IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB797225432

Reconfiguration, Contestation, and Decline: Conceptualizing Mature Large Technical Systems (November 2018)

Sovacool, Benjamin K. (Author)
Lovell, Katherine (Author)
Ting, Marie Blanche (Author)

Science, Technology and Human Values
Volume: 43
Issue: 6
Pages: 1066-1097

URI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243918768074

DOI: 10.1177/0162243918768074

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Sociotechnical systems Megaproject Technoscience; science and technology studies History of technology, as a discipline Infrastructure Engineering, Large-scale 21st century

Large technical systems (LTS) are integral to modern lifestyles but arduous to analyze. In this paper, we advance a conceptualization of LTS using the notion of mature “phases,” drawing from insights into innovation studies, science and technology studies, political science, the sociology of infrastructure, history of technology, and governance. We begin by defining LTS as a unit of analysis and explaining its conceptual utility and novelty, situating it among other prominent sociotechnical theories. Next, we argue that after LTS have moved through the (overlapping) phases proposed by Thomas Hughes of invention, expansion, growth, momentum, and style, mature LTS undergo the additional (overlapping) phases of reconfiguration, contestation (subject to pressures such as drift and crisis), and eventually stagnation and decline. We illustrate these analytical phases with historical case studies and the conceptual literature, and close by suggesting future research to refine and develop the LTS framework, particularly related to more refined typologies, temporal dimensions, and a broadening of system users. We aim to contribute to theoretical debates about the coevolution of LTS as well as empirical discussions about system-related use, sociotechnical change, and policy-making.

...More

Citation URI

http://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB797225432/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Hilary Brown; (June 2018)
Keeping the Lights On: A Comparison of Normal Accidents and High Reliability Organizations (/isis/citation/CBB642439933/)

Article Hugo Silveira Pereira; (2017)
The technodiplomacy of Iberian transnational railways in the second half of the nineteenth century (/isis/citation/CBB700807464/)

Article Rebekah Shirley; Daniel Kammen; (June 2018)
Mundane is the New Radical: The Resurgence of Energy Megaprojects and Implications for the Global South (/isis/citation/CBB228854132/)

Article Antonio Bucchiarone; Philip Feldmann; (June 2019)
The Resilience of "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles": Comment on "Driverless Cars Will Make Passenger Rail Obsolete," by Yair Wiseman [Opinion] (/isis/citation/CBB510349929/)

Article McAllister, Therese P.; van de Lindt, John; Ellingwood, Bruce; (Summer 2019)
A Fully Integrated Model of Interdependent Physical Infrastructure and Social Systems (/isis/citation/CBB495253737/)

Article Lucy Suchman; Karolina Follis; Jutta Weber; (November 2017)
Tracking and Targeting: Sociotechnologies of (In)security: (Introduction) (/isis/citation/CBB721841161/)

Article Benjamin K. Sovacool; David J. Hess; (October 2017)
Ordering theories: Typologies and conceptual frameworks for sociotechnical change (/isis/citation/CBB756258184/)

Article Shana Lee Hirsch; Jerrold Long; (March 2021)
Adaptive Epistemologies: Conceptualizing Adaptation to Climate Change in Environmental Science (/isis/citation/CBB087611495/)

Article Chih-yuan Yang; Bronislaw Szerszynski; Brian Wynne; (September 2018)
The Making of Power Shortage: The Sociotechnical Imaginary of Nationalist High Modernism and Its Pragmatic Rationality in Electricity Planning in Taiwan (/isis/citation/CBB183913124/)

Article Rebecca Slayton; (January 2021)
Governing Uncertainty or Uncertain Governance? Information Security and the Challenge of Cutting Ties (/isis/citation/CBB911361449/)

Article Sam Weiss Evans; Matthias Leese; Dagmar Rychnovská; (April 2021)
Science, technology, security: Towards critical collaboration (/isis/citation/CBB461668631/)

Article Sergio Urueña; (2022)
Anticipation and modal power: Opening up and closing down the momentum of sociotechnical systems (/isis/citation/CBB466032431/)

Article Jaakko Taipale; (June 2019)
Judges’ socio-technical review of contested expertise (/isis/citation/CBB635897203/)

Article Sheila Jasanoff; Sebastian Pfotenhauer; (December 2017)
Panacea or diagnosis? Imaginaries of innovation and the ‘MIT model’ in three political cultures (/isis/citation/CBB640965055/)

Article Neelke Doorn; Behnam Taebi; (May 2018)
Rawls’s Wide Reflective Equilibrium as a Method for Engaged Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Potentials and Limitations for the Context of Technological Risks (/isis/citation/CBB722391619/)

Article Abraham S. D. Tidwell; Jessica M. Smith; (September 2015)
Morals, Materials, and Technoscience: The Energy Security Imaginary in the United States (/isis/citation/CBB992433257/)

Article Edward B Kang; (2022)
Biometric imaginaries: Formatting voice, body, identity to data (/isis/citation/CBB345469713/)

Article Christiane Wilke; (November 2017)
Seeing and Unmaking Civilians in Afghanistan: Visual Technologies and Contested Professional Visions (/isis/citation/CBB113464170/)

Essay Review Francesca Musiani; (March 2015)
Review Essay: Practice, Plurality, Performativity, and Plumbing: Internet Governance Research Meets Science and Technology Studies (/isis/citation/CBB529244714/)

Article Jens Ivo Engels; (July 2022)
Rhythm Analysis: A Heuristic Tool for Historical Infrastructure Research (/isis/citation/CBB181771307/)