| Unit name | Technocracy |
|---|---|
| Unit code | HISTM0060 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | M/7 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
| Unit director | Dr. Holdenried |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of History (Historical Studies) |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
From economists to climate scientists, technocrats help rule our modern lives. They play key roles in the ways that governments govern, shaping human society while claiming to be objective and neutral. Whether in the democratic USA, the communist Soviet Union, or in Pakistan under military dictatorship, technocrats are indispensable to the people in power.
This unit examines the use and abuse of technical expertise in politics and culture. It seeks explanations for ways that experts have advised political leaders, and asks what happens when experts themselves have become leaders. Topics range from dam-building in the American West, through the Rockefeller Foundation’s anti-malaria work in Egypt during the Second World War, to the controversial relationship between illegal drug policy and scientific advice in contemporary Britain.
It raises ethical and practical questions relevant to today’s society: does a technical viewpoint preclude political common sense, and vice versa? Who has the right to decide how to use scientific knowledge? What does technocracy mean for democracy? Locating such issues in different historical and geographical contexts, this unit asks how certain kinds of knowledge become allied with social and political power.
1) To give students a broad grounding in the development of technocracy in the modern era.
2) To improve students’ ability to argue effectively and at length (including an ability to cope with complexities and to describe and deploy these effectively).
3) To be able to display high level skills in selecting, applying, interpreting and organising information, including evidence of a high level of bibliographical control.
4) To develop the ability of students to evaluate and/or challenge current scholarly thinking.
5) To foster student’s capacity to take a critical stance towards scholarly processes involved in arriving at historical knowledge and/or relevant secondary literature.
6) To be able to demonstrate an understanding of concepts and an ability to conceptualise.
7) To develop students’ capacity for independent research.
1 x 2-hour interactive lecture per week.
One summative coursework essay of 5000 words (100%). This will assess ILOs 1-7.
Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (1989)
Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts: Egypt, technopolitics, modernity (2002)
Michael E. Latham, Modernization as ideology: American social science and "nation-building" in the Kennedy era (2000)
James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed (1998)
Patricio Silva, In The Name of Reason: Technocrats and politics in Chile (2008)
Donald Worster, Rivers of Empire: Water, aridity, and the growth of the American West (1985)
