Agenda Setting in Emergent R&D Policy Subsystems: Examining Discourse Effects of the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act

Abstract

The literature on government responsiveness to societal issues is extensive but provides a mixed assessment of effectiveness. We examine this issue in the case of policy addressing effective and safe management of research and development in the emerging field of nanotechnology. Specifically, we examine the agenda setting effects of the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act (the Act), a piece of legislation designed to be implemented by a network of actors in the nanotechnology research and development policy subsystem. We adopt a public values lens in our examination of discourse related to societal concerns. Policy documents from Congress, an agency, and federal funding recipients are examined. Findings suggest a narrowing of public values discourse around more specific societal concerns in the documents crafted after the Act was passed.

Scientists’ Ethical Obligations and Social Responsibility for Nanotechnology Research

“…Anderson and Slade (2013) found that newspaper use was positively related to risk perceptions about nanotechnology, while internet use was negatively related to risk perceptions. Another study concluded that people who pay attention to science news media are more supportive of federal funding for nanotechnology than their peers (Ho et al 2011).…”

Organizations, Policies, and the Roots of Public Value Failure: The Case of For‐Profit Higher Education

“…Bozeman ' s ( 2002Bozeman ' s ( , 2007 public value mapping framework provides a set of analytical heuristics for deliberation of public value that are built on here. Versions of this framework have been applied in a number of policy domains, including agricultural biotechnology (Bozeman 2007 ), cancer research (Slade 2011 ), green chemistry (Logar 2011 ), flu vaccines (Feeney and Bozeman 2007 ), federally funded climate science (Meyer 2011 ), university technology transfer (Valdivia 2011 ), and federally funded nanoscale science and engineering (Anderson and Slade 2013 ;Fisher et al 2010 ).…”

“…Policy public value failure driver: Misplaced precision in policy design and implementation . Public policies are often crafted in response to or in anticipation of a problem or set of problems (Anderson and Slade 2013 ). The concept of misplaced precision describes a condition in which the design features of public policy are well specifi ed but inadequately oriented toward remediation of the core problem that the polices aim to address.…”

Politics and policy of Artificial Intelligence

“…Exactly ten years ago, Review of Policy Research published a special issue on one of the main emerging technologies of the time, namely, nanotechnology (Guston, 2013). Reading it today and comparing it with discussions about AI, we encounter a number of similar themes including awareness of and engagement with socio‐political aspects of emerging technology (Guston, 2013), interrogation of agenda‐setting and policy shaping in response to societal concerns (Anderson & Slade, 2013; Michelson, 2013), risks to vulnerable populations (Savath & Brainard, 2013) and scrutiny over industry's responsibility in the development of new technology (Shelley‐Egan & Davies, 2013). At the same time, we also observe that, with wide‐ranging applications of AI, the topics of politics and power in the context of emerging technologies have become even more salient.…”