The views in this report are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center ... more The views in this report are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Policy Studies, Central European University or the Open Society Institute. We have included the reports in the form they were submitted by the authors. No additional copyediting or typesetting has been done to them.
This volume is composed of interviews with entrepreneurs from Bulgaria, Estonia, Macedonia, Latvi... more This volume is composed of interviews with entrepreneurs from Bulgaria, Estonia, Macedonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Russian Karelia, and reveals both unique patterns and striking similarities in entrepreneurial activities during the administrative economy of socialism and the period of post-socialism. The book challenges simultaneously the common way of conceptualizing entrepreneurship, the commonly held belief that there were no entrepreneurs under socialism, and the commonly held idea of post-socialism as an antidote to socialist order. The stories of start-up entrepreneurs of the post-socialist transition also challenge some of the key neo-liberal principles. The book is theoretically inspired by the recent studies of economic historians, critical reading of the classical ideas of Joseph Schumpeter on innovations in non-market economies, and the original model of the communist 'Sacred and Profane', developed by Markku Kivinen.
The idea of this special volume was triggered by an astonishment that came to me more than a year... more The idea of this special volume was triggered by an astonishment that came to me more than a year ago and that took of the key question behind the IJANTTI call for papers, announced in the spring of 2014: why there are so few analyses of emerging and yet unestablished firmly technolo-gies? I was surprised that we, the community of actor-network theory (ANT) researchers, are about to miss two of the profound technological and industrial developments that are taking place in the last decade – 3D printing and new private space entrepreneurship, and which today are fascinating millions of talented young and not so young people all over the world. Are ANT and studies of science and technologies (STS) in general about to score another prominent failure they registered some seven years ago when their offspring – the social studies of finances-missed the evidences of structural tensions and misconduct in trading rooms and financial communities they studied, and practically remained unaware ...
Governing sociotechnical change in Southeastern Europe : contributions from a science & technolog... more Governing sociotechnical change in Southeastern Europe : contributions from a science & technology studies perspective
In the past few years, the Actor-Network Theory of French philosopher and sociologist Bruno Latou... more In the past few years, the Actor-Network Theory of French philosopher and sociologist Bruno Latour has become a hotly debated topic in the humanities. From a philosophical perspective, his theory of things keeps being reevaluated: is it possible for ‘Human and Non-Human Actors’ (Latour) to be analyzed as equally important actors? Does Latour’s theory of a simultaneous ‘agency’ of things and concepts indeed move beyond a subject-object relation? If it does, how far does it in fact go? Is it possible to develop a common new ontology by moving away from the notion of substance, and instead reducing any kind of entities to what they reveal in the course of their (inter)action? The contributions to Le Sujet de l’Acteur are looking for interferences between the idea of ‘agency’ and cultural dynamics. How can we relate questions of (social) action with those of cultural manifestations? Focusing on questions of symmetry or dissymmetry between the world of ‘things’ and ‘human beings,’ the vo...
Аннотация. В статье представлены идея организации международных летных STS школ в Томске и описан... more Аннотация. В статье представлены идея организации международных летных STS школ в Томске и описание первой из них, прошедшей в 2016 г. Школа является уникальным научным мероприятием, объединяющим работу социальных ученых (антропологов) и представителей естественных наук (биологов, почвоведов, экологов, ботаников). Ее цель-детальное этнографическое исследование научных практик в полевых условиях. Теоретическая рамка школы представляет собой сочетание акторно-сетевой теории (ANT) и принципов современной антропологии в изучении модерных обществ. В этой связке этнографический подход Карин Кнорр Цетиной (K. Knorr Cetina) и ее учеников, а также идеи социологии вкуса и привязанности Антуана Аньона (A. Hennion) позволяют рассматривать научные и инженерные практики не только в качестве агонистического поля «пробы сил» между людьми и нечеловеческими деятелями, но и как очаг феноменов страсти, привязанности и стойкости. Опыт школы авторы предлагают рассмотреть в более широком теоретикометодологическом контексте развития лабораторных исследований за последние 40 лет. Их основной вывод заключается в том, что наука вообще и лабораторная практика в частности второго десятилетия XXI в.-не те же самые, что были 40 лет назад, когда были сделаны основные открытия в области лабораторных исследований, а значит, требуют новых теоретических рамок осмысления и детального этнографического исследования. Ключевые слова: лабораторная жизнь, акторно-сетевая теория, STS, антропология науки * Исследование выполнено при финансовой поддержке гранта Правительства РФ П 220 № 14 В25.31.0009 (рук. Д.А. Функ).
Abstract Applying the notion of ‘orders of worth’ (L. Boltanski, L. Thevenot), the paper explores... more Abstract Applying the notion of ‘orders of worth’ (L. Boltanski, L. Thevenot), the paper explores the technology & policy challenges the Bulgarian nuclear energy sector faced from the mid-1980s to the early 2000s. Emerging after the 1960s based on Soviet technology and under Soviet political domination, it had to adapt to the new conditions set by the winners of the Cold War and to the pressure of local green movements. Key events included the completion of the second 1000 MW Soviet nuclear reactor at the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), the termination of work on the Belene NPP (1990–1991), and the painful decommissioning under EU pressure of the four old 440 MW reactors (2004–2006). The paper traces the public debates during these developments, the resources used by the actors to justify their behavior and draws conclusions about the peculiarities of emerging ‘technical democracies’ in Eastern Europe.
This article develops a historical perspective on Bulgarian energy dependencies and the vulnerabi... more This article develops a historical perspective on Bulgarian energy dependencies and the vulnerabilities linked to these from the 1940s to today. It comprises the story of how a (post)communist country experienced and dealt with rapidly growing energy imports. The article shows how Bulgarian energy system-builders over time tested different strategies to cope with the new geopolitical conditions in the post-World War II era. It discusses the immense dilemmas that emerged and the far-reaching oscillations of the Bulgarian energy sector: between East and West, between local systems and the imports, between dependence and vulnerability, between power and security. Three main periods are discerned and analyzed. The first started in the late 1940s with the rapid communist industrialization, through which Bulgaria’s energy supply became heavily dependent on import of both resources (coal and oil in particular) and technology from the Soviet Union. The second began in early 1960s with the transition to mega-power plants fueled both by domestic lignite and uranium (enriched, however, in Soviet Union), and a gradual development of policies of energy self-sufficiency. The third one was spurred by the collapse of communism in 1989. It features the country’s accession to the EU in 2007 and the largely parallel ambition to enable a transition to renewables, both aiming the reduction of the dependence on imported energy.
International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation
This article further develops the stacked actor-networks (SAN) approach in modelling socio-econom... more This article further develops the stacked actor-networks (SAN) approach in modelling socio-economic and cultural dynamics. Following the Lee and Schiesser application of differential equation analysis in biological and social sciences, the authors used a basic SAN model. This model is composed of three subnetworks where each two subnetworks dominate over the third one to build a quantitative description that identifies three stable states in the dynamics of their interactions – cyclical development, linear, and exponential growth. Describing the latter, the notion of ‘technology growth' is introduced that bears on the pattern of hyper-fast growth.
International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation
The paper dev?lops the mathematical basis of stacked actor-network (SAN) approach in modeling a s... more The paper dev?lops the mathematical basis of stacked actor-network (SAN) approach in modeling a socio-economic and cultural dynamics. It attempts to avoid the idea of ‘guidance' of a given form of (social) life being modelled, which has long been dominating in traditional sociology. Using methods of discreet mathematics and stochastic finite automata approach, we provided initial mathematical formalization of agent and actor-network, the types of complexity in the actor-network and three basic types of graphs comprising SAN's minimal model, with further aim is to develop these models in the form of computer programs (software) and to test them on real sociological data.
International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation
Applying the notion of identity, the article analyses the role of real time observation of profes... more Applying the notion of identity, the article analyses the role of real time observation of professional and amateur astronomers in the context of ongoing digitalization of research. Unveiling the importance of materiality and immediate relationships with instruments, we took a critical stance to the established research approaches to this subject, in particular the ethnography of profession and the actor-network theory (ANT). Bearing on of Julian Orr studies of professional culture and our own ANT notion of ‘heterogeneous coupling', an attempt was made to introduce a new language for analysing the two knowledge communities, based on the sociology of taste and attachment of Antoine Hennion and sociology of regimes of worth of Luck Boltanski, which allows to grasp both similarities and differences in the astronomers' identities.
The Making of Europe’s Critical Infrastructure, 2013
In early 1983, Todor Bozhinov is appointed as the new Bulgarian minister of the electric power in... more In early 1983, Todor Bozhinov is appointed as the new Bulgarian minister of the electric power industry. Eager to demonstrate his professional managerial capacities, he introduces a number of economic and organizational changes. These have recently been discussed in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON), and are aimed at increasing the productivity and efficiency of member states’ power systems. Some of the measures directly affect the reliability of electricity supply. For instance, the customary summer maintenance and repair works, during which many generating units lie idle, are to be drastically reduced. Also, two full months of coal emergency reserves are to be cut to the equivalent of two weeks, thus freeing significant financial and material resources. About a third of the Bulgarian coal supply comes from Soviet Ukraine via Black Seaports, but this supply line seems quite reliable.
The views in this report are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center ... more The views in this report are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Policy Studies, Central European University or the Open Society Institute. We have included the reports in the form they were submitted by the authors. No additional copyediting or typesetting has been done to them.
This volume is composed of interviews with entrepreneurs from Bulgaria, Estonia, Macedonia, Latvi... more This volume is composed of interviews with entrepreneurs from Bulgaria, Estonia, Macedonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Russian Karelia, and reveals both unique patterns and striking similarities in entrepreneurial activities during the administrative economy of socialism and the period of post-socialism. The book challenges simultaneously the common way of conceptualizing entrepreneurship, the commonly held belief that there were no entrepreneurs under socialism, and the commonly held idea of post-socialism as an antidote to socialist order. The stories of start-up entrepreneurs of the post-socialist transition also challenge some of the key neo-liberal principles. The book is theoretically inspired by the recent studies of economic historians, critical reading of the classical ideas of Joseph Schumpeter on innovations in non-market economies, and the original model of the communist 'Sacred and Profane', developed by Markku Kivinen.
The idea of this special volume was triggered by an astonishment that came to me more than a year... more The idea of this special volume was triggered by an astonishment that came to me more than a year ago and that took of the key question behind the IJANTTI call for papers, announced in the spring of 2014: why there are so few analyses of emerging and yet unestablished firmly technolo-gies? I was surprised that we, the community of actor-network theory (ANT) researchers, are about to miss two of the profound technological and industrial developments that are taking place in the last decade – 3D printing and new private space entrepreneurship, and which today are fascinating millions of talented young and not so young people all over the world. Are ANT and studies of science and technologies (STS) in general about to score another prominent failure they registered some seven years ago when their offspring – the social studies of finances-missed the evidences of structural tensions and misconduct in trading rooms and financial communities they studied, and practically remained unaware ...
Governing sociotechnical change in Southeastern Europe : contributions from a science & technolog... more Governing sociotechnical change in Southeastern Europe : contributions from a science & technology studies perspective
In the past few years, the Actor-Network Theory of French philosopher and sociologist Bruno Latou... more In the past few years, the Actor-Network Theory of French philosopher and sociologist Bruno Latour has become a hotly debated topic in the humanities. From a philosophical perspective, his theory of things keeps being reevaluated: is it possible for ‘Human and Non-Human Actors’ (Latour) to be analyzed as equally important actors? Does Latour’s theory of a simultaneous ‘agency’ of things and concepts indeed move beyond a subject-object relation? If it does, how far does it in fact go? Is it possible to develop a common new ontology by moving away from the notion of substance, and instead reducing any kind of entities to what they reveal in the course of their (inter)action? The contributions to Le Sujet de l’Acteur are looking for interferences between the idea of ‘agency’ and cultural dynamics. How can we relate questions of (social) action with those of cultural manifestations? Focusing on questions of symmetry or dissymmetry between the world of ‘things’ and ‘human beings,’ the vo...
Аннотация. В статье представлены идея организации международных летных STS школ в Томске и описан... more Аннотация. В статье представлены идея организации международных летных STS школ в Томске и описание первой из них, прошедшей в 2016 г. Школа является уникальным научным мероприятием, объединяющим работу социальных ученых (антропологов) и представителей естественных наук (биологов, почвоведов, экологов, ботаников). Ее цель-детальное этнографическое исследование научных практик в полевых условиях. Теоретическая рамка школы представляет собой сочетание акторно-сетевой теории (ANT) и принципов современной антропологии в изучении модерных обществ. В этой связке этнографический подход Карин Кнорр Цетиной (K. Knorr Cetina) и ее учеников, а также идеи социологии вкуса и привязанности Антуана Аньона (A. Hennion) позволяют рассматривать научные и инженерные практики не только в качестве агонистического поля «пробы сил» между людьми и нечеловеческими деятелями, но и как очаг феноменов страсти, привязанности и стойкости. Опыт школы авторы предлагают рассмотреть в более широком теоретикометодологическом контексте развития лабораторных исследований за последние 40 лет. Их основной вывод заключается в том, что наука вообще и лабораторная практика в частности второго десятилетия XXI в.-не те же самые, что были 40 лет назад, когда были сделаны основные открытия в области лабораторных исследований, а значит, требуют новых теоретических рамок осмысления и детального этнографического исследования. Ключевые слова: лабораторная жизнь, акторно-сетевая теория, STS, антропология науки * Исследование выполнено при финансовой поддержке гранта Правительства РФ П 220 № 14 В25.31.0009 (рук. Д.А. Функ).
Abstract Applying the notion of ‘orders of worth’ (L. Boltanski, L. Thevenot), the paper explores... more Abstract Applying the notion of ‘orders of worth’ (L. Boltanski, L. Thevenot), the paper explores the technology & policy challenges the Bulgarian nuclear energy sector faced from the mid-1980s to the early 2000s. Emerging after the 1960s based on Soviet technology and under Soviet political domination, it had to adapt to the new conditions set by the winners of the Cold War and to the pressure of local green movements. Key events included the completion of the second 1000 MW Soviet nuclear reactor at the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), the termination of work on the Belene NPP (1990–1991), and the painful decommissioning under EU pressure of the four old 440 MW reactors (2004–2006). The paper traces the public debates during these developments, the resources used by the actors to justify their behavior and draws conclusions about the peculiarities of emerging ‘technical democracies’ in Eastern Europe.
This article develops a historical perspective on Bulgarian energy dependencies and the vulnerabi... more This article develops a historical perspective on Bulgarian energy dependencies and the vulnerabilities linked to these from the 1940s to today. It comprises the story of how a (post)communist country experienced and dealt with rapidly growing energy imports. The article shows how Bulgarian energy system-builders over time tested different strategies to cope with the new geopolitical conditions in the post-World War II era. It discusses the immense dilemmas that emerged and the far-reaching oscillations of the Bulgarian energy sector: between East and West, between local systems and the imports, between dependence and vulnerability, between power and security. Three main periods are discerned and analyzed. The first started in the late 1940s with the rapid communist industrialization, through which Bulgaria’s energy supply became heavily dependent on import of both resources (coal and oil in particular) and technology from the Soviet Union. The second began in early 1960s with the transition to mega-power plants fueled both by domestic lignite and uranium (enriched, however, in Soviet Union), and a gradual development of policies of energy self-sufficiency. The third one was spurred by the collapse of communism in 1989. It features the country’s accession to the EU in 2007 and the largely parallel ambition to enable a transition to renewables, both aiming the reduction of the dependence on imported energy.
International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation
This article further develops the stacked actor-networks (SAN) approach in modelling socio-econom... more This article further develops the stacked actor-networks (SAN) approach in modelling socio-economic and cultural dynamics. Following the Lee and Schiesser application of differential equation analysis in biological and social sciences, the authors used a basic SAN model. This model is composed of three subnetworks where each two subnetworks dominate over the third one to build a quantitative description that identifies three stable states in the dynamics of their interactions – cyclical development, linear, and exponential growth. Describing the latter, the notion of ‘technology growth' is introduced that bears on the pattern of hyper-fast growth.
International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation
The paper dev?lops the mathematical basis of stacked actor-network (SAN) approach in modeling a s... more The paper dev?lops the mathematical basis of stacked actor-network (SAN) approach in modeling a socio-economic and cultural dynamics. It attempts to avoid the idea of ‘guidance' of a given form of (social) life being modelled, which has long been dominating in traditional sociology. Using methods of discreet mathematics and stochastic finite automata approach, we provided initial mathematical formalization of agent and actor-network, the types of complexity in the actor-network and three basic types of graphs comprising SAN's minimal model, with further aim is to develop these models in the form of computer programs (software) and to test them on real sociological data.
International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation
Applying the notion of identity, the article analyses the role of real time observation of profes... more Applying the notion of identity, the article analyses the role of real time observation of professional and amateur astronomers in the context of ongoing digitalization of research. Unveiling the importance of materiality and immediate relationships with instruments, we took a critical stance to the established research approaches to this subject, in particular the ethnography of profession and the actor-network theory (ANT). Bearing on of Julian Orr studies of professional culture and our own ANT notion of ‘heterogeneous coupling', an attempt was made to introduce a new language for analysing the two knowledge communities, based on the sociology of taste and attachment of Antoine Hennion and sociology of regimes of worth of Luck Boltanski, which allows to grasp both similarities and differences in the astronomers' identities.
The Making of Europe’s Critical Infrastructure, 2013
In early 1983, Todor Bozhinov is appointed as the new Bulgarian minister of the electric power in... more In early 1983, Todor Bozhinov is appointed as the new Bulgarian minister of the electric power industry. Eager to demonstrate his professional managerial capacities, he introduces a number of economic and organizational changes. These have recently been discussed in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON), and are aimed at increasing the productivity and efficiency of member states’ power systems. Some of the measures directly affect the reliability of electricity supply. For instance, the customary summer maintenance and repair works, during which many generating units lie idle, are to be drastically reduced. Also, two full months of coal emergency reserves are to be cut to the equivalent of two weeks, thus freeing significant financial and material resources. About a third of the Bulgarian coal supply comes from Soviet Ukraine via Black Seaports, but this supply line seems quite reliable.
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