Science and Democracy (1998)

Summary: With the collapse of the communist regimes in Central Europe and the former Soviet Union, considerable attention has focused on how to create and sustain democracy. There is a general sense within the international science and technology (S&T) community that the values of science "honesty, objectivity, and a respect for the intrinsic merit of a wide range of ideas and opinions" are essential to a democratic culture and thereby can help support democratization around the world. However, there has been little effort to assess under what circumstances individual scientists as well as academies of sciences and other scientific organizations help catalyze and sustain democratization. Against this backdrop, the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, in cooperation with the National Research Council, organized a workshop on May 4-5 in Prague on "Science and Democracy." The purpose of this meeting was 1) to identify themes, theories, and case studies for future research on this topic, and 2) to consider more practical ways in which the scientific community can strengthen democracy in the region.