Abstract
This article investigates how Western science established itself through disciplinarized institutionalization in China as the country entered the modern era, delineating China’s science and technology (S&T) enterprises evolving within the social settings primarily decided by Confucianism doctrines including Scholar-bureaucrat virtue. Although the perspective of this study is mainly historical, I also adopt a sociological approach to scientific knowledge production in order to argue that, the socialization of Western science during the ‘Treaty Century’ (1842–1943) has shaped and channeled the growth of modern S&T as well as its governance in contemporary China in a normative manner. It is this sociological interpretation of the history of modern science in China that sheds new light on our understanding of scientific knowledge as a component element of belief system that crosses countries, social structures, and civilizations. The main findings also include the premises on which the S&T governance issues are explored in China’s case, in particular, the increased social mobility at the intrusion of the Western.
Highlights
Science and technology governance, interpreted narrowly as science and technology (S&T) policy-making and implementation, is conventionally used as a synonym of science, technology and innovation policy, innovation policy, and technology policy (Gu 2001)
It is widely accepted that the S&T policy of a nation is an outcome of its political system and it evolves as its economic structure, and social and cultural features change (Ergas 1987; Lundvall 1992)
Some scholars have become aware of this lack of analytical work, and have probed the connections by which S&T enterprises have become involved with social factors in modern China
Summary
Science and technology governance, interpreted narrowly as S&T policy-making and implementation, is conventionally used as a synonym of science, technology and innovation policy, innovation policy, and technology policy (Gu 2001). The debates around the Chinese case tend to present an oversimplified view of the social context Under such circumstances, the evolution of China’s modern S&T enterprises was roughly correlated with various aspects of the social, political, and economical changes that China has experienced during the past century. It is argued that the intellectual tradition, social structure of the academic community, and historical effects of polities, within which the trajectory of disciplinarized institutionalization was embedded, all need to be included to provide an adequate account of its development These features, albeit significantly transformed, remain powerful influencing factors in the emerging transformation of China’s contemporary S&T, as well as its governance
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