Selling the future : the perils of predicting global politics /

Selling the future : the perils of predicting global politics /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Colonomos, Ariel, author.
Uniform title:Politique des oracles. English
Imprint:New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2016]
©2016
Description:xiv, 225 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.
Language:English
Series:The series in comparative politics and international studies
Comparative politics and international studies series.
Subject:
Forecasting -- Political aspects.
Economic forecasting -- Political aspects.
International relations -- Forecasting.
World politics -- 21st century -- Forecasting.
Social prediction -- Political aspects.
Economic forecasting -- Political aspects.
International relations -- Forecasting.
World politics -- Forecasting.
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/10828844
Hidden Bibliographic Details
Other authors / contributors:Elliott, Gregory, translator.
ISBN:9780190603649
019060364X
Notes:Includes bibliographical references (pages 195-217) and indexes.
Translated from the French.
Summary:"In an age of uncertainty, those who can anticipate revolution, the outbreak of wars, or which states might default are much in demand. The marketplace of ideas about the future is huge, and includes 'wonks', scholars and pundits who produce scenarios, predictions and ratings. The more opaque the future seems to be, so the relation between knowledge and power intensifies, above all the nexus between those who sell their expertise and those who consume it. In his investigation of the paradoxes of forecasting, Ariel Colonomos interrogates today's knowledge factories to reveal how our futures are shaped by social scientists, think tanks and rating agencies. He explains why conservative and linear predictions prevail, and why the future, especially when linked to national interest, reflects a systematic search for stability. The notion of a globalized world whose main characteristic is speed, and where predictions have accelerating, self-fulfilling effects, is obsolete. Those who are supposed to know, reassure those who are supposed to act. Their preferences converge, and thus the industry of the future has a decelerating effect on world politics. These 'lords of knowledge' reinforce pre-existing beliefs, create expectations about the future, while obstructing its vision when -- inevitably -- it diverges from its orderly path"--Provided by publisher.
Table of Contents:
  • Acknowledgements
  • List of Illustrations and Figures
  • Introduction: The Future on Stage
  • Seeing into the distance, and getting it right
  • Kinds of information
  • The future as a discussion space
  • Continuity or rupture?
  • Brakes and accelerators
  • The social mechanics of the future
  • Part 1. The Future As Narrative
  • 1. At the Centre of the World: Oracles, Seers and Prophets
  • The advantages of ambiguity
  • Superstition
  • Gaming
  • The saturation of signs
  • Networks of oracles
  • Of prophets, paths and signs: the performance of prophecy and the testing of prophets
  • 2. Telling the Future Today
  • Speaking with one voice?
  • Experts and the market
  • The world of indicators
  • Political risks and world order
  • Unveiling a story
  • Part 2. Seeing Far
  • 3. The Blinkers of the Social Sciences
  • Linearity
  • Chronicle of a collective denial: How not to predict the fall of the Soviet Union
  • Reversals of epistemic fortune in the Arabian Deserts
  • The Chinese horizon of expectation
  • 4. Engineering the World
  • Experts: what do they do?
  • Where do they come from?
  • The topography of knowledge
  • A virtual community
  • The lexicon of futurism
  • The life and death of futures
  • The lagging behind of the future
  • 5. The Risk Market: Credit Ratings
  • A Balzacian novel
  • Normalising capitalism
  • The small world of the agencies
  • Rating the future
  • An indeterminate stability
  • Do credit ratings delay the future?
  • The inertia of grand narratives
  • The accuracy of the future
  • Part 3. Getting It Right
  • 6. Right and Wrong Futures
  • Two cases of denunciation of a wrong future
  • The truthfulness of the future
  • The burden of inaction
  • An incentive to originality
  • 7. Responsibility for the Future
  • 'The future is the moment that got lucky'
  • 'I am a lie that tells the truth'
  • The public sphere of futures
  • A sphere of reputation
  • Looking ahead?
  • 8. The Future of Norms
  • The world order
  • The dialectic of the state
  • 'Moral revolutions'?
  • Portents of tomorrow's justice?
  • Tomorrow's priorities
  • A global observatory
  • The Ultimate Delphic Paradox: The Veil of Finitude
  • Notes
  • Name Index
  • Subject Index
The Louis A. and Frances B. Wagner Book Fund bookplate

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