Suchergebnisse

Who governs when nobody governs ?" This question is addressed by looking at phenomena that have become characteristic of cities today: violence, crime, immigration, mobility. Answering this question also requires paying more attention to different forms of regulation : state, market, along with cooperative/reciprocal modes of regulation. Risk embodies these different forms : it has become a common way of framing and addressing a wide variety of urban problems, suggesting that to govern is to identify and to manage vulnerabilities through different modes of regulation. Lastly, the question points to the uncertainty that characterizes city borders : these are constantly being redefined both by demographics, urbanization and political reforms.

Who governs when nobody governs ?" This question is addressed by looking at phenomena that have become characteristic of cities today: violence, crime, immigration, mobility. Answering this question also requires paying more attention to different forms of regulation : state, market, along with cooperative/reciprocal modes of regulation. Risk embodies these different forms : it has become a common way of framing and addressing a wide variety of urban problems, suggesting that to govern is to identify and to manage vulnerabilities through different modes of regulation. Lastly, the question points to the uncertainty that characterizes city borders : these are constantly being redefined both by demographics, urbanization and political reforms.

Democratic Governance examines the changing nature of the modern state and reveals the dangers these changes pose to democracy. Mark Bevir shows how new ideas about governance have gradually displaced old-style notions of government in Britain and around the world. Policymakers cling to outdated concepts of representative government while at the same time placing ever more faith in expertise, markets, and networks. Democracy exhibits blurred lines of accountability and declining legitimacy. Bevir explores how new theories of governance undermined traditional government in the twentieth century.

Current discourses in science, technology and innovation policy describe a shift from formal, governmental, or statutory regulation to non-hierarchical, informal, and cooperative self-regulatory approaches. They narrate a turn from government to governance, described as a "governance turn." Governance as a new and popular mode of regulation, deliberation and shared responsibility is often linked to favored attributes of science and technology development, and policy making such as democracy and responsibility. This article analyzes the connection between governance and ideas of accountable and democratic science and technology development in the case of nanosciences and nanotechnologies. For this purpose, soft law measures, self-regulatory initiatives, and public engagement projects in Europe and the U.S. were analyzed using the concept of social robustness (Nowotny et al. 2001). The study showed that most of the analyzed governance approaches and engagement projects only partially met aspects of social robustness, and that the governance and deliberative turn in science and technology policy has not led, so far, to greater democracy and responsibility in nanoscience and nanotechnology development. As a consequence, the delegation of techno-political decision making to less socially robust governance approaches might lead to a vacuum in science and technology policy and affect not only academic knowledge production but also the innovative force of a society.

It has now become quite obvious that the Internet has brought significant changes to our society and a break on how we lived before its emergence. It is still too early to assess the impact on society of the new services at our disposal, such as the capacity to communicate faster and cheaper on a global scale, access information and, perhaps more importantly, to produce and disseminate information in a way that is accessible to all. It is clear that the advent of the Information Society implies changes in our society that constitute a point of no return. However, contrary to what happened when we entered the Industrial Age about three centuries ago, when the changing process was slow and led by older individuals, these days the entrance into the Information Society is taking place rapidly and the decisive players are younger people. The global nature of the Internet, the possibility of producing and distributing any type of content in digital form at almost zero cost, as well as the vast number of people who use the web, have highlighted the need for new forms of intervention in a sector where there are many types of players. It is in this context that the problem of Internet Governance becomes a very current issue, inasmuch as one feels the need to guarantee a diversity of rights and duties, which may appear difficult to reconcile. This paper presents a brief overview of the main players and initiatives which, in the field of Internet Governance, have tried to contribute to turning this network into a factor for social development and democraticity on a global scale.