Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

On the Legitimacy of Government Intervention in Technology Transfer

Version 1 : Received: 25 January 2023 / Approved: 27 January 2023 / Online: 27 January 2023 (10:44:44 CET)

How to cite: Townes, M. On the Legitimacy of Government Intervention in Technology Transfer. Preprints 2023, 2023010503. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202301.0503.v1 Townes, M. On the Legitimacy of Government Intervention in Technology Transfer. Preprints 2023, 2023010503. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202301.0503.v1

Abstract

The underlying assumption of the discourse about technology transfer is that government intervention is legitimate. Little scholarship has examined whether this assumption is valid or not and on what basis. Legitimacy is an important construct in the context of public policy. Government intervention can only be sustained if the public views such action as legitimate. The creation and transfer of technologies to the private sector is an area where there is significant government intervention. This paper reconceptualizes political legitimacy in the context of technology transfer policy. The analysis illuminates several concerns and challenges regarding the traditional approach to understanding whether specific government interventions in technology transfer are legitimate. It subsequently applies social constructionism and the notion of morality tales to describe an alternative conceptualization of political legitimacy that integrates aspects of other frameworks. In doing so, it reimagines political legitimacy as less of an unattainable normative principle of limited practical value to policymakers and more of a descriptively understood social phenomenon that policymakers can apply while formulating not only technology transfer policy, but other kinds of public policy as well. The paper demonstrates that there is a broader basis for claims of political legitimacy for government intervention in technology transfer, there is likely a more expansive range of technology transfer problems with which the government can rightly concern itself as well as possible solutions that policymakers can justifiably consider for addressing those problems, and that the political consequences of potential overreach in technology transfer policy are likely minimal.

Keywords

political legitimacy; science policy; technology policy, technology transfer

Subject

Social Sciences, Political Science

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