The New Scientific World Order

The objective of this symposium is to analyze the role of the Unites States in the configuration of new institutions for technological and scientific research, and the production and regulation of new equipment, resources and subjects of technological and scientific research in national and transnational context after WWII. 

The key question is, in which ways US hegemony affected the way in which different countries do science and establish scientific relations? Such a broad question allows us to explore different perspectives, from institutional or high “scientific diplomacy” history, to regional and more specific analyses. This will encourage us to question the heterogeneity of the “new scientific world order”, formed in different ways around the world, and in various scientific fields. What were the limits imposed on American plans both by the communist order and third non-aligned countries? What disciplines were given more attention in accordance with new military and economic interests?

The role of the United States in promoting the new world order in the era of the Cold War and decolonization is known in both politics and economics, but there is still a lot of work to be done in the scientific and technical fields. During the last decade an important number of studies have shown that the influence of the United States when setting up regional and national research programs has never been one-sided. On the contrary, it has been the consequence of independent negotiations in local contexts. This has lead historian John Krige to talk about the co-production of American hegemony in the scientific research in Europe during the post-war era. To his institutional analysis (backed by UNESCO studies by Perrin Selcer, among others), we can add more other analysis which focus on specific disciplines (in Spain, as an example, María Jesús Santesmases and others have done research in the field of bio-medicine), military (see a recent study on NATO by Simone Turchetti), and technology (see Ross Basset’s analysis about technological institutions in India).