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Begin New Search Topic Science and Technology Publication Year within 25 Years

1861. Origins and Growth of the Software Industry in India

Author:
Rafiq Dossani
Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
The paper explains the evolution of India's software industry. Domestic entrepreneurship emerges as the key factor for origination, survival and innovation in a hostile industrial policy environment. The maturing of the industry required a shift to a supportive government policy; maturation was also critically enabled by the modularization of the programming function through new technologies. These changes favored domestic firms that provided programming services. Later policy and technological changes induced transnational entry and led to higher value-added output. The paper shows that technologically sophisticated industries can develop even when many conditions typically present elsewhere are missing. We provide conditions under which this may happen and show their effect on subsequent developments.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
India and Asia

1862. Information Technology and the New Global Economy: Tensions, Opportunities, and the Role of Public Policy

Author:
David Bollier
Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Changes in technology have been transforming commerce, politics, and culture for centuries. Yet it is now becoming clear that the explosion of the Internet and assorted digital technologies is provoking epochal changes in the global economy. Finance capital now roams the world with unprecedented speed. Transportation and logistics have become radically more efficient. Work readily moves to wherever it can be most skillfully and cheaply performed. Innovation and productivity are forging ahead, sometimes at blinding speeds.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Globalization, Government, and Science and Technology

1863. Technology in a Post-2012 Transatlantic Perspective

Author:
Christian Egenhofer
Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
The EU and the US have found themselves supporting two polar views on which strategy is the most effective in achieving stabilisation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions: 'market pull' vs 'technology push'. As an advocate of the latter, the US asserts that the principal emphasis should be on technology development, financed through typical public R programmes. It argues that it would be preferable to invest in the short term in R and to adopt emissions limitations later, when new technologies will have lowered the cost of limiting GHG emissions. In supporting the 'market-pull' approach, the EU argues that technological change is an incremental process emanating primarily from business and industry, induced by government incentives. According to this logic, profit-seeking firms will respond with technological innovation.
Topic:
Development and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

1864. Climate Change in the US Government Budget - Funding for Technology and Other Programmes, and Implications for EU-US Relations

Author:
Thomas L. Brewer
Publication Date:
07-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
With increasing Congressional support for funding climate change technology programmes, as reflected in passage of the Hagel/Pryor amendment to the energy policy bill in June 2005, issues about the climate change budget are becoming more salient. In this Policy Brief, Congressional and Presidential actions on several recent budgets are examined for the four principal areas of the climate change budget: technology, science, international and tax credits. The emphasis is on energy technology in particular, because of its salience in current policy discussions and its relative size in financial terms. Highlights of the findings include the following: Congress imposed substantial (63.3%) increases over the administration's climate change technology proposals for 2004 and then small increases for FY2005. For 2006, the administration has proposed reductions compared with the Congressionally-enacted levels in the technology component – reductions in both nominal and inflation-adjusted terms (-4.1% and -5.6%, respectively). The administration has also proposed cuts for fiscal 2006 in the science and international programmes (-2.9 and -19.0% in real terms). These and other differences in Presidential and Congressional approaches to funding climate change programs provide further evidence that the Presidential-Congressional divide on climate policy is continuing to widen. There is an emerging bi-partisan Congressional coalition in favour of increased spending on a wide range of climate change programmes. This shift will affect EU-US relations on climate change issues for the remainder of the current administration until 2008, and beyond as well.
Topic:
Economics and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

1865. The Origins of Global Civil Society and Non-Territorial Governance: Some Empirical Reflections

Author:
William D. Coleman and Sarah Wayland
Publication Date:
02-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:
In contemporary discussions of global governance, many scholars have posited the possibility that networks of new social movements, publicly-oriented non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and other non-state actors have the potential to create pressures for increased transparency and accountability. A more legitimate democratic global politics would follow. Such networks are often seen to be the base of “global civil society”. Understanding the origins of global civil society is important if we are to assess well its possible contribution to addressing the challenge of global democratic governance in an era of globalization. In this paper, we evaluate two different views about the origins of global civil society. The first suggests that global civil society has been developing rationally over a long period of time, continuous with the development of domestic civil society in democracies. The second postulates global civil society to be a relatively new phenomenon, one that has emerged to respond to unprecedented challenges to democracy as a result of globalization.
Topic:
International Relations, Agriculture, Civil Society, Globalization, International Political Economy, Non-Governmental Organization, and Science and Technology

1866. Political Science or How to Engage in Politics by Other Means

Author:
Iaki Martnez de Albeniz
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
CONfines de Relaciones Internacionales y Ciencia Política
Abstract:
This article is concerned with the scientific production of politics from a critical viewpoint. Using a constructivist perspective, it analyzes the so-called black box of political science, namely the essence of politics itself. Although protected from critique, because in principle a discipline cannot question the object of its analysis, it is precisely the definition of politics that is the most controversial and thus requires further analysis. Therefore, the central theme of political science is the definition of politics. I contend that once politics is defined, not as a certainty but as a scientific construction, it raises many questions: Why does the issue of the meaning of politics emerge? How does political science construct politics? What are the discursive effects of this construction in the political sphere? What does it mean to “do politics” and how do we define political action? It is these questions that I seek to address in this article.
Topic:
Development, Politics, and Science and Technology

1867. Ethics for one world

Author:
Peter Singer
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
CONfines de Relaciones Internacionales y Ciencia Política
Abstract:
Technological advancement has made the increasing closeness among the diverse regions of the world inevitable. This article focuses on the ethical implications that this proximity entails. The author analyzes how global warming, commerce, and international law are topics that should interest and involve all nations because the decisions taken towards these matters have global consequences. He purports that there is a need to apply an ethic for one world that also goes beyond the human species.
Topic:
Economics, Environment, International Law, and Science and Technology

1868. Regulating Bioprospecting: Institutions for Drug Research, Access and Benefit-Sharing

Author:
Padmashree Gehl Sampath
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This policy brief summarizes the main arguments and conclusions of a forthcoming book by United Nations University Press, which examines the regulation of bioprospecting for drug research from an interdisciplinary law and economics perspective. Bioprospecting was once touted as a promising opportunity for collaborative ventures in biotechnology-based research and development (R) between the genetic resources-rich South and the technology-rich North, especially in the case of drug research. However this promise has yet to materialize. Understanding why this is so is a central policy question for countries in the South that wish to leverage their biodiversity endowments in the development process.
Topic:
Development, Environment, Health, and Science and Technology

1869. The Importance of Politics to Nuclear New Build

Author:
Malcolm Grimston
Publication Date:
12-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Though difficult to model as accurately as, say, the effects of oil price or the influence of climate change on decision-making in energy, the stance of the political establishment, locally, nationally and internationally, towards a major technical-scientific issue such as nuclear energy can be enormously important.
Topic:
Civil Society, Climate Change, Environment, Nuclear Weapons, Politics, and Science and Technology

1870. Information security: A new challenge for the EU

Author:
Burkard Schmitt, Alain Esterle, and Hanno Ranck
Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
Since the invention of the wheel, technical innovations have driven the history of mankind. Some of them have been particularly important and have changed profoundly the way societies work and individuals live. The Internet is a perfect example of such an innovation. Based on common protocols to send electronic messages and identify machines, it has opened up a new area of communication and information, enabling us to transfer vast amounts of digital data for a great variety of applications within fractions of a second around the globe. Moving into the new domain of cyberspace, the Internet has overcome the barriers of distance and time, and is therefore rightly considered to be the symbol of globalisation.
Topic:
International Relations, Civil Society, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Europe