A Technocratic Vision of Empire: Lord Montagu and the Origins of British Air Power

This article advances the existing literature on British imperial aeronautics by explaining how Lord John Montagu’s extensive collaboration with military and government officials during the first decades of powered flight expanded the global distribution of the air forces and anticipated their important later role in facilitating international communication and security. In reconsidering problems of conquest and governance through an aeronautical perspective, Montagu strengthened critical junctures between British civil and military affairs, while his innovative employment of the new technology also complicated divisions between the metropolis and periphery in ways that would intensify the destructiveness of modern warfare across the planet.     

Political Science in Mexico: Cold War and Post-Cold War Context

Abstract

Through a critical consideration of recent proposals urging the use of “citizen forums” or “mini-publics” on issues involving science, this article reflects on the challenge posed to democracy and democratic decision making by the intellectual authority of modern science. Though the danger of a descent into technocracy is real and pressing, arguably the most serious challenge to democracy today, these novel “deliberative democratic” institutions are unpromising as a corrective beyond the local level, and may actually exacerbate the problem. The article concludes with a consideration of alternatives.     

Self-Government in a Republic of 325 Million: Distracting Anachronism or Worthy Aspiration?

What do modern Americans mean when they say they believe in self-government—or do they mean anything at all? This article attempts to offer a reasonable, realistic expectation of what self-government can be in an extended republic of 325 million citizens characterized by a highly developed division of labor and intense specialization. It argues that if self-government is taken too literally, it becomes an impossible ideal likely to promote cynicism. On the other hand, if self-government is dismissed as an anachronism, the resulting technocratic government is likely to become irresponsible and illegitimate. Representative government offers the best middle way, but our practice of it must be repaired and defended against critics.     

Managing the world: conceptions of imperial rule between republicanism and technocracy

The article examines a technocratic vision of empire arising in Britain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and its implications for the theorization of empires, the legitimation of large-scale political orders, and their spatial imagination. The role of the Roman model for the British in the decades after 1870 as a resource of policy advice, legitimation, and identity-building serves as a case study for analyzing the role of historical precedence for imperial elites. This analysis opens the perspective onto a notion of empire that significantly differs from the one discussed in recent debates on liberalism and empire: British political actors and observers delineate a concept of empire that is not universalist, but heterogeneous, hierarchical, and technocratic.     

Seeing like a factory: Technocratic nationalism in Catalonia, 1930–1939

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the role of Catalan industrial engineers in the making of a stateless nation (within Spain) in the interwar period. After the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939), a home rule for Catalonia was established. In this context, the members of the Barcelona Association of Industrial Engineers developed a techno–nationalist program with the double goal of both making technology Catalan and making Catalonia technological. As an alleged ‘third class’ between the working and ruling classes, industrial engineers sought to use their expertise in scientifically managing the workshop to organize the whole nation. They participated in professional initiatives and official institutions from which they spread the ‘factory ideals’ beyond the factory, such as efficiency, rationalization and statistical monitoring. This paper focuses on the nationalist and technocratic engagement of two leading (and politically diverging) industrial engineers: socialist Estanislau Ruiz-Ponsetí and liberal Josep M. Tallada.     

GREEN GROWTH OR ECOLOGICAL COMMODIFICATION: DEBATING THE GREEN ECONOMY IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH

This article examines recent institutional thinking on the green economy and the implications of official understandings and structuration of a green economy for the global South. Assertions about the transformative potential of a green economy by many international actors conceals a complexity of problems, including the degree to which the green economy is still based on old fossil economies and technical fixes, and the processes through which the green economy ideation remains subject to Northern economic and technical dominance. The article places the intellectual roots of the green economy within a broader historical context and suggests some ways the strategic economic and ideological interests of the global North remain key drivers of green‐economy thinking. The analysis is substantiated through two illustrative Latin American examples: the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor and green economy initiatives in Brazil. These suggest that, if the green economy is to address global challenges effectively, it must be conceptualized as more than a bolt‐on to existing globalizing capitalism and encompass more critical understandings of the complex socio‐economic processes through which poverty is produced and reproduced and through which the global environment is being transformed, a critique which also applies to mainstream discourses of sustainable development.     

20世纪中美两国"专家政治"的缘起与演变--科学介入政治的一个历史比较

20世纪30年代专家政治的浪潮在美国达到一个峰巅。技术统治论的思潮与运动以物理学原理深刻反思资本主义制度，罗斯福新政时期也大量吸收专家参与政权。在此前后。《东方杂志》、《国闻周报》等将技术统治论作为新的思潮与运动加以介绍，一些参政知识分子则更多地从美国政府的政策调整中吸取经验。南京政府一定程度地吸收专家参政，在行政技术化、立法科学化等方面有一定改进，但未改变蒋介石专制政权的性质。美国的技术统治论经历复杂的转变，其中一部分为主流社会所吸收，一部分则趋向偏激，进一步产生对美国社会的深刻怀疑，成为当今美国社会的另类选择。美中两国历史发展说明，科学进入政治领域，有利于技术层面的科学化；科学主宰政治。却是技术乌托邦之梦。     

Policy expertise and use of evidence in a populist era

ABSTRACT

Populism and media-enhanced polarisation are reinforcing the declining trust in public institutions. These forces also undermine the perceived legitimacy of using expertise and evidence in highly contested policy areas. Expertise has been decried as elitist, or serving vested interests, or ineffective in tackling real-life problems. We argue that applying relevant expertise to public policy problems remains essential. However, this use of expertise must be situated within improved democratic decision-making and governance arrangements. Good policy governance requires not only using best available knowledge, but also strengthening civic trust and legitimacy, through fair and open processes. We also explore the continuing critical role of senior public servants in strengthening deliberative processes and in enhancing the flows of knowledge.