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The Development of Large Technical Systems Renate Mayntz, Thomas P. Hughes (Editors) The Development of Large Technical Systems Campus Copyright © 1988 in Frankfurt am Main by Campus Verlag Published in 1988 in the United States by WESTVIEW PRESS Frederick A. Praeger, Publisher 5500 Central Avenue Boulder, Colorado 80301 ISBN 3-593-34032-1 Campus Verlag ISBN 0-8133-0839-9 Westview Press LCCCard Number 88-27708 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Development of large technical systems I edited by Renate Mayntz and Thomas Hughes. p. cm.- (Publications of the Max Planck Institute for Social Research, Cologne, West Germany) ISBN 0-8133-0839-9 1. Technology-United States-History. 2. Technology-France­ History. 3. Technology-Germany-History. I. Mayntz, Renate. 11. Hughes, Thomas. Ill. Series. T2l.D49 1988 609-dcl9 CIP-Titelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek The development of large technical systems I [Max-Planck­ Inst. fiir Gesellschaftsforschung, Koln]. Renate Mayntz; Thomas P. Hughes (ed.).- Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag; Boulder, Colorado : Westview Press, 1988 ISBN 3-593-34032-1 (Campus) brosch. ISBN 0-8133-0839-9 (Westview Press) brosch. NE: Mayntz, Renate [Hrsg.]; Max-Planck-lnstitut fiir Gesellschaftsforschung <Koln> All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Printed in West Germany CONTENTS Foreword 5 1. Large technical systems: Concepts and issues Bemward Joerges 9 2. The emergence of an early large-scale technical system: The American railroad network Stephen Salsbury 37 3. The evolution of the technical system of railways in France from 1832 to 1937 Franr;ois Caron 69 4. The development of the German railroad system G. Wolfgang Heinze and Heinrich H. Kill 105 5. Looking for the boundaries of technological determinism: A brief history of the U.S. telephone system Louis Galambos 135 6. The telephone in France 1879 to 1979: National characteristics and international influences 155 Catherine Bertho-Lavenir 7. The politics of growth: The German telephone system Frank Thomas 179 8. The United States air traffic system: Increasing reliability in the midst of rapid growth 215 Todd La Porte 9. The French electrical power system: An inter-country comparison Maurice Levy-Leboyer 245 10. The dynamics of system development in a comparative perspective: Interactive videotex in Germany, France and Britain Renate Mayntz and Volker Schneider 263 Contributors 299 FOREWORD Social science research on technology has long focused on the develop­ ment, diffusion, and especially the consequences of specific isolated technologies or technical artifacts: the steam engine, the automobile, the telephone, the computer, etc. More recently, it has been recognized that an important characteristic of modern technology is the existence of complex and large technical systems - spatially extended and functionally integrated socio-technical networks such as electrical power, railroad, and telephone systems. These systems have played a focal role in the process of industrialization and economic development, and they have contributed to a significant change in life style. Aside from undoubtedly beneficial effects such systems are also creating problems - negative externalities, the risks of failure and disaster, management, control, and coordination problems. Thus a new field of research is emerging where historians and social scientists have started to cooperate in the analysis of the development and functioning of large technical systems. The present book is the result of such cooperation. When Thomas P. Hughes published his Networks of Power in 1983, social scientists engaged in the study of technology reacted with immediate interest. Some were more attracted by Hughes' analysis of the social construction of technological systems, while others were more intrigued by the specific object, large technical systems, and their role in modern society. This latter interest provided the meeting-ground for Thomas P. Hughes, the historian, and Todd La Parte and Renate Mayntz, the social scien­ tists. A joint enterprise was planned: the interdisciplinary and interna­ tional study of the development, internal dynamics, management and control problems of large socio-technical systems. Since a project involving primary research on several such systems in several countries - 6 a necessity if theoretical generalizations are sought - did not seem feasible, the plan of a series of research conferences was developed where scholars with proven expertise on one aspect or another of this vast field of inquiry would present papers, thus collectively produc­ ing what no single researcher could have succeeded in doing. In the summer of 1986, the Berlin Science Center hosted a small planning conference to structure the cognitive field, specify topics, and identify potential future contributors. Discussions at this planning conference lead to the identification of several sets of issues which could each serve as a topic of one research conference in the envisaged series. Taking into account the themes which the planning conference participants had formulated to indicate their own possible contributions, the development of large technical systems emerged as the best choice of a topic for the first research conference. Renate Mayntz offered to host and organize this conference. Financially supported by a grant from the German Thyssen Foundation which she obtained, the conference took place in the Max-Planck-Institut fiir Gesellschaftsforschung in Cologne, Germany, in November 1987. The participants were historians and social scientists specifically interested in the comparative analysis of the development of large technical systems, in particular electrical power, railroad, air traffic, telephone, and other forms of interactive telecommunication. In contrast to other similar books which contain papers previously presented at a conference, this volume's table of contents had been planned beforehand and authors were approached to write on particular subjects, answering a set of leading questions. It was clear, moreover, that the model of systems development spelled out in Networks of Power would serve as a general reference point, even where no explicit comparison (as in Chapter 9) was attempted. While this does obviously not eliminate differences in analytical perspective between the sociolo­ gist, the economic historian, and the historian of technology, the similarity of approach among the authors is sufficient to warrant the claim that this is a comparative study of technical systems development, comparative both with respect to the technologies concerned and the national context of their implementation. This enables the reader to fmd answers, even if at times tentative, to such questions as does the development of different technical systems follow the same sequence of phases? Foreword 7 What difference does national context (economic, legal, political) make in the development of a given type of technical system? To what extent is it possible to construct a comprehensive model of systems development which covers different technologies as well as different national contexts? Renate Mayntz saw to it that the draft papers and oral presentations at the conference were transformed into the chapters that now make up this book. While she thus bears the responsibility for the final shape of this volume (and its deficiencies), it would not have been written had it not been for the work of Tom Hughes. We both thank Volker Schneider who gave valuable technical assistance in producing the print version of the book. Renate Mayntz, Thomas P. Hughes June 1988 CHAPTER 1 LARGE TECHNICAL SYSTEMS: CONCEPTS AND ISSUES Bemward Joerges Most persons think that a state in order to be happy ought to be large,· but even if they are right, they have no idea of what is a large and what a small state... To the size of states there is a limi~ as there is to other things - plants, animals, implements; for none of these retain their natural power when they are too large or too small, but they either wholly lose their nature, or are spoiled. (Aristotle, in Politics) 1 Introduction Large technical systems (LTS) are huge implements, and the public debates of the past decade or so around what is vaguely called "Big Technology" echo the age-old concern with the proper limits to the size of things. Of course, metaphors like "small is beautiful" capture many people's belief that happiness is not a matter of largeness, especially not with technical systems. But what is a large and what a small technical system? How do LTS differ from smaller techniques? Can we explain the growth and dynamics of such systems, and what does "large scale" explain? The chapter takes a broad view of conceptual issues in a social study of LTS. After shortly relating recent public controversies about "Big Technology" to the state of affairs in social science technology research, I will turn to a rare and exemplary historical approach to the study of large, integrated systems: Thomas P. Hughes's model of the evolution of local, regional and national electricity generation systems. Hughes goes far beyond mere historical 10 B.Joerges description or interpretation against broad societal change. He puts forward systematic concepts generalizable to other systems of similar scale and provides a rationale for delineating technological systems from
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