Joseph Wong
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801450327
- eISBN:
- 9780801463372
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801450327.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, Asian Politics
This chapter examines the challenges of temporal uncertainty and how the state and bio-industry stakeholders have been forced to assume a new kind of political economic leadership role to stem ...
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This chapter examines the challenges of temporal uncertainty and how the state and bio-industry stakeholders have been forced to assume a new kind of political economic leadership role to stem people's growing impatience regarding the slow pace and unpredictability of commercial biotech development. It shows that biotech stakeholders in Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore have had to shift expectations about progress in the biotech industry away from “short-termism” to a more realistic “long-termism.” Due to the challenges of managing commercial biotech's temporal uncertainty, commercial biotech stakeholders in Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore have attempted to manufacture progress in the near term in order to sustain an appetite for biotech over the long term.Less
This chapter examines the challenges of temporal uncertainty and how the state and bio-industry stakeholders have been forced to assume a new kind of political economic leadership role to stem people's growing impatience regarding the slow pace and unpredictability of commercial biotech development. It shows that biotech stakeholders in Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore have had to shift expectations about progress in the biotech industry away from “short-termism” to a more realistic “long-termism.” Due to the challenges of managing commercial biotech's temporal uncertainty, commercial biotech stakeholders in Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore have attempted to manufacture progress in the near term in order to sustain an appetite for biotech over the long term.
Joseph Wong
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801450327
- eISBN:
- 9780801463372
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801450327.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Asian Politics
This chapter examines the state in the specific context of biotech innovation as well as the extent to which earlier patterns of state intervention and state organization have endured in the current ...
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This chapter examines the state in the specific context of biotech innovation as well as the extent to which earlier patterns of state intervention and state organization have endured in the current era of knowledge-based industrial development. It argues that the diminishing coordinative capacity of the state in Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore means that the state cannot pick winners any longer. More specifically, it discusses three reasons for the reorganization of the state apparatus and its retreat from coordinating the biotech sector: the decentralization of expertise among state-level actors; the absence of institutional leadership inside the state apparatus; and the articulation of new strategic rationalizations about the state's more modest role in managing the biotech industry's technological, economic, and temporal uncertainties. Finally, it shows that there have been significant continuities in how the state is organized and in how decision makers inside the state see their guiding role in biotech development.Less
This chapter examines the state in the specific context of biotech innovation as well as the extent to which earlier patterns of state intervention and state organization have endured in the current era of knowledge-based industrial development. It argues that the diminishing coordinative capacity of the state in Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore means that the state cannot pick winners any longer. More specifically, it discusses three reasons for the reorganization of the state apparatus and its retreat from coordinating the biotech sector: the decentralization of expertise among state-level actors; the absence of institutional leadership inside the state apparatus; and the articulation of new strategic rationalizations about the state's more modest role in managing the biotech industry's technological, economic, and temporal uncertainties. Finally, it shows that there have been significant continuities in how the state is organized and in how decision makers inside the state see their guiding role in biotech development.
Joseph Wong
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801450327
- eISBN:
- 9780801463372
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801450327.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Asian Politics
This chapter proposes a more fundamental conceptual distinction between risk and uncertainty to show how decision makers make political economic bets and how they rationalize them in the face of two ...
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This chapter proposes a more fundamental conceptual distinction between risk and uncertainty to show how decision makers make political economic bets and how they rationalize them in the face of two different modes of industrial upgrading, each with its own set of challenges. Focusing on the processes of growing biotech industries in Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, the chapter argues that Asia's postwar political economy was characterized by state intervention in the economy for the purposes of mitigating the risks of industrial upgrading. It also examines how the developmental state, despite failing to guarantee industrial success, demonstrated the capacity to reduce the risks of upgrading and technological “catch-up.” Finally, it contends that the strategy of mitigating risk is less effective when it comes to cutting-edge biotech. The biotech industry is currently facing tremendous technological, economic, and long-term uncertainty that decision makers cannot easily manage.Less
This chapter proposes a more fundamental conceptual distinction between risk and uncertainty to show how decision makers make political economic bets and how they rationalize them in the face of two different modes of industrial upgrading, each with its own set of challenges. Focusing on the processes of growing biotech industries in Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, the chapter argues that Asia's postwar political economy was characterized by state intervention in the economy for the purposes of mitigating the risks of industrial upgrading. It also examines how the developmental state, despite failing to guarantee industrial success, demonstrated the capacity to reduce the risks of upgrading and technological “catch-up.” Finally, it contends that the strategy of mitigating risk is less effective when it comes to cutting-edge biotech. The biotech industry is currently facing tremendous technological, economic, and long-term uncertainty that decision makers cannot easily manage.
Doogab Yi
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226143835
- eISBN:
- 9780226216119
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226216119.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This newly legitimized avenue for academic patenting challenged the moral economy of science at the laboratories of Stanford biochemists. Chapter 6 examines the diverse motives, rationales, and ...
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This newly legitimized avenue for academic patenting challenged the moral economy of science at the laboratories of Stanford biochemists. Chapter 6 examines the diverse motives, rationales, and frustrations of scientists who participated in the biotechnology industry during the transforming academic environment of the 1980s.Less
This newly legitimized avenue for academic patenting challenged the moral economy of science at the laboratories of Stanford biochemists. Chapter 6 examines the diverse motives, rationales, and frustrations of scientists who participated in the biotechnology industry during the transforming academic environment of the 1980s.
Joseph Wong
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801450327
- eISBN:
- 9780801463372
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801450327.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Asian Politics
After World War II, several late-developing countries registered astonishingly high growth rates under strong state direction, making use of smart investment strategies, turnkey factories, and ...
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After World War II, several late-developing countries registered astonishingly high growth rates under strong state direction, making use of smart investment strategies, turnkey factories, and reverse-engineering, and taking advantage of the postwar global economic boom. Among these economic miracles were postwar Japan and, in the 1960s and 1970s, the so-called Asian Tigers—Singapore, Korea, and Taiwan—whose experiences epitomized the analytic category of the “developmental state.” This book examines the emerging biotechnology sector in each of these three industrial dynamos. They have invested billions of dollars in the biotech industry since the 1990s, but commercial blockbusters and commensurate profits have not followed. Industrial upgrading at the cutting edge of technological innovation is vastly different from the dynamics of earlier practices in established industries. The profound uncertainties of life-science-based industries such as biotech have forced these nations to confront a new logic of industry development, one in which past strategies of picking and making winners have given way to a new strategy of throwing resources at what remain very long shots. The book illuminates a new political economy of industrial technology innovation in places where one would reasonably expect tremendous potential—yet where billion-dollar bets in biotech continue to teeter on the brink of spectacular failure.Less
After World War II, several late-developing countries registered astonishingly high growth rates under strong state direction, making use of smart investment strategies, turnkey factories, and reverse-engineering, and taking advantage of the postwar global economic boom. Among these economic miracles were postwar Japan and, in the 1960s and 1970s, the so-called Asian Tigers—Singapore, Korea, and Taiwan—whose experiences epitomized the analytic category of the “developmental state.” This book examines the emerging biotechnology sector in each of these three industrial dynamos. They have invested billions of dollars in the biotech industry since the 1990s, but commercial blockbusters and commensurate profits have not followed. Industrial upgrading at the cutting edge of technological innovation is vastly different from the dynamics of earlier practices in established industries. The profound uncertainties of life-science-based industries such as biotech have forced these nations to confront a new logic of industry development, one in which past strategies of picking and making winners have given way to a new strategy of throwing resources at what remain very long shots. The book illuminates a new political economy of industrial technology innovation in places where one would reasonably expect tremendous potential—yet where billion-dollar bets in biotech continue to teeter on the brink of spectacular failure.
Claire Pentecost
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262042499
- eISBN:
- 9780262271127
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262042499.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter analyzes the cultural, political, and economic conditions under which “bioart” is being produced today. It uses the works of four well-known practitioners in the field, who employ ...
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This chapter analyzes the cultural, political, and economic conditions under which “bioart” is being produced today. It uses the works of four well-known practitioners in the field, who employ different strategies in negotiating their existence as hybrid creations developed in response to a political ecology under the influence of a neoliberal ideology. The chapter calls on the need to focus on how the arts/science nexus works within new modes of neoliberal capitalism, and the possible positionings of the (bio-)artist within that framework.Less
This chapter analyzes the cultural, political, and economic conditions under which “bioart” is being produced today. It uses the works of four well-known practitioners in the field, who employ different strategies in negotiating their existence as hybrid creations developed in response to a political ecology under the influence of a neoliberal ideology. The chapter calls on the need to focus on how the arts/science nexus works within new modes of neoliberal capitalism, and the possible positionings of the (bio-)artist within that framework.
Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262042499
- eISBN:
- 9780262271127
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262042499.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter presents case studies of the incorrect use of scientific terminology found in curatorial statements and other bioart-related writings, which often confound developments in tissue ...
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This chapter presents case studies of the incorrect use of scientific terminology found in curatorial statements and other bioart-related writings, which often confound developments in tissue engineering with molecular biology and other genetic-based subfields of the life sciences. It argues that careless use of scientific language only furthers the public misunderstandings of science, and all too often plays right into the rhetoric promoted by the biotech industries and other funding beneficiaries, which have lots to gain by equating the field of biology with the (sub-)field of genetics. The chapter cites the “ethical, cultural, and political importance of experiential engagement with life manipulation as it can be an effective methodology to confront the complexities and contest dominant ideologies regarding the life sciences.”Less
This chapter presents case studies of the incorrect use of scientific terminology found in curatorial statements and other bioart-related writings, which often confound developments in tissue engineering with molecular biology and other genetic-based subfields of the life sciences. It argues that careless use of scientific language only furthers the public misunderstandings of science, and all too often plays right into the rhetoric promoted by the biotech industries and other funding beneficiaries, which have lots to gain by equating the field of biology with the (sub-)field of genetics. The chapter cites the “ethical, cultural, and political importance of experiential engagement with life manipulation as it can be an effective methodology to confront the complexities and contest dominant ideologies regarding the life sciences.”
