Standards, Emergence, and Complex Outcomes: The Missing Link Between Cause and Effect

This book redefines how we think about standards, framing them as interfaces that govern interactions and connect causes to their effects. Expanding beyond traditional technical and geopolitical discussions, Garcia introduces a fresh theoretical perspective that positions standards as central to understanding complexity.

D. Linda Garcia is Professor Emeritus at Georgetown University where she taught courses on Technology and Society, Networks and the Creative Process, Global Standards, Networks and International Development, and The Networked Economy. She also worked for many years at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), which conducted bipartisan, interdisciplinary research assessing advancing technologies to determine how to maximize their benefits while minimizing their negative consequences. Among the studies that she contributed to were those having to do with transportation, acid rain, radioactive waste, educational technologies, and telecommunication and computer technologies.