Self-Governance in Science : Community-Based Strategies for Managing Dangerous Knowledge

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to self-governance in commercial and academic communities. Stephen M. Maurer reviews the long history of private communities' efforts to govern themselves, identifies the economic forces that make self-regulation possible, and extracts detailed lessons for law, public policy, and democratic legitimacy theory.

Commercial and academic communities use private rules to regulate everything from labor conditions to biological weapons. This self-governance is vital in the twenty-first century, where private science and technology networks cross so many borders that traditional regulation and treaty solutions are often impractical. Self-Governance in Science analyzes the history of private regulation, identifies the specific market factors that make private standards stable and enforceable, explains what governments can do to encourage responsible self-regulation, and asks when private power might be legitimate. Unlike previous books which stress sociology or political science perspectives, Maurer emphasizes the economic roots of private power to deliver a coherent and comprehensive account of recent scholarship. Individual chapters present a detailed history of past self-government initiatives, describe the economics and politics of private power, and extract detailed lessons for law, legitimacy theory, and public policy.