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

Description

"In the decades following World War II, the science of decision-making moved from the periphery to the center of transatlantic political theory, as part of the broader mobilization of social science during the Cold War. The Decisionist Imagination explores how "decisionism" emerged from its origins in prewar political science to become an object of intense scientific inquiry in the new intellectual and institutional landscape of the postwar era. By bringing together scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, this volume illuminates the connection between early twentieth-century conservative political theory and techno-scientific aspects of modern governance--helping to explain, in short, how we arrived at where we are today"--  Read more... Who decides? / Daniel Bessner and Nicolas Guilhot -- Reading the international mind : international public opinion in early twentieth century Anglo-American thought / Stephen Wertheim -- Militant democracy as decisionist liberalism : reason and power in the work of Karl Loewenstein / Carlo Invernizzi Accetti and Ian Zuckerman -- Parliamentary and electoral decisions as political acts / Kari Palonen -- Decision and decisionism / Nomi Claire Lazar -- How having reasons became making a decision : the Cold War rise of decision theory and the invention of rational choice / Philip Mirowski -- Computable rationality, nuts, and the nuclear Leviathan / S.M. Amadae -- The unlikely revolutionaries : decision sciences in the Soviet government / Egle Rindzeviciute -- Prediction and social choice : Daniel Bell and future research / Jenny Andersson -- Predictive algorithms and criminal sentencing / Angele Christin -- The myth of the decision / Daniel Bessner and Nicolas Guilhot.