Dissertation Research: Governmental Decision-Making and Uncertainty: A study of the AIDS Epidemic in South Africa and India

这篇发表在《科学、工程和技术社会学》上的科学与社会论文研究改进补助金将比较印度和南非的艾滋病政策和政治，以提出一个问题：为什么这些后殖民的经济发展中国家在政策中往往突出科学的不确定性，往往违反国际科学共识？这些国家是如何构建科学不确定性的意义和意义的？对不确定性的重视如何改变了国家的政治权力？为了回答这些问题，本论文的研究将考察1994-2004年印度和南非艾滋病政策中的一系列争论和争议。最具戏剧性的一次是在1999年，南非总统塔博·姆贝基质疑艾滋病毒是否真的是艾滋病的原因，震惊了世界。虽然他并没有完全拒绝艾滋病毒致因理论，但他强调，围绕艾滋病的科学仍然存在很大的不确定性，疾病的原因尚未得到最终确定。在这场声势浩大的争议之前和之后，围绕南非政府艾滋病政策的一些较小规模的辩论一直并在继续。在印度，在同一时期，还发生了其他事件，尽管远没有那么戏剧性，但政府在这些事件中突出了科学上的不确定性。一个突出的例子是，政府质疑在其他国家广泛使用的预防艾滋病毒母婴传播的药物的有效性。将结合访谈和纪录片资源对这些辩论进行调查。南非的实地考察工作目前正在进行中，预计将于2005年12月完成。美国国家科学基金会申请了在印度进行实地考察的学位论文改进补助金。这项研究将寻求通过考察科学与民族国家的关系如何受到后殖民主义和经济发展的必要性的影响来扩展科学研究的学术研究。它的学术价值还在于它的两个国家的比较分析，即科学不确定性的论述不仅受到影响，而且还改变了国家权力和政治。联合国估计，已有2000多万人死于与艾滋病有关的疾病。世界上没有任何地方的疫情比南非和印度更大，南非估计有530万艾滋病毒感染者，印度估计有510万感染者。(艾滋病规划署，2004年)这项研究的更广泛影响将在于它有助于了解围绕这一大规模流行病的宏观政治和政策动态。

This Science and Society Dissertation Research Improvement Grant in the Social Studies of Science, Engineering and Technology will compare AIDS policies and politics in India and South Africa to ask the question: why have these postcolonial, economically developing nations often foregrounded scientific uncertainty in their policies, often going against international scientific consensus? How have these states constructed the meaning and significance of scientific uncertainty? How has the emphasis on uncertainty transformed state political power? To answer these questions, the dissertation research will investigate a series of debates and controversies in India's and South Africa's AIDS policies from 1994 to 2004. In the most dramatic instance, in 1999, the South African president Thabo Mbeki shocked the world by questioning whether the virus HIV was truly the cause of AIDS. While not outright rejecting the HIV-causation theory, he stressed that there were still big uncertainties in the science around AIDS and the cause of the disease had not been conclusively determined. Before and since that spectacular controversy, a number of smaller debates have surrounded and continue to surround the South African government's AIDS policies. In India, in the same time period, there have been other, albeit far less dramatic, incidents in which the government has foregrounded scientific uncertainty. In a prominent example, the government questioned the efficacy of drugs widely used in other countries to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission. These debates will be investigated using a combination of interviews and documentary resources. Fieldwork in South Africa is currently underway and is expected to be completed by December 2005. The NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant is being requested for fieldwork in India. This research will seek to extend Science Studies scholarship by examining how the relationship of science and the nation-state is affected by postcoloniality and the imperatives of economic development. Its intellectual merit will additionally lie in its two-nationcomparative analysis of how a discourse of scientific uncertainty is not only affected by butalso transforms state power and politics. The United Nations estimates that more than 20 million people have already died from AIDS-related illnesses. Nowhere in the world is the epidemic larger than in South Africa, which has an estimated 5.3 million HIV-infected people, and in India, which has an estimated 5.1 million infected people. (UNAIDS 2004) The broader impact of this research will lie in its contribution to understanding the macropolitical and policy dynamics around this massive epidemic.