Social Responses to Large Technical Systems

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

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2. Large Technical Systems, Real-Life Experiments, and the Legitimation Trap of Technology Assessment: The Contribution of Science and Technology to Constituting Risk Perception

   • Peter Weingart

   Pages 5-17

3. The Governance of Large Technical Systems: The Case of Telecommunications

   • Volker Schneider

   Pages 19-41

4. The External Control of Large Technical Systems: Offshore Oil Production Safety and Health Regulation in Great Britain and Norway

   • Svein S. Andersen

   Pages 43-59

5. Facing the Collapse of the Washington Public Power Supply System

   • Stephen Salsbury

   Pages 61-97

6. Iran Air Flight 655 and the USS Vincennes

   • Gene I. Rochlin

   Pages 99-125

7. The Aviation Safety Commission: A Task Force Approach to the Evaluation of Large Technical Systems

   • Clinton V. Oster Jr.

   Pages 127-141

8. How Do We Treat Technical Uncertainty in Systems Failure? The Case of the Space Shuttle Challenger ¹

   • Trevor J. Pinch

   Pages 143-158

9. Notes Toward a Sociology of Supercomputing

   • Donald MacKenzie

   Pages 159-175

10. Reflections and Triangulation

    • Louis Galambos, Renate Mayntz, Thomas Hughes

    Pages 177-188

11. Back Matter

    Pages 189-190

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This volume stems from the efforts of scholars who seek to understand the social dynamics of large technical systems. The purpose is to develop concepts and empirical knowledge concerning the dynamics of such systems, with particular emphasis on the processes ofcontrol and/or management in a variety of national settings, and to improve the basis of public policy so that future developments might be less distressing in consequence and more shaped to the desires of their "host" societies. One vehicle for this enterprise is a series of international conferences on the Evolution andDynamics ofLarge Technical Systems (LTSs). This series was instituted to encourage the coalescence of the multidisciplinary group of scholars who are actively engaging in the empirical study of these phenomena. Their disciplines span history, sociology, political science, and economics studies. They come Australia, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and West Germany. And they possess strong backgrounds in the empirical study of specific technical areas and a taste for conceptual and theoretical integration.

• Evolution
• Governance
• Integration
• NATO
• Nation
• Policy
• communication
• evaluation
• knowledge
• political science
• production
• sociology

• Department of Political Science and Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley, USA

  Todd R. Porte

Policies and ethics