Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

Government Technology Policy

Since the 1970s, the United States and Japan have found themselves in competition in a variety of industries, ranging from the basic, such as automobiles, to the advanced, such as computers. The course of development of industries in the two countries has been quite different, driven on the immediate level by very different national policies, but more fundamentally by underlying differences in their cultures.

The core focus of our concern in the following discussion is in the relationship of government technology policy with the technical and commercial development of a high-technology industry, specifically the computer industry. In the course of exploring this relationship, however, we must go far afield of the narrow specifics of policymaking. Both technology policies and the technologies they are designed in response to do not take form in a vacuum. They are not the simple consequence of a purely objective decision-making process. Instead, they are shaped by the political and cultural environment in which they take form. Therefore, to understand "technology policy," we must look less at specific policies than at the social context in which policy is formed.

At the most basic level, culture is the primary determinant not only of the restraints placed upon governmental policy makers, but of the whole manner in which they perceive their task. This may be made much clearer by looking at the cultural environment in which technology policy is shaped in Japan. In Japan, the leading role of government in shaping the planning and development of technology is taken for granted. Acceptance of this role is of a piece with the broader Japanese acceptance of active, dirigiste governmental intervention in economic life, and it is ultimately rooted in the way that the Japanese people look at themselves and their society.

The Japanese social and economic system, with its tradition of lifetime employment and its corporate anthems...

Page 1 of 22 Next >

More on Government Technology Policy...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
Government Technology Policy. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 04:22, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1704663.html