Evolution and the arts of civilisation

Reference:

Room, G., 2012. Evolution and the arts of civilisation. Policy & Politics, 40 (4), pp. 453-471.

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Official URL:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/030557312X13323392627832

Abstract

There have been many attempts to apply evolutionary models to social change. This article takes Darwin's account of artificial – as well as natural – selection as its starting point. It thereby brings together human intention and learning – the arts of civilisation – and the unintended processes of change with which evolutionary models are more usually concerned. It argues that policy science should be an evolutionary science, studying endogenous processes of technological and institutional transformation; but that it must be more than this, articulating political goals and policy trade-offs and illuminating the arts of civilisation as applied to society as a whole.

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