Remembering Global Modelling

Abstract

The 1972 study The Limits to Growth , based on the computer simulation model World3, served as a catalyst for the development of numerous follow-up models. Between 1974 and 1981, several of these projects were presented at conferences hosted by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). The field that emerged from this exchange became known as Global Modelling and is widely regarded as a crucial precursor to later Integrated Assessment Models. This paper examines the struggles in constructing this proclaimed new discipline. It argues that Global Modelling—and the scientific turning point it came to represent—was constituted largely through mythmaking, disciplinary boundary work, invocations of community, and repeated references to Thomas Kuhn's concept of paradigms to confer prestige. Highlighting the rhetoric surrounding the World3 model and the subsequent establishment of Global Modelling is necessary to understand the divergent narratives about the field's trajectories. It illustrates how contestation over Global Modelling's status provided the matrix for how the field is remembered.