''737-cabriolet'': The limits of knowledge and the sociology of inevitable failure1

American Journal of Sociology

Volumn 117, Issue 3, 2011, Pages 725-762

  Downer, John ^a  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 80555145800     PISSN: 00029602     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/662383     Document Type: Article

References (83)

1. Air Safety Week. 2005. ''Hercules Crash in Baghdad Points to Metal Fatigue in C130's Wing Center.'' February 21.
2. Aubury, Martin. 1992. ''Lessons from Aloha.'' BASI Journal (June), http://www.iasa.com.au/folders/Safety_Issues/others/lessonsfromaloha.html.
3. Barnes, B. 1974. Scientific Knowledge and Sociological Theory. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
4. Beamish, Thomas. 2002. Silent Spill: The Organization of an Industrial Crisis. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
5. Bijker, W., T. Hughes, and T. Pinch, eds. 1987. The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
6. Bloor, David. 1976. Knowledge and Social Imagery. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
7. Clarke, L. 1989. Acceptable Risk? Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
8. Cobb, Rodger, and David Primo. 2003. The Plane Truth: Airline Crashes, the Media, and Transportation Policy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
9. Collins, Harry. 1985. Changing Order. London: Sage.
10. Collins, Harry. 1992. Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
11. Collins, Harry, and Trevor Pinch. 1993. The Golem: What Everyone Should Know about Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
12. Collins, Harry, and Trevor Pinch. 1998. The Golem at Large: What You Should Know about Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
13. Cushman, John. 1989. ''U.S. Investigators Fault Aloha Line in Fatal Accident.'' New York Times, May 24.
14. David, Paul A. 1985. ''Clio and the Economics of QWERTY.'' American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 75:332-37.
15. Dörner, Dietrich. 1996. The Logic of Failure: Recognizing and Avoiding Error in Complex Situations. New York: Metropolitan Books.
16. Downer, John. 2007. ''When the Chick Hits the Fan: Representativeness and Reproducibility in Technological Testing.'' Social Studies of Science 37 (1): 7-26.
17. Downer, John. 2009a. ''Watching the Watchmaker: On Regulating the Social in Lieu of the Technical.'' Discussion paper no. 54, June. London School of Economics, Center for Analysis of Risk and Regulation.
18. Downer, John. 2009b. ''When Failure Is an Option: Redundancy, Reliability, and Risk.'' Discussion paper no. 53, May. London School of Economics, Center for Analysis of Risk and Regulation, http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/CARR/pdf/DPs/Disspaper53.pdf.
19. Downer, John. 2011. ''On Audits and Airplanes: Redundancy and Reliability-Assessment in High Technologies.'' Accounting, Organizations and Society 36 (4), in press. Preprint: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2011.05.001.
20. Durkheim, Émile. (1897) 1997. On Suicide. New York: Free Press.
21. Faith, Nicholas. 1996. Black Box. London: Boxtree.
22. Feeler, Robert A. 1991. ''The Mechanic and Metal Fatigue.'' Aviation Mechanics Bulletin (March/April): 1-2.
23. Galison, P. 2000. ''An Accident of History.'' Pp. 3-43 in Atmospheric Flight in the Twentieth Century, edited by P. Galison and A. Roland. Boston: Kluwer.
24. Garrison, Peter. 2005. ''When Airplanes Feel Fatigued.'' Flying, September, http://www.flyingmag.com/article.asp?section_idp13&article_idp578&print_pagepy.
25. Gephart, R. P., Jr. 1984. ''Making Sense of Organizationally Based Environmental Disasters.'' Journal of Management 10 (2): 205-25.
26. Gross, Paul, and Norman Levitt. 1994. Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
27. Hackett, Edward, Olga Amsterdamska, Michael Lynch, and Judy Wajcman, eds. 2008. The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, 3d ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
28. Hoffer, W. 1989. ''Horror in the Skies.'' Popular Mechanics (June): 67-70.
29. Hopkins, Andrew. 1999. ''The Limits of Normal Accident Theory.'' Safety Science 32 (2): 93-102.
30. Hopkins, Andrew. 2001. ''Was Three Mile Island a 'Normal Accident'?'' Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 9 (2): 65-72.
31. Hutter, Bridget, and Michael Power, eds. 2005. Organizational Encounters with Risk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
32. Jasanoff, Sheila, ed. 1994. Learning from Disaster: Risk Management after Bhopal. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
33. Jasanoff, Sheila, ed. 2005. ''Restoring Reason: Causal Narratives and Political Culture.'' Pp. 207-232 in Organizational Encounters with Risk, edited by Bridget Hutter and Michael Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
34. Kuhn, Thomas. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
35. Kusch, Martin. 2002. Knowledge by Agreement: The Programme of Communitarian Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
36. Langewiesche, William. 1998. Inside the Sky: A Meditation on Flight. New York: Pantheon.
37. La Porte, T. 1982. ''On the Design and Management of Nearly Error-Free Organizational Control Systems.'' Pp. 185-200 in Accident at Three Mile Island, edited by D. Sills, V. Shelanski, and C. Wolf. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.
38. La Porte, T. 1994. ''A Strawman Speaks Up: Comments on the Limits of Safety.'' Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 2 (2): 207-12.
39. La Porte, T., and P. Consolini. 1991. ''Working in Practice but Not in Theory: Theoretical Challenges of 'High-Reliability Organizations.''' Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 1 (1): 19-48.
40. Latour, Bruno. 1987. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
41. Latour, Bruno. 1996. Aramis, or The Love of Technology. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
42. Latour, Bruno, and Steve Woolgar. 1979. Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage.
43. MacKenzie, Donald. 1990. Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Weapon Guidance. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
44. MacKenzie, Donald. 1996. Knowing Machines: Essays on Technical Change. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
45. MacKenzie, Donald. 1998. ''The Certainty Trough.'' Pp. 325-329 in Exploring Expertise: Issues and Perspectives, edited by Robin Williams, Wendy Faulkner, and James Fleck. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
46. Maksel, Rebecca. 2008. ''What Determines an Airplane's Lifespan?'' Air and Space Magazine (March 1), http://www.airspace.mag.com/need-to-know/NEED-lifecycles.html.
47. Marks, Paul. 2009. ''Why Large Carbon-Fibre Planes Are Still Grounded.'' New Scientist (August 22): 20.
48. Merton, Robert. 1973. The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
49. National Academy of Sciences. 1980. ''Improving Aircraft Safety FAA Certification of Commercial Passenger Aircraft.'' Committee on FAA Airworthiness Certification Procedures Assembly of Engineering, National Research Council, Washington, D.C.
50. NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board). 1989. Bureau of Accident Investigation. ''Aircraft Accident Report: Aloha Airlines, Flight 243, Boeing 737-200, N73711, near Maui, Hawaii, April 28, 1988.'' Report no. NTSB/AAR-89/03, Acc. no. PB89-91C404. NTSB, Washington, D.C., June 14.
51. NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board). 2006. ''Safety Report on the Treatment of Safety-Critical Systems in Transport Airplanes.'' Safety report NTSB/SR-06/02. PB2006-917003. Notation 7752A. NTSB, Washington, D.C.
52. Perrow, Charles. 1982. ''The President's Commission and the Normal Accident.'' Pp. 173-184 in Accident at Three Mile Island: The Human Dimensions, edited by D. Sils, C. Wolf, and V. Shelanski. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.
53. Perrow, Charles. 1984. Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. NewYork: Basic Books.
54. Perrow, Charles. 1994. ''The Limits of Safety: The Enhancement of a Theory of Accidents.'' Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 4 (2): 212-20.
55. Perrow, Charles. 1999. Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies, 2d ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
56. Petroski, Henry. 1992. To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design. New York: Vintage Books.
57. Petroski, Henry. 1994. Design Paradigms: Case Histories of Error and Judgment in Engineering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
58. Petroski, Henry. 2006. Success through Failure: The Paradox of Design. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
59. Pinch, Trevor. 1991. ''How Do We Treat Technical Uncertainty in Systems Failure? The Case of the Space Shuttle Challenger.'' Pp. 143-158 in Social Responses to Large Technical Systems: Control or Anticipation, edited by T. La Porte. NATO Science Series. Boston: Kluwer.
60. Pinch, Trevor. 1993. '''Testing-One, Two, Three... Testing!' Toward a Sociology of Testing.'' Science, Technology, and Human Values 18 (1): 25-41.
61. Pinch, Trevor, and W. Bijker. 1984. ''The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts, or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other.'' Social Studies of Science 14:339-441.
62. Porter, T. 1995. Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Scientific and Public Life. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
63. Power, Michael. 1997. The Audit Society: Rituals of Verification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
64. Power, Michael. 2007. Organized Uncertainty: Designing aWorld of Risk Management. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
65. Quine, W. V. O. 1975. ''On Empirically Equivalent Systems of the World.'' Erkenntnis 9 (3): 313-28.
66. Reason, James. 1990. Human Error. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
67. Research and Innovative Technology Administration. 2005. ''Transportation and Safety.'' Volpe Journal, http://www.volpe.dot.gov/infosrc/journal/2005/graphs.html.
68. Roberts, K. H. 1993. ''Introduction.'' Pp. 1-10 in New Challenges to Understanding Organizations, edited by K. H. Roberts. New York: Macmillan.
69. Rochlin, G. 1989. ''Informal Organizational Networking as a Crisis-Avoidance Strat egy: US Naval Flight Operations as a Case Study.'' Industrial Crisis Quarterly 3: 614-24.
70. Rochlin, G. I., T. R. La Porte, and K. H. Roberts. 1987. ''The Self-Designing High-Reliability Organization: Aircraft Carrier Flight Operations at Sea.'' Naval War College Review 40 (4): 76-90.
71. Sagan, Scott. 1993. The Limits of Safety. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
72. Scott, James. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
73. Snook, S. 2000. Friendly Fire. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
74. Turner, B. A. 1976. ''The Organizational and Interorganizational Development of Disasters.'' Administrative Science Quarterly 21 (3): 378-97.
75. Turner, B. A. 1978. Man-Made Disasters. London: Wykeham.
76. U.S. Congress. 1997. ''Aviation Safety: Issues Raised by the Crash of ValuJet Flight 592.'' In Hearing before the Subcommittee on Aviation, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, House of Representatives, 104th Cong., 2d sess., June 25, 1996. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.
77. Vaughan, Diane. 1996. The Challenger Launch Decision. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
78. Vaughan, Diane. 2003. ''History as Cause: Challenger and Columbia.'' Pp. 195-202 in Report, vol. 1, Columbia Accident Investigation Board. http://anon.nasa-global.speedera.net/anon.nasa-global/CAIB/CAIB_lowres_intro.pdf.
79. Vaughan, Diane. 2005. ''Organizational Rituals of Risk and Error.'' Pp. 33-66 in Organizational Encounters with Risk, edited by Bridget Hutter and Michael Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
80. Weick, K. E. 1987. ''Organizational Culture as a Source of High Reliability.'' California Management Review 29:112-27.
81. Weick, K. E. 1998. ''Foresights of Failure: An Appreciation of Barry Turner.'' Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 6 (2): 72-75.
82. Weingart, Peter. 1991. ''Large Technical Systems, Real-Life Experiments, and the Legitimation Trap of Technology Assessment: The Contribution of Science and Technology Studies to Constituting Risk Perception.'' Pp. 5-18 in Social Responses to Large Technical Systems: Control or Anticipation, edited by T. La Porte. NATO Science Series. Boston: Kluwer.
83. Wynne, Brian. 1988. ''Unruly Technology: Practical Rules, Impractical Discourses and Public Understanding.'' Social Studies of Science 18:147-67.