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Bijker, W. E. (2005). ¿Cómo y por qué es importante la tecnología? Redes, 11(21), 19-53. ; La tecnología es importante para la elaboración de políticas y para los políticos, y debería por tanto, importarle a quienes realizan estudios políticos. En este artículo, argumentaré por qué esto es así, y qué consecuencias podría tener para los estudios políticos. El argumento central en este artículo será que ni la tecnología ni la política pueden ser definidas de manera simple y nítida: ambas pueden ser cosas muy distintas en diferentes contextos. Más aun, sus "definiciones" son interdependientes: la tecnología y la política se constituyen mutuamente en un grado importante. La implicación de este argumento es que las respuestas a las preguntas sobre "cómo" y "por qué" la tecnología influye sobre la política están estrechamente conectadas; y que estas respuestas también están vinculadas con el modo en que se responde la pregunta sobre la influencia de la política en la tecnología. Sólo tiene sentido discutir la relación entre tecnología y política de un modo contextual, relacionándolas en circunstancias específicas. ; Technology matters to policymaking and politicians, and it should, thus, matter to political studies scholars. In this article, I argue why and how this is the case, and what consequences could it have for political studies. My central argument in this article will be that neither technology or politics can be defined simple and neat way, both: can be very different things in different contexts. Worse, its "definitions" are interdependents: technology and politics constitute each other in an important degree. The implication of this argument is that answers to the questions about "how" and "why" technology matters to politics are closely tied; and that this answers are also related to answering about politics' influence on technology. It only makes sense to discuss the relations between technology and politic in a contextual way, related to specific circumstances.

At the occasion of the annual banquet of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), the President commemorated Robert K. Merton, Dorothy Nelkin, and David Edge, who all died in 2003. The address highlights some of the contributions of these three scholars and past presidents to the development of the social studies of science, and to 4S.

In this address to the president's plenary at the 2001 annual meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the author reflected on then recent international events and their possible implications for the research and teaching agendas of the social studies of science, technology, and medicine. He proposed the political engagement of science, technology, and society (STS) institutions and individual STS researchers while maintaining a strong commitment to the scholarly studies of science and technology. Drawing on the work of René Gabriëls, the author elaborated a role for STS scholars as the new generation of "public intellectuals."

This article reviews recent work in socio-historical technology studies. Four problems, frequently mentioned in critical debates, are discussed—relativism, reflexivity, theory, and practice. The main body of the article is devoted to a discussion of the latter two problems. Requirements for a theory on socio-technical change are proposed, and one concrete example of a conceptual framework that meets these requirements is discussed. The second point of the article is to argue that present (science and) technology studies are now able to break away from a too academic, internalistic perspective and return to the politically relevant "Science, Technology & Society" issues that informed much of this work more than a decade ago.

This article applies a constructivist perspective to the analysis of a town-planning innovation. The so-called Cerdà Plan for the extension of Barcelona was launched in the 1860s and gave this city one of its most characteristic present features. For different reasons it can be considered an extraordinary case in town-planing history, though almost unknown to international scholars. The authors analyze the intense controversy that developed around the extension plan and the three technological frames involved. Finally, the relationship between power and technology is discussed. The sociohistorical account is used to illustrate a specific concept of power, to be used in a politics of technology.

The need for an integrated social constructivist approach towards the study of science and technology is outlined. Within such a programme both scientific facts and technological artefacts are to be understood as social constructs. Literature on the sociology of science, the science-technology relationship, and technology studies is reviewed. The empirical programme of relativism within the sociology of scientific knowledge and a recent study of the social construction of technological artefacts are combined to produce the new approach. The concepts of `interpretative flexibility' and `closure mechanism', and the notion of `social group' are developed and illustrated by reference to a study of solar physics and a study of the development of the bicycle. The paper concludes by setting out some of the terrain to be explored in future studies.

Novel technologies and scientific advancements offer not only opportunities but risks. Technological systems are vulnerable to human error and technical malfunctioning that have far-reaching consequences: one flipped switch can cause a cascading power failure across a networked electric grid. Yet, once addressed, vulnerability accompanied by coping mechanisms may yield a more flexible and resilient society. This book investigates vulnerability, in both its negative and positive aspects, in technological cultures. The contributors argue that viewing risk in terms of vulnerability offers a novel approach to understanding the risks and benefits of science and technology. Such an approach broadens conventional risk analysis by connecting to issues of justice, solidarity, and livelihood, and enabling comparisons between the global north and south. The book explores case studies that range from agricultural practices in India to neonatal intensive care medicine in Western hospitals; these cases, spanning the issues addressed in the book, illustrate what vulnerability is and does. The book offers conceptual frameworks for empirical description and analysis of vulnerability that elucidate its ambiguity, context dependence, and constructed nature. Finally, the book addresses the implications of these analyses for the governance of vulnerability, proposing a more reflexive way of dealing with vulnerability in technological cultures. Contributors Marjolein van Asselt, Martin Boeckhout, Wiebe Bijker, Tessa Fox, Stephen Healy, Anique Hommels, Sheila Jasanoff, Jozef Keulartz, Jessica Mesman, Ger Palmboom, C. Shambu Prasad, Julia Quartz, Johan M. Sanne, Maartje Schermer, Teesta Setelvad, Esha Shah, Andy Stirling, Imrat Verhoeven, Esther Versluis, Shiv Visvanathan, Gerard de Vries, Ger Wackers, Dick Willems.