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Will Davies
Goldsmiths, University of London, Politics, Faculty Member
- Corporate Governance, Sociology, Political Economy, Critical Theory, Socio-Economics, Economic Sociology, and 16 moreSocial Theory, Neoliberalism, Critical Management Studies, Luc Boltanski, Economics, Epistemology, Policy Analysis/Policy Studies, History of Economic Thought, Competitiveness (Economics), Max Weber (Philosophy), Cultural Political Economy, Michel Foucault, Science and Technology Studies, Computer Networks, Databases, and Softwareedit
Liberal government, as analysed by Foucault, is a project of measured, utilitarian political activity, that takes 'population' as its object, dating back to the late seventeenth century. The rise of nationalism, authoritarianism and... more
Liberal government, as analysed by Foucault, is a project of measured, utilitarian political activity, that takes 'population' as its object, dating back to the late seventeenth century. The rise of nationalism, authoritarianism and populism directly challenges this project, by seeking to reintroduce excessive, gratuitous and performative modes of power back into liberal societies. This article examines the relationship and tensions between government and sovereignty, so as to make sense of this apparent 'revenge of sovereignty on government'. It argues that neoliberalism has been a crucial factor in the return of sovereignty as a 'problem' of contemporary societies. Neoliberalism tacitly generates new centres of sovereign power, which have become publicly visible since 2008, leading to a dramatic resurgence of discourses and claims to 'sovereignty'.
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In the early 21st century, liberal democracies have witnessed their foundational norms of critique and deliberation being disrupted by a combination of populist and technological forces. A distinctive style of dispute has appeared, in... more
In the early 21st century, liberal democracies have witnessed their foundational norms of critique and deliberation being disrupted by a combination of populist and technological forces. A distinctive style of dispute has appeared, in which a speaker denounces the unfairness of all liberal and institutional systems of equivalence, including the measures of law, economics and the various other ‘tests’ which convention scholars have deemed core to organisations. The article reviews how sociologists of critique have tended to treat critical capacities as oriented towards consensus, but then considers how technologies of real-time ‘control’ circumvent liberal critique altogether. In response, a different type of dispute emerges in the digital public sphere, which abandons equivalences in general, instead adopting a non-representational template of warfare. This style of post-liberal dispute is manifest in the rhetoric of populists, but does not originate there.
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Contemporary economic and ecological politics frequently revolves around a fundamental problem, of what has been left to us by previous generations, and what we will leave to our successors. This has grave collective, indeed planetary,... more
Contemporary economic and ecological politics frequently revolves around a fundamental problem, of what has been left to us by previous generations, and what we will leave to our successors. This has grave collective, indeed planetary, dimensions where climate change is concerned. However, as economic outcomes are increasingly determined by the power of assets and rents, so capitalist societies are witnessing a revival of dynastic forms of intergenerational advantage and disadvantage, where families and defensive legal instruments (such as trusts) sustain wealth privately. The rising influence of inherited wealth since the 1970s means that liberal ideals of ‘meritocracy’ and rewards for effort and innovation become harder to credit. The paper considers these themes via two literatures. Firstly, by reflecting on the question of a sustained or ‘immortal’ common world, as explored in the work of theorists such as Honig and Arendt. Secondly, by looking at development of private wealth and its transmission beyond the lifespan, as explored by Piketty and others. By reading these literatures together, we confront a core existential problem of contemporary capitalism: the extent to which the need to sustain the common world has become channeled into an instinct to sustain private property.
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The role of anger in contemporary politics has received considerable attention in recent years, especially in the context of populism (Mishra, 2017; Nussbaum, 2016). Whether anger is a productive or a destructive political emotion is... more
The role of anger in contemporary politics has received considerable attention in recent years, especially in the context of populism (Mishra, 2017; Nussbaum, 2016). Whether anger is a productive or a destructive political emotion is disputed, but one of the key issues at stake is whether (and how) we can have good reasons to be angry, that allow our anger to be ‘apt’ (Srinivasan, 2018). One thing that ‘apt’ anger requires is the possibility of a pause in affective flows, such that there is room for thought and recognition of anger, not so as to deaden it but at least so as to consider why it exists, and what injustices might need overturning in order to alleviate it.
This paper intervenes in these debates by considering anger in terms of different speeds. If we consider anger in terms of relationships of exchange, namely some kind of recognition or due has not been paid in the past, then we can also consider it in terms of how slowly or quickly such moments of exchange occur. Where anger becomes too slow, resulting in what Sloterdijk refers to as the build up of ‘rage banks’ (Sloterdijk, 2012), it leaves a deposit of past resentment that overshadows the future. Where it becomes too fast, on the other hand, it grows out of mis-recognition and mis-representation, rather than non-recognition or non-representation. This, it is argued, is the distinctive problem of the digital age, in which technologies and economies of ‘attention’ management necessarily result in rapid escalations of anger, due to the eradication of interruptions which are the necessary condition of a productive political anger. The paper considers how the digital public sphere has inbuilt tendencies towards anger, in which reasons and thought are squeezed out from flows of affective data.
This paper intervenes in these debates by considering anger in terms of different speeds. If we consider anger in terms of relationships of exchange, namely some kind of recognition or due has not been paid in the past, then we can also consider it in terms of how slowly or quickly such moments of exchange occur. Where anger becomes too slow, resulting in what Sloterdijk refers to as the build up of ‘rage banks’ (Sloterdijk, 2012), it leaves a deposit of past resentment that overshadows the future. Where it becomes too fast, on the other hand, it grows out of mis-recognition and mis-representation, rather than non-recognition or non-representation. This, it is argued, is the distinctive problem of the digital age, in which technologies and economies of ‘attention’ management necessarily result in rapid escalations of anger, due to the eradication of interruptions which are the necessary condition of a productive political anger. The paper considers how the digital public sphere has inbuilt tendencies towards anger, in which reasons and thought are squeezed out from flows of affective data.
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Competitions have a 'liberal' quality, where the traits they measure or reward have some connection to broader moral virtues, beyond the frame of a contest, and where they have transparency surrounding their norms and metrics of... more
Competitions have a 'liberal' quality, where the traits they measure or reward have some connection to broader moral virtues, beyond the frame of a contest, and where they have transparency surrounding their norms and metrics of evaluation. This allows competitions to serve as consensus-forming procedures, which establish differentials of value in a publicly agreeable fashion. However, competitions can also be organised for the benefit of the organiser, in order to acquire information about participants and accrue competitive advantage in some larger competition. In the age of the digital platform, competitive performance is constantly monitored, but in ways that don’t produce public results or consensus. As in randomised control trials, the ‘world’ as encountered by the participant looks very different from the one seen by the observer. This produces a format of ‘post-liberal competition’, in which (in Goffman’s terms) the ‘front stage’ and ‘back stage’ are radically split from each other.
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The rise of ‘populism’, often conflated with authoritarianism, is frequently viewed as being antagonistic to environmental values, where the latter are associated with ‘liberal elites’. However, with a less pejorative understanding of... more
The rise of ‘populism’, often conflated with authoritarianism, is frequently viewed as being antagonistic to environmental values, where the latter are associated with ‘liberal elites’. However, with a less pejorative understanding of populism, we might be able to identify elements within that can be usefully channelled and mobilised towards the urgent rescue of human and non-human life. This paper seeks to illuminate a ‘green populism’ using Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the tension between science and politics. In Arendt’s account, Western philosophy and science is predicated on a rejection of the mortal realm of politics, in search of eternal laws of nature. However, the pressing mortality of nature has pushed it back into the political realm, shrinking the distance between science and politics. Where nature itself is defined by its mortality, environmentalism and political action acquire a common logic, that could fuel a participatory, green populism.
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This is the final chapter of The Happiness Industry: How the Government & Big Business Sold Us Wellbeing (Verso, 2015)
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Pre-print of article to appear in French in Zilsel - https://www.cairn.info/revue-zilsel.htm This piece will appear alongside the Philip Mirowski article and a series of responses, edited by Beatrice Cherrier
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In the context of ubiquitous data capture and the politics of control, there is growing individual and managerial interest in 'pulse', both in the literal sense of arterial pulse (now monitored through wearable technology) and in a... more
In the context of ubiquitous data capture and the politics of control, there is growing individual and managerial interest in 'pulse', both in the literal sense of arterial pulse (now monitored through wearable technology) and in a metaphorical sense of real-time tracking (for instance taking the 'pulse of an organisation'). This article uses the category of 'pulse' to explore post-Fordism as a set of techniques for governing rhythms, both of the body and of technologies. It draws on Lefebvre's work to introduce notions of eurhythmia, arrhythmia and 'internal measure' as ways of exploring somatic and organisational life. It then introduces two case studies where the idea and physical nature of 'pulse' are at work. These provide an insight into the real-time nature of post-Fordist life, where a chronic sensing of quantities becomes the basis of cooperation , rather than a judgement via measures.
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If the ruling economic paradigm remains traceable to Mont Pèlerin, how to distinguish the present from the moment that brought Thatcher and Reagan to power? A periodization of neoliberalism, from anti-socialist insurgency, through... more
If the ruling economic paradigm remains traceable to Mont Pèlerin, how to distinguish the present from the moment that brought Thatcher and Reagan to power? A periodization of neoliberalism, from anti-socialist insurgency, through centre-left stewardship, to the inchoate ideologies of the post-crash era.
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In a digital society, we are frequently invited to communicate our present affective state via interfaces. These include smart-phone apps which allow users to track their mood in 'real-time', plus touchpads in organisations and public... more
In a digital society, we are frequently invited to communicate our present affective state via interfaces. These include smart-phone apps which allow users to track their mood in 'real-time', plus touchpads in organisations and public spaces which seek rapid feedback on whether an experience is positive or negative. In contrast to the use of surveys as tools of valuation, these technologies seek to capture experience in 'real-time', which can then be viewed and evaluated critically at a later time. Based on study of a number of mood-monitoring technologies, this paper highlights some of the ways in which they challenge conventional accounts of (e)valuation. In particular, rather than inviting individuals to represent their feelings towards the past numerically, they invite them to make uncritical expressions of positive or negative mood in the present. The central question of value is no longer how much is something valued, but whether or not it is valued. Quantiative and calculated analysis of positive and negative emotions occurs subsequently.
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This eBook speaks to the groundswell of interest in wrestling ‘the economy’ away from the orthodox economics expertise that dominates elite policy circles that treats the economy as an abstract series of models of markets built on... more
This eBook speaks to the groundswell of interest in wrestling ‘the economy’ away from the orthodox economics expertise that dominates elite policy circles that treats the economy as an abstract series of models of markets built on assumptions about individuals’ rational choice or inferences about individual behaviour preferences. This type of orthodox economic analysis is not about ‘the economy’ at all – it’s about testing the validity of causal claims. We combat this framework by offering new ways of understanding the deep-seated problems in the UK economy that manifest as entrenched stagnation and perpetual crises.
Research Interests: Economic Sociology, Public Administration, Political Economy, Economic Growth, International Political Economy, and 9 moreHeterodox Economics, Critical international political economy, Financial Crisis of 2008/2009, United Kingdom, Great Recession, Recovery, Austerity Measures, Critical Political Economy, and Public Policy
The financial crisis, and associated scandals, created a sense of a juridical deficit with regard to the financial sector. Forms of independent judgement within the sector appeared compromised, while judgement over the sector seemed... more
The financial crisis, and associated scandals, created a sense of a juridical deficit with regard to the financial sector. Forms of independent judgement within the sector appeared compromised, while judgement over the sector seemed unattainable. Elites, in the classical Millsian sense of those taking tacitly coordinated, ‘big decisions’ over the rest of the public, seem absent. This article argues that the eradication of jurisdictional elites is an effect of neoliberalism, as articulated most coherently by Hayek. It characterises the neoliberal project as an effort to elevate ‘unconscious’ processes over ‘conscious’ ones, which in practice means elevating cybernetic, non-human systems and processes over discursive spheres of politics and judgement. Yet such a system still produces its own types of elite power, which come to consist in acts of translation, rather than judgment. Firstly, there are ‘cyborg intermediaries’: elites which operate largely within the system of codes, data, screens and prices. Secondly, there are ‘diplomatic intermediaries’: elites who come to narrate and justify what markets (and associated technologies and bodies) are ‘saying’. The paper draws on Lazzarato’s work on signifiying vs asignifying semiotics in order to articulate this, and concludes by considering the types of elite crisis which these forms of power tend to produce.
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A key feature of ‘societies of control’ as described by Deleuze is that, unlike societies of discipline, they lack any decisive moments of judgement or evaluation. Individuals live in a condition of ‘endless postponement’ and constant... more
A key feature of ‘societies of control’ as described by Deleuze is that, unlike societies of discipline, they lack any decisive moments of judgement or evaluation. Individuals live in a condition of ‘endless postponement’ and constant uncertainty. This article explores the implications of this today, in the context of ubiquitous digitisation, neoliberalism and the return of the ‘social’ as a mode of government (as in ‘social media’, ‘social enterprise’ etc). It argues that the state of continuous, uncritical flow facilitated by the price system, combined with the uncritical, embodied knowledge of the entrepreneur, are key features of capitalism celebrated by neoliberal thinkers. We might therefore view neoliberalism as a celebration of ‘control’ technologies, and - inversely - view the neoliberal critique of socialism as a critique of ‘disciplinary’ technologies, as manifest in Hayek’s critique of ‘intellectuals’. The contemporary re-emergence of the ‘social’ as a means of government is due to the fact that this new version of the social is amenable to ‘control’, rather than of ‘discipline’. This is a new phase of neoliberalism, which highlights the fact that neoliberalism was only ever contingently dependent on markets, and can be reinvented by expanding the scope of control using (non-market) techniques that were traditionally associated with corporate management. The article explores the new forms of power inequality that arise, once the ‘social’ is co-opted as a tool of control. Control societies are organised by varying assumptions regarding the individual’s capacity to cope with a state of constant, uninterrupted flow. Most individuals require steering in some way, while a small minority of leaders and entrepreneurs can perform the navigation.
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The super-rich today represent a challenge to sociological enquiry, seeing as their principle characteristic would appear to be strategies for divorcing themselves from the constraints of public institutions, discourses, identities and... more
The super-rich today represent a challenge to sociological enquiry, seeing as their principle characteristic would appear to be strategies for divorcing themselves from the constraints of public institutions, discourses, identities and legal constraints. It is not clear that conventional theories of class or elites adequately capture the way in which wealth is insulated from political or public interference. Inspired by Simmel's account of money as a type of teleological vacuum - a sheer absence of any fixed purpose - this chapter considers an alternative way of conceiving of the super-rich, in terms of networks of 'agents' or intermediaries. It is argued that 'agents' represent an important constituent in the contemporary political economy of the super-rich, because they act on behalf of the very wealthy, so as to prevent wealth from becoming imbroiled in political or cultural controversies.
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To appear in Renewal
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In recent years, there has been a panoply of new forms of ‘social’ government, as manifest in ‘social enterprise’ and ‘social media’. This follows an era of neoliberalism in which social logics were apparently being eliminated, through... more
In recent years, there has been a panoply of new forms of ‘social’ government, as manifest in ‘social enterprise’ and ‘social media’. This follows an era of neoliberalism in which social logics were apparently being eliminated, through the expansion of economic rationalities. To understand this, the paper explores the critique of the very notion of the ‘social’, as manifest in neoliberal contributions to the socialist calculation debate from the 1920s onwards. Understood as a zone lying between market and state, the social was accused by Mises and Hayek of being both unaccountable (lacking any units of measurement) and formless (lacking instruments of explication). The paper then asks to what extent these critiques still retain their purchase, following recent developments in hedonic measurement and data analytics. The argument is made that new post-neoliberal forms of ‘social government’ may now be entirely plausible, although operating around the corporation rather than the state.
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In recent years, there has been a surge in critical and historical work, dedicated to uncovering the roots of neoliberal thinking. In the process, the concept of ‘neoliberalism’ has become used in a far more nuanced way, contrary to the... more
In recent years, there has been a surge in critical and historical work, dedicated to uncovering the roots of neoliberal thinking. In the process, the concept of ‘neoliberalism’ has become used in a far more nuanced way, contrary to the frequent allegation that it is merely a pejorative slogan used against capitalism generally. This bibliographic review identifies the texts that have mapped out this more sophisticated account of neoliberalism, and which distinguish between its different varieties and trajectories. In particular, the recognition that neoliberalism is not simply about laissez-faire economics becomes a basis on which to interrogate neoliberalism more sociologically, learning especially from Foucault’s lectures on the topic. The review concludes by identifying those texts which point towards possible futures for neoliberalism.
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Charlie Mayfield, chair of the John Lewis Partnership, discusses different models of business ownership with James Purnell, chair of IPPR, and, Will Davies.
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A symposium on the topic of my book, The Limits of Neoliberalism, with contributions from Bob Jessop, Stephanie Mudge, Jonathan Derbyshire, and a response from me.
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Two decades of ‘financialisation’ has left our economic and social institutions suffocated by the logic of investment and debt. To alleviate this burden, William Davies argues, a new wave of ‘social law’ is needed to support institutional... more
Two decades of ‘financialisation’ has left our economic and social institutions suffocated by the logic of investment and debt. To alleviate this burden, William Davies argues, a new wave of ‘social law’ is needed to support institutional innovation and spark hope.
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The neoliberal era saw rapid increase in the political and economic status of sport. Most empirical analysis of this phenomenon has sought to contain sport within prior theories of media, leisure or urban regeneration. But perhaps the... more
The neoliberal era saw rapid increase in the political and economic status of sport. Most empirical analysis of this phenomenon has sought to contain sport within prior theories of media, leisure or urban regeneration. But perhaps the relationship between neoliberalism and sport is more fundamental than this, and there are specific affinities between the two. The article identifies two ways in which sport and neoliberal politics have been mutually reinforcing. Firstly, sport acts as an icon for neoliberalism, highlighting the behaviours and moral visions that markets might once have exhibited, but no longer do. Secondly, sport acts as a potlatch for neoliberalism, providing a release for political sovereignty and executive decision, in an otherwise economised world. Now that neoliberalism has entered a state of existential ambivalence and with London’s Olympics approaching, we might also ask – what has become of sport and its fading promises?
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The financial crisis of 2007–8 was experienced and reflected upon as a crisis of knowledge, the perennial question being why nobody accurately understood the risks that were being taken within the financial sector. In the wake of the... more
The financial crisis of 2007–8 was experienced and reflected upon as a crisis of knowledge, the perennial question being why nobody accurately understood the risks that were being taken within the financial sector. In the wake of the crisis, there have been demands that rational economic knowledge be extended further and more vigorously, to prevent such ignorance being possible in future. At the same time, there have been demands for a new, softer rationalism, which factors in the possibility of errors and systemic complexities. What neither approach recognizes is that ignorance is not simply the absence of rational economic knowledge, but is a productive force in itself, something that is actively nurtured and exploited, both by neo-liberal theorists such as Hayek and by expert actors who have been implicated in the financial crisis. We explore how ignorance has been alternately an albatross, a commodity and an institutional alibi to financial actors and the scholars who study them.
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The financial crisis which began in 2007 has been widely interpreted as a crisis of neoliberalism, akin to the crisis of Keynesianism of the 1970s. But there is little sign of a major paradigmatic alternative, either in theory in... more
The financial crisis which began in 2007 has been widely interpreted as a crisis of neoliberalism, akin to the crisis of Keynesianism of the 1970s. But there is little sign of a major paradigmatic alternative, either in theory in practice. This article looks at how the crises and failures of neoliberalism are occurring at a micro-policy level, where they are interpreted in terms of the fallibility of individual rational choice. Policy responses to this crisis, drawing on more psychologically nuanced accounts of economic behaviour, can be described as ‘neo-communitarian’, inasmuch as they echo the communitarian critique of the liberal self. Where neoliberalism rests on a vision of the individual as atomised and rational, neo-communitarianism treats individuals as governed by social norms and incentives simultaneously. And where neoliberalism subjects individuals to periodic audit organised around targets and outputs, neo-communitarianism conducts a constant audit of behavioural fluctuations in real time.
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The reach of markets and market-based forms of valuation is never unlimited in any society, which invites empirical and political questions regarding how limits to markets are instituted, justified and enforced. Under neoliberalism, the... more
The reach of markets and market-based forms of valuation is never unlimited in any society, which invites empirical and political questions regarding how limits to markets are instituted, justified and enforced. Under neoliberalism, the state performs a key role in expanding the reach of markets and associated principles and techniques of valuation, using law and governmental techniques. But this then poses a question of the relationship between the neoliberal state and the market that it endorses and enforces: is the state internal or external to the market order that it helps to construct? European Union State Aid rules provide an empirical entry point to consider such questions, providing a combination of normative, technical and sovereign principles, via which the division between state and market can be justified, tested and enacted. The paper identifies three separate though overlapping logics within State Aid documents, each of which offers the State a justification for suspending the competitive market order: exemptions, in which non-market values are upheld, externalities, in which markets are shown to be technically inefficient, and exceptions – such as the 2008 financial crisis – in which the state abandons the market to save the market.
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Economic sociology has been preoccupied with the institution of markets, to the relative neglect of ownership. It has inherited certain technical and governmental problematics regarding that which can or cannot be internalised within the... more
Economic sociology has been preoccupied with the institution of markets, to the relative neglect of ownership. It has inherited certain technical and governmental problematics regarding that which can or cannot be internalised within the market price system, leading to the assumption that the ‘social’ or the ‘public’ is a type of empirical externality. But by shifting attention towards institutions of ownership, the public and the private come to appear as primarily normative appeals, used to challenge and justify the drawing of boundaries in economic life. Boundaries are judged for their justice, as well as for their empirical efficacy. Adopting a pragmatist approach, this paper outlines three possible ‘orders of appropriation’ which can be appealed to when justifying and criticising privatisation in economic situations: the socialist, the neoliberal and the liberal. Beyond any scientific or technical account of property, each of these offers an ‘ultimate’ basis on which to view ownership, according to different and incompatible philosophical anthropologies.
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Will Davies argues that there various ways of analysing the current economic crisis in historical context, but that a ‘new realism’ is emerging which poses major strategic challenges for the centre-left.
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As its advocates and its critics argue, economic liberalism is predicated on a separation of the ‘economic’ and the ‘social’ dimensions of capitalism, which mirrors disciplinary splits between economics and sociology, and regulatory... more
As its advocates and its critics argue, economic liberalism is predicated on a separation of the ‘economic’ and the ‘social’ dimensions of capitalism, which mirrors disciplinary splits between economics and sociology, and regulatory splits between markets and ‘externalities’. Synthesising themes addressed over the course of the ESRC Rising Powers symposia, the paper explores rival ways in which the phenomenon of ‘externalities’ has been conceived. Firstly, externalities can be treated as rare events, ‘market failures’, which make calculation impossible, and typically require some form of state intervention. Secondly, externalities can be treated as problems of under-defined property rights, or inadequate privatisation. This is identified as a neoliberal position. Thirdly, there are emerging methodological approaches and institutional models (especially in the urban economies of the rising powers), which demonstrate ambiguous mediations between public and private goods, and between different spheres of value, without making them fully commensurable. Discovering how this occurs in practice requires further empirical research, as outlined in the conclusion.
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The Law and Economics movement that emerged in the University of Chicago through the 1940s and 1950s, around Ronald Coase's example, is a manifestation of the neo-liberal project of applying neo-classical economics to state sovereignty.... more
The Law and Economics movement that emerged in the University of Chicago through the 1940s and 1950s, around Ronald Coase's example, is a manifestation of the neo-liberal project of applying neo-classical economics to state sovereignty. In the 1970s and 1980s, Law and Economics ideas revolutionized the application of antitrust laws in the United States. However, this achievement came about not through a transformation in economic orthodoxy, but through persuading legal experts to recognize the inherent ‘nonsense’ at work in their own normative assumptions. The Chicago antitrust revolution is therefore symptomatic of trends that Foucault viewed as definitive of neo-liberalism more broadly.
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Academic economists perform an important function in advising politicians and state bureaucrats, lending them epistemological authority. This creates a challenge of institutional design and of professional vocation, of how these experts... more
Academic economists perform an important function in advising politicians and state bureaucrats, lending them epistemological authority. This creates a challenge of institutional design and of professional vocation, of how these experts can combine their commitment to scientific analysis with their commitment towards their governmental patrons. This article examines the case of anti-trust economics, in which government economists are encouraged to remain as academically engaged as possible, so that their advice will be – or appear to be – unpolluted by political or bureaucratic pressures. Yet this ideal is constantly compromised by the fact that the economists are nevertheless government employees, working beneath lawyers. Max Weber's concept of a ‘vocation’ is adopted to explore this tension, and his two lectures, ‘Science as a Vocation’ and ‘Politics as a Vocation’ are read side by side, to consider this core dilemma of academic policy advisors.
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Contemporary developed western economies are commonly referred to as “knowledge-based” economies, which compete through drawing on the innovative and creative capacities of their local populations. Economic policy-makers must invest in... more
Contemporary developed western economies are commonly referred to as “knowledge-based” economies, which compete through drawing on the innovative and creative capacities of their local populations. Economic policy-makers must invest in and conserve the social, cultural and public resources that underpin dynamic and disruptive competitive activities, namely technological innovation and entrepreneurship, which bring new ideas and products to market. But these resources defy orthodox forms of economic knowledge and quantification. Their trajectories and outcomes are intrinsically uncertain. The paper draws on interviews with experts who advise governments on innovation and competitiveness, to understand what expert strategies are used to deal with this epistemological problem. Such experts must project and retain epistemological authority, but without lapsing too far into quantitative, economistic and bureaucratic forms of reason. The paper identifies three ways in which knowledge of the future can be validated, but without disguising uncertainty: it can be presented as practically useful; as aesthetically appealing; and as hinting at some “ultimate” form of ontological knowledge.
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Acknowledgements The author and the ippr would firstly like to thank all the members of the Digital Manifesto steering group: Perri 6, Vidhya Alakeson, Gail Bradbrook, Stephen Coleman, Sara Conway James Crabtree, John Fisher, Ian Kearns,... more
Acknowledgements The author and the ippr would firstly like to thank all the members of the Digital Manifesto steering group: Perri 6, Vidhya Alakeson, Gail Bradbrook, Stephen Coleman, Sara Conway James Crabtree, John Fisher, Ian Kearns, James Lloyd, Matt ...
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Out in May 2015
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Review essay forthcoming in International Journal of Politics, Culture & Society - response from Hocschild will appear alongside the published version.
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Preprint of article published in Contemporary Sociology – available for download at http:// csx.sagepub.com/content/45/1/63.full