The 'blue economy' has in recent years become a leading concept for envisioning what may come after the fossil-based era. In efforts at calculating the potential economic value of the ocean, policy-oriented documents seek to unite diverse actors around common goals. Through the calculation of numbers, large-scale and long-term policy visions are being crystallized. But how do such numbers come into being in practice? This article interrogates this question with an example from the Norwegian context: the established policy goal of a so-called 'fivefold increase' in marine value creation in the year 2050. While powerful numbers are commonly expected to be produced through the procedures of 'mechanical objectivity' that involve strict quantification and scientific methods, our analysis shows a rather different route towards a powerful number: By loosely combining tools developed for business management, the number is calculated by, first, openly combining qualitative and narrative operations into the calculation and then, next, decoupling qualitative uncertainties from the quantified potential. The result is a calculative process that takes the form of what we suggest to call 'reflexive objectivity' and a policy-oriented number that encourages risk-taking and action over restraint and precaution.

Across Europe and the OECD, the bioeconomy is promoted as that which will succeed the carbon economy: an economy based in ‘the bio’ that will be innovative, sustainable, responsible and environmentally friendly. Yet how to critically approach an economy justified not only by its accumulative potentials but also its ability to do and be good? This paper suggests the concept of ‘the good economy’ as an analytical tool for investigating how economic practice is entangled in versions of the good. Building upon the classic contributions of Weber, Thompson and Foucault in combination with valuation studies, this paper shows how the good economy concept can be employed to examine how the economic and the good are intertwined. Empirically, the paper teases out how what is made to be good in the bioeconomy is radically different than in economies of the recent past. While ‘the good economy’ of the early oil and aquaculture economy concerned how to insert this economy into society in a good manner, society is surprisingly absent in the contemporary bioeconomy. The bioeconomy is enacted as an expert issue, pursued by the tools of economic valuation, and based in the unquestioned idea that ‘the bio’ makes any economy good.

Learning and accountability are customarily defined as ‘the dual purpose’ of development aid evaluation, yet this notion is contested. Based on an overview of the existing literature, we identify four ideal type positions in this debate: (1) accountability and learning are complementary objectives, (2) there is a reconcilable tension, (3) there are problematic trade-offs and (4) the two are irreconcilable. Drawing on empirical evidence from Sweden and Norway relating to evaluation processes, evaluation reports and evaluation systems within the sector of development aid, we conclude that pursuing this dual purpose in practice involves trade-offs which need to be recognised. We end with implications for aid evaluation policy and practice.

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