THE THRESHOLD OF ACTION. PRELIMINARY DECISION-MAKING IN PROJECTS’ HISTORY

Abstract

Social scientists have produced an ambiguous understanding of decision making in their studies
of the history of projects. Projects are viewed as spaces for decision-making, yet the process
of decision-making is widely absent from the history of projects. Decision-making is diluted
into a series of small more or less inconsequential choices that combine to create what the
project becomes. We show that this ambiguity is a result of the development of processual
approaches to the study of projects. These approaches emphasize the execution phase and
exclude choices that are not made between predefined alternatives or that are not based on
calculations or existing standards. On the other hand, when decision-making is actually addressed
in studies of the history of projects, too much emphasis is placed on the role of individuals,
such the entrepreneur who launches the project. We argue that it is necessary to take into
account another type of decision: the preliminary decision through which certain entities, in
particular financial and administrative ones, authorize and in so doing shape the contours of
projects. The study of this preliminary decision-making phase uncovers an entirely different
history of projects and avoids broad narratives about different types of projects in different
eras. Instead a multiplicity of project forms emerges whose existence and temporary stability
is linked to specific social and historical contexts.