The Power of Systems

THE POWER OF SYSTEMS THE POWER OF SYSTEMS How Policy Sciences Opened Up the Cold War World Eglė Rindzevičiūtė CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON Copyright © 2016 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2016 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of Amer i ca Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Rindzevičiūtė, Eglė, author. Title: The power of systems : how policy sciences opened up the Cold War world / Eglė Rindzevičiūtė. Description: Ithaca ; London : Cornell University Press, 2016. Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016002042 | ISBN 9781501703188 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Policy sciences. | Po liti cal science— Methodology. Classification: LCC JA80 R635 2016 | DDC 320.6— dc23 LC rec ord available at http:// lccn . loc . gov / 2016002042 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent pos si ble in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable- based, low- VOC inks and acid- free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine- free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www . cornellpress . cornell . edu. Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Cover illustration: Night at the Port (1965) by Jonas Švažas, used by permission of the Lithuanian Art Museum (T-5626). For Francis Contents Acknowl edgments ix Abbreviations xi Introduction: The Rise of System- Cybernetic Governmentality 1 1. Gray Eminences of the Scientific- Technical Revolution 24 2. Bridging East and West: The Birth of IIASA 52 3. Shaping a Transnational Systems Community (1): Networks and Institutions 73 4. Shaping a Transnational Systems Community (2): Family versus War Room 94 5. The East- West Politics of Global Modeling 129 6. From Nuclear Winter to the Anthropocene 150 7. Acid Rain: Scientific Expertise and Governance across the Systemic Divide 181 Epilogue: The Avant- Garde of System- Cybernetic Governmentality 204 Notes 219 Bibliography 267 Index 287 Acknowl edgments It is a plea sure to be able to acknowledge all the people who played a significant role in the writing of this book. The original idea of this project emerged more than a decade ago, in 2004, and was developed during six years of postdoctoral research. Thanks to a generous scholarship awarded by the Tore Browaldh Foun- dation, Handelsbanken, Sweden, I was not only able to conduct my fieldwork at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analy sis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria, but also to develop my ideas while working alongside some of the finest minds in organ ization studies at Gothenburg Research Institute (GRI), School of Business, Economics and Law at Gothenburg University, Sweden. I thank Barbara Czarniawska, Rolf Solli, Ulla Eriksson- Zetterquist, and Sten Jönsson for inviting me to become part of the unique research community at GRI, and I am particularly grateful to Barbara for her insightful comments on my ongoing work, as they helped enormously to attune my historical analy sis and understanding of orga nizational life. At Centre d’études européennes (CEE) of the Paris Institute of Politi cal Studies (Sciences Po) in France, my work was supported by a generous grant from the Eu ro pean Research Council, awarded to Jenny Andersson, which enabled me to carry out my fieldwork in Moscow, plunging into the archives and interviewing scientists involved in East- West cooperation. I thank Jenny and the team at the proj ect Futurepol, particularly Vítězslav Sommer, Pauline Prat, and Sibylle Du- hautois, for reading and commenting on my work at Futurepol meetings. Paris proved to be conducive for intense engagement with both French and US aca- demia and I thank S. M. Amadae, Olivier Borraz, Marie- Laure Djelic, Matthew Evangelista, Gabriella Hecht, Paul Edwards, Paul Josephson, Tatiana Kasperski, Dominique Pestre, and Leena Riska-Campbell for support and constructive comments. I also thank CEE and its director, Renaud Dehousse, for hosting my project and providing both a stimulating intellectual environment and the most efficient administrative support that can exist. Thanks to Linda Amrani, Silvia Duerich- Morandi, Assya El Mahnaoui, Katia Rio, and Samia Saadi. Parts of this book have been discussed at many research meetings, and I wish to particularly thank Centre de Sociologie des Organisations (CSO), Sciences Po, Nicolas Guilhot at CIRHUS at New York University, Susanne Bauer and Tanja Penter at Ruprecht- Karls- Universität in Heidelberg, the German History Institute ix x ACKNOWL EDGMENTS (DHI) in Moscow, and the London- based Foucault Po liti cal Life and History group, particularly Colin Gordon, Patrick Joyce, and David Edgerton. Special thanks go to my former PhD supervisor, Irina Sandomirskaja, who en- couraged my interest in the history of Soviet cybernetics and provided continuous support to my postdoctoral work, guiding me in the conceptual and institutional labyrinths of doing research into Soviet history. Concerning the latter, practical tips from Sari Autio-Sarasmo on how to survive as a researcher in Moscow were simply indispensable. This study would have been impossible without the friendly help of many people who opened up their institutions for my scrutiny. I thank the Swedish Re- search Council FORMAS, particularly Uno Svedin, for facilitating my access to the IIASA archives. The IIASA administration and library staff were the kindest and most efficient help pos si ble and I thank Aviott John and Michaela Rossini for opening the archives for me and arranging for the interview meetings. My work in Moscow was enormously helped by the archivists at the Rus sian State Archive of the Economy (RGAE) and the Archive of the Russian Acad emy of Sciences (ARAN), where Irina Tarakanova was of great help. I also thank Vanessa Voisin and the staff at the French-R ussian Center for Humanities and Social Sci- ences for the remarkable reduction of red tape relating to my trips to Moscow. I just cannot thank enough my interviewees for sharing their memories, ideas, and materials with me. It was a privilege to meet you all and although I do not expect you to agree with every thing that I propose in my book, I hope that you will at least find it an in ter est ing read. At Cornell University Press, Roger Haydon was an inspiring guide in the publishing pro cess and I thank the two anonymous reviewers for their generous and constructive comments, which were extremely helpful in revising the final man- uscript. I also thank the production team at Cornell, particularly Susan C. Barnett and Emily Powers, and Michelle Witkowski and Carol Noble at West- chester Publishing Ser vices. Fi nally, I thank my family, especially my parents, who outlived the Soviet re- gime and, regardless of all the hardships of post-So viet transition, always supported my interest in science. This proj ect could have never been completed without Francis Dodsworth, whose gentle and patient support to my international career has simply been unique and stands as proof that life does not have to be limited by national bound aries. Abbreviations ARAN State Archive of the Rus sian Acad emy of Sciences CERN Eu ro pean Or ga ni za tion for Nuclear Research CoCom Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls FRG Federal Republic of Germany GDR German Demo cratic Republic GKNT State Committee for Science and Technology GOELRO State Commission for the Electrification of Rus sia Gosplan State Planning Committee IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency ICSU International Council of Scientific Unions IIASA International Institute of Applied Systems Analy sis IKSI Institute for Concrete Social Research IMEMO Institute of World Economics and International Relations ISA Institute of Systems Analy sis MGIMO Moscow Institute of International Relations NAS National Acad emy of Science NATO North- Atlantic Treaty Or ga ni za tion NKVD People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs OECD Or ga ni za tion for Economic Co- operation and Development OGAS All- Union Automated System OMENTO GKNT Department for International Economic and Technoscientific Organ izations OR Operations Research PPBS Planning- Programming and Bud geting System RGAE Rus sian State Archive of the Economy STR Scientific- Technical Revolution UN United Nations UNACASTD United Nations Advisory Committee on the Application of Science and Technology to Development UNITAR UN Institute for Training and Research VNIISI All- Union Scientific Institute of Systems Research VNIPOU All- Union Institute for Prob lems of Management of National Economy WHO World Health Or ga ni za tion xi THE POWER OF SYSTEMS Introduction THE RISE OF SYSTEM- CYBERNETIC GOVERNMENTALITY If the reader could step back in time and peer through the door of any Moscow institute of mathe matics in the late 1940s or early 1950s, she would perhaps be surprised to see scholars wearing a military kitel`, the jacket of a Red Army offi- cer’s uniform. If she guessed that these were Soviet Cold War warriors crafting algorithms and strategies for defense against the West, she would not be entirely wrong: many of these researchers would go on to work in the fields of operations research, systems analy sis,

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