[Air-l] on gauges and other technical standards

[Allan A Friedman]

Hello all,

After reading the recent discussion on railroad gauges deriving from
ancient standards, I am curious if anyone is doing work looking into
technical standards.  I'm writing my undergrad honors thesis on technical
Internet standards, and the need for public interest involvement in the
standardization process, viewing this as a subset of the "technical is
political" or "code is law" body of work.  Although my thesis is
predominantly policy-oriented, I'd really like some theory to work with,
aside from market failures and civic governance.  Chasing citations
back and forth has not turned up a whole lot in this area.  If
anyone has any suggestions for literature that delves into examining the
larger impacts of specific technical design decisions, from any
perspective (sociology, psychology, policy, etc) I would really appreciate
it.  

Thanks for your help,
/allan

                ... et surtout||Allan Friedman  
                 n'oubliez pas||Center for Social and Policy Studies
                     de tomber||Swarthmore College 
                      amoureux||allan at friedmans.org
                http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/~allan

"For the umpteenth time that evening, he wished computer code responded
to threats of physical violence..."