Jacob Ward, Assistant Professor in the History Department and FASoS MUSTS Research Programme, has won an NWO Veni grant of €280,000.
His research project ‘The Prediction Machine: Futurology, Technology, and Neoliberalism in British Government’ will investigate how new forms of future-making shaped and were shaped by the rise of neoliberalism. It will inform contemporary debates about prediction, technocracy, and neoliberalism in modern government.
As the recent pandemic shows, governmental predictions about the future hold enormous power. But this power rests on the tools that make these predictions, such as computer models and planning exercises. These tools turn judgement calls about the future into matters of fact and, in turn, influence national governance. While Western states have long used forecasts and projections, these prediction technologies transformed radically after World War II. A new cluster of predictive sciences and technologies called “futurology” emerged, which included both digital technologies, such as computer simulations, and social technologies, such as scenario planning.
This project explores how this history of futurology intersected with the history of neoliberalism, using British government as a case-study. The UK played a paradigmatic role in modelling neoliberal policies, such as privatisation, and new forms of prediction, such as ‘Foresight’, to the wider world.
