A new edited volume, The Decisionist Imagination: Sovereignty, Social Science and Democracy in the 20th Century, on the emergence of decision theory in twentieth-century social science may be of interest to AHP readers. The volume, edited by Daniel Bessner and Nicolas Guilhot, is described as follows:

In the decades following World War II, the science of decision-making moved from the periphery to the center of transatlantic thought. The Decisionist Imagination explores how “decisionism” emerged from its origins in prewar political theory to become an object of intense social scientific inquiry in the new intellectual and institutional landscapes of the postwar era. By bringing together scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, this volume illuminates how theories of decision shaped numerous techno-scientific aspects of modern governance—helping to explain, in short, how we arrived at where we are today.

CONTENTS

Introduction: Who Decides?
Daniel Bessner and Nicolas Guilhot

Chapter 1. Reading the International Mind: International Public Opinion in Early Twentieth Century Anglo-American Thought
Stephen Wertheim Continue reading The Decisionist Imagination: Sovereignty, Social Science and Democracy in the 20th Century →