An Institutional Approach to Technology

The absence of general social theory in many Science, Technology & Society (STS) studies seems to suggest that the specificity of the research object precludes a “conventional” approach to this area. In this article I introduce ActorCentered-Institutionalism (ACI), a variant of the institutionalist approach, to demonstrate the analytic power of (more or less) conventional social theory in the field of STS studies. ACI, I argue, is particularly well suited to linking the meso level and the micro level of analysis because it treats institutions and actors as equally important in the shaping of social processes and therefore also of technology as an element of these processes. To highlight the assets of Actor-Centered-Institutionalism (ACI) this approach is contrasted with the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) approach. Using empirical examples from the area of international technical standardization, I will show that ACI is not meant to replace SCOT but that either approach may benefit from the other. 1

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