Beach Haven

Bibliography
Sclove, R. E. (1995). Democracy and Technology. New York and London: The Guilford Press.

​Reviewed by Michael Beach
 
In this work, Richard Sclove examines both various forms of democratic societies and how they approach incorporating technology, and he also looks at where these approaches tend to fail. At the end of the book, Sclove proposes his own suggestion of democratic methods that he feels would work best in a ever more international environment.

Two of the examples Richard Sclove regularly refers to are water provision in rural Spain and Amish farming communities. In the case of the Spanish towns, old systems were quickly upgraded to ‘modern’ water systems. Among the results were increase used of home laundry systems. Community spirit decreased over time as people did not gather at local streams for cleaning clothing. Likewise, gathering at well sites went away as manual retrieval in buckets we no longer necessary. The Amish farmer example, on the other hand, included community discussion on adding any technology. The goal of continued community interaction and cooperation is at the heart of each decision to add or not to add a particular technology. That is different than what many assume. Amish communities are often thought to technology-averse. Sclove argues this is untrue. He points to technologies adopted over many years by Amish communities. The key is whether the implementation would cause separation or isolation among community members.

Among other areas, Sclove reviews topics like the role of experts, international and local impacts of technical decisions, and how power dynamics influence and are influenced by technology. User influence on technical design choices within differing forms of democracy wraps up this examination followed by the author’s own recommendations. What Sclove calls “A New and Better Vision” (Sclove, 1995, p. 239) is laid out in an earlier chapter in the book. There are nine criteria (Sclove, 1995, p. 98) divided into five categories. Each category is elaborated on in separate chapters. The categories include: toward democratic community, toward democratic work, toward democratic politics, to help secure democratic self-governance, and finally to help perpetuate democratic social structures.

From the perspective of Richard Sclove, it is possible to have a democratic approach in selecting technology, even within societies that are less democratic. At the same time a democratic government does not imply the same principles are used to select which technologies any particular society will adopt. 
​

Bibliography
Graham, R. (1984). Spain: A Nation Comes of Age. New York: St. Martin's Press.

​Review by Michael Beach
 
For me as a reader, this book is close to my own experience. In 1982 and 1983 I lived in southern Spain serving as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I just a 19-year-old, pretty much oblivious to the world of politics and economics. In particular, before being called to Spain I really had even less knowledge as events outside the United States and my own experience were limited to what I saw on the news. Spain was not in the US media at the time, at least not to my memory.

Robert Graham published this book in 1984, so just after I left the country. I really was not all that aware of what was going on with in the country or its history, even when I was there. My focus was on sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, many years later I pay much more attention to the happenings in the world. I read some on the Spanish civil war and the history of Franco. I experienced the shift in government towards a more socialist philosophy after decades of fascist dictatorship. I wish now that then I had known more about it.

Graham discusses the transition of power through several tumultuous administrations. There was at least one coup attempt. The author looks at major influences in Spain in the post-Franco transitive period. He looks at the changes in wealth distribution, the influence of banks, the church, and the various factions within the military. Graham also looks at the Spanish media and its affect on public opinion. Finally, he discusses democracy as it evolved within Spain.

Many of the influences discussed by Robert Graham are echoed in other emerging democracies. Throughout the Franco period, Spain was in some ways considered a backward society within a more enlightened Europe. At the time of Graham’s writing its economy had gone through several booms and busts, but was strongly on the mend. It was among the fastest growing economies within Europe. History has shown Spain to have suffered from some of the pangs of a growing set of social benefits. During COVID most of Europe has had similar issues, but Spain, Italy and Greece were particularly in the news as countries with a growing dependency on EU funds.
​
I appreciate the insights Robert Graham shares in this book. Anyone interested in the country and how international affairs affect and are affected by Spain should consider the read.

Bibliography
​Frickel, S., & Moore, K. (Eds.). (2006). The New Political Sociology of Science: Institutions, Networks, and Power. London: The University of Wisconsin Press.

Review by Michael Beach
​
Like many academic books, this work is a compilation of chapters written by various authors who share focus points of the title topic. Each chapter is grouped with others under three main topics: the commercialization of science; science and social movements; and science and the regulatory state. The editors note how many such books come from a compilation of papers presented at a given conference, and that this book does not follow that pattern. “We invited contributors to tender individual or comparative case study analyses that explain why events and processes in science happen the way they do” (Frickel & Moore, 2006, p. vii).

Referenced case studies include an examination of how social and political ideas shape how science is approached, and which scientific questions are examined. Likewise, there are examples showing how scientific work can influence political and social thought. Case studies include agricultural, biomedical research, alternative approaches to science, scientific consensus, ethics and training, political movements on specific diseases, and the list continues.

The ’creation’ or ‘discovery’ of scientific ‘facts’ is fraught with myriad decisions made by individuals and groups of people. Despite the assumed objectivity of the scientific approach, in reality the larger human world in which all scientists live plays an important role in what gets examined and how reliable the findings might be. Facts tend to be established through consensus, but consensus does not guarantee information is completely factual. The tensions among funding, policy, process, and priority are real as evidenced in the ideas and case studies offered in this book. What makes the ideas presented is simply that this is a later version of an earlier work by sociologist Stuart Blume. The earlier version from 1974 is titled Toward a Political Sociology of Science. As quoted by Frickel and Moore, the intent of that book was to offer an analysis “founded upon the assumption that the social institution of modern science is essentially political” (Frickel & Moore, 2006, p. 3). The motivation to update the ideas of the Blume book is that “the interconnections among the institutions he examined in deriving that claim have since undergone extensive transformation” (Frickel & Moore, 2006, p. 4).

​Review by Michael Beach

Bibliography
Medina, E. (2011). Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press..

As the title suggests, this work is a look at technology efforts in 1970’s Chile. This of course was pre-Internet. The Chilean government was attempting centralized planning and operation of the country’s economy by bringing all sorts of data about things like crop yields, price indices, and interest rates into not only a single computer system, but into a single physical location. The location was a sort of Star Trek ship bridge where an octagonal room was ringed with screens of data. Statisticians worked to make sense of all the information. Also in the room was a ring of futuristic chairs for government officials to discuss the information. Each chair included a number of control buttons that allowed the occupant to manipulate a screen.

By definition, data is post-facto, but in the case of the Chilean effort, because of the limited tech of the day, some data was not only slow in coming, but by the time it made it to the central room, it was counter-factual.

Although Chilean president Salvador Allende was attempting to ‘centralize’ decisions, the political climate was also one of decentralization, as in the data came from decisions being made at other locations. This was a reflection of his political views. The approach was a holistic design to account for decentralized data through a national Telex network. At the time, Chile was in the throws of work stoppages by industrial workers in particular. The network was dubbed ‘Cybersyn’.

Because of the instability of Chilean politics of the day, the full system never really got running. In many ways, the project was the brain child of Stafford Beer, who was a British cybernetician. Like the program he shepherded, his own status in Chile waxed and waned with the popularity of the Allende government. At times he had his family in Chile with him in lavish surroundings. As Allende’s topple neared, Beer had to leave his family out of Chile for their physical safety. He found himself at increasing risk in more and more spartan accommodations.
​
The story is a good case study of how political agendas and technological thought go hand in hand. Although Allende’s success was not pinned to Cybersyn, the technical effort was clearly dependent on political will and support. The tech was seen by administration opponents as a controlling means to ends such groups were against. As a result, the program was scrapped along with the government administration that championed and represented the programmatic ideals. Values of the Allende leadership were seen as expressed in the aims of the Cybersyn project, and any associated technology. Eden Medina speculates that the nature of the technology as a closed system caused people without access to view the whole as suspect. In today’s world, something approaching more universal access to the tech, if not the information, would likely cause less anti-tech rhetoric. Political animas would be more toward the specific way it was used to gather intelligence, make decisions, and enact policy that many felt as repressive. 

Bibliography
​Brenton, Tony, ed. 2017. Was Revolution Inevitable?: Turning Points of the Russian Revolution. London and New York: Oxford University Press.

​Review by Michael Beach
 
This is an interesting volume. Each chapter has a different author. Each proposes a counter-factual ‘what if’ concerning pivotal moments in the history of the Russian revolution of the early 20th century. The individual authors are each historians whose academic scholarship have concentrated on Russia and the rise of the Soviet in particular.

Each of the cases are more or less persuasive. I think the strongest case was made by Orlando Figes in his chapter titled, “The ‘Harmless Drunk’: Lenin and the October Insurrection”. As the Tsarist hold was slipping and several parties were vying for power, it was by no means a given that the Bolsheviks would eventually take control of Russia. Lenin was living in exile in Germany for a number of years. As the revolution became stronger and more violent, he went back and forth between the two countries a number of times. In general, when the Red army gained ground he would come to Russia. When things seem to go the other way he fled back to Germany, or at least closer to it. Gains by the Red army did not equate to gains by the Bolsheviks, but they were at least sympathetic causes. As the royal household was falling and violence increased, Lenin entered Russia for the last time, but did so in cognito. He disguised himself as a drunk and meandered through the crowds until he could get to a safe house in the capital. Finges speculates what might have happened if any of the city police or White army guards had recognized him. They would surely have put him in jail. Though the Tsar would have fell out of power, both his brother and his son were likely to have formed a new Duma and held some sort of election before the Bolshevik party forcibly seized control over all the revolutionary factions. Lenin coming out of hiding and encouraging his party to put down other opposing parties through force likely is what caused the Tsar’s brother, a popular war hero, to recant and then get murdered along with the rest of the Romanov family. Any political leaders who originally were open to forming a new government quickly ceded when Lenin’s followers began to kill their political colleagues.

Personally, I’ve not explored this sort of historical approach before. In fact, Tony Brenton who authors one chapter and edits the volume, admits that most historians are loath to approach counter-factual musings. Each author acknowledges to what degree they believe their alternative may or may not have made any ultimate difference. Each gives reasons not just for how things might have changed, but also how it was just as likely, or even more so, that outcomes would have been no different.  My look at Russian history and politics is at a very amateur level. I’ve read a book or two and visited Siberia twice for work reasons many years ago. These arguments by scholars imminently more qualified to document and speculate make this small part of human history jump out for me.