DREAMING OF ELECTRIC SHEEP: THE GLOBAL TECHNO-ECONOMIC CYCLES AND THE POST-NEOLIBERAL TECHNO-SCIENTIFIC POLICY

Based on an interpretive model inspired by neo-Schumpeterian hypothesis about the relationship between economic cycles and technological transformations, this presentation will attempt to establish the links between the development process of the scientific-technological field of a peripheral country such as Ecuador and the great cycles of techno-economic transformation of the world system. According to the theoretical scheme used, between the mid-eighteenth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, six of these cycles are recorded, the last of which began its deployment phase with the global crisis of 2008. The presentation will be divided into two parts, the first one will present an explanatory outline of the process of peripheral integration of Ecuador in the world system and its relationship with the different waves of scientific and technological development that have accompanied this process. To test said scheme using as a case study the policy of science, technology, and, innovation implemented by the Ecuadorian government between 2007 and 2017, the presentation will focus on the three most important programs of this policy (the reform of higher education, the scholarship program for study abroad, and the Yachay project), its scope and limitations. Based on this exercise, the presenter will try to identify the points of convergence and divergence between the global and local cycles of techno-economic transformation, as well as the limitations and contradictions of the «post-neoliberal» modernization project implemented by the previous government.