Global Modelling: Stylizing a New Science

The 1972 publication of the first report to the Club of Rome, titled The Limits to Growth garnered significant public attention and harsh criticism alike. The report’s findings were based on the computer model WORLD III, developed at MIT. One lesser known development, following The Limit’s medial success, was the creation of further “world/global models” like the World Integrated Model by Mihajlo Mesarovic and Eduard Pestel or the Modelo Mundial de Latinoamerica by Amilcar Herrera et al. These models set the stage for what later came to be known as Integrated Assessment Models (IAM). The 1972 founded Institute for Applied System Analysis (IIASA) in Austria held nine symposia on global modelling between 1974 and 1981, becoming a central hub for the proclaimed new science. Drawing on administrative sources from IIASA this paper offers a fine-grained picture of the attempts to establish global modelling as a serious endeavor. It contends that in lack of a common methodological approach, these attempts mainly relied on the establishment of a community, a tradition and a specific image. What is peculiar to the presented case is that the stylizing of “global modelling” happened during a time in which non-cumulative theories of science development -exemplified by Thomas Kuhn’s notion of paradigms- gained prominence. These attempts in establishing this new science not only took place at the same time as this post-positivist shift but happened vis a vis and in exchange with it; this opens up an interrogation about the recursive aspects of the paradigm approach.