Mobilized Publics, Science, and Technology
This page summarizes work that I have done at the intersections of the study of STS research on the science, technology, and publics and the study of social movements and civil society. Over the years I have developed a family of concepts anchored in empirical studies of science, technology, and what I have come to call "mobilized publics." The latter is a broad term that I adapt from Bourdieu to cover not only social movements but also "alternative pathways" in science and industry anchored in advocacy organizations, professionals such as doctors and engineers, entrepreneurs and inventors, and even religious reform movements. Some of the main ideas is this work, which also attempts to bring together the study of science and technology in one perspective, are as follows:
1. A historical perspective on neoliberalism and science that argues that the increasing influence of industry on science and the university is accompanied by a countervailing (but not necessarily counterbalancing) trend of epistemic modernization, that is, the political scrutiny and responsiveness of scientists and regulators to claims about risk and knowledge from those in subordinate positions in the social structure—users, patients, non-governmental organizations, historically excluded social groups, and social movements in general.
2. This countervailing historical change includes scientists who work with advocacy organizations and citizens to form scientific counterpublics that identify undone science—the systematic underfunding of some research areas that, if funded, would potentially have significant public benefit—and try to figure out ways to get that research done, including by direct civil society research.
3. Although these engagements appear in local mobilizations for sustainability and environmental justice (see my other pages), they can also develop into a larger scale and scope as industrial transition movements, which advocate for a mixture of goals including greater sustainability, democracy, equitable access, and environmental justice. These movements attend to both political and organizational change as well as changes in material culture and infrastructure through the development of design conflicts or object conflicts.
These ideas are summarized in my 2016 book Undone Science, and a shorter version appears in the 2018 article "Social Movements and Energy Democracy." This work overlaps with the studies of sustainability transitions and local sustainability, but the main publications in this line are research are below:
2023. David J. Hess. Pipeline conflicts, coalitions, and strategic action: A review of the literature. The Extractive Industries and Society. 16, 101339. Available here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2023.101339
2023. David J. Hess, Yu-Ri Kim, and Kaelee Belletto. How do Coalitions Stop Pipelines? Conditions that Affect Strategic Action Mobilizations and Their Outcomes, Energy Research & Social Science 98: 104914. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2022.102914. Available open access at the journal web site here.
2023. David J. Hess and Kaelee Belletto. "Knowledge Conflicts: The Strategic Use and Effects of Expertise in Social Movements." Sociological Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12508. Available open access at the journal web site here.
2022. Hess, David J. Undone Science and Social Movements: A Review and Typology. In Matthias Gross and Linsey McGoey (ed.), The Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies. Routledge. Pp. 167-177. Second edition
2022. Hess, David J. Undone Science and Social Movements: A Review and Typology. In Matthias Gross and Linsey McGoey (ed.), The Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies. Routledge. 2022. Second edition.
2022. Benjamin K. Sovacool, David J. Hess, Roberto Cantoni, Dasom Lee, Marie Claire Brisbois, Hans Jakob Walnum, Ragnhild Freng Dale, Bente Johnsen Rygg, Marius Korsnes, and Anandajit Goswami. Conflicted Transitions: Actors, Tactics, and Outcomes of Energy Infrastructure Opposition and Community Mobilization in Carbon-intensive Regions. Global Environmental Change 73 (March, 2022), 102473, pp. 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2022.102473. Available open access at the journal web site.
2022. David J. Hess. Environmental Movements and Industrial Transitions. In Marco Giugni and Maria Grasso, eds., Routledge Handbook of Environmental Movements. New York: Routledge. Pp. 482-502. Pre-publication version available here.
2022. Hess, David J. Undone Science and Smart Cities: Civil Society Perspectives on Risk and Emerging Technologies. Johannes Glückler, Heinz-Dieter Meyer, Laura Suarsana (eds) Knowledge and Civil Society (Knowledge and Space, Vol 17). Cham: Springer International. Pp. 57-73. Available open access at https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030711467.
2022. David J. Hess, Rachel McKane, and Caroline Pietrzyk. End of the Line: Environmental Justice, Energy Justice, and Opposition to Power Lines. Environmental Politics. 10.1080/09644016.2021.1952799. Available open access here.
2021. David J. Hess, Rachel G. McKane, and Kaelee Belletto. Advocating a Just Transition in Appalachia: Civil Society and Industrial Change in a Carbon-Intensive Region. Energy Research & Social Science 75 (May): 102004. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2021.102004. Available open access here.
2019. David J. Hess and Lacee A. Satcher. Conditions for Successful Environmental Justice Mobilizations: An Analysis of Fifty Cases. Environmental Politics 10.1080/09644016.2019.1565679. Available open access.
2019. David Hess. Cooler Coalitions for a Warmer Planet: A Review of Political Strategies for Accelerating Energy Transitions. Energy Research & Social Science 57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2019.101246. Available open access.
2018. David J. Hess. The Anti-Dam Movement in Brazil: Expertise and Design Conflicts in an Industrial Transition Movement. Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology, and Society 1(1): 256-279. 10.1080/25729861.2018.1548160. Available open access here.
2018. Social Movements and Energy Democracy: Types of Processes of Mobilization. Frontiers in Energy, special issue on “Energizing Global Democracy,” 6: #135. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenrg.2018.00135. Available open access here.
2018. David J. Hess. Energy Democracy and Social Movements: A Multicoalition Perspective on the Politics of Energy Transitions. Energy Research and Social Science 40: 177-189. Available open access here.
2018. Holly J. McCammon, Allison McGrath, David J. Hess, and Minyoung Moon. 2017. “Women, Leadership, and the U.S. Environmental Movement.” In Holly J. McCammon and Lee Ann Banaszak (eds.), 100 Years of the Nineteenth Amendment: An Appraisal of Women’s Political Activism. Oxford University Press.
2016. Undone Science: Social Movements, Mobilized Publics, and Industrial Transitions. MIT Press.
2016. Anna Lamprou and David J. Hess. 2016. “Finding Political Opportunities: Civil Society, Industrial Power, and the Governance of Nanotechnology in the European Union.” Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 2: 35-54. Final, open-access publication at publisher web site here.
2016. Hess, David J. “Social Movements, Civil Society, and Sustainability Politics.” In Steven Moore (ed.), Pragmatic Sustainability: Theoretical and Practical Tools. Second edition. MIT Press. Revised and updated version of article originally published in 2010.
2016. David J. Hess and Kate Pride Brown. “Green Tea: Clean-Energy Conservatism as a Countermovement.” Environmental Sociology 3(1): 64-75. DOI 10.1080/23251042.2016.1227417. Final, open-access version at publisher web site here.
2015 Hess, David J. “Undone Science and Social Movements: A Review and Typology.” In Matthias Gross and Linsey McGoey (ed.), The Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies. Routledge. Pp. 141-154. Final prepublication version here.
2015 Hess, David J. “Public as Threats? Integrating Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Social Movement Studies (SMS).” Science as Culture 24(1): 69-82. Final prepublication version here.
2014 Hess, David J. “When Green Became Blue: Epistemic Rift and the Corralling of Climate Science.” Political Power and Social Theory 27: 123-153. Prepublication version here.
2014 "Beyond Scientific Consensus: Scientific Counterpublics, Countervailing Industries, and Competing Research Agendas." Paper here. Forthcoming in Wilhelm Viehover and Peter Wehling, eds. The Public Shaping of Medical Research: Patient Associations, Health Movements, and Biomedicine. Routledge. Pp. 151-171. The paper reviews some of the more recent developments in the CAM cancer therapy field and applies the conceptual framework that I have been developing involving counterpublics and undone science. It was originally presented in 2012 at a conference on health social movements in Augsburg, Germany.
2014 “Smart Meters and Public Acceptance: Comparative Analysis and Governance Implications.” Forthcoming in Health, Risk, and Society 16(3): 243-258. This paper continues the analysis of the previous one written with Jonathan Coley by examining the patterns of anti-smart-meter mobilizations in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Australia. Prepublication version here.
2013 "Wireless Smart Meters and Public Acceptance: The Environment, Limited Choices, and Precautionary Politics." Coauthored with Jonathan S. Coley. Forthcoming in Public Understanding of Science. This paper examines the social movement in California that has opposed wireless smart meters, and it develops general hypotheses about the conditions under which precautionary politics are more or less successful. Final draft here.
2012 “Nanotechnology and the Environment.” By Anna Lamprou and David Hess. In Donald Mclaurcan, ed., Nanotechnology and Global Sustainability. CRC Press. This paper connects the debate in environmental sociology between treadmill of production and ecological modernization perspectives with policy strategies, thus shifting the debate toward its policy implications. Anna has gone on to study nanotechnology policy in the EU and US. Prepublication version here.
2012 Review, Fligstein and McAdam, A Theory of Fields. Mobilizing Ideas, June 13. Paper here.
2011 "To Tell the Truth: On Scientific Counterpublics." Public Understanding of Science. 20(5): 627-641. Final draft here.
2010. "Social Movements, Publics, and Scientists." Invited Plenary Lecture, Japanese Society for Science and Technology Studies. Article here.
2010. "Undone Science: Social Movement Challenges to Dominant Scientific Practice." By Scott Frickel, Sahra Gibbon, Jeff Howard, Joana Kempner, Gwen Ottinger, and David J. Hess. Science, Technology, and Human Values 35(4): 444-473. Article here.
2010 "A Political Economy of Sustainability: Alternative Pathways and Industrial Innovation." In Steven Moore (ed.), Pragmatic Sustainability: Theoretical and Practical Tools. Routledge. Article here.
2010. " Environmental Reform Organizations and Undone Science in the United States: Exploring the Environmental, Healhth, and Safety Implications of Nanotechnology.” Science as Culture 19(2): 181-214. Final draft here.
2009 "The Potentials and Limitations of Civil Society Research: Getting Undone Science Done." Sociological Inquiry 79(3): 306-327. Article here.
2008 "Science, Technology, and Social Movements," coauthored with Steve Breyman, Nancy Campbell, and Brian Martin, in the Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (MIT Press). Edited by Edward Hackett, Olga Amsterdamska, Michael Lynch, and Judy Wacjman. MIT Press. Pp. 473-498. Abstract here.
2007 "Crosscurrents: Social Movements and the Anthropology of Science and Technology." American Anthropologist 109(3). Article here. Winner of the General Anthropology Division Prize for Exemplary Cross-Field Scholarship.
2007 "What is a Clean Bus? Object Conflicts in the Greening of Urban Transit." Sustainability: Science, Practice, and Policy 3(1): 45- 58. Link to original paper here.
2007 Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry: Activism, Innovation, and the Environment in an Era of Globalization (MIT Press, 2007; Google Books Preview). One of the central arguments of the book is that social movements play a generative role in scientific and technological change, rather than merely a role of opposing some new forms of technology or demanding access to others. However, I also explored the limitations of social movements and the tendency for the movements for sustainability and/or justice in the United States to achieve partial victories. The book introduced the concept of the "incorporation and transformation" of organizations and alternative designs into existing industries and socio-technical regimes, and it drew attention to the role of industrial opposition movements and technology- and product-oriented movements. The book won the Robert K. Merton award from the American Sociological Association. It also became the first in a three-part series of books on social movements and sustainability transitions (the other two were Localist Movements in a Global Economy, 2009, and Good Green Jobs in a Global Economy, 2012).
2006 "Backfire, Repression, and the Theory of Transformative Events," coauthored with Brian Martin. Mobilization 11(2): 249-267. Article here.
2005 "Technology- and Product-Oriented Movements: Approximating Social Movement Studies and STS." Science, Technology, and Human Values 30(4): 515-535. Article here.
2004 Editor of special issue of Science as Culture on "Health, the Environment, and Social Movements," published in December 2004 (13/4). Includes "Object Conflicts in a Health-Environmental Social Movement: The Movement for Organic Food and Agriculture in the U.S." Article here.
2004 Organized a conference on Science, Technology, and the Environment . Details here.
2002 "Science Studies and Activism: Possibilities and Problems for Reconstructivist Agendas," by E.J. Woodhouse, David Hess, Steve Breyman, and Brian Martin. Social Studies of Science 32/2: 297-319. First discussion of "undone science" concept. Link to final version (off-site) here.
2001 Alternative Pathways in Globalization, Vol. 1. This was a preprint of the first section of what became Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry. I have taken it down from the web site.