On the Legitimacy of Government Intervention in Technology Transfer in the United States of America

The discourse about technology transfer policy in the United States of America assumes the underlying political legitimacy of the federal government’s intervention. Little scholarship has directly challenged this presumption or extensively examined the philosophical basis for it. This paper re-envisions the concept of political legitimacy in the context of technology transfer policy. The analysis illuminates several problems and challenges regarding the traditional economics-based approach to political legitimacy. It subsequently applies the theory of social constructionism and the concept of morality tales to propose an alternative approach to the concept of political legitimacy. The paper argues that there is potentially a broader basis for asserting claims of political legitimacy for U.S. government interventions in technology transfer, there is likely a more expansive range of technology transfer problems with which the government can justifiably concern itself, as well as a more extensive range of possible solutions that policymakers can rightly consider for addressing those problems.