Decentering Cold War social science : Alva Myrdal's social scientific internationalism at UNESCO, 1950–1955

Set up in 1946, UNESCO's Department of Social Sciences (DSS) quickly became one of the key promoters of international social science during the early Cold War era. This essay focuses on Alva Myrdal's "social scientific internationalism" in her role as DSS director from 1950 to 1955. By analyzing Myrdal's vision in the context of other contemporary ideas on international social science and with regard to the changing geopolitical landscape, I argue that her social scientific internationalism included a commitment to a modern, empirical, and U.S.-inspired style of social science. However, equally significant, she introduced a power-sensitive analysis of the geography of knowledge, according to which the case of Indian development emerged as an increasingly important exemplar in her call for a decentered international social science.