The struggle for the long-term in transnational science and politics : forging the future

272 Pages·2015·2.81 MB·English

by  Andersson

The Struggle for the Long-Term in
Transnational Science and Politics
This book reconsiders the power of the idea of the future. Bringing together
perspectives from cultural history, environmental history, political history
and the history of science, it investigates how the future became a specific
field of action in liberal democratic, state socialist and post-colonial regimes
after the Second World War. It highlights the emergence of new forms of
predictive scientific expertise in this period, and shows how such forms of
expertise interacted with political systems of the Cold War world order,
as the future became the prism for dealing with post-industrialisation,
technoscientific progress, changing social values, Cold War tensions and an
emerging Third World. A forgotten problem of cultural history, the future
re-emerges in this volume as a fundamentally contested field in which forms
of control and central forms of resistance met, as different actors set out to
colonise and control and others to liberate. The individual studies of this
book show how the West European, African, Romanian and Czechoslovak
“long term” was constructed through forms of expertise, computer simula-
tions and models, and they reveal how such constructions both opened up
new realities but also imposed limits on possible futures.
Jenny Andersson is CNRS research professor at the Center for European
Studies of Sciences Po, Paris.
Egle˙ Rindzevicˇiu¯te˙ is a researcher at the Center for European Studies of
Sciences Po, Paris, and Associate Professor in Culture Studies at Linköping
University, Sweden.
Routledge Approaches to History
1 Imprisoned by History 7 The Fiction of History
Aspects of Historicized Life  Alexander Lyon Macfie
Martin Davies
8 The Rise and Propagation of
2 Narrative Projections of a Black Historical Professionalism
British History Rolf Torstendahl
Eva Ulrike Pirker
9 The Material of World
3 Integrity in Historical Research History
Edited by Tony Gibbons and Emily Edited by Tina Mai Chen and
Sutherland David S. Churchill
4 History, Memory, and 10 Modernity, Metatheory
State-Sponsored Violence and the Temporal-Spatial
Time and Justice Divide
Berber Bevernage From Mythos to Techne
Michael Kimaid
5 Frank Ankersmit’s Lost
Historical Cause 11 The Struggle for the
A Journey from Language to Long-Term in Transnational
Experience Science and Politics
Peter P. Icke Forging the Future
Edited by Jenny Andersson and
6 Popularizing National Pasts Eglė Rindzevičiūtė
1800 to the Present
Edited by Stefan Berger, Chris
Lorenz and Billie Melman
The Struggle for the
Long-Term in Transnational
Science and Politics
Forging the Future
Edited by Jenny Andersson
and Eglė Rindzevičiūtė
First published 2015
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
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© 2015 Taylor & Francis
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The struggle for the long-term in transnational science and politics : forging
the future / edited by Jenny Andersson and Eglė Rindzevičiūtė.
pages cm. — (Routledge approaches to history ; 11)
1. Science—Forecasting—History—20th century. 2. World politics—
Forecasting—History—20th century. 3. Transnationalism—Political
aspects—History—20th century. 4. Social prediction—Political aspects—
History—20th century. 5. Forecasting—Political aspects—History—
20th century. 6. Historiography—Political aspects—History—20th century.
7. World politics—1945–1989. 8. Cold War. 9. Social control—
History—20th century. 10. Government, Resistance to—History—
20th century. I. Andersson, Jenny, 1974– II. Rindzevičiūtė, Eglė.
Q172.S77 2015
338.9'26—dc23 2014045743
ISBN: 978-1-138-85853-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-71792-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon LT
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of Figures vii
List of Abbreviations ix
Foreword xi
MICHAEL D. GORDIN
Introduction: Toward a New History of the Future 1
JENNY ANDERSSON AND EGLE˙ RINDZEVICˇIU¯TE˙
1 Midwives of the Future: Futurism, Futures Studies
and the Shaping of the Global Imagination 16
JENNY ANDERSSON
2 Expertise for the Future: The Emergence of
Environmental Prediction c. 1920–1970 38
PAUL WARDE AND SVERKER SÖRLIN
3 Energy Futures from the Social Market Economy
to the Energiewende: The Politicization of
West German Energy Debates, 1950–1990 63
STEFAN CIHAN AYKUT
4 Technoscientific Cornucopian Futures versus
Doomsday Futures: The World Models
and The Limits to Growth 92
ELODIE VIEILLE BLANCHARD
5 Toward a Joint Future beyond the Iron
Curtain: East–West Politics of Global Modelling 115
EGLE˙ RINDZEVICˇIU¯TE˙
vi Contents
6 Forecasting the Post-Socialist Future: Prognostika
in Late Socialist Czechoslovakia, 1970–1989 144
VÍTEˇZSLAV SOMMER
7 Official and Unofficial Futures of the Communism
System: Romanian Futures Studies between
Control and Dissidence 169
ANA-MARIA CA˘TA˘NUS¸
8 Virtually Nigeria: USAID, Simulated Futures,
and the Politics of Postcolonial Expertise, 1964–1980 195
KEVIN T. BAKER
9 Pan-Africanism, Socialism and the Future:
Development Planning in Ghana, 1951–1966 218
JEFF GRISCHOW AND HOLGER WEISS
Contributors 241
Index 245
Figures
4.1: The Limits to Growth team: Jorgen Randers,
Jay Forrester, Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows,
William Behrens; the early 1980s 95
4.2: The World 3 model flow diagram 102
5.1: Seminar at the laboratory of Viktor Gelovani
presented by Jay Forrester, at the All-Union Scientific
Institute for Systems Research (VNIISI), Moscow; the 1970s 120
7.1: The Third International Conference of
Futures Research, Bucharest, Romania; September 1972 177
8.1: System simulation and the decision-making process 208
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Abbreviations
ACNSAS Arhiva Consiliului Nat¸ional pentru Studierea
Arhivelor Securita˘t¸ii
ADELA Atlantic Development Group for Latin America
A.N.I.C.-C.C. P.C.R. Arhivele Nat¸ionale ale României, Fond C.C. al
P.C.R.
ARAN Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences
BESM Large electronic calculating machine (bol’shaia
elektronnaia shchetnaia mashina)
CSNRD Consortium for the Study of Nigerian Rural
Development
CDU Christian Democrats
CEPECA Centrul de Perfect¸ionare a Cadrelor de Conducere
din Întreprinderi
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
CLASS Computer Library for Agricultural Systems
Simulation
CSAS Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences
DICE Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy Model
EWI Energiewirtschaftliches Institut
GCM Global Circulation Model
GDR German Democratic Republic
Glavlit Main Directorate for the Protection of State
Secrets under the Council of Ministers of the
Soviet Union
GKNT State Committee of Science and Technology of the
Soviet Union
Gosplan State Planning Committee of the Soviet Union
GPID Goals, Processs and Indicators of Development
ICSU International Council of Science Unions
IIASA International Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis