2 types of elite uses of knowledge

I have been thinking about a distinction that would be useful for sociology of science, but have not found a paper talking specifically about it. I think that when one tries to describe the relationship between knowledge production and dominant groups, the explanations for why certain knowledge is produced are often of 2 kinds:

  • Ideological knowledge: the knowledge provides a narrative that benefits a dominant group. This knowledge type does not have to be accurate or even live up to basic scientific standards. It can be in conflict with everything we know from other fields of research. Or it can be valid for very specific situations, and include metaphors that make it easy to generalize when needed.

    It is not being produced because it is valid, but because it reinforces the cultural hegemony of the dominant group. Which is why it is often referred to in everyday discussions, media, books, etc.

  • Praxeological knowledge: the knowledge provides useful instructions for dominant groups and their allies to increase their power. This is entirely different from ideological knowledge, as here validity is very important, while dissemination is either restricted or unimportant to elites.

These 2 archetypes have very different scientific and political implications. As a social scientist and a leftist, I know there is a constant temptation to dismiss theories as ideology, and instead describe the narrative that they sustain. But doing this, you could be missing the fact that they actually contain efficient instructions for extending domination.

Examples - Fields and theories

These archetypes works very well for economics and management sciences:

  • Economics have provided justifications for the world order for centuries, with very little regard to the description of reality. For example, the "optimality of markets" have served to justify the genocides by starvation perpetrated by the UK in its colonies (Walker 2020). Only in the mid 1950s have economists started to take seriously the idea that theories could be tested, with the rise of econometrics (Desrosières 2010). Even today, most of the discipline is still in denial of the most basic principles of thermodynamics (Walker 2020).

  • On the other hand, management scientists have quickly replaced economists in advisory positions (Lebaron 2009), because they use a wide variety of empirical methods to test the most robust ways to extract value from workers and nature. Of course, the scientificness of their work has been contested (Chiapello and Gilbert 2020), but they show a strong concern with inquiry and validation. Also, the changes in management doctrines in the last century have proven to be particularly efficient to counter working class power (for example by decreasing the reliance of companies on individual skill, see Denis 2018).

Examples of ideological knowledge (scientifically dubious and widely disseminated):

  • The tragedy of the commons (Ortiz 2024)
  • Resource scarcity in the 1970s (Ortiz 2024)
  • Psychological theories on behavioural differences due to sex
  • Craniology
  • Evolutionary psychology
  • The knowledge economy
  • Theories of dematerialization
  • Technological evolutionism
  • Social darwinism (Desrosières 2010)
  • Eugenics (Desrosières 2010)

Examples of praxeological knowledge (efficient for extending power):

  • Cognitive science research for marketing
  • Fordism (Denis 2018)
  • Lean management (Quet 2022)
  • The "creative class", as a theory of gentrification methods
  • Field inquiries on acceptance of infrastructures
  • Oil and gas exploration (Mitchell 2013)
  • Strategic studies
  • New public management (Desrosières 2014, Quet 2022)
  • Research on digitization of supply chains

Of course, theories can be both ideological and praxeological, which means they can both provide a useful narrative for dominant groups and contain applicable instructions. For example, theories of resilience could be classified as both:

  1. They create narratives where natural disasters, wars, financial crashes are random uncontrollable events. No one can be held responsible (Walker 2020).
  2. They sometimes include tools for companies and states to make their power more continuous when extreme events happen.

Asking where a knowledge lies on both spectrums can be useful for both sociology of science and the public debate. In my experience, this is often under-explicited.

Examples in my research

Although my previous examples are about entire disciplines, one should be wary to distinguish between theories, practices, strands of research, within one discipline. In the research fields I am studying (climate-economy-energy modelling and foresight), knowledge seems to have varied statuses.

For example, the techniques to model acceptance of infrastructures seem to have a mostly ideological role. Modellers use very simple methods: reductions of deployment potentials, acceptance factors per technology. They cannot be used to define strategies to counter local resistance. But including a limitation to the development of renewable energies because of "acceptability" can be useful to create a global narrative, where national energy targets cannot be reached unless: permitting procedures are simplified, additional funding is available, etc. This narrative can then be presented to policymakers, in order to push for regulatory changes.

On the other hand, a detailed modelling of the energy grid can help companies assess which projects would be most profitable. Or, simulating the least costly way to reduce EU dependency on russian gas can provide important informations to States on how to preserve their power (which civil servants call "sovereignty"). Those are mostly praxeological knowledge.

Bibliography

Chiapello, È., & Gilbert, P. (2020). Sociologie des outils de gestion. La Découverte.

Denis, J. (2018). Le travail invisible des données. Éléments pour une sociologie des infrastructures scripturales. Presses des Mines.

Desrosières, A. (2010). La politique des grands nombres. Histoire de la raison statistique. La Découverte.

Desrosières, A. (2014). Prouver et gouverner. Une analyse politique des statistiques publiques. La Découverte. https://www.cairn.info/prouver-et-gouverner--9782707178954-p-31.htm

Lebaron, F. (2009). La formation des économistes et l’ordre symbolique marchand. In P. Steiner & F. Vatin, Traité de sociologie économique. PUF.

Mitchell, T. (2013). Carbon Democracy. Le pouvoir politique à l’ère du pétrole. La découverte.

Ortiz, V. (2024). L’ère de la pénurie. Capitalisme de rente, sabotage et limites planétaires. Les éditions du Cerf.

Quet, M. (2022). Flux. Comment la pensée logistique gouverne le monde. Zones.

Walker, J. (2020). More heat than life: The tangled roots of ecology, energy, and economics. Palgrave Macmillan.