International Political Economy of Technological Change

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

In an interconnected world, societies are constantly reacting and adapting to technological change and upheaval. While it has long been acknowledged that this process creates winners and losers, different technologies and institutional settings imply vastly different sets of winners, losers, and political consequences of technological change. This panel brings together scholars studying a variety of technological changes, ranging from the historical development of synthetic materials and transportation to more modern developments in automation, renewable energy, telecommunication, and vaccines. By exploring the production, application, and adaptation of different technological changes, our goal is to better understand the political implications of technology in a global context.

Studying the production of new technology, Cheng and Ge investigate the production of vaccine technology accessible to low-income countries and show that international organizations can use scientific evaluation to induce more R&D investment from market-oriented actors in vaccines targeting less developed regions. With a focus on the application of new technology, Carson and Minnich examine how new commercial technology, like telecommunication technology, can be used by states for security purposes. The other three papers explore various ways in which societies adapt to technological change. Cho and Lee study gendered labor market responses to automation and show that social status anxiety due to job displacement can trigger more social protection demand from men than from women. Calacino, Guy, Kudrimoti, and Ratan study the transition from hydropower to other renewable energy and provide an explanation based on the cost of adaptation to climate change. Lastly, Hai uses historical data on commercial policies worldwide to study whether technological changes trigger demands for industrial policy or protectionism.

Sub Unit

• Division 16: International Political Economy

Cosponsor

• Division 39: Science, Technology, and Environmental Politics

Chair

• Stephen Weymouth Georgetown University

Discussants

• Sayumi Miyano Harvard University

• Stephen Weymouth Georgetown University

Individual Presentations

• Privileging Sciences: Vaccine Endorsement at the World Health Organization - Mengfan Cheng, New York University; Zoe Ge, IE University

• Opportunistic Legibility: Private Telecommunications Networks and Surveillance - Austin Carson, University of Chicago; John David Minnich, Massachussetts Institute of Technology

• Economic Insecurity and Gendered Social Policy Attitudes in South Korea - Soohyun Cho, Bowdoin College; Jaewook Lee, University of Milan

• When the River Runs Dry: The Political Economy of Hydropower Retrenchment - Anthony Calacino, University of Oxford; Johnathan James Guy, University of California, Berkeley; Aaditee Hemant Kudrimoti; Ishana Ratan, University of California, Berkeley

• Technological Change and Industrial Policy - Zuhad Hai, New York University