Nanotechnology and Sociopolitical Modernity in Developing Countries; Case Study of Iran Cover Image

Nanotechnology and Sociopolitical Modernity in Developing Countries; Case Study of Iran
Nanotechnology and Sociopolitical Modernity in Developing Countries; Case Study of Iran

Author(s): Reza Ghazinouri, Sepehr Ghazinoory
Subject(s): Economy
Published by: Vilnius Gediminas Technical University
Keywords: nanotechnology; modernity; Iran; knowledge based economy; commodity dependency; socio-technical system; developing countries

Summary/Abstract: What we must keep in mind is that although nanotechnology is an emerging and high technology, it is still technology or, in other words, it has an instrumental nature and in order to study its effect on societies we have to consider the role of instruments’ evolution in societies and study nanotechnology as the most recent part of this trend. In this article we study the nature of modern technologies, role of technology based economy on different social and political aspects of developing countries; we have a review on the concept of social and political modernity and describe how development of nanotechnology will accelerate those countries’ modernization from social and political point of view in addition to modernizing their economy. So this paper is a cross-disciplinary study between nanotechnology and social sciences. There are two different scenarios about the future of nanotechnology. One is the proof of radical nanotechnology and the other is the acceptance of the claim that nanotechnology is only an enabling technology. In the present paper, we studied the effects of both scenarios. The obstacles to modernity in Iran and potential effect of nanotechnology on them are studied as a case study.

  • Issue Year: 2009
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 395-417
  • Page Count: 23
  • Language: English