philosophy, purpose, and operation. For example, 

 the National Science Foundation, as a general f under 

 and caretaker of basic science, resembles the USSR 

 Academy of Sciences. There are strong parallels be- 

 tween the budgetary process, which is the main tool 

 for planning, review, and control — at least in the 

 public sector — in the United States, and the plan- 

 ning process in the Soviet system; and between the 

 OMB and the GKNT in their executive management over- 

 sight and mediating functions in S&T matters. As the 

 principal advisory arms in science policy at the apex 

 of the two respective governmental structures, the 

 OSTP and the GKNT play somewhat analogous roles. In 

 interagency R&D coordination, the FCCSET is a kind 

 of American functional counterpart to the GKNT. On a 

 more general level, certain parallels may even be 

 drawn between Congress and the Supreme Soviet as in- 

 stitutional arenas where S&T policies are publicly 

 debated and legislated. But such national compari- 

 sons do not really take us far . Though some proce- 

 dures or institutions look the same, their effects 

 and significance may be quite different because they 

 operate in different environments, each shaped by its 

 own national traditions, values, and circumstances. 



The main characteristics that distinguish the 

 American and Soviet environments are rooted in the 

 fundamental differences between a competitive market 

 economy and political pluralism, on the one hand, 

 and a centrally planned economy and political cen- 

 tralism, on the other. It is these underlying sys- 

 temic dissimilarities that account for and shape the 

 alternative approaches to science and technology in 

 the two nations. 



In the United States the S&T policy process is 

 diffuse. The organizational structure of the federal 

 government is highly fragmented and diversified with 

 a multitude of crosscutting and competing agencies 

 in both the Executive and Legislative branches con- 

 cerned with S&T matters. In most of these bodies R&D 

 is only an activity in support of a broader set of 

 roles and missions. In the American framework no 



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