{"title":"The Belgian 'Impossible Scenario' of 1980: Reinventing planning in times of 'crisis'.","authors":"Zoé Evrard","doi":"10.1017/S0269889725100768","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In 1980, Belgian Plan Commissioner Robert Maldague clandestinely circulated a document called <i>The Impossible Scenario,</i> thereby reshaping planning practices in Belgium amidst a widely perceived moment of crisis. Using archival records and oral histories, this article traces how reformers within the (now federal) Belgian Planning Bureau combined foresight scenarios and macroeconomic modeling in <i>The Impossible Scenario</i>. It explains the use of foresight scenarios through the Planning Bureau's aim of restoring its capacity to intervene in Belgian policymaking. The article then highlights the broader political meaning of this epistemic transformation: the reconfiguration of planning infrastructures in Belgium-and, more broadly, in Europe-from instruments of democratic economic coordination to tools of market governance. Examining this previously underexplored Belgian case thereby reveals the neoliberaliz<i>ed</i> and neoliberaliz<i>ing</i> character of Western planning infrastructures in the early 1980s.</p>","PeriodicalId":49562,"journal":{"name":"Science in Context","volume":" ","pages":"1-24"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2025-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Science in Context","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0269889725100768","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Arts and Humanities","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In 1980, Belgian Plan Commissioner Robert Maldague clandestinely circulated a document called The Impossible Scenario, thereby reshaping planning practices in Belgium amidst a widely perceived moment of crisis. Using archival records and oral histories, this article traces how reformers within the (now federal) Belgian Planning Bureau combined foresight scenarios and macroeconomic modeling in The Impossible Scenario. It explains the use of foresight scenarios through the Planning Bureau's aim of restoring its capacity to intervene in Belgian policymaking. The article then highlights the broader political meaning of this epistemic transformation: the reconfiguration of planning infrastructures in Belgium-and, more broadly, in Europe-from instruments of democratic economic coordination to tools of market governance. Examining this previously underexplored Belgian case thereby reveals the neoliberalized and neoliberalizing character of Western planning infrastructures in the early 1980s.
期刊介绍：
Science in Context is an international journal edited at The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel Aviv University, with the support of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. It is devoted to the study of the sciences from the points of view of comparative epistemology and historical sociology of scientific knowledge. The journal is committed to an interdisciplinary approach to the study of science and its cultural development - it does not segregate considerations drawn from history, philosophy and sociology. Controversies within scientific knowledge and debates about methodology are presented in their contexts.
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