Theories and Models of Technological Change Semantics and Substance - Alex Roland

Theories and Models of Technological Change: Semantics and Substance
Author(s): Alex Roland

Source: Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Winter, 1992), pp. 79-100
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Theories and Modelsof Technological
Change: Semanticsand Substance
Alex Roland
Duke University
Like many historiansof technology, I experience a certain amount of

culture shock when I read articles such as those collected in this issue of
Science, Technology,& HumanValues.Analysis of technology in the hands
of the Europeansocial scientists gatheredhere proceeds in a very different
style from what I am accustomedto. It is more theoreticaland abstract.It
employs special vocabularies. It asks different questions. And, as Wiebe
Bijkerhas said, it eschews the "continuoustime dimension"so "beloved"of
historians.1
The vocabularyalone is enough to disconcertthe most resolute student.
Everyarticleintroduceswords andtermsthatarenew to me. InJohanSchot's
article I find "hard, structured selection environment," "technological
nexus,""boundary-spanning roles,""strategicnichemanagement"fromArie
Rip, and "script,or scenario"from Madeleine Akrich. Knut S0rensen and
Nora Levold limit themselves to "meso level" and "decomposability,"but
Iskender Gokalp indulges in "social communicationspaces," "borderland
situations,""ensembleeffect,""intersectionarea,""technostructures,"and
"bracketing."Speakingfor this genre of scholarshipas a whole, Bijkergoes
so far as to assert,as a positive good, that "the old vocabulary... has been
demolished,"2leaving the reader to wonder about a common ground for
discourse.
But thereis common groundhere, in spite of the novel language.Behind
the differences of style and terminology,one also detects certainideas and
concepts thatsound familiar.Second thoughtreveals thatmany of the terms
introducedin these essays have long been familiarin the historicalliterature
underdifferentrubrics.Some parallelswill make the point. Schot's techno-
logical nexus turnsout, as he freely admits,to be similarto SusanDouglas's
"translator,"3 and Douglas had the term from Hugh G. J. Aitken.4Interest-
ingly enough, Schot's term is also similar to Aitken's "technologicalgate-
Science, Technology,& HumanValues,Vol. 17 No. 1, W'nter1992 79-100
? 1992 Sage Publications,Inc.
79
80 Science, Technology, & HumanValues
keeper."And it furthermoreseems very close to the "linker"that Edward

Constantintroducedto historiansof technology in 1983.5Schot's selection
environmentsounds like Thomas Hughes's variableof "institutions"-one
of the contextualforces thatHughes sees shapingtechnology.6Indeed,when
Schotproposesthreeselection environmentsor technologicalnexus through
which the governmentcould shapeenvironmentaltechnologies,they all turn
out to be institutions:marketingdepartments,environmentaldepartments,
and qualityassurancedepartments-all within the targetindustries.
Iskender Gokalp addresses specifically the "jargon"he employs and
likens it to Hugh Aitken's. His "social communicationspace,"then, resem-
bles Aitken's "marketsof interaction,"a metaphorborrowed in the first
instancefrom economics. His phases or periods of large technical systems
soundlike ArnoldToynbee'sstages of civilization.His "isolationof factors"
is reminiscentof Arnold Pacey's "methodof detail"and WalterVincenti's
"parametervariation."7S0rensen and Levold use "technologicalcommu-
nity" in a way that is readilyidentifiablewith the usages of Elting Morison
and EdwardConstant.8Their meso-level characteristics,a terminologyde-
rivedfromthe macro/microenthusiasmsof economists,turnoutto be another
way of saying "the infrastructureof competence, skills, and knowledge."
This is clearly consonantwith the interestin technology as knowledge that
has been manifest in recent years in the work of Edwin Layton, Edward
Constant,Rachel Laudan,WalterVincenti, and others.9
Perhapsthe clearestexampleof the diversityof vocabularyandsimilarity
of concept between the emerging sociology of technology and the more
established history of technology is a paper by Wiebe Bijker that was
presentedat the initial conferenceof the Society for the Historyof Technol-
ogy, fromwhich the currentcollection evolved. Thatpaperis not reproduced
here, but its argumenthas nonetheless become well known in the field of
technology.1?In it Bijker arguedthat the developmentof fluorescentlights
by Westinghouseand GeneralElectric companies between 1938 and 1942
was shaped primarilyby the social constructionof the artifacts,not by the
physicalobjects themselves nor the laws of naturegoverningtheirmanufac-
ture and use. One group called them "high efficiency daylight fluorescent
lamps," while anothergroup insisted on seeing them as "fluorescenttint
lighting lamps."And therebyhangs Bijker's tale.
But this is a tale that historians of technology have been tracing for
decades. Thomas P. Hughes focused on the importanceof "rhetoric"in his
1965 studyof "theexecutioner'scurrent."'It is perhapseven the same issue
of "translation"used by Douglas and Aitken. It takes on its special signifi-
cance in Bijker'scase study because the new technology is in the phase that
Roland/ Semanticsand Substance 81
economic historians call innovation or diffusion. It has passed through

inventionand development,which Bijkerignores,and is now being sold. At
thatjuncture,as Hughesandothershave madeclear,all kindsof wordgames
begin to shape furtherdevelopment. This is not to suggest that Bijker's
questionis unimportant,only thatit has been addressedbefore, using differ-
ent terminology.
The dangerin concentratingon theoreticalconstructs,as the authorsin
this collection of articles do, is that it can lead to distortionof fact. Bijker,
for example, suggests that"artifactualflexibility"meansthatthe technology
itself is somehow different,dependingon how people perceive it or label it.
That is a powerfulassertion,one thatoperatessuccessfully at a certainlevel,
but nonethelessfails to satisfy those studentsof technologywho might have
a differentagenda or a differentset of questions. It could just as easily be
arguedthat distinctionsbetween efficiency and tint were simply marketing
positions, more representativeof the mind-set of the participantsthan the
natureof the artifact.The antebellumAmericancannon that exploded with
such deadly effect on boardthe U.S.S. Princetonin 1844 was called Peace-
maker,just as RonaldReaganinsistedon calling the MX missile Peacemaker.
Surely differentpeople perceive these weapons to be very differentthings,
instrumentsof destructionor guarantorsof liberty,but that does not make
them any different in fact. In an age that turns garbage men into sanitary
engineers,this kind of verballegerdemainshouldcome as no surprise.
It might, however, influence how the technology may evolve, and this
seems to be Bijker's most importantpoint. Using George Basalla's organic
model of technologicalchange,one may arguethatmanyvarietiesof a single
technology will often emerge in a given time and place. Those selected for
furtherdevelopmentare the ones thatsurvive the competitionof the market-
place. In that competition,perceptionis even more importantthan reality.
The technology thatseems to satisfy what people thinkthey want is the one
thatwill go on to furtherdevelopment.And the developmentwill focus on
those characteristicsthat made it most attractive-be it tint or efficiency or
intensity. Indeed, Bijker's model of how the interested parties came to
"closure"on the high-intensitylamp is reminiscentof Basalla's notion of
naturalselection and Joel Mokyr's more recentanalysis of the evolutionary
model of technological development.i2Bijker even quotes a letter in The
Engineer using just that Darwinian language to explain how the safety
bicycle came to displace the "ordinary"bicycle.'3
The differencebetween the social scientistswhose work is collected here
and the historiansof technology they seem to echo is one of perspective.
Social scientistslook for models andparadigms.T4They assumethatdisparate
communities,in the aggregate,behave similarly.Thus, for Bijker,the "first

step" in conducting a social constructivistanalysis is to "demonstrate. . .
artifactualflexibility,"15that is, to make the facts conform to a preexisting
theory.Historians,with theirbeloved time dimension,place muchmorefaith
in whatactuallyhappened.This has the greatvirtueof minimizingdistortion,
but it has the drawbackof revealingto them no more thanwhat the partici-
pants knew. The ideal, of course, is a blend of the two methods,promoting
rigorousand impartialhistoricalinvestigationinformedby concepts of how
other similarprocesses have evolved. We all want richly contextualstudies
in which we perceive and incorporatein our explanationsall the variables
thatare at work.
At the riskof clutteringan alreadybusy landscape,I would like to venture
my own hypothesisaboutthe natureof technologyandtechnologicalchange.
The model is one thatI developed largely in the classroom,to provide stu-
dents with two conceptualtools that are not available in any of the articles
collected here. First,the model is built upon a definitionof technology.Sec-
ond, the model is consciously designed to be transcultural,to apply equally
well in all times and places.
Definition
My model begins with a definition.16Lack of definition, I believe, ac-

counts for much of the confusion and many of the problemsof terminology
in the extant literature.Dictionarydefinitionsof technology - "the applica-
tion of science, especially to industrialandcommercialobjectives,"and"the
entirebody of methodsandmaterialsused to achieve such objectives"-are
inadequateto the taskat hand.Both describerecognizable,twentieth-century
phenomena,but they are hardly adequateto explain the pyramidsor the
Bessemer steel process, let alone the development of the latest forms of
computermemory,which outpacethe ability of science to explain them, or
the perfectionby theNationalAeronauticsandSpaceAdministrationof space
technologiesthatdefy repeatedattemptsat commercialization.The need for
definitionis manifest,I think,when a reputablescholarcan definetechnology
as the use of "certainimplementsto serve certainpurposesand do certain
kinds of work,"17and another can claim that "political activity can be
understoodas a form of technology, as a body of specific techniques for
manipulatingsocial relations."18 Schot says that"environmentaltechnology
comprisesall the techniques,processes, andproductsthatareof importance
in preventing or reducing the burden on the environment."By this last

definition,the EnvironmentalProtectionAct is a technology.
I define technologyas systematic,purposefulmanipulationof the material
world.19It has four components:materials,technique,power, and tools or
machines. Thus technology is the process of applying power by some
techniquethroughthemediumof some tool ormachineto altersome material
in a useful way. These componentsare necessaryand sufficient to describe
any technology at any time, but they are static;they do not addresstechno-
logical change.
Technologicalchange seems to be of two types. Long-termchange takes
place in greatBraudelianepochs. Lewis MumfordandBertrandGille, among
others,have essayed schemes of periodizationfor long-termchange. Mum-
ford divided Westernexperience into three periods, characterizedby the
power and the materialsthat dominatedeach. The "eotechnic"phase from
A.D. 1000 to 1750 exploited water and wood. The "paleotechnic"era was
one of coal and iron. The "neotechnic"phase was one of electricity and
alloys.20Gille has arguedthat it is possible "to assess history in terms of a
series of differentsuccessive technicalsystems"and that indeed "thestages
of technicalprogressneeded to be examined,and put into the context of the
othergreatmovementsof history."He criticizedMumford'speriodsforbeing
too long, but when he came to essay his own, they turnout to be simply the
traditionalperiods of Western political history: ancient, Greek, Roman,
medieval, IndustrialRevolution,and modem. His only departurefrom this
conventionalperiodizationis to identify periods of "blockage,"when tech-
nological advanceis temporarilyhalted.21
I have defined the epochs of Western technological development as
follows. The Age of Materials lasted from the earliest times to about 1000
B.C. During this period, humanscame to masternot only organicmaterials
like wood and fibers but also inorganicmaterials,the most importantbeing
stone, ceramics,ornamentalmetals like gold and silver, and workingmetals
like copper,bronze,tin, and,the most importantof these, iron.In fact, materi-
als were so importantduringthis periodthatarchaeologiststook to defining
successive eras by the materialsin use: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and
the Iron Age. After 1000 B.C. no major class of new materialsappeared
before the twentiethcentury.
The Age of Technique, from 1000 B.C. to A.D. 1453, witnessed the
perfectionof techniquesfor manipulatingthe knownandmalleablematerials
using the wind, water, and muscle power then available. Some heat and
chemical power was known and exploited, but it was employed usually to
alterthe compositionof materials,such asclay andmetal,andnotto do work.

In contrast,the Age of Power, from 1453 to 1871,22witnessed a literal and
figurativeexplosion in the amountof power availableto humansfor altering
the materialworld. Most of this periodwas spent developing techniquesfor
harnessingthis power, usually on the model of the cannon and the water
wheel. The transformationof the steam engine from an atmosphericengine
into a heat engine laid the groundworkfor the final epoch. In the Age of
Machines,from 1871 to the present,industrializedsocieties have developed
machinescapableof exploiting the power discoveredin the previousera.23
Mostanalystsof technologyexaminewhatI would call short-termchange,
thatis, change thattakesplace within one of these periods.Thatis surelythe
case with the four articlescollected in this issue, all of which operatein the
Age of Machines. I see these short-termchanges from the perspective
developed most fully by Thomas P. Hughes, who has done as much as any
scholarin the field to promotewhathe calls a "communityof discourse."His
contributionsstretchfrom ElmerSperry:Inventorand Engineer24througha
wide variety of articles to their most complete realizationin Networks of
Power.25 Technology of the kind that most interests Hughes is developed in
large-scalesystems by greatindividualswith entrepreneurialskills. Thomas
Edison is the great exemplar.But Hughes's vision encompasses more than
Samuel Smiles's Lives of the Engineers rewrittento include systems man-
agement. Hughes sees the great technological systems emerging out of a
complex of externalforces and evincing generic characteristics.Greattech-
nological systems areshapedby nationaland regionalstyle, politics, institu-
tions,andeconomics.They experiencereversesalientsandmomentum.They
are broughtto fruitiononly by those geniuses who can managethe technol-
ogy itself and the externalforces shaping it.26
l will illustratemy version of these categoriesof forces drivingshort-term
technologicalchangewith examplesfrom my own researchon the evolution
of military technology in the West, although I believe that comparable
illustrationsfrom otherfields could be just as easily developed.
Contextual Issues of Appropriateness
Not all technologies will thrive in all environments.Several external

factors determineif and how a given technology will flourish in a given
context. First is perceived need. An example from the cold war will serve.
After WorldWarII, the United States and the Soviet Union, each of which
had capturedGermanscientists and engineers from the V-2 program,pro-
ceeded along differentpaths.The Soviets elected to scale up the V-2 into an

intercontinentalballisticmissile, forthey hadno otherprospectof developing
a weapon capable of delivering atomic bombs to the United States. The
United States,in contrast,had the world's largestbomberforce andoverseas
bases aroundthe world. It did not need ICBMs, so it put Wernhervon Braun
and his colleagues in the desert to cool their heels. Not until 1954 did the
United States begin a missile development programto catch up with the
Soviets. The differencein startingdatesmadefor a differencein missile styles
that still characterizesthe U.S. and Soviet arsenals:The Soviets committed
to massive but powerful missiles of the kind first designed to throw heavy
atomic warheadsintercontinentaldistances;the United States committedto
a leaner,more sophisticatedmissile with a lighterthrow-weightmade possi-
ble by the transitionto thermonuclearweapons.27
Resources-human, material,and energy-will shape technology. The
ByzantinesmasteredGreekfire in partbecause they had access to petroleum
thatliterallybubbledto the surfaceof the earthin Asia Minor.28 The absence
of resourcescan be just as compelling. The demandof the British navy for
oak trees contributedto the deforestationof the countryin the seventeenth
century.29This sent the British scurryingfor forest productsin Scandinavia
and the New World;it also contributedto Britishpioneeringin the introduc-
tion of coal and coke for iron manufacturing.
National and regional style differentiatesone area's solution to techno-
logical problemsfrom another's.The Carthaginianswere mastermariners;
the Romanswere foot soldiers. When they met in the First Punic War,the
Romanshad to adaptthemselvesto warfareat sea. They inventedthe corvus,
an eighteen-footplankwith a hook at the end. Mountedon an axle, the corvus
was held vertically against the ship's mast until a Carthaginianship came
within reach. Then it was droppedonto the enemy deck, where the hook
caughthold and locked the ships together.Across the plankranRomanfoot
soldiers to engage the Carthaginiansailors in hand-to-handcombat. The
Romansturneda sea battle into a land battle of floating platforms.30
The English long bow, arguablyone of the most potent weapons of the
Middle Ages, was widely feared and respected but never imitated. The
reasons are simple. It achieved its unparalleledaccuracyand hitting power
throughits great size and heavy pull. Its use could be masteredonly after
years of practice. English boys grew up with the long bow, huntingwild
animals,competingin archerycontestson holidays,andadmiringthose local
heroeswho excelled with the weapon. Fromthatvast yeomanrythattrained
throughouttheir youth, Englanddraftedthe longbowmen who stood up to
the French feudal array in the HundredYears War. Simply putting their
weapon in the hands of archerswho lacked the years of training would

produceno like results. The longbow was peculiarto England,for reasons
deeply rootedin English culture.3?
Ideology and philosophy shape weapons development and use just as
surely as natural resources do. Included in this category are ethics and
aesthetics.The papacybannedthe crossbow in the late Middle Ages, allow-
ing its use only againstthe heathen.Westernnationsbannedthe use of poison
gas early in the twentiethcentury,turningaside argumentsthatit was really
more humanethanfirearms,which killed a far higherpercentageof casual-
ties. The neutronbomb, nicknamedthe "capitalistweapon"because it killed
people but left propertyintact,was similarlyhootedfrom the public stage in
the 1980s, not because it was ineffectivebut because it somehow seemed to
violate accepted notions of fair play. When the Confederateslaid out land
mines duringthe American Civil War,they often markedthem with flags,
because they felt hidden weapons were unchivalrous;needless to say this
policy influenced the usefulness and hence the futuredevelopmentsof this
technology.32
Politics have shapedmilitarytechnology since elites firstbegan tiding to
battle in chariots.One reasonthat the hoplite revolutionin ancient Greece
was so revolutionarywas thatit placedin the frontrankthewealthiestcitizens
of the state, who vowed to come home with theirhoplon ("shield")or on it.
Eversince these classic models firstappeared,aristocratsandcitizen-soldiers
have chosen theirweapons to suit theirpolitics.33In the modernworld, the
military-industrialcomplex thatbecame such a potent political force in the
cold warwas actuallyinventedin the late nineteenthcentury,when FirstLord
of the Admiralty Sir Jackie Fisher conspired with arms manufacturersto
convince Parliamentand the Britishpeople to fund a massive naval building
campaignin dreadnoughts.The uniqueinnovationhere was lobbying by the
arms makers to influence national military policy.34
The economics of militarytechnology are as old and new as the contro-
versy over repeatingweapons. When engineersin ancient Greece invented
a repeatingballistathatfired arrowsas rapidlyas the machinewas recocked,
the objectionwas the same one thatgreetedrepeatingrifles in the nineteenth
century and automatic small arms in the twentieth century. Commanders
allowed thatthey would indeed generateincreasedfirepower,but they also
feared that undisciplinedtroops would squanderammunitionand exhaust
supplies.35Comparably,rifled small armswere known and indeed manufac-
turedas huntingweapons as early as the fourteenthcentury,but they were
not adoptedas standardissue in armies until late in the nineteenthcentury,
because they were simply more expensive than their increased range and
accuracy seemed to warrant.Strategic bombing in World War II is still a
controversialtopic among military historians,because the economics of it

remainin doubt.36It is well known thatstrategicbombing severely crippled
the war-makingcapabilityof GermanyandJapan;what is not yet understood
is whether the effects it achieved were worth the cost-a calculation of
enormouscomplexity.PresidentReagan's StrategicDefense Initiative(Star
Wars)is held hostage to the same variable-it must cost less to deploy than
the steps the enemy might take to overcome it, else the enemy wins by
bankruptcy.
Science contributedto militarytechnology only sporadicallybefore the
modernperiod, as in Archimedes'legendarydevelopmentof engines for the
defense of Syracuse.37Since the scientific revolution of the seventeenth
century,however,the pace of scientific engagementin armsdevelopmenthas
been accelerating,fromthegunpowderinvestigationsof LavoisierandProust
to the work of five Nobel laureateson gas warfarein WorldWarI and more
thanhalf a dozen Nobel laureateson the atomicbomb in WorldWarII.38This
last enterpriseraised,but failed to resolve, the issue of the moralresponsi-
bility of the scientist.
Internal Issues of Management
Just as there are external factors that determine if and how a given
technology will function in a culturalcontext, so too are there mattersof
internallogic and managementthatdeterminenot only what form a technol-
ogy will take but also whetherit will survive at all.
Entrepreneursand translatorsare the first and most importantcategory
of these internalfactors.39When John Hollandand Simon Lake squaredoff
at the turnof the centuryto sell competingsubmarineschemes to the United
States Navy, it was impossibleto tell which of theirvery differentvisions of
this new technology would prevail. Holland emerged the victor, as much
because of his entrepreneurialskills as because of the superiorityof his
design.40So too can insiders make a difference. John Dahlgren came to
dominate naval ordnance in the Civil War era as much because of his
entrepreneurialskills and his conscious pursuitof political favor as because
of his technical contributions.41William Sims transformedgunfire in the
AmericanNavy by acting as both an entrepreneurand a translator.He trans-
lated for the Americannaval hierarchythe reformsin gunfirecontroldevel-
oped by BritishCaptainPercy Scott,andhe pushedthose reformsto adoption
by steering them through the shoals of naval politics, going outside the
hierarchywhen necessary to garnerpolitical support.42
Inertiaand momentumact in technology as they do in nature.43Commu-

nities will remain satisfied with existing technologies until acted upon by
some impellingforce, as the UnitedStatesAir Forceremainedwedded to the
mannedbomberuntil forced by Soviet advancesto come to grips with the
unmannedmissile.44Similarly,technologicaldevelopmentwill proceed in a
more or less predictabletrajectoryunless redirectedby an externalforce, as
battleships grew ever bigger and more powerful in the first half of the
twentiethcenturyuntilfinally replacedas monarchsof the sea by the aircraft
carrier.45Technologies build up mass and velocity, taking on a momentum
thatis increasinglydifficultto alteror redirect,as the mountedknightin the
late Middle Ages became ever more deadly but ever more encumberedand
immobile.
Militarytechnologies, like most others, come in systems.These are best
understoodas aggregationsof technologies, each of which acquirescontex-
tual meaning only when viewed as a system component.46The sailing ship
of the line, for example, was the most complex technological system in the
age of power,replacingthe windmill at the pinnacleof medieval technolog-
ical development.It couldbe understoodonly by comprehendingthe rigging,
sails, architecture,rudder,guns, and navigationtechniquesthat made it sail
and fight the way it did. Weaponssystems are as old as the chariot,which is
to say very old indeed, and as modern as the Strategic Defense Initiative,
whose greatestweakness is probablynot the componenttechnologies them-
selves but the systems integrationrequiredto make them work in concert.
Institutionsto foster and develop new militarytechnologies are as old as
the researchlaboratoryput togetherby Dionysius I of Syracusein 399 B.C.
to develop technologies for defending his city.47 From that effort came the
greatcatapultsof the ancientworld, complementedlaterin the same century
by the similar laboratoryput togetherby Philip of Macedonia,which pro-
duced ballistae. Withoutinstitutionalhomes, new technologies have had a
hardtime gaining acceptance,as, for example, underwaterwarfaredid in the
age of sail.48Once they are establishedin institutions,however,they take on
a life of theirown, almost independentof their technicalmerit, as has been
demonstratedby the Strategic Defense Initiative Office. Now we need
institutionslike the Defense AdvancedResearchProjectsAgency (DARPA)
just to provide an institutionalscreen throughwhich new militarytechnolo-
gies can be passed with a semblanceof impartialdiscrimination.
Technological development proceeds irregularly,arrestedat times by
retardantsthat seem to be inherentin the technologies themselves. These
constraintson technological developmenthave been called variouslypla-
teaus, ceilings, reverse salients, blockages, and bottlenecks.EdwardCon-
stantwould addpresumptiveanomalies.49RichardHirshhas recently added

the nuanceof technological stasis.50Whateverthe term,the concept seems
an importantinternallimit to technological "progress."The metallurgyof
sixteenth-and seventeenth-centurycannons,for example, was so imperfect
as to limit the power thatcould be generatedfrom a gun of a certainweight,
a fact thatretardedthe introductionof trulymobile field artillery.Radarwas
developed and even operationallyinstalled in the late 1930s, but the early
longwave radarsgave poor definition.The explosion of developmentsmade
possible by microwaveradarduringWorldWarII awaited the discovery of
the multicavitymagnetron.Withoutit, radaroperatedon a plateau,or under
a ceiling, its refinementblocked or held in a bottleneckor reversesalient by
the inabilityto get sufficient power into radiatedwaves of less thanabout a
meterin length.51
Standardizationis a familiaraspect of moderntechnology. It was pion-
eeredby the Frenchin the eighteenthcenturyfor militarypurposesto provide
interchangeablepartson the battlefield.Whenfirst introduced,it had limited
commercialapplication,for standardizedcomponentswere more expensive
thanhand-craftedcomponents.But the military,especially small armsarse-
nals in the United States, perfected the process and made it available for
commercialexploitationin the form of the American System of Manufac-
ture.52The British Fighting Instructionsin the age of sail representeda
standardizationof technique,not technology,but they nonethelessoperated
in the contextof the ship of the line, a standardizedtechnologywhose virtue
was measuredby its compatibilitywith other ships of similar sailing and
fighting characteristics.
Finally, secrecy, which has been at least a de facto part of Western
technologyfromearliesttimes, plays a particularlyimportantrole in military
technology,especially in the modem period. With the realizationthatsupe-
rior arms favor victory came a premium on keeping potentially useful
technologyout of the handsof the enemy.The Frenchwere so obsessed with
keeping their machinegun, the mitrailleuse,secret from the Prussians,that
they introducedit only in the middle of the Franco-PrussianWar,delivering
it to troopswho did not know how to use it or even whatto makeof it. Instead
of using it on the frontlines as an automaticsmall arm,they employedit from
the rear as artillery,where it was beyond its own effective range and fur-
thermorevulnerableto counterbatteryfire by Prussianartillery.53 The Byz-
antines in the eighth century and the Americans in the twentieth century
developedtechnologiesso potentiallydevastatingthatthey actuallydeclined
to use them lest they fall into enemy hands.The Byzantineskept Greekfire
such a secret that they repeatedlylost naval battles to the Arabs and in fact
finally lost the secret themselves.54 The United States did not at first use the
proximity fuse over land for fear the Germans would recover a dud, reverse-
engineer their own version, and use it against American troops. It was
released for use in Europe only when the Battle of the Bulge placed American
soldiers in extremis.
Motives
Why communities change technologies is less clear than how they do it.
The two traditional answers, demand pull and technology push, provide at
least a matrix for an answer. Demand pull is the most straightforward. The
fortification design called the trace italienne evolved at the beginning of the
modern period because the medieval castle was ill designed to withstand
bombardment by the new gunpowder weapons that came into use in the late
fifteenth century. The medieval castle's tall, thin walls were designed to resist
scaling; the higher the better. But that very height proved a double liability
against cannon. The walls collapsed of their own weight and moment when
pounded at the base, and furthermore, the walls could not mount cannon
themselves to provide counterbattery fire. The recoil from a cannon mounted
on the parapets would knock the wall down as quickly as enemy assault. So
the Italians pioneered techniques to lower the walls, thicken them, reinforce
them front and back with shock-absorbing dirt, and provide protected out-
posts from which suppressing fire could be delivered by defenders. Thus
emerged a new technological artifact driven by necessity.?5 To demand pull
of this kind Edward Constant would add "presumptive anomaly," which
stimulates change in anticipation of failure of the existing system but before
that system has actually proven inadequate.
Technology push derives from the internal logic of the technology itself.
It may take the form of Thomas Hughes's inertia or momentum, as it did, for
example, in the case of ballistic missile guidance in the United States.56This
is what Erwin Chargaff calls the "Devil's imperative," the conviction that we
must develop something simply because we can.57It also implies a Whiggish
philosophy of history, for it suggests that not only is technology always
changing but it is always getting somehow better, moving inexorably toward
some superior form. As the ballistic missile case makes clear, this notion of
technological progress is questionable, for although accuracy surely did
improve in American ballistic missiles in the 1970s, it is not clear that this
represented progress.58 The missiles ended up being something that no one
had consciously planned them to be, that is, a counterforce weapon that posed
a first-strikecapability and thus placed the United States in a strategic

position it had not sought. Strategy,indeed, had to be revised to conformto
technology.
Closely related to the concept of inertiaor momentumis the notion of
autonomoustechnologyor technologyout of control.?9Inertiaor momentum
suggests thattechnologycontinuesat rest or in straightmotion;autonomous
technology suggests thattechnology,once launched,moves accordingto its
own logic and takes on a pace and directionindependentof the course first
shapedfor it. Unlike missile guidance,for example,battleshipdesign at the
turnof the centurytook erratictwists andturnsdictatedlargelyby the nature
of the componenttechnologiesthemselves.It moved notjust to larger,faster,
morepowerfulships,but to shipsthatcombinedthose characteristicsin some
way that gave an advantageover their likely opposition. Thus Sir Jackie
Fisher,long viewed one-dimensionallyas the fatherof the Dreadnoughtand
thus the patriarchof the trendtowardever largerships of the line, in fact saw
speed as the desideratumof naval warfareand sought vessels thatwere fast
enough to choose the range in all encountersand could outgun their adver-
sariesat the chosendistance.To achieve speedandgunfiresuperiorityhe was
willing to sacrifice armor,a formulationthatwas to have disastrousconse-
quences for the Royal Navy at Jutland.60
By unleashing on the world an arms race predicatedon a mixture of
evolving technologies, Fisher had initiateda game of chance in which the
outcome dependedon a combinationof unpredictablevariables.The partic-
ipantscould choose theirown combination,but they had no power to choose
with confidence the right combination. The winning choice was itself a
variable, dependenton what combinationsthe enemy had chosen. Having
once chosen to play, the principalswere to a certain extent hostage to an
outcome thatcould not be predicted.
Impact
The impactof technologyon society hardlyneeds elaboration,especially

in the modernworld, where it shapes events more completely thanperhaps
any othersocial force.61The problemis not thatthe impactof technology is
unclearbut, rather,that it is too complicated to comprehend.It is at once
pervasiveandperplexing,andnowheremoreso thanin militaryaffairs.Since
WorldWarII, if not before, technology has been the primaryshaperof war-
fare, but that record begs some methodological and conceptual tools to
evaluatethe impact.
I propose that there are at least four conceptual dichotomies that help
organize the way in which technology influences its environment.First,
technologymay be eithercentralizingor decentralizing.62 It may concentrate
power in the hands of a few, or it may distributepower widely among the
people. Gunpowder,for example, didboth. In the formof cannonsit concen-
tratedpower in the hands of kings and would-be kings. Only they had the
economic resourcesto buy, feed, and field artillery.With these cannons in
theearlymodernperiodtheybroughtdown thecastlesof the medievalknight,
ended the anarchyand privatewar of the Middle Ages, forced the knightto
pay taxes instead of service, and used the taxes to buy more cannon and
furthercement their hold on power.Yet the same technology,in the form of
small arms,was a democratizingweapon, for it ended the relativeinvulner-
ability of the mountedknightto foot soldiers, replacedthe cavalrycycle of
the Middle Ages with an infantrycycle that lasted at least until WorldWar
If, and empoweredthe least effective soldieron the battlefieldto bringdown
the most fully trained,accoutered,andvalorouschampion.Now every man
could be Achilles; the right to bear armshas been a stimulantand a danger
to the masses ever since.
Technology can also be a determinantof history,as LynnWhite argued
so persuasivelyin MedievalTechnologyand Social Change.63White's is not
a simplistictechnologicaldeterminismthatdecriestechnologyout of control
in the sense documentedby LangdonWinnerin AutonomousTechnology.
Ratherit is a culturalartifactwith the enormouspowerto shapesociety. This
is technologicaldeterminismon a grandscale, on a Marxianscale, notwith-
standingthe attemptsby Donald MacKenzie and othersto arguethatMarx
was not a technologicaldeterminist.64 White arguesthatthe stirrupwas the
catalyst thatprecipitatedfeudalism out of eighth-centuryEuropeanculture,
and that the agriculturalrevolution of the nineth century precipitatedthe
commercialrevolutionof the eleventh century.
White's argumentfunctions on the level that CarloCipolla and William
H. McNeill have used to explain the rise of the West.65As in their studies,
technology seems most deterministicwhen viewed from afar.Whenviewed
in detail, it seems moreresponsiveto humancontrol,but only up to a point.66
People often entraina technology thatthen goes on to dictatethe course of
history,as railroadtimetablesdid on the eve of WorldWarI.67
Third,some technologies are flexible, some are rigid. Railroadsare the
most powerfulmeansof landtransportation, butthey can go only wheretheir
tracks are laid. Motor transportcan go wherever the ground is passable,
although it can carry less. Commitmentsto both must be made well in
advance of the time when they will be used. Once made, the decisions
become more or less deterministic.The Maginot Line was a magnificent

defense, which won the battle and lost the war for lack of flexibility. The
Frencharmyon the groundwas flexible enoughto engage the Germanswhere
they met them, but it lacked the strengthof the fortifications.
Finally,some technologies are static, some dynamic.The Romans used
two different,althoughrelated,techniquesto defend theirborders.In some
cases they built actual forts and walls, fixed defenses from which they ex-
pectedto repelinvaders.Inothercases they simplybuiltroadsto the frontiers.
Outpostsand borderforts were expected to warn of enemy attacksand to
holdup the invaderslong enoughfor reinforcementsto move along the roads
and meet the invader in force. One system was static and predictable,the
other dynamic and variable.The latter allowed the Romans to place their
flying legions in the locationswherethe threatseemedmostpressing,without
entirelyabandoningotherregions thatmight need help. To have mannedall
the forts at every position aroundthe empirewould have been to overprotect
some areaswhile leaving othersvulnerable.68 Whatthey chose was a dynamic
system thatused the technologyof roadconstructionto shift resourceswhere
they were neededmost, insteadof a staticsystem of fortificationtechnology
to put defenses in fixed positions.
Conclusion
The model I have outlinedhere is not intendedto be a substitutefor any

of the theories of technological change collected in this issue of Science,
Technology,& HumanValues.Ratherit is presentedin orderto emphasize
several importantpoints aboutthose theories.First,and most important,the
differencesbetween those theoriesand many of the models of technological
change found in the historicalliteratureare more semanticthansubstantive.
Studentsof technological change seem to have more in common than their
disciplinaryvocabularieswould suggest. I find no inconsistencybetweenthe
theoriesin this issue and the model thatI am accustomedto using.
InsteadI find thatthe theoriesadvancedhere emphasizedifferentaspects
of the problemand highlightdifferentfeatures.JohanSchot, for example, is
looking to "control"technology throughbetterunderstandingof the mecha-
nisms by which technological developmentcan be rechanneled.Similarly,
IskenderGokalp seeks to understandthe dynamics of large technological
systems by isolating the most importantvariablesin their developmentand
discounting the others. Knut S0rensen and Nora Levold emphasize the
importanceof institutionalfactors in technological developmentand make
clear the differencesbetween science and technology. I find none of those

purposesand agendas at odds with my own understandingof the multiple
pathsby which we mightcome to betterunderstandandperhapseven modify
the natureof technologicalchange.
Second, the theories advancedin this issue seem to operateon the basis
of implicit definitions of technology, while mine makes the definition ex-
plicit. Similarly,the othertheoriesfocus exclusively on moderntechnology
while mine is designed self-consciously to be transcultural.Not all students
of technologicalchange will find these featuresof my model necessary for
theirinvestigations,but neitherare they necessarily inconsistentwith them.
Ratherthey provide a basis that is at worst harmlessand at best helpful in
makingcomparisonsbetween differenttechnologies and differentcontexts.
After all, the search for theories is predicatedon the assumptionthat some
generalprinciplesoperatebehind, and in fact drive, surface appearances.If
therearesuch principles,they shouldbe trulyindependentof time andplace.
Finally,the theories advancedhere are useful to historians,in that they
help to draw them out from their penchantfor case studies into the more
difficultrealmof conceptualizationandgeneralization.My model, some will
argue,is so broadandso all-inclusiveas to lose its analyticalpower by trying
to do too much. That may well be true for specific cases, but the model
nonetheless provides a frameworkthat facilitates comparative study and
overcomes parochialism.One result of using it, or something like it, is
promotionof that communityof discourse that will ultimatelyprovide the
common paradigmof technologicalchange thatwe are all seeking.
Notes
1. Bijker(1989).
2. Bijker(1989, 1).
3. Douglas(1987).See alsoDouglas(1985).
4. Aitken(1976).
5. Constant(1983).
6. Hughes (1979); Bijker, Hughes, and Pinch (1987). Comparealso the use of the term
selection environmentby Dosi (1988).
7. Toynbee(1946-61); Pacey (1976, 133ff.); Vimcenti(1979).
8. Morison(1966); Constanl(1980).
9. The relevantliteratureis cited in Vincenti (1990), chapters1 and7.
10. See note 1 above. An expandedversion of this article will appearin Bijker and Law
(forthcoming).
11. Hughes(1965).
12. Basalla (t988); Mokyr(1990).
13. Bijker (1989).

14. Partof the similaritybetween the languagein these articlesand the terminologyfound
elsewhere merely demonstratesthat Europeansocial scientists studying technologicalchange
have drawnheavily upon existing historicalliterature.That literatureis moreconceptuallyrich
thanmost historiansallow. But more is at work as well. The one model thatreally dominatesus
all is that in Kuhn([1962] 1970). This slim book came close to providinga unifiedfield theory
for the historyof science. Althoughmanydisagreewith its formulationandpursueothermodels
of scientific change, this one work has nonethelessorganizeddiscouse in the historyof science
for the last thirty years, and in many other social sciences as well. No comparabletheoretical
constructexists for the social studyof technology.Pursuitof thatHoly Grailhas launchedmany
a knight errantinto print,each armedwith a vocabularythatwill do for them what paradigm
did for Kuhn. It made him a legend in his own time and turnedKuhnian into an adjective
recognizablethroughoutthe scholarlycommunity.
15. Kuhn([1962] 1970, 1).
16. On readingan earlierdraftof the materialin this article,ThomasP. Hughesadvisedthat
technologyis like politics; it is impossibleto define. It is betterto let the readerinfera definition
from the way you treatthe material.But see his thoughtson definitions in the introductionto
Hughes (1989).
17. van Creveld (1989, 4).
18. Givens (1989, 337). Givens goes on to speak of a "technologyof investigation,"which
turnsout againnot to be technology at all, but technique.
19. Inclusion of the term systematic I owe to both Lynn White and Robert McCormick
Adams;the latterconvinced me in personaldiscussionsthattechnology makesno sense outside
a social setting.
20. Martinvan Crevelddeveloped a comparablescheme in Techolog and War(1989).
21. Gille ([1978] 1986, l:ix, 17, 19, et passim).
22. The dates are chosen from my own work in the historyof militarytechnology.In 1453,
Constantinoplefell to gunpowder.In 1871, the PrussiansdefeatedFranceanddemonstratedthe
superiorityof their general staff and war college, the instrumentsof a managerialrevolution
called for to control successfully the expansion of warfareunleashedby the democraticand
industrialrevolutions.Not coincidentally,I think,the latterdate conesponds to the opening of
the Americancenturyas describedby Hughes (1989).
23. James Beniger (1986) has arguedthat we enteredan Age of Informationafter World
WarII, butI do not count this transitionin my model becauseI do not considerit a technological
category. Informationis part of technological knowledge, that is, part of technique in my
definition. But it is not a technology in and of itself. It is anotherquestion whetherwe have
entereda computerage.
24. Hughes (1971).
25. Hughes(1983).
26. The best summaryof Hughes's model is Hughes (1987).
27. McDougall (1985); Ordwayand Sharpe([1979] 1982).
28. Partington(1960)
29. Albion (1926).
30. Wallinga(1956).
31. Esper(1965).
32. StockholmPeace Institute(1976); Roland(1978). The aestheticsof militarytechnology
have been addressedby Nef (1950).
33. Hanson(1989).
34. McNeill (1982, chap. 8).

35. Soedel and Foley (1979).
36. Werrell(1986).
37. Sims (1977).
38. Mauskopf(1990); Haber(1986); Rhodes (1986).
39. I use translatorshere in the sense of Susan Douglas and Hugh G. J. Aitken. These are
slightlydifferentfrom the translationmodel of BrunoLatour(1987).
40. Lonnquest(1981).
41. Schneller(1991).
42. Morison(1968).
43. This concept is similar to Dosi's "trajectory"and "paradigm,"as developed in Dosi
(1982).
44. Reed (1986).
45. O'Connell (1991).
46. Note the parallel with Jacques Ellul's The TechnologicalSystem, as quoted in Misa
(1988, 311). I am especially indebtedto Thomas Misa, not just for the insight providedby this
articleandotherpublications,but for the manyfruitfulsuggestionshe madeon an earlierversion
of this article.
47. Landels(1978, chap.5). See also Craven(1989).
48. Roland(1978).
49. In The Origins of the TurbojetRevolution,Constantattemptedto adapt the Kuhnian
modelof scientific revolutionsto technologicalchange.The model, he believed, fit ratherwell,
except thatthereseemed to be no technologicalanalogof crisis, thatis, the buildupto intolerable
levels of anomaly.So he invented"presumptiveanomaly,"a belief that the reigningparadigm
was approachinga physical situationin which it would no longersatisfy. In the case of aircraft
propulsion,it was the highest speed at which a propellercould push an airframethroughthe
atmosphere.In the 1930s it was realized by a handfulof researchersthat airframescould be
designedto fly fasterthanpropellerscould push them.The limit had not yet been reached,but
it could be anticipated,or presumed.
50. Hirsh(1989).
51. Baxter(1946); Allison (1981).
52. Smith(1977); Hounshell(1984).
53. Howard(1961).
54. Roland(forthcoming).
55. Duffy (1979-85).
56. MacKenzie(1990).
57. Quotedin Goodfield(1977, 6).
58. JohnStaudenmaierhas been particularlyarticulatein denouncingthis notion of techno-
logical progress.See especially Staudenmaier(1985). See also Feenberg(1982), cited in Misa
(1988).
59. The classic statementis Winner(1977).
60. Sumida(1989).
61. This is the fundamentalargumentof JacquesEllul ([1954] 1964), thoughEllul defines
his term technique so broadly as to include many phenomenathat I do not consider to be
technology.
62. This is parallelto Mumford'scontrastbetweendemocraticandauthoritarian techniques,
which has been adoptedas well by McNeill (1982).
63. White (1962).
64. MacKenzie(1984).
65. See Cipolla ([1965] 1985); McNeill (1982); Parker(1988).
66. See Misa (1989).
67. Taylor(1969).
68. Luttwak([1976] 1984).
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Alex Rolandis Professorof History at Duke University(Durham,NC 27706 USA) and

the author of UnderwaterWarfarein the Age of Sail (1978) and Model Research:A
History of the National Advisory Committeefor Aeronautics,1915-1958 (1985). This
essay formspart of his currentprojecton theories of technologicalchange.

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Theories and Models of Technological Change: Semantics and Substance

Author(s): Alex Roland

Like many historiansof technology, I experience a certain amount of

keeper."And it furthermoreseems very close to the "linker"that Edward

economic historians call innovation or diffusion. It has passed through

communities,in the aggregate,behave similarly.Thus, for Bijker,the "first

My model begins with a definition.16Lack of definition, I believe, ac-

in preventing or reducing the burden on the environment."By this last

alterthe compositionof materials,such asclay andmetal,andnotto do work.

Contextual Issues of Appropriateness

Not all technologies will thrive in all environments.Several external

ceeded along differentpaths.The Soviets elected to scale up the V-2 into an

weapon in the hands of archerswho lacked the years of training would

controversialtopic among military historians,because the economics of it

Internal Issues of Management

Inertiaand momentumact in technology as they do in nature.43Commu-

stantwould addpresumptiveanomalies.49RichardHirshhas recently added

a first-strikecapability and thus placed the United States in a strategic

The impactof technologyon society hardlyneeds elaboration,especially

become more or less deterministic.The Maginot Line was a magnificent

The model I have outlinedhere is not intendedto be a substitutefor any

clear the differencesbetween science and technology. I find none of those

13. Bijker (1989).

34. McNeill (1982, chap. 8).

Aitken, Hugh G. J. 1976. Syntonyand spark:The origins of radio. New York:Wiley.

Gille, Bertrand.[1978] 1986. The history of techniques. Translatedby P. Southgate and

Toynbee,Arnold. 1946-61. A studyof history.London:O~fordUniversityPress.

Alex Rolandis Professorof History at Duke University(Durham,NC 27706 USA) and

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