Paper long abstract:

This paper shows how global modelling was constructed as a politically neutral and universal predictive technology of governance in the context of West-East technology transfer. From the late 1950s forecasting was introduced in Soviet central planning. The scope of forecasting was extended to include global modelling of world climate and economy. This paper argues that global modelling was a predictive technology that had significant political implications because it demanded unprecedented ways of cooperation across the Iron Curtain. Analysing several core institutional settings where global modelling was jointly developed by Eastern and Western scientists, such as the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the UN programs, this paper outlines how new and subversive ideas about governance were smuggled into the Soviet Union through global modelling.

At IIASA non-secretive efforts to develop global models were made possible despite - or rather, thanks to - Cold War confrontation and socialist competition. The world partitioned and uncertain was perceived not as much as a problem, but as a resource that allowed the advance of scientific knowledge, creating and spanning personal informal networks, sustaining interest in the increasingly remote future and establishing considerable access to the circles of top decision makers. Drawing on a study of archives in Moscow and Laxenburg, as well as more than twenty interviews with the scientists involved, this paper discusses new empirical material about Soviet efforts to cooperate in the field of global modelling and their impact on the emerging notions of global future.

Paper long abstract:

Proposing paper is concerned with the forecasting expertise (so called "prognostika") in the late socialist Czechoslovakia and its relationship to strategies of post-socialist transformation after 1989. In the 1980s, forecasting scholarship played an important role in the reform activities resulted in the perestroika project. Forecasting expertise produced analyzes of the late socialist reality, concrete reform proposals as well as prognoses of the future development of the country. The aim of my paper is to discuss possible connections and continuities between the 1980s prognostika expertise and the attempts to implement neoliberal agenda after 1989. Apart from evident personal continuity, knowledge produced by scholars involved in the forecasting activities and discussed in this specific milieu played certain role in the post-1989 public debates and policymaking. This paper will thus discuss following questions: What kind of knowledge about economy, society and state was produced by the late 1980s forecasting expertise? Which concepts of economy and governance were important for forecasting scholars and were used in their expertise? What from this field "survived" the collapse of state socialism in 1989? And, generally, to what extent the late 1980s "prognostika" became the laboratory of post-socialism?

Paper long abstract:

In this paper it will be analysed how the transition of Croatian industrial institutes was shaped by the influence of different ideologies. It is argued here that the current state of the Croatian innovation system can be partly explained by the influence of, at first glance competing, but actually rather connected ideologies: Yugoslav self-management and economic liberalism. First it will be discussed how and why Yugoslav industrial institutes differed from the industrial institutes of COMECON member states. This difference stems from the official Yugoslav self-management ideology and the subsequent introduction of market socialism. Market socialism also created opportunities for Croatian companies to cooperate intensively with foreign companies during socialism; thus allowing the introduction of the discourses and practices of economic liberalism and techno-globalism in the 1990s and 2000s.

Special emphasis will be given to the interpretation of these processes by Croatian economists and sociologists. This paper is based on qualitative content analysis of official documents, books, articles and interviews by various social and political actors.

Paper long abstract:

When seen from the core-(semi)peripheral perspective most of the postsocialist countries in East and Central Europe seem to non-reflectively adopt directives from the hegemonic core countries and supranational institutions. This process occurs also in the academic world, where the period of division of Eastern Europe from the rest of the continent behind the Iron Curtain is perceived as an era of isolation of scholars from the global circulation of knowledge. Political and economic transition after 1989, which in Poland is identified with the Balcerowicz Plan, introduced neoliberal market's logic also to the academic world. However, instead of enhancing the postsocialist academia to join the core, this process pushed it to the (semi)peripheral position. Hence, research among a group of young scholars (interviews) and my own practice in organizational activity in a Polish university (participant observation) show that modern transformation of academic institutions were subjects not to the neoliberal logic but technocratic. It became a clear trend especially after the accession to the EU. Hence, the state of affairs is distant from the real liberal free market and instead it relies on the bureaucratic and technocratic apparatus from both - local (postsocialist remains) as well as supranational levels (the EU). As a consequence we can observe that Polish universities are not on the straight way to the core/center, but rather in opposite direction - to the peripheries. But what about the active role of the civil society? What about the tradition of resistance to the authoritarian power? What about the Solidarity ethos?

Paper long abstract:

Following Trevor J. Barnes’ seminal work on the ’quantitative revolution’ in Anglo-American geography (1950s and 1960s), and other works on the contested adaptations and narratives of German theories of spatial planning (von Thünen, Weber, Christaller, Lösch), my study aims to broaden this research with a critical focus on the geographies of Cold War geographical knowledge production. With the ’mangling’ of WWII, the military-industrial complex made American science a permanent centre (after a massive migration of European, mostly German scholars to the US), and the unfolding Anglo-American hegemony normalized former location theories in human geography and regional science. The emerging Cold War framework of a neopositivistic, mathematized and modell-based scientific approach enabled the ’immutable mobiles’ of location theories and concerning knowledge (e.g. systems theory, cybernetics, computation) to circulate into the Eastern block, after a turn in socialist scientific policy, and the „New Economic Mechanism” (1968) in Hungary. My preliminary research is to show the interchange of actor-networks enabling the diffusion and adaptation of these knowledges under different political contexts, particularly in socialist Hungary. The aim of this paper is to provide a contribution to a globalized understanding of Hungarian semi-peripherial knowledge production, which provided the later basis for a post-socialist context of geographical knowledge production and spatial planning.

Paper long abstract:

There were two kinds of statistical systems during the Cold War. The OECD's predecessor Organisation for European Economic Co-operation ‒ founded to help and administer the Marshall Plan ‒ commissioned a comprehensive statistical system so as to standardize the measurement of economic activities. Some years later, in 1953, its modified version became the official UN method called System of National Accounts. However, by that time another statistical system was already developed. At the beginning of the 1950s Eastern European countries adopted the Soviet Union's method. Despite the bipolar world system, UN could provide forum for these countries to share their experiences with each other. With the coordination of the Conference of European Statisticians numerous scientific projects were conducted, which had influence on both the official capitalist and socialist methods.

Examining the statistical problems of the era it can be seen, that a close relationship between statisticians of capitalist and socialist countries existed, and also that, scientific and political questions were strongly intertwined in this field. I will show both of these aspects in a case study of socialist Hungary, that had ample opportunity to form its own statistical methods: for a long time it was the only country, that officially accounted its national income both using a capitalist and a socialist method. György Péter, then head of Hungarian Central Statistical Office was the person participating in the UN, thus mediating between the international and Hungarian experts as well as being a main economic adviser of the Hungarian Socialist Labor Party.

Paper long abstract:

This paper deals with the problems of research assessment as perceived and practiced in the Croatian post-socialist academic system. The focus of the research is on the younger generation of Croatian scientists from all scientific fields, patterns of their research productivity and their attitudes, norms and values related to the scientific productivity and research assessment. The study is based on qualitative and quantitative data gathered in 40 in-depth interviews with young researchers in natural and social sciences in 2011, and questionnaires on 400 young researchers from all scientific fields in 2014. The main research questions are concerned with the future of scientific system in terms of prediction of the patterns of the knowledge production and scientific productivity. The study is interested in the possibility of generational shift in terms of productivity and research assessment and explanations for such shift are observed in the light of specific post-socialist context and path-dependence of the academic system. The study builds its context on three main groups of findings related to the Croatian academic system, the structural characteristics of the system, the process of professional socialization within the scientific system in Croatia, and the patterns of research productivity of Croatian scientists and its changes. By analysing the empirical findings from the two field studies and focusing on scientific productivity and research assessment, in the light of the above-mentioned contextual characteristics this paper aims to provide valuable in-depth analysis of current and future prospects of the scientific system in Croatia.