Technology for Nonviolent Struggle

Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, Our Bodies, Ourselves (Boston: New England Free Press, 1971 and several later editions).

8.

Steven Epstein, “Democratic science? AIDS activism and the contested construction of knowledge,” Socialist Review, Vol. 21, April-June 1991, pp. 55-64.

Notes to Chapter 10

1.

Conventional technology policy literature is not deployed in this chapter. It is almost entirely oriented to top-down decision making and provides few insights about policy making for a participatory system such as social defence. Issues such as the suppression of innovation by vested interests, the influence of managerial control, worker opposition and social movements are almost entirely absent from the conventional policy literature. Innovation from the grassroots, or more generally any innovation that is noncommercial or a challenge to state interests, is given virtually no attention. Some typical sources that fit this characterisation are Rod Coombs, Paolo Saviotti and Vivien Walsh, Economics and Technological Change (Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1987); Richard R. Nelson (ed.), National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); J. E. S. Parker, The Economics of Innovation (London: Longman, 1974); Ray Rothwell and Walter Zegveld, Reindustrialization and Technology (Harlow: Longman, 1985). I thank Rhonda Roberts for helpful comments on these points. See Rhonda Roberts, “Managing innovation: the pursuit of competitive advantage and the design of innovation intense environments,” Research Policy, Vol. 27, 1998, pp. 159-175.

2.

I thank Ellen Elster for emphasising this point.

3.

For a vision of government policy for socially beneficial technology, see Michael Goldhaber, Reinventing Technology: Policies for Democratic Values (New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986). What is lacking in Goldhaber’s otherwise stimulating picture is a feasible process for moving towards such a policy.

4.

This account, based on discussions with Johan Niezing, is adapted from Brian Martin, “Impressions of the Dutch social defence network,” Nonviolence Today, #34, September/October 1993, pp. 16-18; Civilian-Based Defense, Vol. 8, No. 6, Winter 1993-94, pp. 2-5.

5.

Johan Niezing, Sociale Verdediging als Logisch Alternatief: Van Utopie naar Optie [Social Defence as a Logical Alternative: From Utopia Towards Option] (Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1987).

6.

One way that this cutback was justified was on the basis of a critique of the Niezing committee proposals by social scientist Koen Koch. For Koch’s views, see Koen Koch, “Civilian defence: an alternative to military defence?” Netherlands Journal of Sociology, Vol. 20, No. 1, 1984, pp. 1-12.

7.

Alex P. Schmid, in 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). I reviewed it in Civilian-Based Defense: News & Opinion, Vol. 4, No. 4, May 1988, pp. 6-11.

8.

Giliam de Valk in cooperation with Johan Niezing, Research on Civilian-Based Defence (Amsterdam: SISWO, 1993). The proposals were sketched in chapter 4.

9.

Ulrich Albrecht, “The aborted United Nations study of the military use of research and development: an editorial essay,” Bulletin of Peace Proposals, Vol. 19, Nos. 3-4, 1988, pp. 245-259. I thank Mary Cawte for finding this reference.