Governing by numbers: fantasies of forecasting, ‘predict and provide’ and the technologies of government

Steven Griggs; David Howarth

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Contesting Aviation Expansion

Depoliticisation, Technologies of Government and Post-Aviation Futures

Authors:

Steven Griggs

and

David Howarth

Keywords:: Predict and provide; Quantification; Numbers; Forecasting; Roskill Commission; Public inquiries; Consultation

Global Social Challenges:: Climate Change, Energy and Sustainability, Hunger, Food, Water and Shelter

Sustainable Development Goals:: Goal 1: No Poverty, Goal 2: Zero Hunger, Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation, Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy, Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production, Goal 13: Climate Action, Goal 15: Life On Land

2: Governing by numbers: fantasies of forecasting, ‘predict and provide’ and the technologies of government

Authors:

Steven Griggs

and

David Howarth

Publication Date:: 31 May 2023

Pages:: 43–72

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.51952/9781447344292.ch002

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This chapter demonstrates how the post-war state sponsorship of UK aviation quickly coalesced around the social logic of ‘predict and provide’ – an administrative rationality which privileged practices of forecasting and quantification. The first half of the chapter explores how the Department for Transport developed a wealth of categories, assumptions, economic models and statistical techniques, which sought to normalise expectations of expansion, effectively projecting the making and implementation of concrete decisions over aviation into a depoliticised space of the future, while marginalising all but the most expert and powerful of citizens and groups. But provision did not always follow prediction as persistent political controversies about the location and timing of new airport capacity dislocated the logic of ‘predict and provide’. The second half thus characterises and evaluates the different technologies that governments used in their endeavours to depoliticise airport expansion. It draws attention to three principal technologies: public inquiries, expert Commissions and national public consultations. However, it concludes that these technologies were rapidly politicised by local residents and campaigners, who engaged in strategies of arena-switching and audience expansion. The chapter shows that the post-war regime of aviation expansion was marked by complex and contingent logics of politicisation, depoliticisation and repoliticisation.

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2: Governing by numbers: fantasies of forecasting, ‘predict and provide’ and the technologies of government