Other nations and political entities have supported similar attempts at fostering laborations among scientists and engineers, social scientists, and the interested public.The European Union (Commission of the European Communities, 2004), the Nether-lands (De Witte & Schuddeboom, 2006), the regional government of Flanders, Belgium(Flemish Institute for Science and Technology, 2006), and Brazil and Colombia(Foladori, 2006) have all not only instituted social science research on nanotech-nologies, but notably link that research in an integrated fashion to decision making.The envisioned collaborations across academic cultures suggest pressure to con-tribute to the social shaping of nanotechnologies in two respects: (1) Social scientistsare expected to provide NSE researchers with contextual awareness of the interde-pendencies among science, technology, and society, thus allowing broader social perspectives to have greater influence on the design and conduct of R&D and its out-comes (2) Social scientists are expected to learn details of nanotechnologies and theconditions of their emergence, thus allowing them to better elaborate assessments ofsocietal impacts and interact with publics accordingly The rationales underlying thesetwo motivations—the quality of nanotechnological development and the enrollment

col-of social scientists—point in different directions, suggesting tensions between thediverging expectations New collaborations between natural and social scientists willthus be an increasingly important activity and site of inquiry

IV FORESIGHT, ENGAGEMENT, AND INTEGRATION

Whether summoned and enabled by the policy initiatives described above, local publicgroups, or individual research laboratories, STS researchers are “being invited in” (Rip,2006) to engage with NSE in multiple modes and a variety of settings Together, suchendeavors face at least three general challenges: the anticipation and assessment ofnanotechnologies that are in the process of emerging; the engagement of publics thatare mostly still latent; and the integration of broader considerations into R&D con-

texts that have been largely self-governing This section surveys some of the STSresearch inspired by such considerations, while pointing to some of the challenges—both analytic and practical—to STS and its researchers.

Foresight

Although by one count there were in early 2007 more than 350 NSE products in merce (WWIC, 2007), these products alone or in collection offer nothing like the soci-etal transformation promised for nanotechnologies The emergent quality ofnanotechnologies means that many discussions are about potential—often bordering

com-on hype (Berube, 2006)—and therefore many social science interventicom-ons are ically attuned to the future

analyt-The future is diversely manifest as scenarios of use, broader comprehensive visions,sociotechnical scenarios, metaphorical-symbolic expectations, and expectations oftechnoeconomic potentials (Borup & Konrad, 2004) Prominent expectations aboutnanotechnologies run in two directions: toward an elixir for postindustrial ills throughseamless interactions with nature, instantaneous and nonpolluting production, andunprecedented wealth and health (Drexler, 1986; Anton, Silberglitt, & Schneider,2001; Wood, Jones, & Geldart, 2003) and toward an Armageddon wrought by self-replicating nanobots (Joy, 2000) or, more soberly, environmental hazards, unintendedconsequences (Tenner, 2001), shifts in privacy and security (MacDonald, 2004), andgreater economic inequalities (Meridian Institute, 2005) The act of attaching oneself

to the short or the long term, to the mundane or the exotic visions, is often an act ofaffiliation with “serious” science or with science fiction (Selin, 2007) As elixir orarmageddon, the futures of nanotechnologies have become a focus of the popularpress, government programs, and industry analyses

STS investigations in foresight, each with a different theoretical and empiricalapproach, have focused sociological interest on expectations (Selin, 2007; Van Lente,1993; Brown & Michael, 2003), visions (Grunwald, 2004), or “guiding visions” (Meyer

& Kuusi, 2004), future imaginaries (Fujimura, 2003), and emerging irreversibilities (van Merkerk & Rip, 2005) Expectations research often employs actor-network theory (ANT), while Rip’s scenario work draws from co-evolutionary theory (Rip,2005) Lösch’s (2006) investigations into nanotechnology’s futuristic visions argue for discourse theory (e.g., Luhmann, 1995) to crystallize the distributed nature of

“the future” as a means of communication There are also investigations drawing onliterary theory and the role of science fiction in the development of nanotechnolo-gies (Milburn, 2004) and the moral vision of its practitioners (Berne, 2006b) Each

of these perspectives provides its own prescription for what to do analytically withthe future (e.g., trace agency, identify communicative pathways, employ a cultural critique)

There are several distinct approaches to anticipating the longer-term implications

of nanotechnologies: forecasting, public deliberation, scenario development, foresight,and vision assessment Forecasting can be set apart from these other approaches in itsorientation toward accurate predictions and allegiance to technological determinism

However, the methods of forecasting and predictive modeling figure prominently inroadmapping exercises and also address powerful industrial and governmental actors’need for limiting uncertainty (Bunger, forthcoming) The other approaches share amore pluralistic epistemology that suggests multiple futures and intrinsic uncertainty,due at least to the heterogeneous production of technology and society.

Public deliberation exercises often treat the future as a linguistic effect, that is, talkabout the future In 2005, the EU launched a 6th Framework project called Nanologue(2007) in order to “establish a common understanding and to facilitate a Europe-wide dialogue among science, business and civil society about its benefits and poten-tial impacts.” After a mapping and polling exercise, the study created, also throughparticipatory methods, three scenarios which then were circulated in order to helpstructure the debate about responsible innovation The Center for Nanotechnology inSociety at Arizona State University (CNS-ASU) also uses scenarios to help frame debatesabout the societal implications of new technologies Different from the Nanologuescenarios, the CNS-ASU scenarios are co-constructed in a large-scale, virtual formatthrough multiple wiki sites These scenarios serve as inputs for public engagement aswell as for social scientific analysis

While scenarios are often synonymous with foresight, foresight includes suchdiverse methodologies as life cycle assessment, Delphi studies, cross-impact assess-ment, future-oriented bibliometrics, and novel ways of performing technology assess-ment These sorts of interventions are usually strongly linked with technologicalinnovation and seek to integrate reflection with everyday decision making Foresightthus aims to enrich futures-in-the-making by encouraging and developing reflexivity

in the system

Building reflexivity in innovation systems highlights a key feature of ogy foresight: the connection with decision making and governance Sorting throughcertainties and uncertainties and determining viable options need not be idle specu-lations, but can be a means toward prudent action The Danish government, forexample, supported a Green Technology Foresight project (Joergensen et al., 2006) inorder to support its priority setting The project was an unparalleled effort to inter-view and engage a diverse selection of actors working in NSE The United KingdomEconomic and Social Research Council commissioned the James Martin Institute forScience and Civilization to create scenarios about converging technologies whichdescribe alternative trajectories for the development of nanotechnology and areintended to inform ESRC’s research strategy The Woodrow Wilson InternationalCenter also has a foresight and governance project that focuses on the emergence ofnanotechnologies by using scenarios, public deliberation, and risk analysis with a par-ticular eye to effecting policy

nanotechnol-These projects are novel in their focus on early intervention, their use of ologies that have a nuanced relation to futures, and their attempts to allow NSEresearchers to characterize the outcomes of their knowledge production These inter-ventions are thus unique experiments in handling the demands of postnormal science

method-by seeking to build reflexivity through foresight

NSE has only recently become known to wider constituencies as a new nary and cross-sectoral field However, social scientists who have specialized in theanalysis of the Public Understanding of Science and Technology (PUST)—a field thathas developed in the past four decades in the context of contested technologies, start-ing with nuclear power—have already brought to bear on NSE-related issues the vastarray of research instruments on the public perception and acceptance of S&T Even

interdiscipli-so, this research can only portray publics who have a vague idea of nanotechnology(Bainbridge, 2002) Thus the finding that the general public is largely in favor of nano-technology does not necessarily carry much insight, and it is likely to change withfurther development of nanotechnology or with social events (Currall et al., 2006).The same may be true for the correlation between public perception of risks and trust

in regulatory systems (Cobb & Macoubrie, 2004)

As described above, the policy mandates for public involvement in nanotechnology

go beyond opinion polls to more substantive engagement that is consonant with theshift in some of the literature from public understanding of to public engagement inS&T (Lewenstein, 2005a) Thus, new roles for social scientists have been created thatextend beyond the supposedly independent and external analysis of public percep-tions and understandings to new kinds of engagement with publics

Over the last two decades, science museums have become more prominent mediary actors in communicating S&T issues to the public The Science Museum ofLondon, for example, has gained an exemplary prominence in combining its tradi-tional role of exhibiting vast collections of items with a new role of sponsoring andconducting PUST studies, which include experiments with public participation (e.g.,Durant, 1992; Durant, Bauer, & Gaskell, 1998) With the advent of NSE, sciencemuseums have become part of significant efforts to educate and engage the public.The U.S National Science Foundation has committed 20 million dollars over five years

inter-to science museums under the auspices of the Nanoscale Informal Science EducationNetwork (NISE Net), which brings together museum professionals, researchers, andinformal science educators to inform and engage the public about NSE through tra-ditional museum exhibits and less traditional public forums and Internet venues.NSE has also been the site of more direct forms of public participation and engage-ment Nanojury UK, a consensus conference or citizens’ panel held in the UnitedKingdom in 2005, demonstrates a commitment to upstream engagement in nano-technology, where “upstream” means involving the public in detailed activities at atime when they have very little substantive knowledge of the issues (Rogers-Hayden

& Pidgeon, 2006)

In France, public debates have been organized by NGOs and in some cases sored by local officials facing anti-nanotechnology activism For instance, EntreprisesPour l’Environnement (Companies for the Environment) sponsored a so-called

spon-“citizen consultation” in October 2006

In the United States, consensus conferences focusing on nanotechnologies havebeen held in university communities in Wisconsin (Powell & Kleinman, forthcoming)

and North Carolina (Hamlett & Cobb, 2006), and the CNS-ASU is conducting an grated set of six consensus conferences in a National Citizens’ Technology Forum TheCenter for Nanotechnology in Society at the University of California, Santa Barbara(CNS-UCSB) is conducting participatory exercises, as is the University of South Car-olina, and several nano-in-society groups have collaborated with NISE Net in hostingpublic forums Despite the mandate in U.S nanotechnology law for public engage-ment, social science reflection on approaches to and experiences with public engage-ment is more advanced in Europe (Joss & Durant, 1995; Abels & Bora, 2004), wheresuch activities have been part of the toolkit of parliamentary technology assessmentand have been continually pioneered, particularly in the context of biotechnology(e.g., the large-scale GM Nation exercise in the UK [Steering Board, 2003]).

inte-Integration

The anticipatory and engagement exercises described above are meant to be taken upinto ongoing sociotechnical processes to shape their eventual outcomes While numer-ous sites of science and technology governance allow for “sociotechnical integration”

to be observed, facilitated, or affected (Fisher, Mahajan, & Mitcham, 2006), there hasbeen gathering interest in “revisiting” (Doubleday, forthcoming) one of the classicsites of STS scholarship—the laboratory Here, at the myth-laden headwaters of sci-entific knowledge, traditional laboratory studies mingle with more interactiveapproaches and collaborations, as the considerable but often unacknowledged role oflaboratory researchers in implementing and influencing research policies has been cast

as an intricate part of the networks of agency that shape NSE, its technological jectories, and sociotechnical outcomes (Macnaughten, Kearnes, & Wynne, 2005)

tra-As noted, the call for social and natural scientists to work “together in dialog” (Baird,2003) is unique neither to STS nor to nanotechnologies More novel is the provision

of resources by governments to the task—and the opportunities that have in severalcases emerged only as a result of invitations extended by laboratory directors to socialscientists and humanists (e.g., Giles, 2003) In accordance with emerging opportuni-ties, several research, education, and engagement programs have sought to encourage

“prospective and current nanotechnology researchers to engage—in a thoughtful andcritical manner—with [societal] issues as an integral part of their research endeavors”(Sweeney, 2006: 442) The nature of these programs has varied, and some of themoverlap with programs of public engagement, foresight, and imagination and of iden-tifying and analyzing ethical and societal issues What stands out as characterizingmany of these efforts is the interest in increasing the reflexivity of the actors and socialprocesses that comprise the objects of study

Alongside the ethnographic studies of NSE laboratories that have begun to emerge(Glimell, 2003; Kearnes, Macnaghten, & Wilsdon, 2006), several university-based inte-gration-oriented laboratory research projects have also been undertaken (NSTC, 2004)

By and large, such “new ethnographies” (Guston & Weil, 2006) seek to “develop thecapacity of nanoscientists to reflect on the wider societal dimensions of their work”

(Doubleday, 2005) An implicit and in some cases explicit focus on changes in ratory practices resulting from the presence and interactions with social researcherscan be seen in these projects One study documents concrete changes in NSE researchpractices as a result of an iterative protocol for the “modulation” of research decisions(Fisher & Mahajan, 2006b) Another describes the construction of a “trading zone” atthe outset of NSE research that informed the eventual project selection (Gorman,Groves, & Catalano, 2004) Attempts to integrate social and humanistic considerationsinto laboratory and other technoscientific decision processes thus push empiricalscience studies in new directions The act of emphasizing the reflexive elements ofparticipant-observation in laboratory studies is a move toward “ethnographic inter-vention”: the integration of social research into technoscientific research by means ofcollaboratively developed feedback mechanisms that stimulate a more self-criticalapproach to knowledge generation (Fisher, forthcoming).

labo-Integration projects also include private sector partnerships with nongovernmentalorganizations (Demos, 2007; Krupp & Holliday, 2005) Together, laboratory integra-tion projects exhibit three, somewhat overlapping trends: efforts to address environ-mental health and safety considerations (Krupp & Holliday, 2005); efforts aimed atlong-term reflective capacity building, such as creating “citizen scientists” (Kearnes,Macnaughten, & Wilsdon, 2006) or occasioning ethical reflection (Berne, 2006b); andefforts that are able to shape the course of R&D work with respect to broader societalconsiderations (Fisher & Mahajan, 2006b; Gorman, Groves, & Catalano, 2004) Thelatter trend simultaneously suggests new capacities on the part of STS researchers toinfluence sociotechnical processes, and challenges to understand the limits of suchbudding capacity

V AN EMERGING PROGRAM

In light of the policy mandates discussed in section III, the STS research and ment activities described in section IV can be conceived in terms of an emerging yetcoherent program that represents a potentially significant development for STS Such

engage-a progrengage-am is developed engage-at the interfengage-ace of engage-and in close interengage-action with key sociengage-alprocesses that underlie research conduct, policy making, public education, and thecollective anticipation of nanotechnologies In this way, such a program suggests anevolution in the capacity of STS researchers and institutions to act across a broad front

of networks and systems The fact that this development has largely coincided withthe rise of nanotechnology as a cultural and political construct raises opportunitiesand challenges, as well as ironies, for the STS community In this section, we describecharacteristics that are visible within many smaller- and larger-scale STS research andengagement activities We then characterize the emerging program as one of buildingcapacity for anticipatory governance Finally, we consider several questions, motiva-tions, and criticisms that an STS program of this sort will be likely to face in the future

as it co-evolves with other new, emerging, and converging technologies

To characterize these developments in STS occasioned by its engagement with technologies, we employ the concept of a “research ensemble,” a term that Hackettand his colleagues (2004) use in the context of large-scale fusion research According

nano-to Hackett et al (2004: 748), a research ensemble denotes an arrangement of rials, methods, instruments, established practices [ .] ideas, and enabling theories;”such ties are co-produced by researchers and policy makers to connect a research group

“mate-to others both within its own field and beyond, and “influences the group’s mance and the work of its members.” An ensemble so defined helps stage the workthat can be accomplished “through interactions with other groups and with policymakers” (ibid.) We choose this concept—as opposed to others, such as systems, net-works, boundary organizations, configurations, and the like—because of its concretefocus on the interactions between the work of research groups and the wider socialand policy processes that can influence this work

perfor-While we cannot completely theorize the process of “ensemble-ization” here, wemaintain that STS engagement with nanotechnologies reveals something of a trendtoward it in two central respects: the first has to do with relations among the com-ponents of the STS research ensemble, and the second concerns the relation of theensemble to its objects of study In the first case, the plurality of methodologies andactors in various large-scale STS entities represent research ensembles at a scale of coordination, collaboration, and focus hitherto not found in STS The pragmatic mobi-lization of multiple research technologies—foresight, engagement, and integration—around the single problem of the societal aspects of nanotechnologies creates a tightlyarranged, resource-endowed entity that requires coordination, application, and man-agement In this first sense of ensemble-ization, several large-scale STS entities focused

on nanotechnology have begun to surface since the year 2003 Each includes ties focused on anticipation and foresight, public engagement, and sociotechnicalintegration This multi-method, mission-driven, action-oriented research characterizes

activi-a potentiactivi-ally new form of STS reseactivi-arch

Principal examples include the U.S Centers for Nanotechnology in Society at UCSBand ASU and the NanoSoc program in Flanders, Belgium Each is closely related toformal government science policy, and each includes a coordinated set of anticipa-tory, engagement, and integration activities Others, such as the Dutch NanoNedresearch consortium, are part and parcel of government-funded science programs,even if not stemming directly from parliamentary decree Still others, such as thenetwork of STS scholars and activists in the United Kingdom that centers largelyaround Lancaster University and the nongovernmental organization Demos, situatetheir work in the context of statements by policy makers This group has developedthe notion of “upstream public engagement,” used alternative future scenarios withpublics, and studied future imaginaries in laboratory settings

Such research ensembles not only represent the larger-scale coupling and nation of STS researchers and methodologies, but they also embody an increasedability to act They are evolving with respect to their origin and goals, as is particu-

coordi-larly evident with respect to the development of several entities out of or in parallelwith policy mandates Moreover, as shown earlier, both larger and smaller projectsseek to facilitate and even participate in the framing and co-construction of dialogues,agendas, expectations, and—notably—decisions pertaining to nanotechnologicaldevelopment trajectories Thus, STS engagement with nanotechnologies exhibits asecond trend toward ensemble-ization insofar as STS research ensembles seek to inter-act with some of the existing ensembles of science, technology, and policy makingthat have hitherto been isolated from broader societal influences.

For instance, the upstream engagement activities in the United Kingdom that arefocused on the nanoscale are intended to “shape the trajectory of technological devel-opment” (Wilsdon, 2005) Similarly, the NanoNed consortium includes a component

of constructive technology assessment which, like upstream engagement, has longsought to introduce a more extensive and nuanced array of participants in order to

“influence design and technical change” (Schot, 2005) The “real-time technologyassessment” at the core of the CNS-ASU ensemble is a coordinated collection ofapproaches meant “to build into the R&D enterprise itself a reflexive capacity that [ .] allows modulation of innovation paths and outcomes in response to ongoinganalysis and discourse” (Guston & Sarewitz, 2002)

Thus, in the facilitation of interactions, whether among various publics or betweenSTS researchers and various publics, these STS ensembles are aligned with the notion

of constructing and shaping decision processes, research practices, levels of publictrust, and the transparency of policy processes Research ensembles help specify link-ages among research groups that in turn affect the performance and work of suchgroups, thus embodying forms of mediation between science and society As such,they not only can map the “connection between policy and knowledge production”(Hackett et al., 2004: 751), but their alteration and expansion—through STS interventions—can thus shape these very connections

Anticipatory Governance

As we have suggested, the futuristic discourse of nanotechnologies, as well as theirfundamental technical and social uncertainties, requires the cultivation of a societalcapacity for foresight, by which we mean not only formal methodologies but alsomore generalized abilities to bridge the cognitive gap between present and future.Whether through foresight, public engagement exercises, or ethnographic inter-vention, visions and their assessment have played a prominent role in both rep-resentations of and STS research on nanotechnologies The forward-looking, engagement-oriented, and results-seeking characteristics of this STS research distin-guish it from prior work in PUST, ELSI, and observational laboratory studies Thegrowing capacity to act that the ensemble-ization of STS, both in relation to itself and

to its objects of study, builds what we elaborate here as “anticipatory governance”(Guston & Sarewitz, 2002)

Anticipatory governance implies that effective action is based on more than soundanalytical capacities and relevant empirical knowledge: It also emerges out of a

distributed collection of social and epistemological capacities, including collective criticism, imagination, and the disposition to learn from trial and error For, althoughaction and outcomes are emergent qualities of human choice and behavior, theyrarely, if ever, proceed from certainty or prediction, and neither are they based on thesimple intentions of individual actors or policies Rather, as the concept of “anticipa-tion” is meant to indicate, the co-evolution of science and society is distinct from thenotion of predictive certainty In addition, the anticipatory approach is distinct fromthe more reactionary and retrospective activities that follow the production of knowl-edge-based innovations—rather than emerge with them Anticipation implies anawareness of the co-production of sociotechnical knowledge and the importance ofrichly imagining sociotechnical alternatives that might inspire its use.

self-In parallel, the notion of “governance” commonly refers to a move away from atop-down government approach to an approach where management by people andinstitutions becomes possible without detailed and compartmentalized regulationfrom the top (Lyall & Tait, 2005: 3) The activities implicated by the concept of gov-ernance are diverse, ranging from the technological determinism latent in the idea ofnanotechnology as the “next industrial revolution” (NSTC & IWGN, 2000) to theradical expression of technological choice in calls for a moratorium But betweenadapting to a coming revolution and halting development exists an array of govern-ing options: licensing, civil liability, insurance, indemnification, testing, regulation,restrictions on age or other criteria (rather than on ability to pay), labeling, modula-tion of designs and research practices, and so on Some options, like labeling and lifecycle analysis, complement private sector governance by providing more completeinformation necessary for market efficiency Some, like civil liability and indemnifi-cation, distort markets for important reasons of justice or critical technology devel-opment Anticipatory governance seeks to lay the intellectual foundation for (any of)these approaches early enough for them to be effective

Beyond the role of STS ensembles described above, we can cite two additional butstill nascent examples of anticipatory governance: On the macro level, “acceptancepolitics” (Barben, 2006) denotes the political strategies and practices concerned with influencing the public acceptance of controversial phenomena like nanotech-nologies and thus the choice of governance mechanisms For example, many actorsinvolved in NSE perceive biotechnology and particularly genetically modified organisms as the strategic background against which to shape public acceptance

or rejection (e.g., Mehta, 2004; David & Thompson, forthcoming) On the micro level, “midstream modulation” (Fisher, Mahajan, & Mitcham, 2006) refers to thedemonstrated phenomenon of a nanoscale engineering research group to adjust itsown practices according to broader “upstream” and “downstream” societal contexts,principally as a result of observing decision processes and imagining additional tech-nical alternatives

Anticipatory governance comprises the ability of a variety of lay and expert holders, both individually and through an array of feedback mechanisms, to collec-tively imagine, critique, and thereby shape the issues presented by emerging

stake-technologies before they become reified in particular ways Anticipatory governanceevokes a distributed capacity for learning and interaction stimulated into presentaction by reflection on imagined present and future sociotechnical outcomes STSresearchers, projects, and subfields are being tethered together and linked to the con-texts they seek to study with the aim of incrementally building the capacity to morebroadly anticipate and participate in shaping things to come.

Opportunities, Challenges, and Ironies

Insofar as the policy mandates implicitly rely on STS tenets and expertise, they present

a clear opportunity for the STS community to reconceive if not reinvent forms of sight, engagement, and integration (Macnaughten, Kearnes, & Wynne, 2005) At thesame time, the opportunity challenges the community, raising questions of its growingcapability to participate more directly and intentionally in shaping sociotechnicalchange—as well as dilemmas about how far to go in seeking to influence change andpitfalls of ill-conceived approaches to anticipation (Williams, 2006)

fore-Each arena we have examined—foresight, engagement, and integration—sets ticular obstacles for researchers In following the future-oriented discourse of NSE, forexample, there is a risk of avoiding or downplaying the present by centering debate

par-in the future That is, many of the societal issues posed by nanotechnologies, par-ing questions of equality, privacy, and human enhancement, can be meaningfullyframed in the present as well The choice of concentrating on future scenarios ratherthan on current practices bears a similar ethical burden as the choice to investresources on “transformative” research rather than to address current ills Moreover,talk about the future, whether connected to analytical projects, participatory experi-ments, or scenario-building collaborations with NSE researchers demands that STSresearchers be involved explicitly in the construction of possible futures Because antic-ipation is performative, there is no sidestepping this responsibility (as opposed to, say,Gieryn’s [1995] prescription regarding boundary work that good constructivists watch

includ-it rather than do includ-it)

With regard to engagement exercises, the concept of acceptance politics raises thespecter of the cooptation of STS research for the purpose of legitimating nanotech-nologies and pacifying publics In conducting participatory investigations into thefuture of NSE, STS researchers must create constructive links with relevant stakehold-ers, thus raising the question that the researchers must answer: Who are the carriers

of legitimate or authorized visions of nanotechnological futures?

Finally, integration demands a sophisticated balancing of scholarly objectives, thepolitics of the laboratory, and the prospects for progressive alteration of the researchagenda and its anticipated outcomes The responsibilities of the participant-observer,whether “lab-based sociologist” or “embedded humanist,” are likely to be differentwhen the context of the research is a laboratory setting within a larger shared com-munity, university, political system, and culture, as opposed to a geographically andculturally distant setting Further, episodes that are not necessarily part of the envi-sioned “sociotechnical integration”—for example, the mistreatment of animal or

human research subjects, research misconduct, intellectual property disputes, and thelike—may surprise the participant-observer, creating conflicts of commitment evenwithin a framework that incorporates a concept of the public good In seeking to influ-ence policy and decision making, even in as innocuous a setting as the laboratory, STSresearchers subject themselves to being influenced in a heightened way.

How can STS scholarship respond to the rather generous invitations from policymakers to partake in creating the future of nanotechnologies while both retaining itscritical perspective and avoiding falling prey to Winner’s critique of academic dis-tance? To what end does STS participate in the normatively charged contexts it seeks

to describe, and at what cost to its academic integrity and credibility?

Such questions have provoked periodic self-critical reflections (e.g., Fuller, 2005) andinjunctions (Jasanoff, 1999) They are reminiscent of the concern, voiced in Winner’scongressional testimony, that previous ELSI research may have been co-opted by itspatrons Importantly, the question of acting to what end presents both normative andpragmatic challenges The challenges of understanding what “socially desirable” goalsare and assessing whether present arrangements are likely to produce desired resultssurface long-standing debates in the STS community about the role of researchers ininfluencing their objects of study These concerns have also been expressed in lan-guage of the “entanglement” of social and humanist researchers with nanotechnol-ogy programs Having been invited to consider nanotechnology, they lend weight andcredibility to an otherwise “malleable, plastic, and elusive” notion that embodies aparticular set of agendas: “if [nanotechnology] has social impact, it must be real”(Nordmann, 2006)

Ironically, as STS becomes better endowed with resources, more highly coordinated,and more entangled within innovation systems, it becomes more like its objects ofstudy In developing ensembles with the ability to anticipate, engage, and integrate,STS researchers become more visible and significant participants in their own right,and—perhaps for the first time—instruments of governance themselves

Note

Authors listed alphabetically except the final author This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under cooperative agreement #0531194 Any opinions, findings, andconclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation

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