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Session Submission Summary

Doing STS in the Post-Soviet World: The Regression of Progress

Fri, August 31, 9:00 to 10:30am, ICC, E3.9

Session Submission Type: Open Panel

Abstract

Due to the lack of funding in hard sciences and industry in the 1990s, post-Soviet countries suggest us a brilliant case to study the process of disassembling techno-scientific networks. They have suffered the collapse and overcome the breakdown of Soviet science and industry; it is time now to make use of former disasters and to explore the results of this unique social experiment. The experience and empirical data of post-Soviet countries are unique in terms of regression and breakdowns of many black boxes originated in Western culture, - vital infrastructures, R&D models, etc. Up to date, the analysis of regression in techno-scientific development was an unfeasible task for many STS scholars. That is why post-Soviet cases and application of STS models to analyze the S&T development in these countries can be fruitful theoretical and empirical space for STS scholars. This panel will explore national cases of S&T development in the post-Soviet world, focusing on the role of the state, cultural practices of R&D, shifting policy priorities between basic and applied research, and so on. This panel is looking for both theoretically and empirically grounded papers; papers that involve comparative focus between post-Soviet and “West” experience are especially welcome. The panel addresses various questions, including the theoretical charge to modify existent STS concepts for the specific context of the S&T development as well as the practical task to bring STS scholars interested in post-Soviet cases together.

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