Consultancy Praxis: Dynamics of Circulation between Academia and State Knowledge

Abstract

Consultancy is a practice that has gained traction in fields of knowledge as diverse as law,economics, public health and the environmental sciences. It connects the knowledge produced within academics with that developed elsewhere while also contributing to its globalcirculation. For the study of the phenomena associated with circulation, other aspects of theseconsultancies, such as the broad diversity of actors engaged in dialogue, and the exchangesbetween sectors are also of interest. The actors – scholars and academic institutions, diverseprofessionals and experts, philanthropic institutions, international organisations, states andthe public sector – form networks that provide local and transnational opportunities for interaction (Dobbin et al., 2007; Sikking, 2002; Slaughter, 2004). Another aspect of interestof consultancies is that besides their symbolic dimension, they involve power dynamics. Inthis regard, hegemonic strategies play a critical role in the international circulation of thistype of knowledge, a knowledge supported both within the field of academia and in practice.In addition, most of the information that circulates relates to governance. Nonetheless, itwould be reductionist to treat this process as a simple transfer of knowledge flowing fromNorth to South. Just as the struggles for hegemony between imperial societies – both ancientand modern – are critical to be considered, local disputes in the fields of power of both thecentre and periphery also merit critical analysis. These exchanges are necessarily configuredas a two-way system: while local support assures the dissemination of knowledge and theimplementation of the consultant’s proposals, the same networks also work in the oppositedirection, attesting to the success of economic policy proposals along the periphery and demanding they be recognised by urban societies (Dezalay & Garth, 2002, 2010).This chapter proposes an approach to the study of this complex medium for knowledgecirculation through a set of works that examine different moments in the practice of economic consultancy. Taking Latin America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as acase study, consultancies are mapped in four different periods. The first, that of the move-inadvisors, marks the beginning of consultancy as practice at the turn of the twentieth century;the second, characterised by the missions of the so-called money doctors, focuses on the interwar period; and the third, regionally situated consultancies, develops after World War II(WWII). Finally, the fourth homes in on consultancies associated with specific organisationsand think tanks towards the end of the twentieth century, including a particularly salientcase in Latin America, that of the “Chicago Boys”.