Science, Technology and Nonviolent Action: The Case for a Utopian Dimension in the Social Analysis of Science and Technology

Social Studies of Science

Volumn 27, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 439-463

  Martin, Brian ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84992806969     PISSN: 03063127     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030631297027003003     Document Type: Article

References (91)

1. Useful general treatments are given by Robin Clarke, The Science of War and Peace (London: Jonathan Cape, 1971)
2. Martin van Creveld, Technology and War: From 2000 BC to the Present (New York: Free Press, 1989).
3. See also John Desmond Bernal, Science in History: Volume 3: The Natural Sciences in Our Time (London: Watts, 1969), 831–848
4. Richard Coopey, Matthew R.H. Uttley and Graham Spinardi (eds), Defence Science and Technology: Adjusting to Change (Chur, Switzerland: Harwood, 1993)
5. David Dickson, The New Politics of Science (New York: Pantheon, 1984), Chapter 3
6. James William Gibson, The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam (Boston, MA: Adantic Monthly Press, 1986)
7. Stuart W. Leslie, The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993)
8. Les Levidow and Kevin Robins (eds), Cyborg Worlds: The Military Information Society (London: Free Association Books, 1989)
9. Everett Mendelsohn, Merritt Roe Smith and Peter Weingart (eds), Science, Technology and the Military (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1988)
10. Jean-Jacques Salomon (ed.), Science, War and Peace (Paris: Economica, 1990)
11. Wim A. Smit, John Grin and Lev Voronkov (eds), Military Technological Innovation and Stability in a Changing World: Politically Assessing and Influencing Weapon Innovation and Military Research and Development (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1992)
12. Merritt Roe Smith (ed.), Military Enterprise and Technological Change: Perspectives on the American Experience (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985)
13. John Tirman (ed.), The Militarization of High Technology (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1984).
14. There are also analyses of specific research fields or weapons, such as David H. DeVorkin, Science with a Vengeance: How the Military Created the US Space Sciences after World War II (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1992)
15. John Ellis, The Social History of the Machine Gun (London: Croom Helm, 1975)
16. James Fallows, “The American Army and the M-16 Rifle’, Donald MacKenzie and Judy Wajcman (eds), The Social Shaping of Technology (Milton Keynes, Bucks.: Open University Press, 1985), 239–251
17. Paul Forman, ‘Behind Quantum Electronics: National Security as Basis for Physical Research in the United States, 1940–1960’, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, Vol. 18 (1987), 149–229
18. Donald MacKenzie, ‘The Influence of the Los Alamos and Livermore National Laboratories on the Development of Supercomputing’, Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 13 (1991), 179–201
19. John H. Perkins, ‘Reshaping Technology in Wartime: The Effect of Military Goals on Entomological Research and Insect-Control Practices’, Technology and Culture, Vol. 19 (1978), 169–186.
20. Bruno Vitale, ‘Scientists as Military Hustlers’, Issues in Radical Science (London: Free Association Books, 1985), 73–87.
21. Marek Thee, ‘The Race in Military Technology’, Joseph Rotblat (ed.), Scientists, the Arms Race and Disarmament (London: Taylor & Francis, 1982), 49–56, at 51.
22. For useful reviews, see Philip Gummett, ‘Issues for STS Raised by Defence Science and Technology Policy’, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 20 (1990), 541–558
23. Donald MacKenzie, ‘Science and Technology Studies and the Question of the Military’, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 16 (1986), 361–371
24. Harvey M. Sapolsky, ‘Science, Technology and Military Policy’, Ina Spiegel- R(94)sing and Derek de Solla Price (eds), Science, Technology and Society: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective (London & Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1977), 443–471
25. Wim A. Smit, ‘Science, Technology, and the Military: Relations in Transition’, in Sheila Jasanoff, Gerald E. Markle, James C. Petersen and Trevor Pinch (eds), Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (Thousand Oaks, CA, London & New Delhi: Sage, 1995), 598–626.
26. Patrick W. Hamlett (ed.), ‘Special Section: Technology and the Arms Race’, Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 15 (1990), 379–473.
27. Sanford Lakoff and W. Erik Bruvold, ‘Controlling the Qualitative Arms Race: The Primacy of Polities’, Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 15 (1990), 382–411, quote at 382.
28. Donald MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990).
29. Irving Louis Horowitz (ed.), The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot: Studies in the Relationship between Social Science and Practical Politics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1967)
30. Douglas D. Noble, The Classroom Arsenal: Military Research, Information Technology, and Public Education (London: Falmer Press, 1991)
31. Christopher Simpson, Science of Coercion: Communication Research and Psychological Warfare 1945–1960 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994)
32. Peter Watson, War on the Mind: The Military Uses and Abuses of Psychology (Harmonds-worth, Middx: Penguin, 1980).
33. Nicholas Maxwell, From Knowledge to Wisdom: A Revolution in the Aims and Methods of Science (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984)
34. Maxwell, ‘What Kind of Inquiry Can Best Help Us Create a Good World?’, Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 17 (1992), 205–227
35. Maxwell, ‘A New Enlightenment’, Science & Public Affairs (London, Spring 1997), 50–56.
36. For MacKenzie's position, see: Donald MacKenzie and Graham Spinardi, ‘Tacit Knowledge, Weapons Design, and the Uninvention of Nuclear Weapons’, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 101, No. 1 (July 1995), 44–99
37. MacKenzie, ‘Moving Toward Disinvention’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 52, No. 5 (September/October 1996), 4
38. MacKenzie, ‘Wasting Assets’, London Review of Books (23 January 1997), 24–25.
39. See also D. MacKenzie, Knowing Machines: Essays on Technical Change (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996). MacKenzie's comments are a supplement to his analysis, rather than being central to it. My comments here on the work of MacKenzie and others should be tempered by the
40. See, for example, Birgit Brock-Utne, Educating for Peace: A Feminist Perspective (New York: Pergamon, 1985)
41. Dietrich Fischer, Preventing War in the Nuclear Age (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld, 1984)
42. Harry B. Hollins, Averill L. Powers and Mark Sommer, The Conquest of War: Alternative Strategies for Global Security (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989)
43. Robert A. Irwin, Building a Peace System (Washington, DC: Expro Press, 1989).
44. See: Anders Boserup and Andrew Mack, War Without Weapons: Nonviolence in National Defence (London: Frances Pinter, 1974); the journal Civilian-Based Defense
45. Johan Gaining, Peace, War and Defense: Essays in Peace Research, Volume Two (Copenhagen: Christian Ejlers, 1976)
46. Gustaaf Geeraerts (ed.), Possibilities of Civilian Defence in Western Europe (Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger, 1977)
47. Steven Duncan Huxley, Constitutionalist Insurgency in Finland: Finnish “Passive Resistance1 against Russification as a Case of Nonmilitary Struggle in the European Resistance Tradition (Helsinki: Finnish Historical Society, 1990)
48. Stephen King-Hall, Defence in the Nuclear Age (London: Victor Gollancz, 1958)
49. Brian Martin, Social Defence, Social Change (London: Freedom Press, 1993)
50. Johan Niezing, Sociale Verdediging als Logisch Alternatief: Van Utopie naar Optie (Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1987)
51. Michael Randle, Civil Resistance (London: Fontana, 1994)
52. Adam Roberts (ed.), The Strategy of Civilian Defence: Non-violent Resistance to Aggression (London: Faber & Faber, 1967)
53. Gene Sharp, Making Europe Unconquerable: The Potential of Civilian-based Deterrence and Defense (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1985)
54. Gene Sharp, with the assistance of Bruce Jenkins, Civilian-Based Defense: A Post-Military Weapons System (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990).
55. Richard B. Gregg, The Power of Nonviolence (New York: Schocken Books, [1935] 1966)
56. Krishnalal Shridharani, War Without Violence: A Study of Gandhi's Method and its Accomplishments (London: Victor Gollancz, 1939).
57. Philip Windsor and Adam Roberts, Czechoslovakia 1968: Reform, Repression and Resistance (London: Chatto & Windus, 1969).
58. D.J. Goodspeed, The Conspirators: A Study of the Coup d'ttat (London: Macmillan, 1962).
59. Patricia Parkman, Nonviolent Insurrection in El Salvador: The Fall of Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1988).
60. Michael Randall, People Power: The Building of a New European Home (Stroud, Glos.: Hawthorn Press, 1991).
61. The key reference is Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston, MA: Porter Sargent, 1973).
62. For critiques, see Brian Martin, ‘Gene Sharp's Theory of Power’, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 26 (1989), 213–222
63. Kate McGuin-ness, ‘Gene Sharp's Theory of Power: A Feminist Critique of Consent’, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 30 (1993), 101–115.
64. One such study is Alex P. Schmid, collaboration with Ellen Berends and Luuk Zonneveld, Social Defence and Soviet Military Power: An Inquiry into the Relevance of an Alternative Defence Concept (Leiden: Center for the Study of Social Conflict, State University of Leiden, 1985).
65. Jacki Quilty et al., Capital Defence (Canberra: Canberra Peacemakers, 1986).
66. Steve Wright, ‘The New Technologies of Political Repression: A New Case for Arms Control?’, Philosophy and Social Action, Vol. 17 (July-December 1991), 31–62.
67. Brian Martin, ‘Politics after a Nuclear Crisis’, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Fall 1990), 69–78.
68. Charles Tilly, ‘War Making and State Making as Organized Crime’, Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol (eds), Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 169–191.
69. The classic manual is Virginia Coover, Ellen Deacon, Charles Esser and Christopher Moore, Resource Manual for a Living Revolution (Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers, 1981).
70. Stephen Zunes, ‘Unarmed Insurrections against Authoritarian Governments in the Third World: A New Kind of Revolution’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 15 (1994), 403–26. Given the enormously powerful weapons available to states, including information technologies used for surveillance, it can be argued that armed liberation is increasingly unlikely to succeed and ever more likely to lead to massive death and suffering. As well, effective use of violence requires secrecy and centralized command, so that the revolutionaries tend to replicate the undemocratic system they are trying to supplant.
71. See also Martin Oppenheimer, The Urban Guerilla (Chicago, IL: Quadrangle Books, 1969).
72. The framework for the study is given in Brian Martin, ‘Science for Nonviolent Struggle’, Science and Public Policy, Vol. 19 (1992), 55–58.
73. Relevant in a more general sense is the prophetic work by Aldous Huxley, Science, Liberty and Peace (New York: Harper & Row, 1946).
74. For example, A. Paul Hare and Herbert H. Blumberg (eds), Nonviolent Direct Action: American Cases: Social-psychological Analyses (Washington, DC: Corpus Books, 1968)
75. V.K. Kool (ed.), Nonviolence: Social and Psychological Issues (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993)
76. Leroy H. Pelton, The Psychology of Nonviolence (New York: Pergamon Press, 1974).
77. Gene Keyes, ‘Strategic Non-violent Defense: The Construct of an Option’, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 4 (1981), 125–151.
78. Robert J. Burrowes, The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996).
79. Schweik Action Wollongong, ‘Telecommunications for Nonviolent Struggle’, Civilian-based Defense: News & Opinion, Vol. 7, No. 6 (August 1992), 7–10.
80. It has often been noted that the Internet had its origins in Arpanet, a US military computer network. While designing a computer communication network to survive nuclear attack was floated as an idea at the time, the immediate purpose of Arpanet was to link together research laboratories. See, for example, Jeffrey A. Hart, Robert R. Reed and Francois Bar, ‘The Building of the Internet: Implications for the Future of Broadband Networks’, Telecommunications Policy, Vol. 16, No. 8 (1992), 666–689.
81. The military origins of the Internet by no means preclude an assessment that it is highly useful for social defence (see note 44). Generally speaking, open and interactive media, such as computer bulletin boards, are selectively useful to popular movements, but can be useful to the military if usage is tightly controlled. Similarly, mass media such as radio and television are easy to control centrally, but can be effective tools for popular nonviolent resistance if controlled by members of a fully united population. On this latter point see Brian Martin, ‘Communication Technology and Nonviolent Action’, Media Development, Vol. 43, No. 2 (1996), 3–9.
82. Peter Cassidy, ‘Silent Coup in Cyberspace’, CovertAction Quarterly, No. 52 (Spring 1995), 54–60
83. Lance J. Hoffman (ed.), Building in Big Brother: The Cryptographic Policy Debate (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1995).
84. On science shops, see Rolf Zaal and Loet Leydesdorff, ‘Amsterdam Science Shop and its Influence on University Research: The Effects of Ten Years of Dealing with Non-academic Questions’, Science and Public Policy, Vol. 14 (1987), 310–316.
85. On appropriate technology, see Godfrey Boyle, Peter Harper and the editors of Undercurrents (eds), Radical Technology (London: Wildwood House, 1976)
86. Ken Darrow and Mike Saxenian (eds), Appropriate Technology Sourcebook: A Guide to Practical Books for Village and Small Community Technology (Stanford, CA: Volunteers in Asia, 1986).
87. On workers' initiatives see Hilary Wainwright and Dave Elliott, The Lucas Plan: A New Trade Unionism in the Making? (London: Allison & Busby, 1982).
88. See, for example, Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes and Trevor J. Pinch (eds), The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987).
89. For a critique of constructivism, see Langdon Winner, ‘Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding It Empty: Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Technology’, Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 18 (1993), 362–378.
90. Robert Jungk, The New Tyranny: How Nuclear Power Enslaves Us (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1979)
91. Joel Kovel, Against the State of Nuclear Terror (London: Pan Books, 1983).