The role of the engineer in politics

The engineering disciplines would not at first sight appear to be very rele vant for politics. Engineering in the broadest sense concerns the applicati on of a sophisticated and highly intellectual set of methodologies to situa tions which are by their very nature non-human-machinery, structures, infra structure, control systems and so on. If the essence of politics is the med iation of choice then it would seem to be far removed almost by definition from engineering since the phenomena with which engineering deals are incap able of exercising choice.