IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/wpaper/22500.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

‘On a mission' with mutable mobiles

Author

Listed:
  • Morgan, Mary S.

Abstract

The task of economic planning in the new nation of Nigeria in the early 1960s tested the limits of economic technologies: its recipes for development, its possibilities of measurement, and from differences in political economy. These dimensions of the problem beset not only the Nigerian politicians and civil servants but an array of international experts: each on their own mission to make the new economy. This story of mutable mobiles is revealed in the detailed diary entries of the economist Wolfgang Stolper - a man “on a mission”, for he was charged with making “the plan”. This first Nigerian economic plan was a mobile document that cycled around a changing circle of civil servants and politicians and only gathered powerful allies amongst them because of the mutability its elements. This mutability rested on a combination of decentralized knowledge and on regional democratic preferences. And, to make a plan that would gain acceptance outside the centre of calculation, these local facts and choices had to be made consistent with each other and with the projected future of the economy as a whole. This is where economic theory came in: it created a consistency between the current and future economy so that future facts - fictions - and current facts made good travelling companions for each other in their circulations around the political and economic community.

Suggested Citation

  • Morgan, Mary S., 2008. "‘On a mission' with mutable mobiles," Economic History Working Papers 22500, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:wpaper:22500
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/22500/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anonymous, 1955. "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(4), pages 541-544, November.
    2. Anonymous, 1955. "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(3), pages 421-425, August.
    3. Speich, Daniel, 2008. "Travelling with the GDP through early development economics’ history," Economic History Working Papers 22501, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    4. Anonymous, 1955. "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(1), pages 164-167, February.
    5. Dudley Seers, 1979. "The Birth, Life and Death of Development Economics," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 10(4), pages 707-719, October.
    6. Donald MacKenzie, 2006. "An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262134608, April.
    7. Anonymous, 1955. "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(2), pages 272-274, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ross, E.B., 2003. "Modernisation, clearance and the continuum of violence in Colombia," ISS Working Papers - General Series 19142, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    2. Adegboye, Rufus Oladokun, 1964. "Improving land use in Nigeria through removing defects in land inheritance," ISU General Staff Papers 196401010800003725, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    3. Easterly, William, 1997. "The ghost of financing gap : how the Harrod-Domar growth model still haunts development economics," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1807, The World Bank.
    4. Brown, Lester R., 1963. "Agricultural Diversification and Economic Development in Thailand: A Case Study," Foreign Agricultural Economic Report (FAER) 143855, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    5. Peter Bauer, 1998. "B. R. Shenoy: Stature and Impact," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 18(1), pages 1-10, Spring/Su.
    6. Mihai Niţoi & Dorina Clichici & Simona Moagăr-Poladian, 2021. "Foreign Banks in Central and Eastern Europe: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2021(5), pages 596-612.
    7. W. G. Huff, 2003. "Currency Boards and Chinese Banking Development in pre-World War II Southeast Asia: Malaya and the Philippines," Working Papers 2003_2, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    8. Mihai Niţoi & Dorina Clichici & Simona Moagăr-Poladian, . "Foreign Banks in Central and Eastern Europe: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 0.
    9. Mehmet Osman ÇATI, 2016. "Economic Development and Foreign Policy, The Case of Syria 1949-1954," Sosyoekonomi Journal, Sosyoekonomi Society, issue 24(27).
    10. Carl K. Eicher, 1967. "The Dynamics of Long-Term Agricultural Development in Nigeria," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1158-1170.
    11. Gareth Douglas Powells, 2009. "Complexity, Entanglement, and Overflow in the New Carbon Economy: The Case of the UK's Energy Efficiency Commitment," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(10), pages 2342-2356, October.
    12. Mügge, Daniel, 2010. "Amartya Sen's "The idea of justice" and financial regulation," economic sociology. perspectives and conversations, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, vol. 12(1), pages 10-17.
    13. Matthew Zook & Michael H Grote, 2017. "The microgeographies of global finance: High-frequency trading and the construction of information inequality," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(1), pages 121-140, January.
    14. Luis Suarez‐Villa, 2009. "The Dismal Science: How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community – By Stephen A. Marglin," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(3), pages 533-541, September.
    15. Gordon L Clark & Ashby H B Monk, 2013. "Financial Institutions, Information, and Investing-At-A-Distance," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(6), pages 1318-1336, June.
    16. Leonard Goke & Jens Weibezahn & Christian von Hirschhausen, 2021. "A collective blueprint, not a crystal ball: How expectations and participation shape long-term energy scenarios," Papers 2112.04821, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2022.
    17. Johnstone, David & Havyatt, David, 2022. "Sophistry and high electricity prices in Australia," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    18. Loconto, Allison & Rajão, Raoni, 2020. "Governing by models: Exploring the technopolitics of the (in)visilibities of land," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    19. Peter Miller, 2008. "Calculating Economic Life," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(1), pages 51-64, March.
    20. Seddon, Jonathan J.J.M. & Currie, Wendy L., 2017. "A model for unpacking big data analytics in high-frequency trading," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 300-307.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N0 - Economic History - - General
    • B1 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925
    • O55 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Africa

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:wpaper:22500. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager on behalf of EH Dept. (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/chlseuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.