Why and How Technology Matters

Technology matters. Bicycles were instrumental in the political and social emancipation of women (Bijker 1995); photo and film technology induced a subtle form of apartheid (Wajcman 2005); nuclear arms and energy shaped, for example through the non-proliferation treaty, international relations since the 1950s (Smit 2005); the low-hanging overpasses on Long Island discourage since the 1920s the presence of buses on the parkways, thus preventing public transport to the prestigious Long Beach public park (Winner 1980). Politics matters too, to understand technology’s development. The refrigerator got its hum (that is: is now driven by electricity rather than gas) because of the political power play between American electricity and gas utilities in the 1920s (Cowan 1983); gender politics resulted in the contraceptive Pill rather than the male pill (Wajcman 2005; Oudshoorn 2003); the technical development of anti-ballistic missile systems can only be understood by analyzing the dynamics of the international political relations between the US and the USSR (Smit 2005); the Long Island overpasses are deliberately low, because of the racial and social segregation polic

Dikes and Dams, Thick with Politics

Things are thick with politics. This essay illustrates the point by focusing on a variety of technologies that help to manage water: anicuts and tanks in India, dikes and a storm surge barrier in the Netherlands, and levees in New Orleans. Technologies are not only shaped by political forces; they also exert political force themselves: on social stratification in Indian villages or on government stability in the Netherlands. We should recognize, then, that the functioning of technologies and the functioning of societies are intricately linked. The essay traces this interlinking by using the concept of "technological culture." It argues that the different styles of coastal engineering in the United States and in the Netherlands can be explained by differences in their technological cultures, particularly the different styles of risk handling. This conclusion is then applied to the Indian case and to issues of development, democracy, and innovation