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1131. Building China's Information Technology Industry

Author:
Stephen S. Cohen and Michael Borrus
Publication Date:
11-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
At the October 29, 1997, summit meeting between President Jiang Zemin of the People's Republic of China ("China") and President Bill Clinton of the United States, President Jiang announced his government's commitment to join the Information Technology Agreement ("ITA") and thereby eliminate China's tariffs on semiconductors, computers and other information technology products. President Jiang also agreed that, in the context of the negotiations concerning China's accession to the World Trade Organization ("WTO"), China would make further substantial tariff reductions.
Topic:
Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia

1132. Electricity: Liberal Futures

Author:
Walt Patterson
Publication Date:
11-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Like the international dimension of electricity discussed in Working Paper 1, the liberal dimension of electricity has emerged only recently, at least as a recognized concept. However, whereas the international dimension is genuinely new, the dimension now characterized as 'liberal' needs closer examination. The language of policy discourse is not always consistent. Until the 1990s, policy analysts habitually referred to the electricity industry as 'conservative', in the sense that it was resistant to change and deeply wary of risk. However, those who first acted to 'liberalize' electricity were themselves 'conservative', in conventional political terms, notably the governments of Chile and the UK in the 1980s. That apparent irony in itself suggests that 'liberalizing' electricity is a more subtle and complex process than the term itself might indicate.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Environment, Government, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Chile

1133. The Academic-Industrial Symbiosis in German Chemical Research, 1905-1939

Author:
Jeffrey Johnson
Publication Date:
05-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
This paper discusses academic-industrial relations in German chemical research from 1905 to the eve of World War II, considering four periods: the decade before World War I, the years of total war and postwar crisis (1916-1923), the renewed crisis (1929-1933), and finally the Nazi years. These periods saw, respectively, the creation of academic-style research laboratories with substantial industrial support; the emergence of industrially-funded organizations to subsidize chemical literature and educational institutions (as well as research); reductions in support for these organizations and in subsidies for contracted academic collaborators, but the expansion of postdoctoral fellowships funded by I.G. Farben; and finally the politicization and militarization of the academic-industrial symbiosis under National Socialism.
Topic:
Industrial Policy, International Political Economy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

1134. Africa on the Internet: Starting Points for Policy Information

Publication Date:
07-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Africa Policy Information Center
Abstract:
Electronic networks—and particularly the new tools of e-mail and the World Wide Web (see below for an overview of basic concepts and a glossary with short definitions)—have great potential for enhancing global democratic access to policy-making processes. But de facto access to effective use of these technologies is biased in all the predictable directions: by race, gender, economic status, and location. Africa, to date the least connected continent, is particularly disadvantaged. By cutting the costs of long-distance communication, however, the information revolution is also opening up new possibilities. How well Africa and Africa's friends take advantage of these opportunities will depend at least as much on our collective capacity to learn as on the material resources available to us.
Topic:
Science and Technology and Third World
Political Geography:
Africa

1135. Global Cooperation in Science, Engineering, and Medicine

Author:
Susan Raymond and Rodney Nichols
Publication Date:
02-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
New York Academy of Sciences
Abstract:
Many experienced observers have noted a persistent fatigue in current systems of international cooperation on research in science, engineering, and medicine. The institutions designed to serve global science since the end of World War II are not keeping pace with the changes sweeping science and technology. In the mid–1990s, the unease and uncertainty has become acute. Yet, simultaneously, research and education in science, engineering, and medicine are themselves becoming increasingly international in scope. This trend is not created by formal collaborative institutions. Instead, the factors setting the global pace include the rise of high–capacity, rapid modes of electronic communications; the end of the Cold War and the defense–based motivations that drove much innovation; the expanding scientific capacity throughout the world; and the emergence of new scientific problems that are increasingly global in nature and widely acknowledged as common priorities among scientists and nations. The uncertain “fit” between traditional institutional arrangements and tomorrow's generation of scientific activities has engendered widespread concern. A central question is how best to re–tool existing mechanisms to serve most effectively international collaboration in addressing the societal goals and research frontiers of the 21st century. The prescription for possible therapies, however, must be accompanied by a clear understanding of the nature of the symptoms and a careful analysis of the current state of existing, collaborative mechanisms.
Topic:
Government, International Cooperation, International Political Economy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
New York

1136. The Era of Microsoft? Externalities, and the Seattle Factor in the US Software Industry

Author:
Edmund A. Egan
Publication Date:
01-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Microsoft Corporation, the largest company in the US software industry, has been under anti-trust scrutiny from the Department of Justice for most of the 1990s. In 1995, its planned acquisition of Intuit, Inc. prompted a Silicon Valley law firm, on behalf of unnamed complainants, to submit a White Paper to the DOJ, on the subject of Microsoft's long-term strategy. The White Paper, relying on the theoretical concepts of network externalities and lock-in effects, argues that Microsoft will use Intuit's products to attain monopolistic positions in network operating systems, on-line services, and electronic commerce, and will eventually be in a position to affect the content transmitted over electronic networks.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

1137. Emergence of a Supranational Telecommunications Regime

Author:
Wayne Sandholtz
Publication Date:
11-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC)
Abstract:
The patchwork of national telecommunications monopolies in the EU was incapable of meeting a rapidly growing need on the part of societal actors for efficient, technologically advanced, cross-border telecommunications. The Commission mobilized various transnational actors -- equipment manufacturers, business users, providers of new services, suppliers of alternative infrastructures -- to support its plans for EU-level liberalization and harmonization. Whereas in a first phase the Commission acted as a source of initiatives and models for states whose policies were in flux, the second phase saw a dramatic shift in the nature of governance. Employing its powers under Article 90 of the Treaty (which does not require Council approval), the Commission set out to abolish national monopolies in telecoms equipment, services, and, finally, infrastructures. The telecoms case thus supports three of the project's central propositions: that societal transactions drive movement toward supranational governance; that changes in EU rules, organizations, and transnational society are interlinked; and that member states do not always control these processes of institutionalization.
Topic:
Government, International Political Economy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Europe

1138. The European Commission's Ability to Act under European Competition Law: The Example of Telecommunications and Electricity Policy

Author:
Susanne K. Schmidt
Publication Date:
08-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
European competition law allocates far-reaching competences to the European Commission. The paper asks for the conditions under which the Commission may use these rights against the member states, focusing on the most powerful provision - the right of the Commission under Article 90 to issue directives by itself in those cases where member-state governments have allocated specific rights to undertakings that conflict with the Treaty's rules. In addition the Commission may pursue Treaty violations on a case-by-case basis. In European telecommunications policy the Commission has used its powers rather successfully, with all liberalization decisions being based on Article 90. But for European electricity policy the Commission has shrunk away from using these powers in favor of initiating council legislation. The paper analyzes the conditions of the Commission's ability to act under European competition law in a multi-level framework, drawing among others on a principal-agent approach.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Government, International Law, International Political Economy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Europe

1139. Global Cooperation in Science, Engineering, and Medicine

Author:
Kenneth Prewitt, Susan Raymond, Young Gul Kim, Rodney Nichols, Jorge Allende, Arima Akito, Jesse Ausubel, Edward Ayensu, D. Allan Bromley, Praveen Chaudhari, Umberto Colombo, Yuri Gleba, Mark Horn, Coe Ishimoto, Geraldine Kenney-Wallace, Jan Nilsson, Geoffrey Oldham, R. K. Pachauri, Heinz Riesenhuber, Zehev Tadmor, Greg Tegart, Raimundo Villegas, Guillermo Cardoza, Diana Wolff-Albers, and William Padolina
Publication Date:
11-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
New York Academy of Sciences
Abstract:
In the fall of 1995, with assistance from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the New York Academy of Sciences organized a meeting on international collaboration in science, engineering, and medicine. The meeting was held at the Rockefeller Foundation's conference center in Bellagio, Italy from October 30 through November 2, 1995. The Academy gathered together a group of experienced international leaders to examine changes in the context and con– tent of global research cooperation and the efficacy of existing institutional mechanisms to facilitate future scientific activities. The meeting resulted in a summary report presenting the consensual views of the participants, and the New York Academy of Sciences is currently exploring a range of follow–up options with its institutional partners. Copies of the report can be obtained by contacting the Academy at the address listed below. The critical question under review at Bellagio was to assess current disparities among research opportunities, needs, and institutions and to determine the need for a more extensive international review. Discussions were based in part on extensive preparation. Prior to the meeting, all participants prepared personal statements summarizing their views of future directions for scientific collaboration, key lessons from past experience, and fundamental characteristics of successful collaborative mechanisms. These statements together with a summary issues paper produced by the New York Academy of Sciences, the meeting agenda, and biographical information on participants are collected here. The statements appear as originally distributed; none have been revised in light of the meeting's discussion. With 25 different perspectives it is to be expected that a diversity of views are represented here. However, the commentaries fall broadly along four lines of inquiry.
Topic:
Government, International Cooperation, International Political Economy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
New York

1140. Symbols, Positions, Objects: Toward a New Theory of Revolutions and Collective Action

Author:
Mustafa Emirbayer and Jeff Goodwin
Publication Date:
10-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Studies of Social Change
Abstract:
In 1980, Jack Goldstone wrote an influential review essay entitled "Theories of Revolution: The Third Generation." Goldstone noted that a "third generation" of theorists had emerged during the 1970s, one that placed special emphasis on the causal role of political and economic "structures" in social revolutions, especially states, transnational forces, and peasant communities. (By contrast, "second generation" theorists emphasized the role of diffuse "social strains" and their social-psychological consequences) Today, it seems increasingly apparent that this third generation, despite its impressive theoretical contributions, has largely run its course. In fact, as John Foran has recently noted, "the first signs of a new school may be appearing on the intellectual horizon." This new perspective, Foran and many other scholars agree, ought to focus much more attention on culture and ideology (as well as on agency) than did the third generation, but without losing sight of the important role played by political and economic structures.
Topic:
Government, Politics, and Science and Technology