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(2) DEMOCRATIC TECHNOLOGY IN THE MAINSTREAM!?
 
     It has traditionally been extremely hard to inject the Loka
Institute's central concern--i.e., democratizing science and
technology--into the thinking of mainstream institutions and
publications.  But are there incipient cracks in the armor? 
Recently Loka activities, research, and opinions have
found an appreciative audience in some unaccustomed haunts,
including all three principal U.S. venues that discuss science
and technology policy (_Science_, _Issues in Science &
Technology_, and _Technology Review_):
 
     **The American Political Science Association has honored
Loka director Richard Sclove's book, _Democracy and Technology_
(New York: Guilford Press), with its 1996 Don K. Price Award as
"best book in the field of science, technology and politics."
 
     **"`_Democracy and Technology_, that's a good book!' Nader
enthuses."  --Ralph Nader, Green Party candidate for U.S.
President, quoted in _The New York Times Magazine_, 20 Oct. 1996.
 
     **_Science_ magazine (the leading U.S. professional science
journal) ran a 1-page story on Loka's initiative to establish a
Community Research Network: Wade Roush, "U.S. Joins `Science Shop'
Movement," _Science_, 2 Aug. 1996, pp. 572-573.
 
     **"Three recent books renew my hopes for a robust dialog
about technology and its impacts...._Democracy and Technology_ is
the most ambitious in scope."  --Howard Rheingold in _Wired_
magazine, November 1996, p. 219.
 
     **An article by Wil Lepkowski in _Chemical & Engineering
News_ (12 August 1996, pp. 24-25) pairs ideas and a photo of
Loka's Richard Sclove with those of Neal Lane, Director of the U.S.
National Science Foundation.
 
     **The lead article in the July 1996 issue of _Technology
Review_ (published by MIT) is Richard Sclove's "Town Meetings on
Technology"--a discussion of European citizen-based technology
assessment and its applicability to the U.S.
 
     **"Sclove's unifying--and, to me, incontrovertible--premise
is that a democratic society worthy of the name does not allow
technological innovation to erode democratic processes and
institutions....That we persistently...allow this erosion to
occur underscores the significance of his message."  
     --Dan Sarewitz in _Issues in Science & Technology_, Summer
       1996, pp. 87-90 (published by the U.S. National Academy of
       Sciences).  [Sarewitz is the author of a fine new book   
       from Temple University Press: _Frontiers of Illusion:
       Science, Technology and the Politics of Progress_]
 
     **"Tightly reasoned and far-ranging in examples and
erudition...cogent and illuminating...seminal....Sclove writes in
the hallowed and constructive tradition of Paul Goodman, Ivan
Illich, Paulo Freire, Lewis Mumford, [and] E. F. Schumacher."
     --_Annals of the American Academy of Political & Social
       Science, July 1996, pp. 176-177
 
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