Trentmann / Sum / Rivera Work in Progress

Economy and Environment in the Hands of Experts
1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-3-96238-429-6
Verlag: oekom verlag
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 336 Seiten, Format (B × H): 1480 mm x 210 mm

The world we live in has been shaped by expertise. Yet experts were not born with power: they had to struggle to achieve their authority and legitimacy. Experts have framed economic development, the environment, energy, and infrastructure as “work in progress”, allowing them to put their specialist knowledge into practice. But who qualifies as the “right” expert for the job? Who decides how expertise is used, and to what ends? This book traces the changing contours of expert cultures, their global diffusion and local resistance. The contributors examine international organisations such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Energy Council. They show how experts have tried to manage and navigate the competing demands of scientific knowledge, political power, and the public sphere throughout the last century. Amid the unfolding crises of democracy and climate change, this volume offers a timely, critical analysis of the power of experts and its limitations.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Trentmann, Frank

Sum, Anna Barbara

Rivera, Manuel

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Work in progress;1
2;List of Contents;7
3;Introduction. Frank Trentmann, Anna Barbara Sum and Manuel Rivera;9
3.1;The authority of experts – and its dialectic;12
3.2;The rise and consolidation of experts: state power and ‘public service’;14
3.3;Globalisation and contestation;19
3.4;Experts vs. experts: scientific disciplines, ideologies, and local contexts;24
3.5;‘Above politics’? Knowledge and communication in an age of uncertainty;27
3.6;References;32
4;Learning to Scale: The Case of Victorian Britain. Fredrik Albritton Jonsson;37
4.1;References;47
5;The Social Life of Energy Futures: Experts, Consumers and Demand in the Golden Age of Modernisation, c. 1900–73. Rebecca Wright and Frank Trentmann;49
5.1;Pragmatics of forecasting;50
5.2;Social actors and communities of expertise;52
5.3;Political ideologies and democratic futures;57
5.4;Fragmented policy fields;62
5.5;Users, lifestyles and social values;67
5.6;Exhibiting futures;73
5.7;Conclusions;75
5.8;References;76
6;From American South to Global South: The TVA’s Experts and Expertise, 1933–98. Vincent Lagendijk;81
6.1;Introduction;81
6.2;Expertise and the TVA;83
6.3;Transferring ideas and expertise;86
6.3.1;TVA expertise and the UN;89
6.3.2;TVA expertise and the World Bank;93
6.4;Conclusion: Cracks in the concrete;97
6.5;References;99
7;What Makes an Expert? The View from UNRRA, 1943–47. Jessica Reinisch;105
7.1;Experts and international organisations;105
7.2;UNRRA’s experts;109
7.3;Expert vs. expert;112
7.4;Experts and ‘technical assistance’;119
7.5;Conclusion;125
7.6;References;129
8;Contesting the Official Concept of Progress. John Toye;133
8.1;Introduction;133
8.2;Herbert Frankel on the official concept of progress;134
8.3;C. P. Snow on rich and poor and Leavis’s counterblast;139
8.4;Fritz Schumacher, renegade economist;144
8.5;The attack on science and experts once again;146
8.6;The gospel of sustainability;148
8.7;References;153
9;The Strategy of Expertise: Albert O. Hirschman, Economics and ‘Development’ in the 1950s. Anna Barbara Sum;157
9.1;‘Development’ experts on the rise;158
9.2;Different interests, one goal;159
9.3;The report. The basis of a development program for Colombia (1950);161
9.4;A Chinese paper flower from Colombia;170
9.5;Conclusions;177
9.6;References;178
10;From the Environment to the Anthropocene: A History of Changing Expertise 1948–2018. Libby Robin;185
10.1;Introduction;185
10.2;Science: From ‘the environment’ to environmental science 1948–62;187
10.3;Activism: Rachel Carson and the 1970s social movements;189
10.4;Policy: The precautionary and other principles for managing the environment 1980s–90s;192
10.5;Justice: Twenty-first century expertise;194
10.6;Coming full circle? The Anthropocene emerges between Earth system science, justice, and cultural concerns;197
10.7;References;201
11;The Future and the Environment: A History of Shared Expertise. Deborah Poskanzer;207
11.1;Margaret Mead, twentieth-century futurist;207
11.2;The rise of the forecasting state;211
11.3;War for the future;214
11.4;Expertise and the problem(s) of the future;219
11.5;The future and the environment;224
11.6;References;233
12;Towards the German ‘Energiewende‘: Ecological Problems and Scientific Expertise in West German Energy Policies during the 1970s and 1980s. Eva Oberlosk235
12.1;Introduction;235
12.2;The Advisory Council on the Environment (Umweltrat) and the Enquête-Commission “Future Nuclear Energy Policy”;238
12.3;Central ecological problem areas in the energy sector;240
12.3.1;Air pollution;240
12.3.2;The nuclear waste problem and the risk of a major nuclear accident;242
12.3.3;Problems of land use and landscape conservation;244
12.4;Rival scientific solution approaches aimed at the political field;245
12.4.1;Nuclear power as an eco-friendly technology;246
12.4.2;Technological solutions to air pollution;247
12.4.3;Energy conservation;248
12.4.4;Renewable energies;250
12.4.5;Accentuation of market forces;253
12.5;The role of scientists in the conceptualization of the ‘Energiewende‘ in West Germany;254
12.6;References;258
13;Masters of Uncertainty: Expectations and Expertise in International Finance Organisations after 1945. Laura Rischbieter;265
13.1;The birth of international finance organisations as institutions of expertise;269
13.2;Coping with uncertainty;272
13.3;Muddling through;277
13.4;New expertise, new futures, different decisions;282
13.5;Conclusion;285
13.6;References;287
14;The Discursive Politics of Expertise: What Matters for Geoengineering Research and Governance? Stefan Schäfer and Sean Low;293
14.1;Science, governance and the discursive politics of expertise;293
14.2;The politics of aggregation and disaggregation: Making policies, or making worlds?;297
14.3;The politics of framing: Legitimising and questioning objects of research and governance;303
14.4;Conclusion: Recasting expertise?;309
14.5;References;311
15;Acknowledgements;315
16;List of Contributors;316
17;Index;320

Über Autor(innen)

Rivera, Manuel
Manuel Rivera leads the project “Narratives of Sustainability” at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, Germany.

Trentmann, Frank
Frank Trentmann is a Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London, and also at the Consumer Society Research Centre, University of Helsinki. His book “Empire of Things” was awarded the Austrian Science Book Prize in 2018.

Sum, Anna Barbara
Anna Barbara Sum is a PhD student at Freie Universität Berlin, completing a dissertation on economic expertise after the Second World War.