The Decisionist Imagination: Sovereignty, Social Science and Democracy in the 20th Century

by Daniel Bessner (Editor), Nicolas Guilhot (Editor)

Overview

In the decades following World War II, the science of decision-making moved from the periphery to the center of transatlantic thought. The Decisionist Imagination explores how “decisionism” emerged from its origins in prewar political theory to become an object of intense social scientific inquiry in the new intellectual and institutional landscapes of the postwar era. By bringing together scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, this volume illuminates how theories of decision shaped numerous techno-scientific aspects of modern governance—helping to explain, in short, how we arrived at where we are today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781785339165
Publisher:	Berghahn Books, Incorporated
Publication date:	10/19/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Daniel Bessner is Associate Professor of International Studies in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington.

Nicolas Guilhot is Professor of Intellectual History at the European University Institute in Florence.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables
Acknowledgements

Introduction: Who Decides?
Daniel Bessner and Nicolas Guilhot

Chapter 1. Reading the International Mind: International Public Opinion in Early Twentieth Century Anglo-American Thought
Stephen Wertheim

Chapter 2. Militant Democracy as Decisionist Liberalism: Reason and Power in the Work of Karl Loewenstein
Carlo Invernizzi-Accetti and Ian Zuckerman

Chapter 3. Parliamentary and Electoral Decisions as Political Acts
Kari Palonen

Chapter 4. Decision and Decisionism
Nomi Claire Lazar

Chapter 5. How Having Reasons Became Making a Decision: The Cold War Rise of Decision Theory and the Invention of Rational Choice
Philip Mirowski

Chapter 6. Computable Rationality, NUTS, and the Nuclear Leviathan
S.M. Amadae

Chapter 7. The Unlikely Revolutionaries: Decision Sciences in the Soviet Government
Eglė Rindzevičiūtė

Chapter 8. Prediction and Social Choice: Daniel Bell and Future Research
Jenny Andersson

Chapter 9. Predictive Algorithms and Criminal Sentencing
Angèle Christin

Conclusion: The Myth of the Decision

Index

Editorial Reviews

“The Decisionist Imagination is more an effort to rethink specific aspects of an existing literature and will find a keen readership amongst those who know it.” • Journal of Contemporary History

“The Decisionist Imagination expertly outlines the development of a key component of social scientific thought, placing it into historical context across the whole of the twentieth century, providing a systematic analysis and evaluation of a core concept present in virtually all academic fields.” • Inderjeet Parmar, City University of London

From the Publisher