Bent Flyvbjerg is the first Chair and BT Professor of Major Programme Management at Oxford University's Saïd Business School and is Founding Director of the University's BT Centre for Major Programme Management. He was previously Professor of Planning at Aalborg University, Denmark and Chair of Infrastructure Policy and Planning at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands.[1][2] Flyvbjerg received his Ph.D. in economic geography from Aarhus University, Denmark. He has written extensively about megaprojects, decision making, city management, and philosophy of social science.
Contents |
Bent Flyvbjerg developed the research methodology called phronetic social science and has employed the methodology in studies of city management and of megaprojects.
In 2005, Flyvbjerg identified two main causes of misinformation in policy and management: strategic misrepresentation (lying) and optimism bias (appraisal optimism). Flyvbjerg and his associates have developed methods to curb misinformation focused on improved accountability and reference class forecasting. The methods are being used in practice in policy and planning. Bent Flyvbjerg has lent his name to the so-called "Flyvbjerg Debate," which is a debate over the role of social science in society in response to his book Making Social Science Matter.
Finally, Flyvbjerg has identified a number of misunderstandings about case study research and devised ways of correcting these misunderstandings.[3]
Bent Flyvbjerg was knighted in the Order of the Dannebrog in 2002.
The book describes phronetic social science. First, the book argues that the social sciences have failed as science. Second, it develops the argument that in order to matter again the social sciences must model themselves after phronesis (as opposed to episteme, which is at the core of natural science). Finally, the book develops methodological guidelines and shows practical examples of how phronetic social science may be employed in real research.[4]
The books makes a double call for, first, social sciences that reject the natural science model as an ideal that may be achieved in social science and, second, social sciences that are more relevant to people outside social science, e.g., ordinary citizens and policy makers. Flyvbjerg argues that to gain relevance, social science must inform practical reason, and that this is best done by a focus on values and power. In terms of the philosophy and history of science, Flyvbjerg takes his cue from Aristotle rather than from Socrates and Plato.
Flyvbjerg's book Rationality and Power: Democracy in Practice is an example of the methodology and theory developed in Making Social Science Matter employed in practice.[5]
In a 2004 article, Stanford political science professor David Laitin critiqued Making Social Science Matter and Flyvbjerg's perspective.[6] Flyvbjerg countered by arguing that Laitin's critique was ill-founded and unethical,[7] and was joined by Sanford Schram.[8]
A book about the significance of Flyvbjerg's work and the debate with Laitin, Making Political Science Matter: Debating Knowledge, Research, and Method, edited by Schram and Brian Caterino, was published in 2006.[9] Caterino and Schram wrote in the book's introduction that "The special thing about Flyvbjerg's challenge to social science is the way it bridges theory and practice in a way that unites philosophical and empirical subdivisions in the social sciences."[10] Caterino and Schram argue that Flyvbjerg thereby simultaneously provides a strong theoretical foundation for his vision of socially and politically relevant social sciences and illuminates his position with concrete examples from his own empirical research. Flyvbjerg in this manner transgresses disciplinary boundaries to make a more compelling call for a social science that people could use to make a difference in their lives, according to Caterino and Schram.