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

这个科学与社会学位论文研究改进补助金在科学，工程和技术的社会研究将比较艾滋病政策和政治在印度和南非问这个问题：为什么这些后殖民，经济发展中国家往往突出科学的不确定性在他们的政策，往往违背国际科学共识？这些国家是如何构建科学不确定性的意义和重要性的？对不确定性的强调如何改变了国家政治权力？为了回答这些问题，论文研究将调查一系列的争论和争议，在印度和南非的艾滋病政策，从1994年至2004年。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原因，这一事件震惊了世界。虽然他没有完全拒绝艾滋病毒因果关系理论，但他强调，在艾滋病科学方面仍然存在很大的不确定性，这种疾病的原因尚未最终确定。在这场引人注目的争论之前和之后，围绕南非政府的艾滋病政策进行了一些较小的辩论。在同一时期的印度，也发生了其他一些政府突出科学不确定性的事件，尽管这些事件远没有那么引人注目。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有效性。这些辩论将使用采访和文献资源相结合的调查。目前正在南非进行实地工作，预计将于2005年12月完成。NSF的论文改进补助金正在申请在印度进行实地考察。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，寻求扩大科学研究奖学金。它的学术价值还在于它对科学不确定性话语如何不仅受到国家权力和政治的影响，而且还改变了国家权力和政治的两国比较分析。联合国估计，已有2 000多万人死于与艾滋病有关的疾病。世界上没有任何地方比南非和印度的艾滋病毒感染者更严重，南非估计有530万艾滋病毒感染者，印度估计有510万感染者。（联合国艾滋病规划署，2004年）这项研究的更广泛的影响将在于它的贡献，了解宏观政治和政策动态围绕这一大规模的流行病。

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.