The importance of knowledge and S&T for the consolidation of institutions and democracy

Abstract

By assuming the interconnection that exists between knowledge and culture it is possible to say that science and technology are not above the national societies and their cultural specificities, even when globalization produces, persistently, global and transnational spaces that are provided with common factors and values that inform knowledge. The relationship between knowledge and national communities expresses the wills and strategies of people and countries to conduct their own development and to place themselves within the boundaries of recognition and power. Besides national initiatives, countries pursue democracy and development by combining interests and competence that make it possible to integrate different national communities in the production of knowledge and science as well as to expand the territories throughout they develop. This takes place in different scales – from the local to the national, the sub-regional to the transnational. Expertise, knowledge communities and state and private agents draw the paths of knowledge. Throughout cultural veins and distinct political history countries faces conflicts and tensions at the national or supranational levels; nevertheless, culture and history permit the growth of collective action supported by negotiation, consensus and cooperation. The aim of this paper is to understand the possibilities for cooperation to the development of knowledge in a globalized world that is also structured into political regional blocs. The cooperation we focus on is between countries of Mercosul, the South Common Market of Latin America.