This project will use the history of the RAND corporation as a window on the complex interaction among national security and social welfare research and policy making in Cold War America. It argues that the Cold War had deep effects not only on the locus of research and development but also on the process of knowledge production. In research already completed the PI has examined RAND's nature and objectives as a research organization, the breadth and productivity of RAND's research programs, and the diffusion of RAND's research products. The present study will focus on RAND's experience in non-defense research and the impact of RAND's methodologies on the execution of American social welfare policy in the 1970s and 1980s. The project will also examine RAND's contributions to game theory, war gaming, economic theory, and simulation. Methods of research include archival investigation, reading of primary and secondary sources, and interviews. The result of the project will be a book expected to have wide readership across several disciplines.
