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In Inventing Accuracy, Donald MacKenzie presents a strong argument for refuting the belief that the socalled arms race is caused by an inherent technological imperative. This is an empirically rigorous and highly readable book about what first seems to be an area only accessible to experts. Based on over a hundred-and-forty interviews with various people, politicians and engineers involved in the US nuclear program, the author unravels the open-endedness of technical development. The achievement of high accuracy in nuclear missiles is believed to have brought about the shift from countercity to counterforce strategy. The author shows that this linear model of technology-influencing politics overlooks both technical uncertainty and the political shaping of technology. Drawing on the social construction of technology (SCOT) approach, he demonstrates the conventionality of knowledge claims and argues that determinism only paralyzes action toward change. However, there are still barriers to large-scale change within the bureaucratic politics of technology he describes. Hence this work needs to be related to broader political issues in peace research.

A review essay on a book by Donald MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1990 [see listing in IRPS No. 69]). The book, based on 140 interviews with politicians & engineers in the US nuclear arms community, is applauded for its readability & demystification of conventionally technical issues. MacKenzie disputes the accuracy of expert technical facts (eg, missile targeting), & offers a counterargument to the technological determinism of continued arms production. He approaches the existing model of technology-influencing politics with a demonstration of the social construction of technology in a technically uncertain environment. 14 References. Adapted from the source document.

Informed by the European Union's waste hierarchy, UK policy has normatively shifted the ontological status of waste from matter out of place to a resource for which uses must be found in order to achieve environmental goals of decarbonisation and waste reduction. Technologies linking waste-management with renewable energy have been supported within an ecomodernist framework of market incentives for stimulating private-sector investment in new waste treatment technologies. Under pressure of EU targets, the UK's policy measures have had several aims: to reduce landfill disposal, increase resource recycling or reuse, expand waste-based renewable energy and thus reduce GHG emissions. As techno-market-fixes, new facilities were meant to convert waste for more beneficial uses, bring it up the hierarchy and localise its management. Consequent tensions can be illuminated by linking concepts of technology scaling and socio-material metamorphosis with critical perspectives on ecomodernism. Although the ecomodernist framework stimulated some waste-management improvements, other outcomes contradict the policy objectives of localising and converting waste for more beneficial uses. These contrary outcomes are illustrated by two technologies, anaerobic digestion (AD) and mechanical and biological treatment (MBT), each with multiple possible spatial scalings and techno-configurations. Financial instruments have most incentivised the easiest socio-material metamorphosis for lucrative returns, especially to produce energy (electricity or gas) for grid systems, suiting large operators. For more environmentally beneficial uses of waste, there have been difficulties in overcoming its recalcitrance for producing commercially viable outputs, e.g. digestate replacing chemical fertilisers, compost improving soil and 'dirty' plastics replacing virgin plastics. Techno-configurations and material flows have been scaled towards global goods, distant from the feedstock source. Through the ecomodernist framework, the state's responsibility for such outcomes has been blurred with the private sector and shifted to anonymous markets.

This article1 assesses recent efforts by the Indian government to tackle energy poverty and sustainable development. It focuses on the new integrated energy policy and initiatives to disseminate improved cookstoves and develop energy alternatives for transport. The success of government initiatives in cleaner biomass cookstoves and village electrification has historically been limited, and institutional reforms in the 2000s promoted market-led and 'user-centred' approaches, and encouraged biofuels as a 'pro-poor' route to rural development and energy security. The article argues that such interventions have reopened tensions and conflicts around land-use, intra-community inequalities and the role of corporate agendas in sustainable energy.

This paper assesses recent efforts by the Indian Government to tackle energy poverty and sustainable development. It focuses on the new integrated energy policy, and initiatives to disseminate improved cookstoves and develop energy alternatives for transport. The success of government initiatives in cleaner biomass cookstoves and village electrification has historically been limited, and institutional reforms in the 2000s promoted market-led and 'user-centred' approaches, and encouraged biofuels as a 'pro-poor' route to rural development and energy security. The paper argues that such interventions have reopened tensions and conflicts around land-use, intra-community inequalities and the role of corporate agendas in sustainable energy.