The Crafting of Systems Knowledge at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (1972–1982)

The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) was inaugurated in 1972 as an international and interdisciplinary research institution by twelve Eastern and Western countries during the Cold War, including the United States and the Soviet Union. Today, it is widely regarded as a pioneering knowledge hub that developed applied systems analysis as an effective and ostensibly value-neutral technique for environmental management, capable of addressing regional, national, and global challenges in industrialized societies. This thesis offers a different perspective. Drawing on extensive archival research across multiple member states, it deconstructs the notion of applied systems analysis as a powerful and neutral tool for environmental governance, and instead reconstructs its contested development within institutional, scientific, and political contexts. Focusing on three thematic areas—environment, energy, and management—the thesis traces IIASA’s efforts to unify applied systems analysis between 1972 and 1982. These standardization efforts privileged certain analytical factors while marginalizing others, reflecting divergent perspectives and competing values among the institute’s national member organizations. The thesis further demonstrates how IIASA contributed to the internationalization of environmental knowledge and the promotion of scientists as non-confrontational experts in policymaking processes. It critically examines this claim by: (i) analyzing the theoretical and institutional origins of applied systems analysis; (ii) contextualizing IIASA’s research projects during its first decade; (iii) investigating the institute’s knowledge dissemination strategies and the responses they elicited from national and international partners; and (iv) tracing how national research institutions adopted and adapted applied systems analysis for their own purposes, with a particular focus on the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Overall, this study presents a history of knowledge production and exchange characterized by friction, debate, and negotiation. It challenges the conventional portrayal of applied systems analysis as a purely technical and apolitical tool for planning and policymaking. By foregrounding the complex contexts in which it evolved, the thesis invites a more critical reflection on the relationship between science and policy, particularly in the production and use of climate knowledge for shaping a shared future. - - - All chapters examine the making and circulation of knowledge and approach the procedural nature of ASA through a case study design. Each chapter situates scientists and research programs at IIASA within their political and social contexts, highlighting divergences in how actors provisioned and understood ASA. By following researchers’ everyday practices, the thesis shows how they engaged with—and reinterpreted—the original objectives set out in the IIASA Charter and by its founders. Knowledge production and circulation are thus treated as dynamic, self-reflexive, and context-dependent processes (Figure 1.7). Chapter 1 introduces the research framework, situates the thesis within the historiography of science and knowledge production, and defines the main research questions, concepts, and methodological approach. Chapters 2–4 focus primarily on instances of knowledge production at IIASA, while Chapters 5 and 6 examine how this knowledge circulated within international and national contexts. These perspectives are analytically distinct but empirically intertwined, as processes of production and circulation continuously shaped one another. Chapter 2 examines ASA as a form of management and reconstructs the emergence of IIASA’s institutional infrastructure through the lens of postwar management ideals. It traces how systems analysis was linked to scientific management techniques and how these ideas informed both the institute’s founding arrangements and its early research practices. Chapter 3 analyzes attempts to standardize ASA through the development of a handbook. By following this process, the chapter makes visible the actors, conflicts, and detours involved in formalizing ASA, showing how efforts at unification exposed persistent disagreements about the scope and meaning of the field. Chapter 4 investigates environmental modeling through the spruce budworm case, demonstrating how specific national research contexts—here, Canada—shaped ASA practices at IIASA. It also shows how this work contributed to the emergence of resilience thinking and influenced other research areas within the institute. Chapter 5 turns to the Energy Systems Analysis project and examines how ASA knowledge was reworked through international collaboration and public controversy. It highlights how external pressures—such as the oil crisis, environmental movements, and debates over nuclear energy—entered the modeling process and reshaped its assumptions and outputs. Chapter 6 shifts the perspective to the national level by focusing on the German Democratic Republic. It analyzes how IIASA’s systems knowledge was received, adapted, and integrated into existing planning structures, and how national actors reconfigured ASA in line with their own institutional priorities, particularly in the fields of energy and agriculture. Taken together, the chapters show how ASA was assembled through situated practices, institutional negotiations, and competing interpretations, rather than simply implemented as a unified analytical framework.

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