Democracy In Action-A Study Of Jasanoff's Biotechnology Politics Thought

Shiela Sen Jasanoff is a leading figure in American STS research.Jasanoff is an Indian American academic and significant contributor to the field of Science and Technology Studies.She was the founding chair of the Department of Science&Technology Studies at Cornell University.She was also the founder of the Science&Democracy Network.She founded and directs the Program on Science,Techno logy,and Society at the John F.Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.Jasanoff's research has been recognized with many awards,including the Bernal Prize from the Society for Social Studies of Science and a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Sarton medal.At present,her works have been translated into French,Italian,Japanese,Korean and Chinese,and her influence has spread all over the world.Since the 20th century,science and technology,especially the biotechnology has become the center driving force of the new "Knowledge Economy".The rapid development of science and technology and it's applied research have led to an increasingly close ties between science and society,which has become a hot topic in the STS research.Jasanoff attached importance to the research of science politics,especially biotechnology politics.She believed that the symbiotic relationship between technology and politics had become a major issue that the Western democracies must face in the 21st century.Therefore,she examined the relationship between science and technology and the political world through the development of the cutting-edge technology of the 21st century.Meanwhile,she reflected on the impact of democratic governance between biotechnology and global politics.She provided a special perspective to study the relationship between democratization process and the development of science and technology.Jasanoff took biotechnology politics as the entry point of STS research.She examined the biotechnology politics of the democratic countries in the context of modern industrialization.In her opinion,the Western democratic countries regarded the development of biotechnology as a new opportunity to seize the commanding heights of the world market.One after another has put biotechnology to the national development strategy,successively set their policies in all western democratic states.She proposed a symbiotic relationship between science and politics,meanwhile,it had challenged the separation of science and politics in the traditional sense.In the traditional sense,followed Merton systematically,pure science,far from the influence of politics,had maintained the autonomy of science.The commercialization of science applications and political authority's interference have destroyed the independence of science,ended an state of separation between science and politics,finally formed the interaction and symbiotic relationship between science and politics.With comparative studies,she explored different forms of biotechnology politics and their causes.And she investigated the sources of political responsibility in the biotechnology politics of developed societies.Jasanoff's research on biotechnology politics societies has showed the fact how the political culture of different democratic societies influences the public assessment of decision evidence and specialized knowledge.The public collective invisible cognitive style that was bred by the political culture of each country directly affects the political framework of biotechnology in different countries,which she called "Civil Epistemology".The "Civil Epistemology" has transcended the concept of'Public Understanding of Science"."Civil Epistemology" has become an important concept in the "big science" era.This concept has solved the question "Why the same scientific facts and technical products often cause different political reactions in the progressive and rational Enlightenment Society?" Through the concept of'Civic Epistemology",Jasanoff saw the role of the participation of citizens in modern democratic societies and triggered our thinking on how to construct a new interactive relationship between scientists,government and the public.Jasanoff's research provides a theoretical reference for promoting the scientific and rationalization of China's biotechnology decision.Although Jassanoff did not explicitly elaborate how to set a new contractual relationship,she still conducted some democratic attempts to improve the relationship between scientists,governments and the public.