Political Machines: Governing a Technological Society 9781474213110

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Research for this book took place in Brussels, Luxembourg, London, Paris, Rome, Milan, and Berkshire and Devon in Southern England. Working in many different places and institutions depends a great deal on both the local knowledge and practical help of others. My thanks, for their hospitality and understanding, to Daniele Archibugi, Richard Hering, Julio Etchart, Anna Hansell, Lucy Sadler, Gordon Lake, Robert Magnaval, Anders Hingel, Andrew Testa, Michel Callon, Jim Dratwa and Stephen Johnston. Thanks t o Dick Holdsworth and the Office of Scientific and Technological Options Assessment (STOA) a t the European Parliament for allowing me to use the STOA offices while carrying out research in Brussels. Financial support from the 'European Context of UK Science policy' programme of the Economic and Social Research Council (L 323253001) is gratefully acknowledged. Thanks also to the Department of History and Philosophy of Science in Cambridge for making me an associate of the Department and, in doing so, encouraging me to think about this research in a different context. Many of the chapters of this book have been presented as seminar papers. My thanks, in particular, to Mark Elam, John Law, Steve Hinchcliffe, Simon Schaffer, Hacer Ansal, Yvonne Rydin and George Myerson for their invitations and the suggestiveness of their responses. Thanks also to Sharon Macdonald, Roger Silverstone, Grahame Thompson, Annemarie Mol and Steve Brown for their helpful comments on individual chapters which have been and will be published in other forms elsewhere, and to Bruno Latour for inviting me to a meeting of the Eurometrics project in 1990, from which the idea for a book on Europe's technology eventually developed. During the writing of this book I have been extremely fortunate to be working in the Sociology Department at Goldsmiths College. For their humour and inspiration thanks to Don

THE TECHNICAL AND THE POLITICAL

A

TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY

In a lecture at the London School of Economics in November 1997, Mme Edith Cresson, the then European Commissioner for Science, Research and Development and former French Socialist Prime Minister, spoke of the need to move 'towards a knowledge-based Europe'. The theme is a familiar one in European and North American political life. EuroAmerican political and social elites have long reckoned that knowledge and expertise are critical to the conduct of government, while European identity has historically been associated with notions of enlightenment, science and invention.' But if Cresson's talk repeated familiar themes it gave them a particular contemporary twist. One theme was technology and training. Whereas in the past, education might have been thought of as a one-off affair, a process of apprenticeship, the rapidity of technological change demanded a different attitude. 'Knowledge and skills become obsolete and must continually be refreshed." Societies and individuals must be prepared to re-tool, adapt and update. Technical innovation continued apace and neither individuals nor societies could afford to be left behind. The other strand was the threat of what she termed globalisation.3 Europe had, she noted, both an aging population and, as a proportion of the world's population, a declining one. At the same time new actors on the international scene such as India (in software), China (in biotechnology) and Brazil (in aeronautics) were beginning to compete in those knowledge-based industries in which Europe had traditionally had a competitive advantage. It was not so much a question of a declining relative population, but a declining proportion of the number of technologically equipped persons; a fragile technological culture. In the

2 TECHNOLOGICAL ZONES

TECHNOSCAPES

In his essay 'Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy', Arjun Appadurai makes a distinction between what he terms technoscapes, mediascapes, financescapes, ethnoscapes and ideoscapes. These refer to the spaces and lines of flow of technologies, media images, capital and persons respectively. The shape and the topology of such spaces are not objectively given. For they d o not 'look the same from every angle of vision, but rather . .. they are perspectival constructs, inflected very much by the historical, linguistic and political situatedness of different sorts of actors'.' In these circumstances any image is necessarily refracted and partial. Appadurai's essay is intended to alert us to the complexity of such 'scapes' and the problematic character of any claim to knowledge of a global society.2 Nonetheless, he is prepared to make two historical assertions. First, that there are significant disjunctures between such spaces. The space of flows of TV or film images is quite different to the space of flows of computer software, for example, although they may intersect and interact in diverse ways. The movements of international capital may effect the global movement of labour, and yet have their own specificity. Second, in Appadurai's account, movement within such spaces has become increasingly rapid. In short, 'people, machinery, money, images, and ideas now follow increasingly non-isomorphic paths . .. the sheer speed, scale and volume of each of these flows is now so great that the disjunctures have become central to the politics of global culture'.' Appadurai's distinctions between the various spaces of migration, media flow and so on are, no doubt, provisional and ideal-typical. However, his account does raise two important sets of questions. First,

3 HARMONISEB STATES

STANDARDS

Prior to the twentieth century, standards of measurement were often set by reference to a physical object. When, in 1785, General Roy began his systematic geographical survey of the United Kingdom at Hampton Poor House ten miles south-west of London he purchased a 42 inch brass measure which originally had been divided into inches in 1742. The length of the first 36 inches of Roy's scale were calibrated against a yard measure maintained by the Royal Society in Westminster at exactly 65 degrees ~ahrenheit.'The Royal Society yard was in effect the standard on which the geographical coordinates of the Kingdom were determined. Roy's interest in geographical measurement stemmed from his experience of military service in Scotland during the Jacobite war in 1745. He reckoned that the existence of a common and precise system of geographical coordinates would make it possible for the Kingdom to be ruled more effectively and for its territory to be made secure. Roy was not alone in his recognition of the importance of precision measurement. As the work of Norton Wise, Ian Hacking and other historians of science suggests, measurement and quantification were viewed increasingly as a critical instrument for government in the late eighteenth and nineteenth c e n t ~ r i e s . ~ Today, measurement standards are established on a different basis. Contemporary measurement standards do not refer to an object, but to an event which can be replicated under specified experimental condit i o n ~ The . ~ introduction of this system has political implications. For whereas General Roy juxtaposed his brass measure against an object held at the offices of Royal Society, the deployment of the new experimental standard redistributes the competencies of relevant parties. The contemporary equivalents of General Roy do not need to go to the Royal Society to inspect the Royal yard. They refer to the work of particular

4 O N THE

A

NETWORK

NETWORK

SOCIETY

The network has become a critical term in contemporary political and economic life. Firms and bureaucratic organisations are reckoned to be increasingly connected through networks.' Scientific research is said to be conducted less and less in autonomous institutions of pure research or vast centralised public facilities, and more and more in collaborative networks which cut across the distinctions between the pure and the applied, the public and the private, the academic and the c o m m e r c i a ~ . ~ The organisation of local and central government is said to take an no longer work within single increasingly network form."rofessionals organisations over long periods of time but manage a network of relations with many. Social movements and 'life-style' groups are thought to act as network^.^ And technical devices from electronic personal organisers, to mobile phones, to the Internet are expected to help individuals and organisations to manage the networks they inhabit and create. How can we account for the prevalence of the network, as a metaphor and a model of individual and collective life today? With which political doctrines is it associated? What political problems is the term intended to address? What objects and agents does it draw together and to what purpose? In responding to these questions this chapter develops three arguments. First, I argue that it would be a mistake to view the network as the symbol of a particular political project. For the network model has become common across a broad range of political opinion, and deployed in association with what might appear to be quite contradictory political strategies." Networks are thought to provide, for example, the conceptual and organisational basis of a mode of government which does not

5 INTELLECTUAL PROPERTIES

AN

INVENTIVE

SOCIETY

European scientists and engineers, it is often said, are very good at invention; less good at protecting and exploiting what they have invented. Europe should be both guilty and proud. Proud of the number of the Nobel prizes that have been won over the years. Guilty about the technological failure of some of its industries.' This common moral tale says a great deal about the importance of intellectual property in a technological society. Inventive activity has a critical place in accounts of what it is to be European. And Europeans reckon that their inventive activity .~ is considered an investment, should be rewarded in the f u t ~ r eInvention and the claims to intellectual property protect that investment. As such the notion that there are rights to intellectual property (IPR) has had a economic and a moral justification.' The economy benefits due to the moral activities of its individual members. In these circumstances, the acquisition of intellectual property is an increasingly key objective: whether for the industrial corporation, the nation or the university laboratory.4 In the nineteenth century, a measure of population was often used as an indicator of national well-being.' By contrast, today, measures of research and development activity, innovation and intellectual capital have been turned into one of the clearest indicators of the health and creative productivity of the economy.6 The failure to be innovative, and hence the failure to modernise, is a moral one. Measurement of innovative activity serves to reveal the failure, and establish a basis for its solution.' Of course, along with other claims to property, claims to intellectual property circumscribe the conditions under which others have access: ordering and reordering technological connections and borders; establishing what can be used where, by whom, and in what situations. Rights

ON

INTERACTIVITY

TECHNOLOQlCAL CITIZENSHIP

Much has been said in recent years about the declining rates of political participation t o be found in Western liberal democracies, whether on the basis of measures of voting o r the membership of political parties or civic associations. In this context, many intellectuals and politicians have called for a revival and a reworking of a classical ideal of citizenship; an idea which is taken to imply not just a set of political and social rights, but also a set of responsibilities and duties. According to political philosophers and sociologists to be a citizen today entails accepting a moral demand to be active in, and informed about, public life.' However, such a tough morality does not come naturally. Active, responsible and informed citizens have to be made. As David Burchell has argued, modern political philosophy, 'neglects the positive construction of the persona of the citizen, both as an historical process and a social fact'.2 In this chapter I argue that the relation between technology and contemporary forms of active and responsible citizenship has two dimensions. On the one hand, as I argue later in the chapter, interactive and networked technologies have come to be seen as a key resource in the making up of citizens. New technology is reckoned by many to play a critical part in the revitalisation of democracy, in its various forms. This is a period of a remarkable investment by many political and educational organisations in new technology. Interactive technology is expected to produce active citizens.' O n the other hand, along with a reinvention of ideal of active political citizenship and the technological investment with which it has come to be associated, one can also talk about a moral preoccupation with the importance of scientific and technological citizenship. Today, the individual citizen is increasingly expected, and increasingly expects, to make his or her own judgements about scientific

7 POLITICAL CHEMISTRY

I N F O R M A T I O N

One of the characteristic features of contemporary government is the extraordinary range and quantity of information that citizens and institutions are expected to process: informatiori on the likely effects of common drugs and foods on the body; information on the benefits of certain courses of treatment or forms of education; information on the state of the roads, the airports and public transport; information on the quality of services provided by hospitals and schools. The citizen or the consumer is expected to be continuously informed, updated on developments and potential difficulties and possibilities. Such information is much more than raw scientific data. First, the production of information is often linked to practices of government and self-government. As Marilyn Strathern argues, information generally has regulatory effects.' Its existence is thought to imply a transformation in the conduct of those who are, or who should be, informed. Information does not merely exist; it demands (immediate) attention. lgnoring information which is made available is reckoned to be either misjudged or willful. Information is practical and technical in its form and performative in its function. Information is never merely scientific data, if by scientific data we mean sets of numbers and facts about the natural or social world which have been abstracted from their specific conditions of production and reception. The very concept of information implies a reader who should be informed. It is a moral as well as a technical concept. Second, the production of information has complex and often unexpected implications for those engaged in its production. To render an object in the specific form of information is likely to involve a multitude of different scientific procedures and innovations, political negotiations and compromises, regulatory arrangements, technical standardisations,

DEMONSTRATIONS: SIGHTS AND SITES

GOVERNMENT

A N D

OPPOSITION

In this book I have sought to be irreductionist about the conduct of government. First, following the work of Michel Foucault, I have not sought to reduce the study of government to the question of the state, but rather understood government as a set of practices and technologies of governing which operate across distinctions between state and market. Second, following the arguments of Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and others I have sought to be irreductionist about the materiality of government. Government does not rely just on the conduct and properties of persons, but on the actions of a whole array of technical objects from pollution-monitoring devices to interactive media. Today, government has come to take a particular technical form, and many political, economic and cultural institutions have become preoccupied by the potential of new technologies. The production of new technologies and artefacts has come to be seen to be an increasing part of the solution to the problems of government, and the very language of governing has increasingly drawn freely from the conceptual vocabulary of new technology. But if government is such a technical matter then what of contemporary political protest? If we need to rethink what is involved in government today, then how might we rethink the conduct of political action and 'resistance'? Is resistance simply opposed to power? One of the accusations often directed against the work of Foucault and Callon and Latour is that whereas their analyses have much to tell us about the importance of technology to the exercise of political power, they have little to say about political action or political conflict, or the actions of those who are excluded. In responding to these accusations, this chapter aims to show how might one be irreductionist not just about the conduct

CONCLUSIONS: POLITICAL INVENTION

REVOLUTION

In his study of the significance of engineering in the French Revolution, Ken Alder notes that the relation between engineering and revolution is in one sense unsurprising. For 'after all, in the broadest sense, engineering is perhaps the quintessential revolutionary activity'. 'In principle', he notes, 'engineering operates on a simple but radical assumption: that the present is nothing more than the raw material from which to construct the future.' The French Revolution can itself, according to Alder, be 'understood as a vast engineering project'.1 One of the preoccupations of engineers in late eighteenth-century France was with what Alder calls the 'uniformity project'. This was not just manifested in the interest of the technocratic elite in the promotion of the standardised metric system of measurement, a system which, as Alder notes elsewhere, was 'deliberately crafted' in order to break the political economy of the Old ~ e ~ i mItewas . ~ also expressed in the detailed design of technical artefacts and their process of manufacture. Alder himself focuses on one important example, the artillery cannon, and the attempt by engineers to promote novel methods of production involving the design of interchangeable parts. This was a challenge to contemporary artisanal modes of manufacture. The attempt, which long-predated the twentieth century 'Fordist' system of production, failed. Technical change was resisted. The French State, which had 'initiated the program of interchangeable production at the end of the eighteenth century, repudiated it in the early nineteenth century'.3 Alder's study is a timely reminder of the critical part that has been played by technology in modern political enterprise. Technology is not merely one subdivision of government, to be studied by specialists in science and technology policy and historians of technology. Rather,

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Arrangement

Diagram Entity

Government

Innovation Invention and anti-invention

Political and anti-political

An ordering of social and natural entities including language, persons, money, buildings, legal rules and technical devices. Within the context of an arrangement, technologies have a value and purpose. Arrangements may be more or less stabilised or contested. A model for the formation of an arrangement ('disciplinary diagram', 'interactive diagram', etc.). Any social or natural actor which has a role as part of an arrangement. Entities are historical realities in so far as their identity and properties depend on their environment (i.e. on their existence within a mutating arrangement with other entities). Except in specific cases the concept of government does not refer to an institution ('the government') but to practices of governing which may be exercised by the public authorities, institutions or individual persons on themselves o r others. Technical change, which may be more or less evolutionary or radical. An index of the degree to which a technological or political change opens up the space of possibility. Technical change may be anti-inventive in its implications to the extent that it displaces o r blocks off other possibilities. An index of the degree to which a problem or object is open to contestation and dissensus. In this sense scientific arguments can be political in the sense that they open up a space for dissensus. Conversely political projects and ideologies can be anti-political to the