ABSTRACT
Over recent decades it has become commonplace to refer to contemporary advanced societies as ‘knowledge societies’. This indicates the degree to which different forms of knowledge production – like science and technology – and distribution – like information and communication technologies – are now fundamental processes in the fabric of advanced societies. Be it in the form of communication devices, transport systems, domestic technologies, energy infrastructures, medical or economic expertise, our contemporary way of life has become dependent, more than at any previous time, on a wide variety of technical and scientific knowledge. Simultaneously, the unabated innovation and diffusion of digital communication and information has increased to an unprecedented extent the potential for the production and distribution of knowledge. The rapid expansion of these technologies – together with their instantaneity and transnational nature – has resulted in what arguably constitutes the first truly global networks and flows of knowledge and information. Moreover, as economic competitiveness and productivity have become more dependent on research and innovation, knowledge production and distribution have become increasingly central processes in the generation of value in contemporary capitalist economies. In this rapidly evolving knowledge-intensive context, the social sciences have produced a thriving body of scholarly work dealing with different aspects of contemporary knowledge production and distribution. One focus of this literature has been on the new modes of techno-scientific knowledge production (Gibbons et al. 1994) as well as the different ‘epistemic cultures’ (Knorr-Cetina 1999), material cultures (Galison 1997), practices (Latour 1987; Pickering 1995) and forms of legitimacy (Daston and Galison 2007), which lie behind them. Another focus of this literature has been on the relations between knowledge and the economy; in particular, the transformative effect of knowledge in the working logic of Western economies and financial markets, and the rise of the so-called knowledge-intensive economies (Thurow 2000; Adler 2001; Chichilnisky and Gorbachev 2004; Powell and Snellman 2004). Although the relations between knowledge, science and economy have benefited from this growing current of scholarly interest, 2much less attention has been paid to the new and intricate relationships that are developing in this context between knowledge and politics. How do these new dynamics of knowledge production and distribution affect established political categories and boundaries? Which political vocabularies and institutions are required to govern these novel forms of knowledge production and distribution? And, crucially: what are the political opportunities and risks emerging from these processes? These questions constitute the central focus of this book.
