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

论文研究：政府决策和不确定性：南非和印度艾滋病流行研究

• 批准号: 0551463
• 负责人: Stephen Hilgartner
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: Cornell University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-02-01 至 2007-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0551463&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Dissertation; Research; Governmental; Decision; Making

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.

科学、工程和技术社会研究的科学与社会论文研究改进基金将比较印度和南非的艾滋病政策和政治，并提出这样一个问题：为什么这些后殖民、经济发展中国家经常在其政策中强调科学的不确定性，经常违背国际科学共识？这些状态是如何构建科学不确定性的意义和重要性的？对不确定性的强调如何改变了国家的政治权力？为了回答这些问题，本文的研究将调查1994年至2004年印度和南非艾滋病政策中的一系列争论和争议。最戏剧性的例子发生在1999年，南非总统塔博·姆贝基（Thabo Mbeki）质疑艾滋病毒是否真的是艾滋病的病因，震惊了世界。虽然他没有完全否定hiv致病理论，但他强调，围绕艾滋病的科学研究仍存在很大的不确定性，这种疾病的病因尚未得到最终确定。在这场引人注目的争论之前和之后，围绕着南非政府的艾滋病政策，有许多较小的争论一直在继续。在同一时期，印度也发生了其他一些事件，尽管远没有那么引人注目，但政府强调了科学的不确定性。在一个突出的例子中，政府质疑其他国家广泛使用的预防母婴艾滋病毒传播的药物的功效。这些辩论将使用采访和文献资源的组合进行调查。目前正在南非进行实地调查，预计将于2005年12月完成。正在申请NSF论文改进资助在印度的实地工作。本研究将通过研究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，寻求扩展科学研究奖学金。它的知识价值还在于它的两国比较分析，即科学不确定性的话语不仅受到国家权力和政治的影响，而且也改变了国家权力和政治。联合国估计，已经有超过2000万人死于与艾滋病有关的疾病。世界上没有比南非和印度更严重的流行病了，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理解围绕这一大规模流行病的宏观政治和政策动态。