Political construction and control of technology: wave-power renewable energy technologies

Recognizing that gouernment-sponsored research, development and demonstration (R,D&D) is a rentral factor in the construction of new technologies, this paper analyzes selected aspects of the relationships between government officials, 'private' businesses and technologists, within the process of technolog development. Building on precious zoork in the social construction of technology tradition for example, of Hughes, Pinch and Biker) and in technology policy and decision-making theoy (for example, of Collingridge and Morone and Woodhouse), and using the case of wave-power R&D in the UK; the paper identifies characteristics of embryonic technological artefacts and their institutional contexts which tend to bias the socio-political construction process. The key to the paper is the extent to which such distortions lead to unwise, uneconomical and/or unfair innovations or hinder learning about seemingly inflexible technologies, which could help to reduce their complexity, scale or cost.