The Politics of Environmental Risk: Perceptions of Risk Assessment in the State Legislatures

As state governments increasingly turn to the process of quantitative risk assessment to set environmental policy, the question of what state lawmakers know and believe about risk and the risk assessment process has become critical. The perceptions of state legislators may affect their decisions about a wide range of environmental conflicts, from funding water treatment facilities to siting hazardous waste incinerators. This article reports the results of a nationwide survey of state legislators and their staff that explored their intuitive understanding of environmental risk and risk assessment. The survey revealed strong support for the use of risk assessment by most state lawmakers, but significant differences, by gender and political affiliation, in perceptions of the risks from chemicals, the value of risk assessment for setting environmental policies, and the environmental risks faced by racial minorities.     

The Technology of the Gibbet

The practice of “hanging in chains” or gibbeting had been part of the punitive repertoire of the English and Welsh judicial system for centuries before the 1751–52 Murder Act specified it as one of two mandatory post-mortem punishments for murderers. The practice was not abolished until 1834. This article considers the technical and design features of the gibbet cage, through an exhaustive survey and catalogue of their surviving remains. It notes that, given the comparative rarity of hanging in chains, no chronological or regional traditions of design are evident in this kind of artifact, since blacksmiths were individually solving the problem of fulfilling the necessary functions of a gibbet cage without knowledge of previous examples and under great time pressure. The technology of the gibbet shows how state directives intersected with geographical discretion in the creation of idiosyncratic local solutions.     

Fearing Food: The Influence of Risk Perceptions on Public Preferences for Uniform and Centralized Risk Regulation

Public opinion features prominently in policy research because it sets bounds on the definition of policy problems and acceptable policy solutions. We contend that public opinion is also important for setting bounds on the level of government at which policy hazards are regulated by shaping preferences for uniformity of regulation and, relatedly, preferences for centralization. We offer a theoretical argument for why risk creates pressures for uniform standards and examine the extent to which preferences for uniformity and centralization are the product of fairly stable individual-level predispositions (e.g. partisanship and ideology) versus more fluid attitudes like perceptions of risk, which vary in response to crises, new information, and issue framing. We test our argument using survey data in the policy domain of food safety and find that individuals who anticipate greater risk from food-borne illness prefer more uniform food safety regulation, which translates into preferences for federal-level policymaking. Our results imply that contextual circumstances and strategic communications that influence risk perceptions can create not only generalized public demand for more regulatory policy but specific demand for uniform, centralized regulation.     

The Politics of International Technology Transfer

Technology transfer is well recognized as a major determinant in the economic development of newly industrializing countries. Increasingly, technology transfer is also recognized as an important component in the economic fortunes of developed countries. The globalization of markets and the premium placed on technological sophistication in industry and services emphasizes the need for governments to consider and engage in technology transfer policy strategies. Our understanding of the dynamics of technology transfer can be enhanced through the study of the experiences of specific states. It is against this backdrop that this paper presents an analysis of technology transfer patterns from the United States and Japan to South Korea from 1962 through 1992. The Korean experience reveals that patterns of technology transfer cannot be explained simply by concentrating on what has been transferred from donor countries, such as the United Slates and Japan. Rather, we need to turn our focus to the host country and to the policy strategies that have been adopted to shape patterns of technology transfer. In short, the question turns from the economics of what, to the policies of how, technology transfer is accomplished.     

The Politics of Citizen Access Technology

This article uses comparative case studies to examine the political shaping of public Information utilities developed by American local governments. These public access computer networks are designed lo facilitate access to community information and dialogue. We view technology design as analogous to developing public policy on citizen participation, where the "legislation" is imbedded in the technological design. Research sites included three adopter cities, Santa Monica, Pasadena, and Glendale, California, and one nonadopter city, Irvine. This comparison highlights key technology-policy choices (including the choice of not developing this application). Our analysis then examines the role of technological paradigms, local political cultures, and organizational arrangements in shaping municipal approaches to addressing these key policy choices.     

导游员道德危险的防范与控制

导游员的道德危险是近年来困扰着旅行社行业的一个严重问题,本文分析其道德危险的表现形式及其产生的原因,指出其危害,并提出防范和控制导游员道德危险的建议.     

When Policy Goes Wrong: The Problem of Transmitted Risk

Why do policies fail? There are many answers to this question, and many ways of answering it. In this paper, we use the tools of policy framing and systems thinking to investigate two recent Australian examples of public policy failure, each involving a different policy milieu and time-span. We show that, in both these cases, unintended consequences arose because governments lost control of the implementation process while remaining politically accountable for the outcomes. We develop the concept of transmitted risk to show how this occurred. We argue that governments expose themselves to this kind of risk when they make policy decisions involving a combination of excessive incentives and poorly controlled third parties.     

The Philosophy of Technology: A Review

Abstract

The continuous technological progress since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution seemed to confirm the Rationalists and the optimism of the Age of Enlightenment. This is no longer so. In this review new lines of enquiry into this change are discussed, and various philosophical features and traditions are explored. It proves difficult to define ‘technology’; the philosophy of science and its methodology are considered, mind and machines are contrasted and the review concludes with a consideration of the arguments put forward for metaphysical interpretations of technology.     

我国风险投资业的发展障碍与对策

风险投资在现代经济发展中起着举足轻重的作用,我国高新技术产业的发展迫切需要风险投资来推动。目前我国的风险投资业还处于摸索、哺育阶段,它在发展过程中面临着一系列的障碍。针对存在问题,借鉴国外经验,章就如何发展我国的风险投资提出了一些对策思路。     

城市社会风险的危害及其治理

城市化的快速推进,致使城市容纳能力后天发育相对不足,从而对城市的整体安全形成潜在的威胁。对于城市社会风险的治理与防范,需建立起双向沟通的互动合作风险治理模式,在政府、企业、社区、非营利组织之间构筑起共同治理风险的整体性治理机制。     

遗传基因技术与三峡考古实践

遗传基因技术是新兴起的前沿学科领域,将这一方法应用于三峡考古的实践在国内还是首次。本通过对重庆库区石地磅汉代墓地出土人类遗骨基因的采样、测试和分辨,得出了墓主人可能是南方土居民初步认识,这一认识与考古类型学分析结果可以互证。     

The Structural and Functional Complexity of Hunter-Gatherer Technology

The complexity of hunter-gatherer technology has been measured by counting artifact parts or production steps. There are a variety of alternative approaches to the measurement of artifact or system complexity. If technological complexity is assumed to reflect the complexity of the problem (or amount of entropy reduction) that the artifact is designed to address, the most appropriate measure of technological complexity is functional design complexity, which entails application of the entropy formula from information theory to the making and using of an artifact and the results obtained by its use. Functional complexity is related to structural or hierarchical complexity, because the entropy formula can be represented as a hierarchy (or step-by-step reduction of entropy) and the functional differentiation is related to the structural differentiation of an artifact. Another approach to hunter-gatherer technological complexity entails definition of a class of “complex artifacts” on the basis of general design characteristics (e.g., incorporation of moving parts). The most structurally and functionally complex artifacts are those that possess multiple states, either through changes in the physical relationship between parts (or sub-parts) during use or through structural differentiation. Although functional complexity is difficult to measure, structural or hierarchical complexity may be measured—and multiple-state artifacts may be counted—with adequate ethnographic and archaeological data on hunter-gatherer technology.     

The Social Role of Technology in Coastal Alaska

Novel technologies linked to women and men through identity-demarcated tasks and knowledge sets can potentially have differential and even long-term effects on each group. This study follows the trajectory of two significant imports into the coastal western Alaskan system, the firearm and the metal cook pot. These imports had different implications for coastal Yup’ik women and men, young and old. Over time the gun became an integral piece of a man’s tool kit and one that had the potential to boost production and thus a man’s access to status-building. However, these same tools had the potential to undermine the apprenticeship system of male authority. Likewise, the metal cook pot replaced the productive oversight and skill set of elder women’s ceramic production but created paths of independence for younger Yup’ik women. These changes in technology destabilized relative balances of gender and age based status, security, and authority and fashioned new gender and age based social and economic opportunities and limitations.