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AUTHORS' NOTE: We thank Ann Aungles, Stan Aungles, Ian Hampson,
Stewart Russell, and two anonymous referees for useful comments on
earlier drafts.
Traditional approaches to technology have distinguished between
artifacts (the physical side of technology) and humans and their
interactions (the social side of technology). Within this broad
framework, many views of the nature and dynamics of technology have
been explored: technology as neutral and the related use-abuse model
(implicit in many works), technological determinism (Misa 1988;
Winner 1977), technology as shaped by society (MacKenzie and Wajcman
1985), technology as determined by society (Dickson 1974), and
technology as part of a labor process (Braverman 1974). (Of course,
these approaches are not necessarily mutually exclusive nor
comprehensive.) These and other perspectives have been developed and
applied in various ways. The important point here is that they treat
society as something to be investigated separate from, or in addition
to, artifacts.
This assumption has been challenged in the 1980s by what has been
called the new sociology of technology. Growing out of the sociology
of scientific knowledge, which challenged the traditional exemption
of science from the sociology of knowledge, the new sociology of
technology aims, in its most radical form, to reconstruct social
theory by setting aside concepts of social structure and carrying out
analysis by following actors. 'Actors' in this theory can include a
range of things including both people and artifacts.
The new sociology of technology has been criticized in a number of
ways. For example, in a critique of Pinch and Bijker's (1984) social
constructivist study of the development of the bicycle, Russell
(1986) argued that a Marxist structural approach offered insights
which were not accessible using Pinch and Bijker's conceptual tools.
In reply, Pinch and Bijker (1986) reasserted the value of their
approach and the limitations of the structural approach which they
had set out to supersede.
There is one curious feature of this confrontation between those
adhering to a structural approach and those adopting an
actor-oriented approach: there are few, if any, common case studies.
To illustrate and develop their ideas, the new sociologists of
technology have analyzed a wide range of technologies such as the
fluorescent light, the TSR2 aircraft, nuclear missile accuracy, and
the bicycle. This list does not include any of the technologies, such
as nuclear power, computer-aided manufacture, or genetic engineering
(to give only a few contemporary examples), which have received
intensive scrutiny by other analysts. It should also be said that
critics have not tried to tackle the new sociologists of technology
on the latter's chosen case studies. Our aim in this paper is to
stimulate debate by applying two contrasting approaches to the study
of technology to the same case study. For our case study, we use
automatic vehicle identification (AVI), which we have been studying
for some time.
Arguably, the most fundamental categorization of theories for
studying society is between actor-oriented and structure-oriented
perspectives (Galtung 1980) [1].
On the one hand, we have chosen to apply an actor-network model,
representing one possible actor-oriented perspective. Actor-network
theory seemed a good choice because we have carried out interviews
with participants in the development of AVI in several countries,
providing first-hand details into negotiations over the
technology.
For comparison purposes, we have chosen the political theory
associated with 'nondecisionmaking' in its version linked to a
structural perspective: in this case, nondecisionmaking refers to the
influence of social structures on decisionmaking agendas
independently of the conscious intentions of actors. Because AVI
seems to be technically feasible but has not been widely introduced
for road vehicles, we thought that nondecisionmaking might offer a
useful framework to explain its failure to be implemented on more
than a very limited basis so far. In undertaking such a comparison of
approaches to studying technology, it soon becomes clear that the
different approaches try to do different things. Inevitably we have
had to modify the approaches in order to apply them and compare them.
Our aim is not to carry out a definitive case study using either
approach (or both together), but rather to gain insight into the
strengths and limitations of two contrasting approaches to
technology.
We begin with brief surveys of the actor-network approach and of
nondecisionmaking. Then turning to AVI, we first give a basic outline
of information about the technology available through the literature,
and then offer two brief analyses in terms of an actor-network model
and a nondecisionmaking model. We conclude with a comparison of the
two approaches and a reflection on the debate between proponents and
critics of the new sociology of technology.
What has been called the new
sociology of technology is a way of analyzing technology that tries
to overcome the usual assumption that artifacts are objects outside
of the social world. There are several distinct strands within the
new sociology of technology. One is the actor-network approach
(Callon and Law 1989; Callon, Law, and Rip 1988; Latour 1983; 1987;
1988; Law 1986; Law and Callon 1988), in which analysts follow actors
to discover how technologies are constituted and to reveal the
constant negotiation and renegotiation among and between these
actors. Latour's (1987) book Science in Action: How to Follow
Scientists and Engineers through Society provides a blueprint on
how to use this method.
Second is the social constructivist approach proposed by Pinch and
Bijker (1984), which involves demonstrating the interpretive
flexibility associated with technological design, then showing how an
artifact is stabilized, and finally relating the form of the artifact
to the wider social context. A third strand is the systems approach
of Hughes (1983) [2].
For our comparison, we have chosen to use the actor-network approach.
Our case study is contemporary and allows us access to actors in a
way impossible for historical cases, an added dimension that is
especially relevant for an actor-network analysis.
The importance of the actor-network approach is not so much that
analysts follow the actors, since some sociologists and
anthropologists have been doing that for years, but lies in the claim
that this approach can erode the society/technology distinction.
Technologies, according to actor-network theorists, embody decisions
and are the result of the mobilization and combination of what are
usually called the technical, social, economic, and political. These
technologies or sociotechnical systems are, according to Law, the
result of heterogeneous engineering (Law 1988; Law and Callon 1988).
Law claims that heterogeneous engineers must first create a scenario
which resolves a problem and appears attainable. Next they need to
constitute, mobilize, and juxtapose the various actors, technical and
otherwise, in order to create a network. Once the sociotechnical
system is successfully located in the network, the seams of this web
should be invisible.
According to this perspective, the failure of a technology cannot be
explained as a mere technical failure, but rather as a failure to
engineer a network of all the elements in which each plays its
designated role. These elements include artifacts, social groups,
beliefs, finance, raw materials, etc. Failure of a technology may be
the result of faulty engineering (engineering in the wide,
sociotechnical, sense) or it may be because of the obduracy of some
elements which, because they are less malleable than others, resist
engineering (Law 1988).
In order to successfully engineer these heterogeneous elements,
actors must mobilize allies by "enrolling" them or, in other words,
by enlisting their support (Callon and Latour 1981). Latour (1987)
emphasizes that interests are not given but are constructed through
enrollment and "translation". Actors can use various strategies to
"translate" the interests of potential allies into the preferred
course of action. These can include catering for their needs,
inventing new needs and objectives, making yourself indispensable,
inventing a new group or convincing those involved that their present
goals are unattainable unless a detour is made. Latour illustrates
his arguments with the story of Pasteur and his success in enrolling
and capturing health officials, veterinarians, farmers and eventually
all French society. Pasteur so translated the interests of French
farmers that if they wanted to solve their anthrax problem they had
to pass through his laboratory (Latour 1983; 1988).
There are a number of potential problems with this actor-network
approach. It assumes that following actors, reading their texts, and
listening to their conversations is a method which can efficiently
reveal all that can be known about the socio-technical world.
Actor-network theorists claim that they can carry out their studies
without prior conceptual theorizing involving the macro social
context, but in practice many of their studies appear to draw on
concepts of social structure to understand social behaviour and to
choose research strategies. Seldom is it clear where the categories
used by the actor-network analyst come from. Furthermore, how can the
concepts, or the studies based on them, be refuted or assessed?
More specific to the theorists mentioned here is the problem of
identifying the relevant actors. This is not unproblematic. As
Russell (1986, 335) points out, groups may be omitted "either because
they had no voice in the process or because they were indifferent to
the specific options on offer." It is also possible that certain
actors may be invisible, serving or having their interests served
without directly participating.
Another problem is that conceptual tools for analyzing actors and
networks provide no way of determining why some actors succeed and
others fail, other than tautologically saying that their alliances
were strong enough or not strong enough (Amsterdamska 1990; Scott
1991).
The idea of nondecisionmaking can
be usefully delineated through the "three dimensions of power" as
presented by Steven Lukes (1974). According to Lukes, there are three
ways to approach the concept of power in political science[3].
The one-dimensional view of power is the actor orientation: power is
exercised when one actor overtly influences another actor to do
something. The interests of the actors are taken to be expressed by
their subjective preferences, typically as revealed by their
participation in the political process. This view focuses on
behavior, overt decisionmaking, and overt conflict.
The two-dimensional view of power is an attempt to deal with an
exercise of power in which there is not necessarily any overt
conflict or making of decisions. The focus is on both issues and
potential issues, overt and covert conflict, and decisionmaking and
nondecisionmaking. This view was raised most notably by Bachrach and
Baratz (1962; 1963; 1970), who seem to use it in two distinct ways.
In the first use, issues may be kept off the formal decisionmaking
agenda by groups which manipulate agendas or divert attention to
peripheral topics. This is an observable exercise of power designed
to achieve a clearly understood end. In the second use,
nondecisionmaking occurs through issues never even being thought of
enough to warrant formal attention. However, people may harbor
grievances which can be uncovered, even if these grievances have
never surfaced to affect decisionmaking agendas. Another way to
describe nondecisionmaking is the "mobilization of bias" (Schattschneider 1960): a bias in the structure of the political
system, rather than an overt exercise of power in a neutral political
system.
Matthew Crenson's (1971) The Un-politics of Air Pollution is a
classic study in nondecisionmaking. Crenson set out to show the
defects of liberal pluralist political theory (Lukes' one-dimensional
view) by arguing that powerful political interests could influence
what things became issues, without any overt recognition that this
agenda-setting was happening. Among other things, he compared the
development of policy concerning air pollution in the two cities of
East Chicago and Gary, as well as other towns. Gary was dominated by
a single employer and ratepayer, US Steel; neighboring East Chicago
had a more splintered political economy. Although US Steel did not
overtly intervene in city decisionmaking in Gary on air pollution,
much less action was taken there on this issue than in other cities.
The reason, in nondecisionmaking terms, is that Gary politicians were
so attuned to the interests and power of US Steel that their beliefs
and actions on air pollution were different than they would have been
had US Steel not been there.
As well as air pollution, nondecisionmaking has been applied to
topics such as British police authorities (Brogden 1977) and the
Japanese automobile industry (Otake 1982). The concept of
nondecisionmaking offers the insights that there is more to policy
than overt decisions, that it is useful to analyze what issues are
left off the agenda or not even thought of by the actors, and that
social structures can help to explain the formation of policy
agendas.
The three-dimensional view of power, as described by Lukes, extends
the concept of interests from subjective interests to include real
interests. In other words, because of the structure of power, actors
may have false beliefs about their own best interests. An example
would be slaves who believed slavery was in their interests. This
view overlaps with the second formulation of the two-dimensional view
where issues are not even considered because they are not thought of
as significant.
Although the concept of nondecisionmaking is usually associated with
the two-dimensional concept of power, we use nondecisionmaking here
in a three-dimensional guise, looking for the impact of social
structures on decisionmaking agendas independently of the conscious
manipulations by actors [4].
This use of nondecisionmaking provides a clear contrast with the
actor-network approach.
A basic assumption of the three-dimensional view of power is that the
concept of a social structure provides an insight into the dynamics
of society not easily grasped using an actor orientation. Crenson
(1971), for example, drew upon the concept of corporate power which
he assumed could affect decisionmaking agendas. Without this concept,
presumably it is unlikely that he would have considered comparing
policy making in Gary and East Chicago [5].
A second basic assumption of structure-oriented views is that the
concept of interests provides a useful insight into society. If
interests are simply determined by asking people about their views or
observing their actions, then the one-dimensional view would be
sufficient and the concept of interests would offer no special
analytical value. The three-dimensional view proposes that interests
may be deeper than what is consciously perceived and expressed by
actors. This inevitably entails a value commitment or evaluative
element by the social analyst: interests are attributed to actors,
and the analyst proceeds to study the situation and test the
usefulness of this attribution.
The actor-network approach, in direct contrast, rejects the
attribution of interests. It fits into the one-dimensional actor
orientation, preferring to avoid the a priori assumption of
the usefulness of concepts of social structure (although, in
principle, these concepts may be reconstructed from patterns of
behavior).
For the purposes of our comparison of theories, we wanted a
structure-oriented perspective that enabled some deductions to be
made at the level of our case study. Many structural theories, such
as those of some Marxists, are far too abstract to be of much use for
this purpose [6].
Nondecisionmaking is more readily applicable to policy-making and
also appeared potentially relevant to our case study.
Automatic Vehicle Identification
or AVI refers to technology used to identify a particular vehicle
when it passes a particular point. Automatic Vehicle Monitoring or
AVM involves the tracking of vehicles at all times. Developments in
these two areas have been closely related and for convenience we will
usually refer only to AVI. This brief introduction to AVI is based on
our reading of the literature and discussions and interviews with
individuals from Australia, Britain, Germany, Hong Kong, Netherlands,
Norway, Sweden, and the United States.
Early development of AVI occurred in the United States (Hauslen 1977;
Roth 1977), beginning with an optical scanning system in the 1960s to
identify railroad box cars (Fenton 1980). Since then there have been
enormous advances in microelectronics. Inductive loop, radio
frequency, infrared, and microwave systems have all been developed
and even satellites can be used to provide continuous monitoring of
vehicles. These technological advances and increased accuracy and
reliability, along with rapidly diminishing costs, have opened new
options for use. Our focus here is on AVI applied to road vehicles
(French 1989, 1990; IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology
1991; Jurgen 1991).
AVI can serve a range of purposes: to charge for road use, to suggest
routes for drivers, to improve traffic management (such as traffic
signal coordination), to detect stolen vehicles, and to monitor
fleets of trucks, buses, and taxis. However, it should not be assumed
that AVI was consciously developed with all these purposes in mind:
another interpretation is that technologists look around for
applications of a technology developed for other reasons (so-called "technology push"). In any case, one of the key uses of AVI,
according to its proponents, is to deal with traffic congestion.
As cities became increasingly congested with road traffic in the
1950s and 1960s, the response from developed countries was to build
vast freeways. The ultimate failure of that response to overcome
traffic problems, along with growing environmental awareness, led to
consideration of alternative ways of managing traffic. Traffic
planners focused on ways of restraining traffic. If they could
persuade, encourage, or force drivers to reduce their road use or
change their patterns of use, then existing roads could be used more
efficiently. This would reduce traveling time and fuel costs as well
as air, noise, and visual pollution.
Planners and policy makers have considered a number of measures to
achieve such restraint: taxes on ownership and registration of cars
to reduce the number of people able to afford cars; physical barriers
to prevent people from driving into congested city areas, or parking
controls to discourage them; taxes on fuel as a means of indirectly
charging for road use. Singapore introduced an area licensing system
in 1975 based on manual collection of permit fees, which reduced peak
hour traffic in the central business district by 40%, but few
planners thought that this system could be easily applied to other
countries with less authoritarian styles of government (Morrison
1986).
Developments in automatic vehicle identification and monitoring
technology opened the possibility for a system of road pricing in
which charges depend on the time of day, the road, and the vehicle.
This would allow, for example, higher charges to be made for travel
during rush hours and on specific congested roads. According to
neoclassical economics, this would improve the efficiency with which
the roads are used.
The first major trial of the technology for electronic road pricing
was undertaken in Hong Kong between 1983 and 1985 (Dawson 1983). A
volunteer vehicle fleet was fitted with electronic number plates.
Loops beneath the road surface transmitted back to a control center
the unique identification number of the passing vehicle. Vehicles
which failed to respond with a valid or operative electronic number
plate were photographed by closed-circuit TV; this back-up system
combined with the basic AVI system ensured a high degree of overall
accuracy. The pilot study included the production of regular road-use
statements (Dawson 1986). This trial was intended as a preliminary
step towards a full-scale -- and nonvoluntary -- system of electronic
road pricing, whose main purpose was to restrain road use in
congested areas by adopting the user-pays principle.
The Hong Kong government made every effort to emphasize the fairness
of the system, including producing a video and booklet entitled A
Fair Way To Go. But opponents of electronic road pricing
mobilized over the issues of high costs and privacy, and the Hong
Kong government has not proceeded beyond the 1983-85 pilot scheme[7].
We will return to the Hong Kong experience later.
Research and development on AVI continues, especially in Europe and
Japan (Catling and McQueen 1991). "Prometheus" is the name of an
eight-year, $900 million industry-funded program involving six
European countries. Its aim is to improve safety, economy,
efficiency, confort, and reduce pollution through the development of
an intelligent vehicle (Gillan 1988). A smaller program called DRIVE
(Dedicated Road Infrastructures for Vehicle safety in Europe) is
jointly funded by governments and corporations. It is concerned with
AVI technologies, computers in vehicles, "smart cards" (that can
automatically register electronic transactions), and automatic
enforcement systems including cameras and license plate systems.
One use of AVI is for "route guidance." Information about the
distribution of traffic is transmitted to a computer on board a
vehicle. When the driver keys in a destination, the computer --
holding an electronic map -- recommends an optimal route. As the
journey proceeds, the computer gives detailed instructions about
where to go, on a display and/or via synthesized voice (OECD
Scientific Experts Group 1988). In Berlin, there is an $11 million
test, involving 700 volunteers, of the Ali-Scout route guidance
system, which uses Siemens technology involving infrared signals from
roadside beacons (von Tomkewitsch 1991). A similar route guidance
system, called Autoguide, is being tested in London (Belcher and
Catling 1987; Jeffery, Russam, and Robertson 1987).
In Japan there is a large program organized under MITI called the
Intelligent Vehicle System, similar in size and orientation to
Prometheus but with more emphasis on artificial intelligence and
automatic chauffering. Another Japanese venture is AMTICS (Advanced
Mobile Traffic Information and Communication System), an integrated
traffic information and navigation system which combines CD-ROM
technology with AVI (Tsuzawa and Okamoto 1988). Some Japanese cars on
the market come with rudimentary autonomous route guidance systems.
The Japanese government has halted the large programs and brought the
project leaders together to decide future directions (Kawashima
1991).
In the Netherlands, there was an ambitious plan to introduce a
national electronic road pricing system by the early 1990s, in which
each vehicle would hold a smart card whose balance would be
electronically decremented on passing beacons, with a back-up
monitoring and enforcement system for vehicles without a valid card
number or without sufficient funds (Stoelhurst and Zandbergen 1990).
As we will describe later, this scheme has been postponed.
In Norway, several towns have adopted AVI toll systems. For example,
in Alesund there is a programmable remote identification ("premid")
system for toll collection on a recently completed island-linking
tunnel and bridge system. Sensors in the road alert the system of an
approaching car. Antennae send out a weak microwave signal which is
reflected back from a identifier plate on the car. This is analyzed
by the premid computer to identify the car, confirm that it is a
paying subscriber and register the trip. This is recorded in 150
milliseconds. The information collected automatically on the site is
then sent to a central computer. Cars that attempt to pass through
without paying activate a video camera which records the registration
number and the time and place (Waersted and Bogen 1989).
A different system has been introduced in Trondheim and Oslo
following the success of a manual toll-ring in Bergen. The technology
used in these cases is known as Kofri -- translated as Queue-free --
and is based on surface acoustic wave (SAW) technology. Drivers
purchase a tag or 'brick' as it is known. Each passing of the toll
site will check whether the vehicle has a valid seasonal pass, or in
the case of a pre-paid number of trips, will deduct one trip toll. If
it registers a valid transaction, then the information is dumped.
Unlike premid which is an intelligent tag, Kofri is a passive tag. It
requires no battery, has a longer life than premid and a lower
price.
Compared to developments in Europe and Japan, the United States is
far behind (Ervin and Chan 1988-89; Norman 1990). One prominent
project in the US is HELP (Heavy-Vehicle Electronic License Plate)
which is investigating the feasibility of developing and implementing
a system capable of collecting truck weight and classification data,
as well as identifying individual vehicles for taxation and
enforcement purposes (Walton 1991).
These are just a few examples of the tests, trials, and schemes being
carried out around the world. They provide a background for our two
contrasting analyses of AVI in the next two sections. The first is
from the perspective of actor-network theory and the second from the
perspective of nondecisionmaking theory.
An actor-network account is one
which traces "sociotechnical networks that are put in place by actors
whether these pertain to content or to context" (Callon and Law 1989,
58). The focus is on actors -- whether humans or artifacts -- and how
they create networks (rather than simply dealing with objects
assumed to exist a priori). The investigator is supposed to use the
same conceptual tools for dealing with human and non-human actors,
and is enjoined from taking sides in the controversy being studied.
The application of this approach can best be illustrated through
analysis of specific cases, such as those of Hong Kong and the
Netherlands, introduced earlier.
One problem recognized by the Hong Kong government in 1982 was severe
traffic congestion, with worse congestion predicted. The government
acted by sharply increasing automobile registration charges and
gasoline taxes. In addition, and especially relevant to our analysis,
two British experts on electronic road pricing were asked to study
the prospects for using this technology in Hong Kong. The experts
recommended a pilot study, and the Hong Kong government agreed. The
study commenced in 1983. Plessey was the main contractor for the
hardware while the consulting body Transpotech, owned by the British
government, managed the project and analyzed the results. Thus, the
key actors in the early stages were the Hong Kong government (and its
agencies), the two British experts, Transpotech, and Plessey.
In the two-year trial, the two firms mobilized the technology to
their cause: it worked with high reliability, more than sufficient
for an operational AVI system. Yet for AVI to be introduced
throughout Hong Kong, its promoters had to enroll key interest groups
in the territory. Their failure to achieve this meant that the AVI
network could not be extended to all of Hong Kong. Only by consulting
documents and talking to government planners, AVI consultants, and
various interest groups is it possible to understand this
failure.
The Hong Kong Automobile Association (HKAA) played a crucial role in
the opposition to AVI. The HKAA was able to mobilize support through
the district boards, which had been recently set up to provide an
avenue for public participation in policy making. The HKAA questioned
whether the technology would work and raised privacy issues. After
the effective lobbying by the HKAA, the district boards overwhelming
opposed or failed to endorse the AVI scheme. As well as the public
arguments about privacy and reliability, another factor was the low
credibility of the government: board members did not believe that the
high automobile and gasoline taxes imposed in 1982 would be reduced
when electronic road pricing revenues started flowing. In addition,
the district boards may have wanted to show their independence of the
government (Borins 1988; Scott 1990a). The campaign of the HKAA and
district boards created an AVI-free network: electronic road pricing
is now so stigmatized that any government mention of considering it
can cause "public disquiet" (Hau 1989, 195).
Another important case study is the Netherlands, which has the
highest density highway network in Europe. Transport authorities
would like to reduce the number of cars on the road in order to
improve conditions for freight transport, which is vital to the Dutch
economy. A special taskforce established in 1988 to investigate road
pricing decided upon a sophisticated system involving two-way
communication between vehicles and roadside processors. In order to
win over groups concerned about surveillance, the technology was
designed to protect privacy by using smart cards, encryption, and
procedures to erase information about individuals immediately after
valid transactions (Stoelhurst and Zandbergen 1990).
A public debate developed over the scheme, and opposition grew. The
project might still have proceeded given its strong political
backing, but this ended with the election of a new government in
November 1989, which provided an excuse to halt the project (Scott
1990b).
The actors in this case include transportation planners working on
the AVI project, members of the government, representatives of the
Dutch motorists organization, the privacy protection agency,
technology assessment organizations, and the AVI technologies
themselves. Following these actors is the means of determining what
methods have been used to bring into being -- or to block -- this
system.
The experiences in Hong Kong, Norway, Berlin, London, and elsewhere
show that it is possible for system builders to enroll the technical
components of AVI. Yet AVI has been installed only in pilot projects
or in limited areas. On the whole, sociotechnical or heterogeneous
engineers have so far been unsuccessful in gaining strong support
from politicians and the public. Technical writers on AVI naively
seem to expect that because the technology works and there are
obvious pressing applications for it, it should be going ahead.
Looking closely at actors and their attempts to create networks shows
that promoters have failed to enroll the full complement of allies --
human as well as technical -- to make AVI operational.
The interesting thing about AVI
technology is not the limited tests that have been done, but rather
the lack of a wide degree of implementation. The hardware has been
available for quite a number of years and has been shown to be viable
through the Hong Kong trial and other projects. Furthermore, there
are a range of good reasons for implementing AVI, ranging from
control over fleet operations, preventing theft, and controlling
congestion through road pricing. Yet widespread implementation of AVI
does not seem likely in even the medium-term future.
It is possible to learn about the limited tests of AVI by reading
articles, interviewing key figures, and observing the policy process
at work. But this does not give much insight into why AVI has not
been implemented. The key question is, why has AVI had such a low
profile that no proponents have arisen to push the technology to a
prominent role on the political agenda? Why are European and Japanese
planners pessimistic about the prospects for large-scale
implementation in the near future (Scott 1990b)?
The concept of nondecisionmaking is useful here. In only a few cases
have governments made overt and conscious decisions to reject AVI.
Rather, in most countries the issue has not been considered a serious
enough prospect to be worthy of putting on the political agenda. AVI
is still being developed and considered by many technologists and
traffic planners, but seldom has been raised to the policy level of
serious consideration for implementation. To explain this pattern of
nondecisionmaking, it is necessary to examine social structures.
There are several structural factors which mitigate against AVI. One
is that there are no immediately perceivable benefits from AVI for
most road users. Reduced congestion is an indirect benefit, hard to
measure. Fees paid as part of a road pricing scheme, by contrast, are
an immediately recognized cost to individual users.
Another factor is the ideology of freedom of the road (Flink 1975).
Many motorists believe they have a right to drive virtually wherever
they wish. External controls are resented. This ideology is probably
most pronounced in the United States where, for example, there has
been enormous resistance to seat belt legislation (Kleinig 1984,
82-96). Seat belts provide an immediately documentable benefit, and
there is no control (except for requirements for compliance) of the
motorist inherent in the seat belt itself. AVI, by comparison, can
readily be portrayed as an extreme intrusion, the ultimate control by
'Big Brother' (Martin 1990).
The difficulty with any analysis using the concept of
nondecisionmaking is distinguishing between speculation about the
effects of social structures and their real effects. One test is to
see what happens when the technology is pushed further along towards
implementation. If the above brief hypothesis about the likely
resistance to AVI is correct, then we would predict that an effective
opposition movement would arise should quick moves towards
implementation occur. This seems to fit the Hong Kong and Netherlands
cases.
Another way to test the analysis is to make comparisons with other
technologies. CB radios are widely used in the United States by truck
drivers. One of their prime functions is for drivers to warn each
other about police radar traps. Also available on the market are
convenient units which car drivers can install which emit a signal
whenever radar is detected, thus enabling the driver to slow down and
avoid being booked. There are some similarities between CB radio and
AVI. They are each electronic forms of communication and they each
provide a capacity to warn about theft, congestion, and location of
fleet vehicles. But there are some strong contrasts. In the case of
CB radio, the technology is actively used by drivers, at their
initiative and sometimes to avoid control over their road behavior by
government agents. AVI, on the other hand, provides information about
vehicles to a small group of traffic managers.
Traffic planners and politicians are intuitively aware that some
policies would be unworkable. In the United States, for example, it
would be virtually unthinkable to put a freeway through the middle of
a city's richest suburb, to use gasoline taxes exclusively to build
bicycle paths and tram lines, or to close the central business
district to all road traffic. In a similar fashion to these extreme
examples, the key obstacles facing AVI -- opposition to road pricing
(Elliott 1986; Else 1986; Higgins 1986; Small, Winston, and Evans
1989, 87) and concern about surveillance, both linked to "freedom of
the road" (Martin 1990) -- are also understood intuitively. In some
cases, as in Hong Kong, these issues come into the open during
struggles over AVI. More commonly, no decision has to be made, since
it is tacitly understood by traffic planners that to push AVI in a
big way would be a losing proposition. In other words, their
proposals to deal with transportation problems are compatible with
prevailing power structures and social values. The decisionmaking
agenda at the highest policy-making levels, as a result, seldom
includes mention of AVI.
The case study of AVI shows a
number of the limitations of the actor-network approach. It is quite
difficult to gain certain types of insight into the development of
AVI by following the actors. Basic researchers in optical scanning,
microwaves, microchips, and so forth form one set of actors to
follow. These researchers, for the most part, are not directly
involved with AVI, and their actions would provide little insight,
since their concerns arise elsewhere. A second set of actors is those
doing applied research relevant to AVI, such as developing "electronic number plates." But there are no researchers in this set
who are prominent in promoting the applications: the field is divided
by country, different organisations, and different technologies.
Finally, there are the various consultants, traffic engineers, and
others who are involved in mobilizing support, building alliances,
and undertaking various networking and enrollment activities. But
again the field is quite divided, and there is no particular
individual or group to follow whose behavior can provide much
generalizable insight. Unlike Latour's example of Pasteur, there is
no one person, one group, or even one technology
to follow. What seems to be occurring is a simultaneous development
of various possibilities, with only sporadic interaction. Following
the actors leaves out the possibility of using the concepts of social
structure, including ideology, which favor or foster the independent
introduction of similar types of technologies in different
places.
In some individual cases, however, following the actors can provide
valuable insights, as in the case of the overt opposition of the Hong
Kong Automobile Association to AVI. But simply following the HKAA
does not necessarily explain why they opposed it. For this, recourse
to concepts of social structure, such as interests, can be more
helpful.
Similar patterns of funding, similar organizational structures for
carrying out research, and similar bureaucratic structures for
policy-making are likely to lead to similarities in the development
and application of AVI technology around the world. These structural
similarities can help to explain why certain groups, such as
automobile associations, are more likely to be critical of AVI,
whereas traffic engineers and electronics companies are more likely
to support it.
The actor-network approach would explain why AVI has not been
more widely taken up by saying, presumably, either that the
sociotechnical engineering by the proponents was faulty or that the
sociotechnical engineering by the opponents was superior. These
explanations do not provide much insight into AVI, since most
proposals lapse without opponents needing to mount a major
campaign.
More generally, why are some groups better able to engineer their
sociotechnical worlds more effectively? One explanation is that they
have access to greater resources, such as a prior cohesive
organization, adequate finances, technologies, or prevailing belief
systems. But talking about resources in this sense is a structural
approach. Assessment of such resources does not arise naturally from
following the actors -- and looking at resources used in a particular
context does not say anything about those used elsewhere. It is trite
to say that concepts of social structure are essentially
generalizations about patterns of human interaction. It is precisely
such generalizations that the actor-network approach ostensibly
abjures. As a result, it is impossible to generalize from detailed
case studies such as Hong Kong to situations where there have been no
decisions about AVI and hence no actors to follow.
A study by Mangematin and Callon (1991) of competing route guidance
systems in France was written after the preceding assessment was
completed. Their study illustrates well the strengths and weaknesses
of the actor-network approach. While Mangematin and Callon provide
insights into the technical and social dynamics of the competition
between two companies and their proposed systems, their study lacks
any mention of the wider context of AVI developments, namely events,
influences and networking in Hong Kong, Japan, Netherlands, Norway,
United States, or elsewhere. In principle, following the actors
should have led them to investigate actors and networks in these
places, but in practice their examination is exceedingly narrow.
Actor-network researchers have made some useful contributions,
especially in questioning the conventional dichotomy made between the
social and the technical. But in pursuing their insights derived from
the sociology of scientific knowledge, these researchers have jumped
into the area of technology without giving credit to prior work and
bodies of theory. From the point of view of researchers already in
the area, they have also failed to deal with the "difficult," complex
issues such as nuclear power.
Critics would say that much of the work being done under the rubric
of the new sociology of technology was already being done, de facto,
by sensitive analysts using other theories. Even with a
one-dimensional view of power and a social-technical dichotomy, it is
possible to come up with sophisticated analyses which rival any
explicitly actor-network study for attention to actors and
negotiations [8].
The strengths of structural approaches lie in their capacity to
characterize processes which are not overt in the behavior of actors.
Structural approaches provide a way to answer questions of "why?" Their weakness is the strength of actor-oriented methods, namely an
understanding of the particularities of individual cases. But in
practice, structural analysis does not proceed in a data vacuum, but
usually takes some account of concrete cases.
But if structural analysis relies on case study material, how
reliable are its generalizations? Our structural analysis suggests
that the interests associated with the ideology of freedom of the
road mitigate against introduction of AVI. But is this only a post
facto explanation? A structural analysis might also examine interests
associated with the ideology of economic efficiency through
electronic road pricing. How does the analysis explain why these
interests seem to be far less powerful than those associated with
freedom of the road?
Another problem with structural approaches is that they do not
provide any way of examining the exceptions to their generalizations.
The social structures which have kept AVI off the main political
agenda in most countries have not done so completely or uniformly.
For example, the system in Alesund was only the first of a series of
Norwegian AVI systems. An actor-oriented analysis seems much more
useful for probing such discrepancies.
To undertake a structural analysis of such variations, we might look
at factors such as traffic congestion, the organization of traffic
planning, or the presence of electronics industries in order to
explain differences in interest in AVI. But such a prescription
points to the open-ended nature of the analysis, since there are many
possible political, economic, and social factors on which to base a
structural analysis.
As indicated at the beginning of this paper, actor- and
structure-oriented theories set out to achieve different things, and
hence comparing them on a common case study is problematic. Our use
of the AVI case study was dictated in part by our own familiarity
with it, a familiarity which may "contaminate" our model stories
according to the two approaches since we, as authors, are aware of
the insights to be gained from each approach. We look forward to
seeing other comparisons of theory in which proponents of one
approach tackle a case study pioneered by users of a contrasting
approach.
1. For an ambitious attempt to reconcile and go beyond these perspectives, see Giddens (1979).
2. See also Bijker, Hughes, and Pinch (1987), Elliott (1988), and MacKenzie (1990).
3. Other treatments of power include Barnes (1988), Boulding (1989), Galbraith (1983), and Wrong (1979). We have benefited from discussions with Stewart Russell on power, interests, and nondecisionmaking. See Russell (1991).
4. For discussion of the pros and cons of nondecisionmaking as a concept, see Abell (1977), Frey (1971), McEachern (1980), van der Eijk and Kok (1975), and Wolfinger (1971).
5. Crenson assessed nondecisionmaking by comparing policies of cities with different political economies. Such a comparison of policies to investigate nondecisionmaking is compatible with a structure-oriented three-dimensional view, whereas the investigation of conscious manipulation of agendas fits into an actor-oriented two-dimensional view.
6. The Lukes framework of three dimensions of power has itself been criticized. Although Lukes goes beyond the simple actor-decision orientation, even in his three-dimensional view the focus is on actors in the sense of discussing their interests (subjective or real), the existence of potential issues (involving actors) and control over the political agenda. This is inadequate from the point of view of some of those favoring a more thoroughgoing structure-oriented perspective. Marxists using the concepts of capitalism and hegemony, for example, conceive power as a relationship structured by ownership of the means of production, the sale of labor power on the market, and so forth. See, for example, the structural frameworks of Althusser (1977) and Poulantzas (1978). Miliband (1969), by contrast, presents a Marxist picture that pays more attention to actors. The differences between these perspectives are highlighted in the debate between Poulantzas (1969) and Miliband (1970).
7. On the Hong Kong project see Catling and Harbord (1985), Dawson (1983; 1986), Dawson and Brown (1985), Dawson and Catling (1986), Harrison (1986), and Harrison et al. (1986).
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