Experts, Information and Political Improvement: A Professional Development Award in Studies in Science, Technology and Society

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This one year, full-time award enables a physicist who directs the Carleton College Technology Policy Project to develop his understanding of the relationships between access to information and new information technologies and political power and influence. He will spend a year at the University of California at San Diego, working with two host scholars. Political scientist Sanford Lakoff studies the interaction of science and government; Herbert York, director emeritus of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, is an experienced government servant and international negotiator on arms control and other technology/society issues. Professor Lakoff will guide Professor Casper's study and analysis of concepts in democratic theory such as "political accountability" and "public right to know," and consideration of how such concepts might be operationalized. Professor York will guide his study and analysis of how scientists have both empowered and legitimated, and disempowered and delegitimated citizen involvement. The project will place particular emphasis on important new roles for colleges and universities in providing citizens access to information and expertise. Among the concrete products of the project will be a series of articles and a book, tentatively titled Experts, Information and Political Empowerment. This project addresses a central issue in ethics and values studies: the social values and mutual obligations and responsibilities that arise in the interactions between scientists, engineers, and citizens. The investigator and his host specialists and host institution are uniquely well-qualified to undertake and support this project; research and related activities are likely to continue after the period of the award. Results are likely to be appropriately disseminated and useful. An award in the amount ofd $43,000 is therefore recommended.