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 simulations 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 Aspects of Historicized Life Martin Davies 2 Narrative Projections of a Black British History Eva Ulrike Pirker 3 Integrity in Historical Research Edited by Tony Gibbons and Emily Sutherland 4 History, Memory, and State-Sponsored Violence Time and Justice Berber Bevernage 5 Frank Ankersmit’s Lost Historical Cause A Journey from Language to Experience Peter P. Icke 6 Popularizing National Pasts 1800 to the Present Edited by Stefan Berger, Chris Lorenz and Billie Melman 7 The Fiction of History Alexander Lyon Macfie 8 The Rise and Propagation of Historical Professionalism Rolf Torstendahl 9 The Material of World History Edited by Tina Mai Chen and David S Churchill 10 Modernity, Metatheory and the Temporal-Spatial Divide From Mythos to Techne Michael Kimaid 11 The Struggle for the Long-Term in Transnational Science and Politics Forging the Future Edited by Jenny Andersson and Eglė Rindzevičiūtė 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 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2015 Taylor & Francis The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe 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 List of Abbreviations Foreword vii ix xi MICHAEL D GORDIN Introduction: Toward a New History of the Future ˇ IU¯ TE˙ JENNY ANDERSSON AND EGLE˙ RINDZEVIC Midwives of the Future: Futurism, Futures Studies and the Shaping of the Global Imagination 16 JENNY ANDERSSON Expertise for the Future: The Emergence of Environmental Prediction c 1920–1970 38 PAUL WARDE AND SVERKER SÖRLIN Energy Futures from the Social Market Economy to the Energiewende: The Politicization of West German Energy Debates, 1950–1990 63 STEFAN CIHAN AYKUT Technoscientific Cornucopian Futures versus Doomsday Futures: The World Models and The Limits to Growth 92 ELODIE VIEILLE BLANCHARD Toward a Joint Future beyond the Iron Curtain: East–West Politics of Global Modelling ¯ TE˙ EGLE˙ RINDZEVICˇIU 115 vi Contents Forecasting the Post-Socialist Future: Prognostika in Late Socialist Czechoslovakia, 1970–1989 144 VÍTEˇZSLAV SOMMER Official and Unofficial Futures of the Communism System: Romanian Futures Studies between Control and Dissidence 169 ˘ TA ˘ NUS¸ ANA-MARIA CA Virtually Nigeria: USAID, Simulated Futures, and the Politics of Postcolonial Expertise, 1964–1980 195 KEVIN T. BAKER Pan-Africanism, Socialism and the Future: Development Planning in Ghana, 1951–1966 218 JEFF GRISCHOW AND HOLGER WEISS Contributors Index 241 245 Figures 4.1: The Limits to Growth team: Jorgen Randers, Jay Forrester, Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, William Behrens; the early 1980s 4.2: The World model flow diagram 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 7.1: The Third International Conference of Futures Research, Bucharest, Romania; September 1972 8.1: System simulation and the decision-making process 95 102 120 177 208 This page intentionally left blank Abbreviations ACNSAS ADELA A.N.I.C.-C.C P.C.R ARAN BESM CSNRD CDU CEPECA CIA CLASS CSAS DICE EWI GCM GDR Glavlit GKNT Gosplan GPID ICSU IIASA Arhiva Consiliului Nat¸ional pentru Studierea Arhivelor Securita˘ t¸ii Atlantic Development Group for Latin America Arhivele Nat¸ionale ale României, Fond C.C al P.C.R Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences Large electronic calculating machine (bol’shaia elektronnaia shchetnaia mashina) Consortium for the Study of Nigerian Rural Development Christian Democrats Centrul de Perfect¸ionare a Cadrelor de Conducere din Ỵntreprinderi Central Intelligence Agency Computer Library for Agricultural Systems Simulation Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy Model Energiewirtschaftliches Institut Global Circulation Model German Democratic Republic Main Directorate for the Protection of State Secrets under the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union State Committee of Science and Technology of the Soviet Union State Planning Committee of the Soviet Union Goals, Processs and Indicators of Development International Council of Science Unions International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis ... Science and Politics Forging the Future Edited by Jenny Andersson and Eglė Rindzevičiūtė The Struggle for the Long- Term in Transnational Science and Politics Forging the Future Edited by Jenny Andersson... epochs The Struggle for the Long Term in Transnational Science and Politics: Forging the Future decisively demonstrates the benefits not only of treating the futures of the past as matters for historical... trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe Library of Congress Cataloging -in- Publication Data The struggle for the long- term in transnational science and