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The objective behind this article is to study the proliferation of the politics of information technology (IT) in Sweden, 1994-2003, based on a discourse analysis. The article argues that the Swedish IT political discourse is characterised by a guiding rule according to which there exist an autonomous & inevitable historical path towards the "information society." Swedish citizens are defined as dependent subjects, without any means to influence the advent of this new society. Instead they have to comply with new requirements in terms of swift social adaptation & life-long learning. In addition, the IT-political discourse is distinguished by nationalist optimism, as well as democratic ambitions. This also gives rise to peculiar contradictions within the discourse, for instance in the educational arena where there is a clash between individualist pedagogical doctrines & collective compliance to the information society. The author concludes that Swedish IT politics have hitherto mainly focused on affecting definitions & perceptions through the persuasive use of a model of steering which the author labels "visionary governance," ie, the establishment of an authoritative definition of the future by certain experts or "visionaries." Discursive power within such a model consists in making all actors addressing the political issue unanimously. 24 References. Adapted from the source document.

In a review of Mikael Sundstrom's Connecting Social Science and Information Technology. Democratic Privacy in the Information Age, Sundstrom's account of a theoretical framework that may serve to simplify information technology environments, with a particular emphasis on the importance of privacy (as defined in liberal democratic societies) is critiqued on the grounds that it is reductive in some ways: the concept of a 'grand base' for information technology innovation that attends to access time, information sequentially, interactivity, pervasiveness, real-time transfer, recipient anonymity, sender anonymity, recipient transfer cost, recipient enabling cost, recipient verification of sender authenticity, & search & retrieve ability, while laudable, is not matched by an attention to practicality or cost of implementation. In his response, Sundstrom claims that he has been misunderstood, particularly in his account of the 'grand base,' whereas the author, in his reply, disputes this. 4 References. A. Siegel

This article aims to identify what critical categories are applied to review of doctoral dissertations in political science & what patterns of change might impact these same categories through time. Some of the fundamental concepts entailed in faculty review of dissertation are presented here on the basis of centuries-old thought. While these concepts remain valid today, their application is assumed to have changed. Through a content analysis of reviews made of political science dissertations over a 20-year period, a notable shift in emphasis is made from critical attention to source material & empirical analysis to critical attention to perspective of the writer & theoretical approach. Important developments in the composition of review committees are also discussed, including an increase in the committee's number of professors within one discipline, international profile, & departmental balance regarding the department of the dissertation author. These & other changes are here situated in the larger framework of character shifts that have affected political science & other disciplines throughout the last generation. 2 Tables, 14 References. C. Brunski

The thesis of this article is that logic/science does not exclude but requires knowledge of rhetoric. Rhetoric is not merely a technique for persuasion but, more importantly, a science of how we structure our knowledge through language. Logic & science are nothing but instruments that natural language constructs to handle observable factual circumstances, something that became possible with the invention of the alphabet & written language. A positivistic, reductive science is suitable only by research on given facts. Alongside the knowledge of facts, we must also handle the knowledge of action, which is impossible to do only with the positivistic methods of conventional social science. Drawing on his personal experiences of municipal politics & communal planning the author suggests that rhetorical conceptions & methods of research can play a big role in community planning research & in sciences of man, which necessarily brings facts & actions together. The article refers to a rhetorical based theory called 'human-scientific theory of action.' While science helps us to know (knowledge of causes), rhetoric helps us to understand (knowledge of intentions & meanings). 40 References. Adapted from the source document.