The Politics of STS

With its May 1996 Special Issue on 'The Politics of SSK',' Social Studies of Science makes a welcome contribution to debates on the political significance of science and technology in modern society. At the same time, it offers a number of illuminating reflections on the political roles that science and technology studies do, might or should play in these debates. Apparently, the topic of 'neutrality versus commitment' within the sociology of scientific knowledge (or 'SSK') was the direct cause of the Special Issue.2 Yet I will pay little attention to that topic, since it has been adequately dealt with by other authors: as far as I am concerned, the critical discussions by Brian Wynne and (in particular) Evelleen Richards suffice definitively to close this part of the debate.3 To summarize: since neutrality is an illusion, taking the side of individual actors in a particular controversy may at times be useful; but this 'one-sided' strategy is neither theoretically nor politically unproblematic; and, more importantly, it constitutes far too narrow an approach for realizing the political potential of science and technology studies (STS). The set of papers as a whole embraces many aspects of the theme under discussion. In this brief Response, I will focus on two central questions. The first is whether STS accounts should stick to descriptive (or explanatory) analyses of the politics of science and technology, or whether they should also engage in normative criticisms, assessments or recommendations. My conclusion is that a certain type of STS normativity is legitimate, and may constitute a specific contribution to political debates on science and technology. The second question concerns the 'realismrelativism' issue. I argue that this issue continues to be a crucial one, in particular for those approaches that attempt to integrate descriptively adequate and normatively engaged accounts of (the politics of) science and technology.