ABSTRACT
Knowledge politics as conceptualized in this chapter evolves in reaction to fundamental questions raised about the social, political, and moral utility of new discoveries and inventions. The chapter indicates in greater detail what developments are responsible for the emergence of knowledge politics. The essence of knowledge politics consists of strategic efforts to move new scientific and technical knowledge, into the center of the cultural, economic, and political matrix of society. The regulation of knowledge in the general sense of attempts to control knowledge, and not merely through statutory enactments and administrative regulations and decisions also extends to efforts designed to enhance and enlarge the options and opportunities for the use of new knowledge in society. The politics of regulating new knowledge and novel technical devices is bound to upset the established line of political conflicts and in many instances creates strange political bedfellows in the form of novel and quickly changing political coalitions.
