OECD Proceedings
Re-inventing the Social Sciences
ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT
FOREWORD
This report presents the views of high level experts and policy makers on the very challenging
theme “Re-inventing the Social Sciences”. The report is based on the contributions presented at a
workshop held in Lisbon on 8-9 November 2001. The following themes are included:
•
Social sciences and social change
•
Changing the role of social sciences
•
What can public policies do?
The Lisbon workshop was the fourth and last in a series of international workshops on the future
of the social sciences organised under the auspices of the OECD Committee for Scientific and
Technological Policy (CSTP). It was co-organized by the International Office of International
Relations for Science and Higher Education of Portugal and the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
with the support of the OECD. The first workshop (Ottawa, 6-8 October 1999) focused on the
infrastructure requirements of the social sciences. The second (Bruges, 26-28 June 2000)
addressed the contribution of the social sciences to knowledge and decision making. The third
workshop focused on the role of the social sciences for innovation. The Lisbon workshop
addressed more general themes on the challenges associated with the re-invention of the social
sciences. In the scope of the discussions that have been undertaken in this last workshop, some
participants proposed and supported the Lisbon Declaration included in these proceedings.
© OECD 2004.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part 1: Social sciences and social change
Chapter 1.
Understanding and coping with change
Joao Caraça
Chapter 2.
Social sciences in society: a new partnership
Hans van Ginkel
Part 2: Changing the role of social sciences
Chapter 3.
The changing role of the social sciences – an action-theoretical perspective
Hans Joas
Chapter 4.
Ethology and development of peoples – challenges for social sciences
Jean-Eric Aubert
Chapter 5.
The three meanings of “discipline”
Immanuel Wallerstein
Chapter 6.
Beyond the two cultures – two case studies
Jean-Pierre Dupuy
Part 3: What can public policies do?
Chapter 7.
Re-inventing the social sciences – what can public policies do?
Enric Banda
Chapter 8.
What can public policies do?
Norman M. Bradburn
Chapter 9.
What are the conditions of appropriate public policies for social sciences?
Ali Kazancigil
Chapter 10.
Challenges facing social sciences in EU science policy
Teresa Patrício
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Part 4: Conclusions
Chapter 11.
From opening to rethinking the social sciences
Luk Van Langenhove
Chapter 12.
Lisbon Declaration – Social sciences: a new partnership
4
Part 1
SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SOCIAL CHANGE
5
Chapter 1
UNDERSTANDING AND COPING WITH CHANGE
by
JOÃO CARAÇA
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Through its programmes the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation seeks to support reflections and
endeavours on issues of a global nature and on crucial problems to the collective search of a
better future for society. In this context the Foundation created in 1993 the Gulbenkian
Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences, with Professor Immanuel Wallerstein
as its chair, which produced the report “Open the Social Sciences”, a serious, generous, and
provocative book (translated now in more than 20 languages worldwide) aiming at overcoming
the existing disciplinary structure constraining the further development of the social sciences.
Naturally, the Foundation considered the OECD project of organising a series of international
workshops on the future of social sciences as an initiative of great importance, and was eager to
host this final session.
In fact, the rate of change and the volume of communication in today’s life have no parallel in
any period of the history of mankind. The growing development of industries and services based
on information technologies and the increasing weight of intangible investments show that the
nature of the regulating processes of social activity is being profoundly modified.
Science is about understanding and coping with change in the natural world; social science is
concerned with change in society. The last 50 years witnessed a growing importance of science
and technology to unprecedented levels in human history, and with impacts at all levels of
society. We know today that it is not possible to isolate research activities from the social context
in which they are conducted; this is reflected in the growing scientific basis of the culture of
contemporary societies, as well as by the increasing societal involvement of researchers and their
organizations.
Knowledge and learning are the central resources and mechanisms of the new nations,
communities, and organizations. Thus, science and technology policy will have to be closely
integrated into policies encompassing all fields of knowledge, from the cognitive and social
sciences to the arts and humanities. Further, implications of the free circulation of knowledge
will have to be fully recognized: disciplinary knowledge can only evolve in the context of a
strong communicative framework which enables the understanding of meanings and values so
that these can bear their true potential. The relations of science with technology, specialised
6
crafts, laws and regulations, business management and the fine arts, will need special attention in
terms of the diffusion of new learning abilities throughout civil society, leading to the build-up of
more adequate competences.
Thus, a crucial historical role has to be played by the social sciences in the 21st century. The
capacity to articulate relevant policies for knowledge stems from the ability of the social sciences
to reinvent and redefine the 19th century framework on which the construction of nation-states
was based.
Learning is essential for understanding and coping with change in our societies. New collective
behaviour, or innovations, are emergent properties of socio-economic structures, in their
unfolding through time. Policies are powerful social adaptation mechanisms, revealing an
awareness of change, and a capacity for social adjustment to change, leading into learning how
to perform under the new conditions. The times of learning will set the pace of novelty and
success of our common future.
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Chapter 2
SOCIAL SCIENCES IN SOCIETY: A NEW PARTNERSHIP
by
Hans van Ginkel
United Nations University Tokyo
We live an increasingly complex and interconnected, rapidly changing world. Progress in
information and communications technology has made it possible to share news and messages in
a split second with counterparts at the other side of the world. Speed, volume and frequency of
exchange and interaction, including trade and money-transfers, have grown beyond imagination.
Jules Verne’s “Around the World in Eighty Days” looks like a prehistoric adventure at a time in
which one can circle the world in less than a day.
Yet in many ways humankind and society have not yet adapted to these conditions of life. We
are surprised, not so much that people move for holidays and work, but that they often decide to
move and stay: to improve their lives. We do not know how to cope with this phenomenon.
Our productivity has grown in many parts of the world and in many sectors enormously. Yet, we
have not developed ways to share our knowledge and the fruits of our work more evenly. We
live in a world continuously endangered by large-scale abject poverty. We live in a world in
which we are so successful increasing productivity that we cannot maintain the idea of fullemployment for all.
Many strategies are being applied to reduce the labour force: low women participation,
shortening the working hours, early retirement schemes – including “golden handshakes”,
increased use of health insurance schemes to get rid of the least productive. Yet we have not
balanced our views on how to share income, working hours, and time-off.
We are not very good in addressing multi-dimensional, complex phenomena. There is, for
instance, wide scale concern with regard to the process of ageing. Many are arguing that more
flexible migration policies will be necessary in order to bring young workers from foreign
countries to replace the retiring workers. Now, it is important to introduce more flexible
migration policies, but not for this reason. Because when the life expectancy is increasing, the
retirement age must also be reconsidered. Policies focusing on making multiple careers possible,
as well as to make stepwise the present generations of workers responsible for their own future
pensions, will become indispensable. Complex solutions for complex problems are demanded.
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We have developed an impressive array of ways to spend our free time during the holidays, as
well as the ever longer week-ends and the time-off during the working week. We have reduced
our working hours, but assume in our education systems that our children still make the same
hours in school and homework like a century ago. Yet, we are still surprised that many citizens
are not well prepared for the knowledge-based, globalizing society in which we already live.
Another remark I would like to make here, is to point at the high average level of education we
have achieved in many countries. We have many well-educated people with enough time, who
want to contribute to society. This matches with new approaches in governance, in which we try
to make a productive use of involvement of both experts on the issues at stake, as well as of the
population at large. The design of such processes of public involvement needs extreme care.
Practice shows examples of failures, because of badly designed processes, wrong expectations
developed and inadequate information.
There is a major disjuncture between Social Sciences and Society. This, indeed, is a time for a
new partnership: for Social Sciences in Society, not just Social Sciences on Society! As in a good
partnership the partners must respect each other, because they need each other. This meeting,
small as it is, brings together social scientists, with OECD, UNESCO, EU, Portuguese Ministry
of Science and Technology, ISSC, the UNU and a leading foundation: Gulbenkian.
This should be the start of a blossoming, towards a partnership to benefit all humankind.
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Part 2
CHANGING THE ROLE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
10
Chapter 3
THE CHANGING ROLE OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
AN ACTION-THEORETHICAL PERSPECTIVE
by
Hans Joas
Freie Universität Berlin
In the first part of my contribution I discussed the well-known report of the Gulbentian
Commission. I criticized some aspects of its presentation of the history of the social sciences,
particularly the assumption that the social sciences followed the so-called nomothetical model
more and more in the course of the 20th century. In the second part I developed an alternative
reading focussing on the understanding of action in different social-scientific disciplines. From
this alternative reading a contemporary agenda for the social sciences can be developed - both on
the institutional and on the substantive level. On the institutional level I followed more or less
Donald Levine's proposals as developed in his "Visions of the Sociological Tradition". My points
on the substantive level were:
1.
An adequate conceptualization and understanding of what human action is constitutes
one of the crucial axes of interdisciplinary work in the social sciences. This has nothing to do
with an activist or voluntarist bias; the emphasis on action is not a counterposition to an
emphasis on structural forces and restrictions. All social theories contain, implicitly or explicitly,
assumptions both about human action and about social order. I am not arguing in favor of one
against the other, but in favor of an adequate conception of action that can serve as a foundation
for the elaboration of adequate conceptions of sociality, types of social order, structure or
system, and dynamics of social change. Not "society," but "social action" and the emerging types
of social order are the object of sociology.
2.
For one of the points on the Gulbenkian agenda, namely the critique of Cartesian
dichotomies and of biological reductionism or genetic determinism, this elaboration of an
adequate anthropological conception of action is absolutely crucial. The notion of "action" as
such does not fall under the Cartesian distinction; it is always already an integration of
"physical" and "mental" dimensions. The notion of action, if we take it seriously as the basic
category of the social sciences, makes genetic determinism unthinkable. Among the pragmatists
of the 19th century and the social phenomenologists and philosophical anthropologists of mid20th century and among contemporary thinkers we already find a rich material for such an
approach, but it is clearly time to rearticulate this position in view of current advancements of
biological knowledge.
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3.
Whereas all rationalistic approaches either exclude the normative dimension from the
scientific domain proper or severely restrict the meaning of an originally normative term (as it
happens to "rationality" in "rational action") I think that the social sciences have to integrate the
normative dimension into their own area again. Otherwise they leave to a revitalized, but
empirically uninformed moral philosophy and political theory what has originally been one of
the main impulses behind the social science project. This reinterpretation of the normative
dimension corresponds to the item "universalism and particularism" on the Gulbenkian agenda. I
do think that a whole set of important empirical questions, particularly concerning the history of
the emergence and dissemination of the human rights/human dignity value complex come up if
we translate these normative questions into an empirical research agenda about fundamental
traits of contemporary societies.
4.
During the last twenty years the social sciences have partly been replaced by an
interdisciplinary (or non-disciplinary) complex called "cultural studies." Moreover, these cultural
studies have become the domain of a specific intellectual orientation, i.e. a sort of radical and
comprehensive "social constructionism." I think it is time for a sort of counter-offensive from the
side of the social sciences. In this counter-offensive the "constructionist" and "discursive" aspect
should not be denied; it is rather one of the strengths of the social-scientific tradition that it has
always itself contributed to an analysis of such social construction, but it had not done this in the
relativist and irrationalist way in which poststructuralist cultural studies tend to do it. For such a
counter-offensive we need the integration of the discursive dimension into the social-scientific
analysis of macro-social processes.
5.
Against the evolutionism of the modernization-theoretical paradigm and against the latent
or manifest teleological character of Marxism we need a more contingency-oriented
understanding of social change. War and violence and the totalitarianism of the 20th century
should not be seen as mere deviations from an otherwise almost linear and positive process of
on-going modernization. Violence mostly leads into cycles of revenge; wars constitute new
forms of orientation and social order; and totalitarianism is not a thing of the past, but a constant
threat.
6.
For the first time we experience successful modernization today outside of the world of
the Judeo-Christian tradition. While the notion of "globalization" is in my eyes not very helpful
in illuminating these processes, the serious study of "multiple modernities," the new perspectives
on Western modernization in its internal plurality and of new forms of a post-Hobbesian order as
in European "unification" in the light of this multiplicity of modernities is.
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Chapter 4
ETHOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT OF PEOPLES
- CHALLENGES FOR SOCIAL SCIENCES
by
Jean-Eric Aubert
World Bank
Giving a hand in development processes of peoples: this seems to be one of the most, if not the
most, important tasks of social sciences.
By “peoples”, we understand nations, as well as civilizations at a supra national level, and
regions at the infra national level.
By “development” we mean evolution in a broader sense, going beyond simple “quantitative”
measures of development. Our considerations apply to the “developed” world as well as the
“developing” one.
For helping efficiently in peoples’ development processes, there is a need, in my view, to deal
with their ethos -- understood in the sense of mind and behaviour patterns.
In this perspective, challenges for social sciences are multiple. We will first discuss the need for
going beyond economics, which has demonstrated obvious limits as the major discipline so far
used for helping societies to develop. We will then discuss the approach of socio-cultures which
give to peoples their identities and forge their ethos. We will give some indications on the nature
of the work to be made to better understand this ethos and make them evolve. We will conclude
by evoking the development of “peoples’ ethology” as a new discipline of social science.
The recent tragic events of world-wide and long lasting significance have, among other things,
made clear the urgency of such a task.
Going beyond economics
Narrow economic approaches to development processes have clearly demonstrated their limits.
This is blatant when looking around the world and notably at the Southern part of it. It has
resisted to narrow minded transplantations of economic recipes from the North, due to the inadaptation of institutions and mindsets. Even worse, civilizations that used to have a certain
equilibrium have lost it and have been de-structured with dramatic consequences.
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The Northern part of the world so called “in transition”, from the planning economy regime to
the market economy one, has also suffered from simplistic economical approaches, such as “bigbang” policies indistinctly applied and leading too painful and long lasting de-structuring. Lately
it has been recognized that it would have been useful helping in cultural change and building
institutional capabilities prior to embarking in quick and brutal transitions.
Economics appears also short to understand the bases of development of Asian countries in the
“Eastern” part of the world. Their rapid growth has been clearly rooted in deep socio-cultural
features, as well as the financial crisis experienced some years ago by the Newly Industrialized
Economies or the durable stagnation in which Japan seems to be stuck.
The “West” itself cannot approach its long term development in pure economics terms.
Economic growth (currently stopped in any event) appears no longer sustainable, neither
environmentally – with the exhausting of natural resources, nor socially – with increasing
inequalities. The same judgment applies to the world as a whole.
In short, economics, as a “science” and an ideology, has shown obvious limits --- both on
efficiency and ethics grounds.
This does not mean that we have to ignore what economics has taught us, and throw the baby
with the bath water. All the more that the principles laid out by both the economic experience
and theory (the fundamental role of the “market”, the need for “good governance”, etc.) remain
perfectly valid, and, in fact, they are the only way to get societies growing, innovating, etc. But
we must go beyond economics and integrate it in a broader understanding of development
processes, drawing upon other social and human sciences, such as cultural anthropology, history,
psychology, etc.
This first challenge should not be minimized, as economics remains the dominant force forging
the “world-thoughts” of the public at large as well as of policy makers. Moreover, most of
economists do not consider their discipline as part of the “social sciences” and generally hold
“social scientists” in poor esteem, criticizing -- not without reasons -- their lack of
methodological rigor and operational capability. This is creating strong resistance to any efforts
of interdisciplinary integration and cross fertilization.
Dealing with socio-cultures
Thus “culture matters”1, as it is increasingly felt by informed (and less informed) communities.
The recognition of the cultural dimension in development processes has been flawed in the past
by fears of racial connotations, and now it might well be flawed by the debate around the “clash
of civilizations”. Overcoming this type of issues constitutes another important challenge for
social sciences.
1
In the words of the title of a book publishing the proceedings of an important international conference held in 1999
at Harvard (edited by Harrison and Huntington).
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Culture can be defined in scientific terms as “shared patterns of acquired behaviour”2. This
neutral understanding of the notion of “culture” should help in its analysis and use.
Then the following questions arise: how are cultures shaped and how does this shaping influence
peoples’ development processes? Taking stock of works and observations made in diverse
disciplines, we are far from being short for responding to such questions.
Basic to culture shaping are the anthropological “fundamentals”: the place of the Individual and
the State into societies, underlying community and family structures, religious beliefs and even
linguistics backgrounds. Such anthropological factors form systems in the sense they form
coherent wholes which determine -- or express -- specific modes of insertion into the “world”
(by world, I mean the “reality” or the “environment”).
Anthropological systems of major civilizations are outlined in Table 1. They explain
differentiated “aptitudes” to economic development as well as differentiated “forms” taken by
this development. As convincingly demonstrated by a recent study3 looking back to the Neolithic
times, the formation of these differentiated aptitudes and forms owes much to the climatic and
geo-morphological conditions prevailing then in different parts of the world and has nothing to
do with racial differences, although there are obvious indirect coincidences. The conditions of
meeting or confrontation with the “West” have added other elements in development processes
and made them more complex or problematic, affecting civilizations in their inner identity.
Anthropological backgrounds differ among sub-civilizations and differentiated effects can be
observed too at this level. This holds for Western sub-civilizations which present important
contrasts between them. This is reflected in the nature and functioning of economies, institutions
and in many walks of life (see Table 2).
At the nation level, historical experiences, which have forged the representations that countries
make of themselves, play a crucial role in capabilities of adaptation and modalities of reaction to
a changing environment. Combining effects of historical experiences with those brought about
by anthropological characters, it becomes possible to cast some light on typical development
trajectories (see Table 3).
At the sub-national level (regions, localities), the conditions experienced in the industrialization
process play a capital role, while historical and political modalities of insertion of regions into
the nation provide them with framework conditions to adapting to changing environments.
Dealing with cultures means accepting the fact that in general, change will be slow since the
underlying anthropological and related factors cannot change overnight. For this reason, it is in
the inner nature of behaviours of peoples to be persisting and recurrent.
This being said, cultures are not immutable. They evolve. Learning processes take place and
blending with other cultures operates. All the more at a time of accelerated globalization.
2
3
Marvin Donald, the Origin of Human Mind
Jarrid Diamond, Germs, Guns and Steel, The Fate of Human Societies
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Moreover certain cultural traits which have constituted an obstacle to development may not do so
with the evolution of technology. This point is illustrated by Africa which is much less
handicapped today than it has been in the past centuries by its oral culture, thanks to the
telecommunications revolution. Examples abound of positive impact on governance, trade, etc.
brought about by the use of mobile phones and other telecommunications means spreading
throughout the continent.
Dealing with socio-cultures means recognizing their inner specificities, with their strengths and
their weaknesses, and designing policies in consequence. In other words it is essential to search
for customized approaches in place of projecting the so called “best practices”.
One has to build on the true specificities of a civilization, nation, region, etc. to make possible
the development process. To pursue on the example of Africa, it is only in working through local
communities – and traditional power structures -- that success stories take shape, be in health
care, trade, agriculture, etc. as observed today by international development communities4.
Working on mindsets and behaviours
It is vital to develop our understanding of the ways by which peoples’ mentalities and related
behaviours are shaped and evolve, as illustrated by the following examples.
In the case of Islam, it is of utmost importance to understand the mental mechanisms by which
individuals, with a religion which inculcates deeply, since the early childhood, the feeling of
being part of a broader community – the Umma, do not acquire a sense of self identity (in a
western sense) with all political, economical and other consequences one can imagine.
Understanding this can lead to efficient educational programs, which have already proved in
some countries to introduce broad mental change in only one generation, without undermining
the most valuable elements of the said religion.
In a similar vein, taking the case of Japan, it would be useful for better coping with current
difficulties to understand the mental mechanisms and related behaviours which prevent Japanese
people to make most needed reforms. Such mechanisms lie in a culture of the “otherness”,
making difficult innovative individual initiatives at all levels, from those to be taken at the basic
local communities up to those that the country as a whole could take in the broader world
community.
The building of the European Union would benefit greatly from work on ethos of the very
complex mosaic of peoples which constitute it or are going to join it. This would help in
designing appropriate policies, treaties, etc. The conditions of blending or coexistence of all
different cultures down to the level of regions will determine the future of the Union.
4
See for instance the case studies accumulated by the World Bank (Africa Region) on the diffusion of indigenous
knowledge and related change (WB web site).
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In order to progress in the mental and behavioural analysis of societies, we need to depict -much more than it has been done so far -- motivations for change. First at the level of individuals
and institutions: those motivations relate to the nature and intensity of pressures put on them
(monetary ones in particular), as well as to the gratifications which they feel either in staying in a
given situation or in changing. Then at community or country-wide level, we need to analyze
mechanisms by which behavioural and mind change is propagated, for instance what
mechanisms facilitate confidence building processes or on the contrary confidence deteriorating
(panic generating) ones. Depending on the nature of change involved, the time factor will not be
the same.
This requires developing appropriate monitoring capabilities. New methods of observation and
new statistics should be established. Based on such monitoring, policies should be adjusted,
making them better tuned to concrete situations they have to deal with.
New methods of intervention should also be developed, which would facilitate a self analysis
process by concerned organizations and communities. This self analysis implies that they see –
literally – their behaviours to become more conscious about them and the underlying cultural
factors5. In this perspective there is a need to expand the use of videos and new media and to
organize structured discussions around related shows. This ethnographic approach demonstrates
increasingly its utility at firm and organizational level. It needs to be expanded and used at a
country-wide level, with necessary ethics for avoiding undue mind manipulations.
Dealing with mindsets and behaviours requires also the development of a serious and creative
research effort of categorization and formalization. Again we are not short of ideas for this.
Ethnology and related disciplines point towards a number of epistemological avenues to be
further explored: the coherence of mind sets, the pervasiveness of related world-thoughts, the
stability and recurrence of behaviours, the formation of “meaning” in cultures, etc. 6
Appropriate mathematics such as those derived from the fractal methodology – particularly well
adapted to the modelling of morphological pervasiveness and replication, can help in formalizing
and representing phenomena at work7.
Psychology, of course, is another important discipline to be enrolled. It would be useful for
instance to draw upon those studies – now broadly applied worldwide for making tests of
personality --, which characterize individuals according to three basic criteria: the capability to
5
A kind of psycho-analytical process at collective level. The French anthropologist and historian E. Todd speaks of
cultures as the “unconscious” part of societies.
6
In line with concepts put forward by the Functionalist school (Mauss, Malinovski, etc). To my knowledge, in
recent times, the most remarkable work of categorization of cultural pervasiveness and coherence is due to the late
Japanese anthropologist Magoroh Maruyama, who has proposed four basic “mindscapes” to be found in various
proportions in all cultures (according to him). Maruyama had published a considerable number of articles illustrating
his ideas in different fields (management, economy, urban planning, etc). See notably issues of the review
Technological Forecasting and Social Change published in the eighties.
7
Fractal theory due to the French mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, extensively used now in computer-based
modelling.
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explore newness, the search for gratification and the avoidance of pain8. Ways in which these
characters are combined are likely to be influenced by the cultures in which individuals are
growing and evolving.
We can also count on the help of neurosciences. Understanding how the brain works, and
notably the influence of emotions on intellectual and behavioural patterns, would help
considerably. It is today no more a matter of science fiction, and the use of new techniques such
as those of brain imaging opens mind-boggling perspectives.
Peoples’ ethology as a new social science
We can give the name of “peoples’ ethology” to this new social science dealing with peoples’
mind and behaviour. Ethos in English means behavioural structures when applied to animals. It
means mental patterns or moral guiding principles when applied to humans. Ethology is the
knowledge of ethos, although it used to be principally employed for animal-related study. The
term “ethologie” in French applies to the study of both animal and human ethos.
Challenges to be faced by the development of such a new discipline are numerous.
First, as is clear from the above-said, there is a need to integrate several established disciplines,
dispersed generally not only in the social science and humanities departments – such as cultural
anthropology, ethnology, history, political science, economics… but also throughout the whole
academic spectrum – psychology, neuro-sciences, media and communications sciences, and
mathematics. Possibly, established academic groups or departments dealing with ethology (if
understood in a broad sense) can offer institutional platforms for localizing such work.
The best way would be to start with some experimental programmes, supported by appropriate
funding from governments or foundations. Such experimental approach would help in defining
the corpus of disciplines to be integrated and the ways they should be integrated in structured
training and research programs.
A first task of this new discipline will be to train agents of change. These can be consultants
called upon to intervene in different contexts and organizations (e.g. international institutions).
These can also be people employed in government agencies, local authorities, media, etc. as well
as in business enterprises, which become more and more concerned by the cultural specificities
of countries in which they operate and invest. Training programs would concretize in delivering
diplomas in human ethology specialized in culture analysis and intervention.
Orientations of research programs have been given above, from most applied issues to most
theoretical ones. An important question will be to build the bridge between micro-ethology and
macro-ethology. How mindset and behavioural features observed at the level of individuals
replicate and propagate at the level of broader communities, from the most close to individuals
up to the most distant ones. It might well be that this micro-macro bridge will appear more easy
8
An analytical framework proposed by R. Klovinger (University of Chicago).
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to formalize and observe than in economics, due to the fractal nature of peoples’ ethos. With a
view to stimulating and federating research in peoples’ ethology an international review could be
launched.
In parallel there is a need to increase current capabilities of monitoring behavioural and mind
changes, both at national, international and infra national level. In fact there are already
considerable amounts of data collected in all sorts of domains. In first instance, the point might
not well be to make new surveys and statistics, but to assemble most relevant ones in order to
arrive to coherent perspectives. Comparative data gathering and analysis is essential.
International organizations such as the OECD or the World Bank – which are already depository
of considerable information (statistics, case studies, etc) – have a key role to play for this.
Benchmarking data bases, such as those made by the Global Economic Forum, give useful
indications too, providing they are not used to define models to follow systematically or to
organize simplistic “beauty contests” – which in such matters prove to be counter-productive.
Let’s conclude in repeating that, at the dawn of this new century, the demand seems to be
growing rapidly for some form of “peoples’ ethology”. The sooner we built it, the better it is.
Table 1. Anthropological systems of selected civilizations
Civilization Linguistics Family
bases
structures
Primitive
Oral
Integrated in
society
West
Alphabetic Nuclear
East
Ideogrambased
State
positioning
Non state
society
Controlled
by society
Communitarian Dominating
society
Religious
background
Animist
Insertion in
reality
Participation
Monotheist
Distancing
(transcendental)
Ethics
Immersion
(immanent)
Other major civilizations can be considered as variants or combinations of these forms.
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Table 2. Selected Western Cultures: Elements of Anthropological and Economical Systems
Societal/Ethol.
context
Exposed
individualism
Relation to
reality
Empirical/
Concrete
Religious
Family
Language
background
structures* characteristics
Highly
AngloProtestantism Non
Saxon
Equal/Non diversified
Authorit,
Latin/
Protected
Theoretical/
Catholicism
E/NA
Moderately
Mediter. individualism Abstracting
diversified
Rhine/
Cooperative
Systematic
Mixed
NE/A
(Semi)
German individualism Concrete/abstract
Agglutinating
* (Non) equalitarian relations between children, (Non) authoritarian relations between parents
and children, concepts due to Emmanuel Todd who has systematically (and fruitfully) exploited
them in studies of political and economical systems
Table 3. Country development trajectories in recent decades -- Selected scenarios and
underlying factors
Economy
AS Marketoriented
L
G
Industry
HT/Resource based
Dynamic NTBF
Finance
Stock exchange,
Shareholders’
governance
StateHT public goods
Mixed financing
dominated /Traditional industry bank/stock
exchange
Basic/infrastructure Bank/industry
Socialsystem
industries
Market
Economy SME/GE integration
Education
Attitude or.,
Wealth-based
selectivity
Skills or.,
“Democratic”
selectivity
Dual system,
moderate
selectivity
Science
High
productivity
& diversity
Moderate
productivity
math/phy/ch
Med-high
product.
Engineering
Success stories: US, Finland, Ireland, Singapore
• Successful blending of cultures
• Clear adoption of market economy rules
• Technological inclination
• Island positioning
• Identity affirmation (de-colonisation)
Recovery courses: UK, India
• Triggering events (financial troubles)
• Opening up
20
•
•
•
•
Ordered government withdrawing
Individualistic societies
Exploitation of long lasting advantages
Self confidence process
Compromise trends: China, France
• Long lasting presence of the State
• Agricultural tradition
• Structuring thought
• Transcendent religion
• Mix of individualist/communitarian societies
• Connection-based economies
Erratic processes: Russia, Brazil
• Societies and mindsets in need for structuring
• Authoritarian power tradition
• Tradition of borrowing foreign institutions
• Economic autarchy past
• Strong decentralization forces
Outlier positions: Israel, Denmark
• “Essentialist” mindsets
• “Associationist” societies
• Feeling of territory shrinking
Pathological drives: Yugoslavia, Algeria, Rwanda
• Loss of references
• Ethnic tensions
• Long lasting disconnections from realities
• Authoritarian powers
• De-colonization not well assumed
21
Chapter 5
THE THREE MEANINGS OF "DISCIPLINE"9
by
Immanuel Wallerstein
Binghamton University
The term discipline, as used in university parlance, actually describes three quite separate
phenomena. It is meant primarily to describe an intellectual circumscription of knowledge, a set
of topics and methods designed to discuss a delimited range of phenomena of the real world.
Since the nineteenth century, it has been customary to denote the totality of the realms of knowledge, or at least of "pure" knowledge, by some such term as "arts and sciences" and then to
subdivide this totality into two or three superdisciplines. The two most common are the "natural
sciences" and the "humanities" (although these names vary from language zone to language
zone). Quite frequently, a third superdiscipline is distinguished from these two and called the
"social sciences."
The "social sciences" in turn are usually divided into a series of specific "disciplines" - such as
economics, sociology, political science, and anthropology. The list varies according to the
country, the moment in time, and the person making the list. Furthermore, whether a particular
discipline is located in one or another superdiscipline is often a matter of debate. Is "history" part
of the "social sciences" or part of the "humanities"? Is "psychology" part of the "social sciences"
or part of the "natural sciences"?
The "disciplines" are however not merely an intellectual construct. They are also an
"organizational" container. Since the nineteenth century, the modern university has, in most
places, been divided not only into faculties (superdisciplines) but into departments (disciplines).
From the middle of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, there came to
be considerable convergence in the organizational structuring of universities throughout the
world. Considerable, however, does not at all mean total. I would estimate that there is a 75%
overlap in the names of departments. I would also estimate that the variation diminished between
1850 and 1950 and that, since circa 1950, this variation has been increasing. There is no solid
data available on these statistical estimates.
Departments are containers with resources and power. They have therefore sought to define ever
more clearly the intellectual content of the "discipline" they contain. One way to do this has been
9
Remarks at the OECD Workshop, "Re-inventing the social sciences,", Lisbon, Nov. 8-9, 2001.
Further development of many of the themes adumbrated here briefly can be found in I. Wallerstein et al., Open the Social Sciences: Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on the
Restructuring of the Social Sciences, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996 (which text has
been translated into some 24 languages).
22
for prominent persons in the field to write methodological treatises defining what is "inside" and
what is "outside" the scope of the discipline. A second way to do this is for the faculty at
particular universities to define the "curriculum" of their courses.
It is important to note that departments have professors assigned to them, students who "major
in" or "read" their disciplines, and receive degrees on which the "discipline" is often noted
(especially so-called graduate degrees). Generally speaking, if one wishes to be a professor in a
given department, one is expected to have earned a degree bearing the name of the discipline the
department is supposed to represent. Furthermore, scholarly journals tend to have the name of
the "discipline" somewhere in their title. And professors are expected to publish and students to
read primarily in journals bearing the names of their discipline.
Quite frequently, intellectual concerns lead scholars and students to stray from their discipline
into topics associated with (assigned to?) other disciplines. This is often called being
"interdisciplinary" or some kindred term. This practice is frowned upon by some but also in
recent years encouraged by others. It is again important to note that intellectual "interdisciplinarity" is far more frequent than organizational "interdisciplinarity" and that the lower frequency of
the latter serves as a material constraint on the former.
So "disciplines" are both intellectual constructs and organizational containers. They are also
cultural communities. Because the intellectual training tends to favour certain kinds of research,
certain kinds of methods, and certain shared reading and because time is inherently limited, over
time there arise "cultural" differences between practitioners of different disciplines which
regularly are visible within any organizational situation that brings together persons from
different disciplines. A preference for close hewing to empirical data or a preference for
modeling or a preference for large-scale generalizations often marks one out as belonging to (and
emotionally responding to) a particular cultural community, and to making the assertion that a
particular set of practices is the one appropriate to practitioners of a particular intellectual
construct or members of a particular organizational container.
Two obvious things follow from this. The first is that while disciplines - as intellectual
constructs, or as organizational containers, or as cultural communities - can be described, the
descriptions apply only to the majority of persons within them, never to the totality of persons
within them. The second is that since the concept of discipline in fact applies to three different
phenomena, it is possible that the presumed correlation between the three phenomena is less than
perfect, and even more important, that the trend of the relation could be divergent over time. The
latter is, I believe, the most important thing that has been happening since the 1960s. The
intellectual distinctions of the disciplines have in many ways gotten blurred (as compared to
what they were before), whereas the organizational containers have been relatively resistant to
redefinition. As for the cultural communities, they are for the most part subconscious and they
are feeling strongly the impact of the divergence between the intellectual constructs and the
organizational containers.
23
There is a further problem in this divergence. If one looks at how the social sciences were
constructed intellectually in the nineteenth century (and therefore into what organizational containers the disciplines were put), one sees two things. First of all, the "construction" was
overwhelmingly done by scholars located in only five countries: Great Britain, France, the
Germanies, Italy, and the United States. Secondly, one of the basic features of the construction,
at least up to the 1950s, was that it divided the social world into two arenas. The first was the
"modern" world - industrialized, secularized (or rational), urbanized, that is, civilized. The
second was the "rest" of the world - traditional, less "rational," rural, that is, "primitive" or at best
"civilized" in another (less modern) way. Each of these two arenas had appropriate "disciplines"
to deal with it.
The basic logic of this polarization of the objectives of social science knowledge was that it
reflected the geopolitical reality of "European" domination of the world arena. As the geopolitical reality changed after 1945 (decolonization, the rise of the "Third World"), the patterns
that had been institutionalized in the university systems both came under attack and were slowly
(or not so slowly) revised from within. Today, the geographical scope of the disciplines as laid
out in the pre-1945 era has crumbled almost completely. But with it, the logic of the intellectual
constructs has been enormously weakened and the scope of the organizational contained has
been stretched. The cultural communities are no longer so clearly etched, and new competing
ones have come to exist.
The story of the social sciences during the last fifty years is one of increasing complexity,
increasing confusion, increasing self-doubt. And at this point we must intrude one further variable. Since 1945, there is another major change in the context within which the disciplines must
operate. There has been an incredible expansion of the world university system - numbers of
universities, professors, students, books published, journals in which to publish, national and
international conferences. This expansion has not only been intensive but also extensive geographically. Such a rapid expansion of so large a multiplier added inevitably to the complexity,
the confusion, and yes, the self-doubt.
In addition, however, it was expensive. The amount of money - in absolute terms, in relative
terms - expended on higher education (instruction, research, publication) has grown hyperbolically. Inevitably, therefore, public authorities have become concerned with the costs, and are
thinking of ways to limit them. In such a situation, the complexity, confusion, and self-doubt of
the practitioners have not made the public authorities feel sympathy for the idea that decisions
about the systems of knowledge should best be left in the hands of the scholars. They have
shown an increasing tendency to intrude their control of financial resources and use it in order to
change the systems of knowledge, to "rationalize" them. Of course, for public authorities, rationalization often means primarily cost control, which may not be useful in terms of restructuring
the systems of knowledge to enable us to understand social reality more thoroughly, more effectively, more usefully. One way to define the present situation in higher education worldwide is to
see it as a race in the twenty-first century between the administrators and the scholars as to who
will have the larger say in the intellectual restructuring of the systems of knowledge that were
constructed essentially in the nineteenth century.
24
A second way to define the present situation is to ask whether the universities (and
their "departments") will continue to be the principal organizational container of the
systems of knowledge. It was not always so, and it may not continue to be so. The
expansion of the universities (particularly the ever larger percentage of the age
cohorts who attend the universities) has had the effect of making their modes of
operation closer to that of secondary schools than they were previously. And this has
the effect of leading some, perhaps many, of the best and most important scholars to
leave the university systems - going to institutes of advanced study, to research
structures (autonomous, governmental, and intergovernmental), to niches within
megacorporations, and even back to independent scholarship (subsidized by inherited
wealth, free lance work, or patrons).
Such a shift may weaken enormously the organizational containers and increase the
freedom to make new intellectual constructs (or remake old ones), or even make the
cultural communities the most important emotional affiliation. Were we to move more
swiftly and more radically in this direction, it is quite unsure what would be the
consequences. But it would certainly be unlikely to leave the present structures
largely in place.
We are, it seems to me quite clear, at a bifurcation point in our existing systems of
knowledge. The present structures almost certainly cannot hold. But where we are
heading is most uncertain.
25
Chapter 6
BEYOND THE TWO CULTURES
TWO CASE STUDIES
by
Jean-Pierre Dupuy
CREA, Ecole Polytechnique
Stanford University
"A really definitive and good accomplishment
is today always a specialized accomplishment.
And whoever lacks the capacity to put on blinders, so to speak, ...
may as well stay away from science".
Max Weber, Science as vocation
My contribution to our debates purports to be a personal illustration of several points
made by Professor Wallerstein in his UNESCO report, "Social Sciences in the
Twenty-first Century". I am especially thinking of his cogent observations on the
epistemological divide between science and philosophy and the fate of the social
sciences, "as a domain of knowledge 'in-between' the humanities and the natural
sciences and profoundly split between the 'two cultures'."
Professor Wallerstein explains that "the social sciences have … been affected by the
fact that the trimodal division of knowledge into the natural sciences, the humanities,
and the social sciences has come under attack. There have been two main new
knowledge movements involved, and neither of them originated from within the
social sciences. One is what has come to be called "complexity studies" (originating
in the natural sciences) and the other "cultural studies" (originating in the humanities).
In reality, starting from quite different standpoints, both of these movements have
taken as their target of attack the same object, the dominant mode of natural science
since the seventeenth century, that is, that form of science which is that based on
Newtonian mechanics."
Professor Wallerstein is not especially optimistic as regards the possibility of
"overcoming the two cultures." "The major problem these two movements have at
present", he explains, is "the fact that each movement has concentrated on pursuing
the legitimacy of its critique against the prevailing, and previously little questioned,
orthodoxy. Neither complexity studies nor cultural studies has spent much time on
trying to see if and how it could come to terms with the other, and work out together a
26
genuinely new epistemology, one that is neither nomothetic nor idiographic, neither
universalist nor particularist, neither determinist nor relativist."
"The relative lack of contact between the two movements is not only an
organizational problem", Professor Wallerstein concludes, "it also reflects an
intellectual difference. Complexity studies still wishes to be science. Cultural studies
still wishes to be humanistic. Neither has yet totally abandoned the distinction
between science and philosophy. There is a long way to go before the two convergent
intellectual trends might actually meet and establish a common language."
I fully share Professor Wallerstein's reasoned pessimism, and I think I am in a
position to do it. Indeed, I want to describe what it is like to be divided between two
worlds. The division in my case is geographical, since I commute between California
and France; but it is also cultural, since even at Stanford I find myself straddling the
humanities, dominated by French poststructuralism, and philosophy and social
science, dominated by American neopositivism. More fundamentally, I find myself
divided, indeed torn, between a number of conflicting allegiances:
- between my background in logic, mathematics and physics, and my identity
as a philosopher committed to the human sciences;
- between my need to think in terms of formal models and my deeply held
conviction that literature is a superior form of knowledge to science;
- between the two ways of doing philosophy today: "Continental" philosophy
(one should rather say: phenomenology), profound, rich, meaningful, but too often
wilfully obscure, elitist and, at times, dishonest; and "Anglosaxon" philosophy (or
rather: analytic), rigorous, egalitarian, democratic, but too often shallow and tedious.
This division reproduces or reflects the chasm between the so-called two cultures:
Phenomenology points toward literature, analytic philosophy toward science;
- and, finally, between the narrow professionalism of American academics who devote themselves to knowing everything about 'fields' so restricted that they
border on nothingness (the "hidebound savants"); and the distinguished dilettantism of
many French intellectuals, who tend to know almost nothing about everything (the
"foggy froggies", or "cultured ignorami").
Though I am torn, I refuse to be forced to choose between the Scylla of French
intellectualism and the Charybdis of American academicism. From the unusual and
rather uncomfortable vantage point I occupy on an American university campus, I
observe the following oddity: on the one hand, students of literature are initiated into
the mysteries of French-style 'deconstruction', taught to celebrate the death of the
human subject and to repeat ad nauseam that man is not his own master and that such
awareness as he may have of his own affairs is severely limited by a sort of tyranny of
the unconscious; while at the same time their fellow students in the economic,
political, and cognitive sciences learn to systematically reduce social institutions to
voluntary agreements between fully conscious and free individuals. It is fortunate for
the stability of the system that these students practically never talk to each other - no
more often, in fact, than do their professors.
Opposing the rationalist individualism of the American human and social sciences,
including cognitive science, to the deconstruction of metaphysical humanism that
animates the humanities in France and the so-called 'cultural studies' in America runs
27
the risk of combining the worst aspects of French and American thought. Even if it is
institutionally embedded in the heart of the American academy – and the latter may be
unique in this respect -, such a distinction is not tenable, either philosophically or
scientifically.
I cannot aim at establishing this in the present context10 and I will content myself with
presenting two case studies.
1. Tangled Logics: Rationality or Irrationality?
In his book Gödel, Escher, and Bach, Douglas Hofstadter has introduced a
very interesting notion: that of "tangled hierarchy". A relevant illustration is Escher's
celebrated "Drawing Hands".
Drawing Hands - M.C.Escher
It turns out that I have encountered the logical form of tangled hierarchy three times
in the course of my intellectual career. The problem is that the semantic associations
of the concept differ radically from one incarnation to the next. In the first case,
tangled hierarchy characterizes the autonomy of a self that is "always already"
constituted; in the second, it is invoked to assert the impossibility of an autonomous
10
As far as the role of cognitive science is concerned, see my article The Mechanization of the Mind.
On the Origins of Cognitive Science, Princeton University Press, 2000
28
self; in the third, it is the form of the morphogenetic process by which an autonomous
totality constitutes itself. The three incarnations in question are the concept of
"hierarchy" in the work of the sociologist and anthropologist Louis Dumont; the
"logic of the supplement" in the writings of Derrida; and the concept of selforganizing system in biology and cognitive science. On the stage we therefore have
the three actors described by Professor Wallerstein: social science, the humanities,
and natural science (in the form of the science of the living and of the artefact).
Louis Dumont is one of France's major proponents of sociological holism. Holism has
it that the social totality is always logically and ontologically prior to its constitutive
parts. Dumont characterizes the relation between a whole and an element of that
whole as being a hierarchical relation. But he uses the word "hierarchy" in a special
sense which must not be confused with its meaning in the military, for instance. It is
not a linear relation of mere superiority, but instead a relation of "hierarchical
opposition" between the encompassing (the whole) and the encompassed (the
element). Dumont shows that in holistic societies, like India, there is always a reversal
of the hierarchy within the hierarchy. Take the brahmin and the king, for instance: the
brahmin represents the sacred, the encompassing level, and is hierarchically superior
to the king. But in certain domaines to which the social hierarchy assigns an inferior
rank, the hierarchy is reversed and the king stands above the brahmin. As Dumont
puts it, the brahmin is above the king because it is only at inferior levels that the king
is above the brahmin.
Exactly the same abstract form and the same terms "reversal of a hierarchical
opposition" serve to describe the "logic of the supplement" in Derrida. That is an
amazing fact because, if in Dumont this form characterizes the preeminence of a
social totality always already there (in keeping with the structuralist creed), for
Deconstruction it bears witness to the self-destruction of every totality, it seals the
impossibility of conceiving or achieving any autonomous totality at all. This
opposition has important political implications. Take the case of the traditional
hierarchical relation between man and woman. For Dumont, the reversal of this
hierarchy is part and parcel of the hierarchical relation, it is the sign of the totality, the
unified whole constituted by the couple. As he puts it, "the mother of the family (an
Indian family, for example), inferior though she may be made by her sex in some
respects nonetheless dominates the relationships within the family". For the
Derridians, on the other hand, reversal of the hierarchy is a major deconstructionist
task. From Dumont's viewpoint, it is equality which is the major threat to hierarchy;
for the Derridians, as Jonathan Culler puts it, "it does not suffice to deny a
hierarchical relation" in the name of equality, "it does little good simply to claim
equality ... for woman against man... Affirmations of equality will not disrupt the
hierarchy. Only if it includes an inversion or reversal does a deconstruction have a
chance of dislocating the hierarchical structure".
What Derrida calls the "logic of the supplement" is obviously the logic of tangled
hierarchy. Let us recall. Every time that a term supposed to belong to the rational
Logos appears in a philosophical or theoretical text as self-contained, self-sufficient,
present to itself (for example: Nature, Speech, Origin, Meaning, etc.), a vicious logic
is set in motion, Derrida sets out to show, which undermines this pretention to
autonomy. A secondary term (for example: Culture, Writing, Supplement, Form, etc.),
which in principle should be no more than a simple derivation, complication,
29
manifestation or negation of the primary term, turns out to be indispensable to the
constitution of the latter. The origin wishes itself to be full and pure, yet it would lose
its consistency without the supplement that derives from it.
The logic of the supplement can then be represented as assuming the following
general form, where we recognize a tangled hierarchy:
Origin
Supplement
writing, sign,
logos, speech,
presence,…
difference,…
Derivation, manifestation, negation
Now I would like to introduce rapidly the third term of my trilogy: the concept of a
self-organizing (autopoietic, autonomous) system. It was forged by biologists
belonging to the cybernetic tradition, in their attempt to characterize what it is for a
system to be endowed with autonomy. Dissatisfied by the dominant metaphor in
molecular biology, the metaphor of the genetic program, they asserted that it made it
impossible to conceive the autonomy of the living organism. Now, it is well known and molecular biologists were the first to recognize this - that if one takes the
metaphor of the genetic program seriously, one runs immediately into a strange
paradox: one has to admit that this program is a self-programming program, or rather,
a program requiring the outputs of its execution in order to be executed: the operators
which perform the transcription and the translation of DNA into proteins are
themselves proteins. They are coded within the DNA in such a way that in order for
the translation to be possible it has "always already" to have taken place.
This paradox can be depicted as follows:
Programme
Products
and one recognizes here the very form that Derrida calls the logic of the supplement.
30
Now, the amazing fact is the following: it is this very same tangled logic which has
been taken by the theoreticians of autonomous systems as the distinctive characteristic
of what they call autonomy. On the other hand, the same logic is the Derridians' major
weapon for the deconstruction of any pretension to autonomy or self-sufficiency. And
for holistic sociology, it characterizes an always already constituted totality. As long
as academic compartmentalization keeps these groups in total ignorance of one
another, the oppositions of interpretations can continue for a long time to come.
Nobody will ever care, and all will be content.
Take someone who came across what I have just covered. She might be shocked and
think that a conceptual clarification was in order. Being shocked is what often triggers
a thinking process that may lead to a discovery. She might pause and take a good look
at this other graphic representation of a tangled hierarchy:
I
1
2
II
2
1
The idea might dawn on her that what this figure tells us is that order contains its
possible reversal, negation, violation, destruction. The verb "contains" here should be
construed in its twofold meaning: to contain is to have within oneself, but also to keep
in check. Suppose one could show that the mechanisms of the constitution of order
are the same as those of its decomposition. Our hypothetical scholar would then
perhaps apprehend the symmetrical blindspots in the visions of Dumont and Derrida:
Dumont sees only order, Derrida sees only the crisis that lurks beneath, with both of
them missing the key point that order contains the crisis that undermines it.
But let us not dream. That person does not exist and cannot exist in the present state
of the university system. She would have to come, say, from cognitive science or
theoretical biology, since it was there that the notion of tangled hierarchy appeared.
She would then be a rationalist, and remain blind to the real deconstructive power of
the notion. On the other hand, an encounter between her and these outposts of
irrationalist thinking that are structuralism and its deconstruction would be very
unlikely. Everyone will continue to have a clear conscience, everyone will keep doing
their jobs professionally, safely protected within the closed walls of their respective
fields... You can see that I am even more pessimistic than Professor Wallerstein.
2. Social Opacity: Rationality or Irrationality?
The confrontation takes place here between two entirely disjoint sets of theories. On
the right hand side, we have one of the constitutive debates of the French "Sciences de
31
l'homme": the rupture introduced by the structuralist school in the Durkheimian
tradition on the issue of reciprocity. At the core of this debate, we find the obscure but
"very French" notion of "social hypocrisy" or "collective self-deception". On the left,
we have the logical concept of "Common Knowledge", a joint production of the
Philosophy of Mind (David K.Lewis), Pragmatics (S. Schiffer), Game Theory (R.
Aumann), Cognitive Science and Epistemic Logic (J.Barwise) - a full-blown "AngloSaxon" set of "fields". It is most unlikely that the representatives of the two sides have
ever met, or ever will. Two separate worlds. And however...
I'll start out with the concept of Common Knowledge (henceforth CK), and the role it
plays in Game Theory and Rational Choice Theory.
There seems to be a number of situations in Game Theory in which the following
holds true. A desirable state of affairs may obtain if everyone knows a certain harmful
fact, even if everyone knows that everyone knows it, even if everyone knows that
everyone knows that everyone knows it, etc. etc., but not if that harmful fact is CK,
i.e. this iteration is pushed to infinity. Short of CK, everything is ok, the harmful fact
can be studiously overlooked by everybody even though it is perfectly well known to
everybody.
Example: Think of those rules that are formulated in rigid fashion even though
everyone knows not only that they can be transgressed, but that efficiency demands
that they be transgressed, as long as nothing is said about it. Think of the airport
check-in deadline set by airlines. Yet it is hard to see how the company could make a
public announcement to the effect that the rule was made to be broken.
In Game Theory, it often happens that the harmful fact is the players' rationality.
More precisely, the fact itself need not be harmful, but CK of it would be. Such is the
case in the celebrated Prisoner's Dilemma (PD), or more precisely the finitely
repeated PD. If there is CK that all the players are rational, then social cooperation is
impossible, even though cooperation is to everyone's benefit. It can be shown
however that cooperation becomes possible, and can emerge spontaneously, as long
as one falls short of CK - i.e. in a situation in which there is mutual knowledge of
some given order that all players are rational, but not CK (i.e. everyone is rational,
everyone knows that, everyone knows that everyone knows that, etc., up to a certain
finite number of such recursive steps).
Therefore, in order to be rational one has in a sense to mimic irrationality - more
precisely, the kind of irrationality that is best for everyone (since rationality is bad for
everyone: that's the gist of PD). The rational agents, one might say, "disguise"
themselves as irrational: they make believe they are crazy, thus forcing the other
player to play accordingly (to everyone's benefit). However this way of speaking is
not rigorous, since what appeared to be irrational (cooperating in PD) turns out to be
rational, once the global analysis has been completed. There is no real ruse here, no
trick, no deception: just the lack of transparency, or lack of reflexivity, or opacity,
implied by falling short of CK.
Irrationality, being a ruse of Reason, refutes itself. There is no valid account of
irrationality here: the sheer existence of it in the world remains a "paradox" (Cf. "The
32
Paradox of Irrationality" by D. Davidson). This powerlessness to explicate
irrationality is the hallmark of any rationalistic thinking.
Let us now move to the three-tier debate that was triggered by the celebrated work of
Marcel Mauss, Essay on the Gift, published in 1924. Mauss observes that in a good
many archaic societies, "contracts are fulfilled and exchanges of goods are made by
means of gifts. In theory such gifts are voluntary but in fact they are given and repaid
under obligation". He insists on the prestations' having a "voluntary character, so to
speak, apparently free and without cost, and yet constrained and interested... They are
endowed nearly always with the form of a present, of a gift generously offered even
when in the gesture which accompanies the transaction there is only a fiction,
formalism and social deception, and when there is, at bottom, obligation and
economic interest".
What then is the nature of this "obligation"? Mauss, having once posed the question,
adds, as though he were merely repeating the same question in another form: "What
force is there in the thing given which compels the recipient to make a return?" The
native informant will soon convince him that "in the things exchanged... there is a
certain power which forces them to circulate, to be given away and repaid".
In 1950, Lévi-Strauss, in his famous "Introduction to the work of Marcel Mauss" - a
text which many take to be the founding chart of French structuralism - reproaches
Mauss with allowing himself to be "mystified by the native". Mauss's error is to have
stayed at the level of a phenomenological apprehension that breaks exchange down
into its different moments, creating the need for an operator of integration to
reconstruct the whole - which is where the "soul of things" comes in, providentially
filling this very role. But that's going at the problem from the wrong end, asserts LéviStrauss, because "Exchange is not a complex edifice, constructed from the obligations
to give, to receive and to make return with the help of an emotional and mystical
cement. It is a synthesis immediately given to, and by, symbolic thought..."
Third tier: in 1972, Bourdieu, in his Outline of a Theory of Practice, denounces LéviStrauss's "objectivist error": "Even if reciprocity is the objective truth of the discrete
acts which ordinary experience knows in discrete form and calls gift exchanges",
Bourdieu affirms, "it is not the whole truth of a practice which could not exist if it
were consciously perceived in accordance with the model."
Let us consider in effect the obligation to receive and the obligation to make a return
for what is received. Taken together in the theoretical schema of reciprocity, they lead
to a contradiction. For he who returns without delay the very object that is given to
him has in fact refused to receive. The exchange of gifts can therefore only function
as an exchange of gifts on condition that it disimulates the reciprocity that is its
objective truth. All the space, or rather the time, of practice is needed to undo this
contradiction.
Bourdieu equates the logic of this contradiction with the logic of lying to oneself, or
self-deception. A paradoxical notion indeed, but which is made even more
paradoxical by the context in which it is stated. A subject capable of deceiving itself
already constitutes a philosophical challenge, but here, the entity capable of that feat
is not even a subject, since it is the "collective" (French thinkers love to make
33
adjectives into substantives, and that's very telling). The discourse of the French
Sciences of Man is crammed with predicates of agency, but there is no agency:
"strategies", yes, but no strategists. We are left with this notion of "social selfdeception", which points towards an extreme form of irrationality, but in an altogether
obscure way.
What Bourdieu has in mind becomes much more clear, though, when he takes the
example of a Kabyle worker who proclaimed the convertibility of the meal
traditionally given at the end of the job into money, with which he demanded to be
paid instead: the worker was only "betraying the best-kept and worst-kept secret: the
one that is in everyone's keeping".
A very fine formula indeed: the secret is that there is no secret, it is an open or public
secret, etc. All these oxymorons point to the same structure, the very structure that the
"Anglo-Saxon" side characterizes as some proposition being mutual knowledge, but
not CK.
It may be the case that our two sides talk about the same object after all. But they give
of it two radically different interpretations. The one dissolves irrationality, the other
accounts for it irrationally. But the theory of the triangle need not be triangular.
Suppose we had no other choice than between these two camps. We would then face a
dilemma. Either we renounce the vocabulary of deception, lie, ruse, lure, etc.; or we
stick to it but there is no agency to which it can be applied. There may be a way out,
however: what if mutual deception and self-deception were not the product of a single
mind's strategies, but the result of a collective enterprise - a form of negative
collaboration? It is not the object of this communication to solve the problem at hand.
My aim is much more modest: it is to stress that it is very unlikely that the problem
will be solved as long as the confrontation between the two worlds does not take
place.
Let there be no misunderstanding, though. I am not advocating a form of vague
ecumenism, or soft consensus, or even positive collaboration between the two worlds.
Quite the opposite. My point is this: only if each world accepts to be challenged by
the other will something new occur. But in the current organization of our university
systems this is very unlikely to happen.
34
Part 3
WHAT CAN PUBLIC POLICIES DO?
35
Chapter 7
REINVENTING THE SOCIAL SCIENCES: WHAT CAN PUBLIC POLICIES
DO?
by
Enric Banda
European Science Foundation
Let me start by thanking the organisers for inviting me to talk in this important event.
Let me also point to the risk taken by them in inviting a non-social scientist. I
developed my scientific career as a scientist in the field of physics, more specifically
geophysics. Then, some 8 years ago I turned into science management, science policy
and some politics. With that background, how can I contribute to today's topic, given
its scope and complexity? Fortunately, some issues seem to be invariant under
different disciplines. I will draw on this in two respects.
First, as a researcher, I tried to understand the dynamics of the earth. Difficult as it
may seem, I am sure it is not as difficult as understanding the dynamics of social
processes and human behaviour, not to mention the dynamics of policies that may
affect them all. But my 'professional sensitivity' to dynamic aspects of the matters
being under consideration turns my attention to the crucial, in my view, observation
on the static nature of the policies (as the cause of their failure). More precisely, to the
issue of how to make them more dynamic, at each stage of the policy process (design,
implementation, and evaluation).
Second, having been close to “public policies” even if it is in the narrow sector of
science and innovation, I guess you will allow me to “bend the title”. As you may
expect, this will be done along my professional bias to 'concretise' the topic. I will do
that with regard to three different aspects.
Research priority setting. This is a long lasting debate. I will not dwell on this, rather
I will expose a few statements on the dominating approaches -- as they are being
formulated by different schools of thinking. I claim no authorship and I admit I take
the extreme cases.
•
Scientists are the only ones that can set up the priorities - this might be called a
'pan-scientism' approach
•
Industry knows the needs and, accordingly, should set the priorities -- which
might be called 'pan-marketism' approach
•
Policy-makers, science policy practitioners and managers must prioritise societal
needs and define target goals - I would be willing to call this approach 'interactive'
36
All three statements/approaches are normative (although not to the same extent), as
they call for some underlying values -- such as science itself; or market as the best
mechanism to achieve a socially desired 'state of the things'; or believe in a best
practise-based or learning-process-oriented rationality.
Whatever position you might like to take in predicting, or arguing for an 'optimal'
allocation of budget resources, what is happening today is that governments label
research spending items in their budget plans. Why? Based on what?
As a science policy practitioner, I am concerned about this issue. I sympathise with
the third approach which would, I believe, allow to integrate different stages of policy
process and to sort out 'what works' for further implementation.
But, taking into account the existing institutional arrangements and constraints, that is,
without calling for a revolution, how should the priorities be set up? Here is where, I
believe, social sciences should help. That is, from a non-social scientist's point of
view, it seems reasonable to expect that social sciences should be able to not only
describe but to explain group and individual behaviour. Equipped with the advanced
theories and techniques, are social scientists prepared to face the challenge of
determining “societal needs and goals? Increasing economic well-being and qualityof-life, does not provide a good enough answer.
In other words, why do governments prioritise other topics which I, personally, do not
perceive as “societal needs”?
To me, the driving force is strictly of economic nature, and results from the prevailing
influence of business- or industry-like groups of interest that are lobbying for
particular social choices. Whether or not such a choice leads to only a 'local optimum'
in the social space (that is, is beneficial for some segments of the society only) or is
pareto-efficient (when at least someone is better-off without worsening anyone else's
position) may not be a rhetorical question. I wonder if we are, as taxpayers, happy
with that, and how can the social sciences be instrumental in the face of this problem?
However, I am aware that the enormous impact that social sciences can acquire on the
social reality is significantly restricted by uncertainty that always surrounds the
conclusions of social research. In particular, by the results of policy analysis
confronted with sometimes unpredictable (or adverse) reactions of social actors
(although 'behavioural response' factor is often recognised by policy analysts).
Public understanding of science. Despite the efforts made, social scientists have still a
lot to do in the domain of science and citizens’ relationship and co-operation within
the decision-making domain. Learning from each other, including other countries and
different groups in society, is a must. However, results of several studies tell us that
the general public does not want to take decisions in the place of policy-makers
(parliamentarians and governments), rather it wants to be correctly informed. For this
reason the role of the media and scientists themselves in 'popularisation' of knowledge
is essential.11
11
Philippe Roqueplo quoted in IPTS, No 55-JCR-Seville (June 2001).
37
Many of us here today would like to see some progress in this topic. Some countries
have spent sizeable amounts of money in it. Yet, we seem to be stuck. I am sure there
are policies that can help. But beyond diverting all responsibility to education in
schools, could we find other ways to help?
Science policy incidence. You will not be surprised if I come up with the subjects
such as: genetically modified foods, bovine spongiform encephalopaty, foot and
mouth disease and therapeutic cloning. What is there in common in most of these
subjects? Recent experience has shown that there has been a damage to trust in
science, or should I rather say to the reputation of several sectoral policies, including
science policy? The latter would bring the issue of responsibility closer to us - science
policy designers and practitioners. Are we in a position to foresee such situations
while drafting science policy programs? Could transparency and other remedies that
have already been widely invoked be more effective? Again, it would be social
science to which I would turn for a help.
Perhaps, before asking social scientists "are you ready?" for such a task we should ask
ourselves - representatives from both design and implementation/managerial sides of
the science policy - "are we ready?", and to what extent, to have science policy
processes funded primarily on the social sciences?.
Whatever the view would be, the major challenge remains for the social sciences,
anyway.
I believe it corresponds to the social sciences' vision as to do research, either
disciplinary-driven or problem-driven:
•
towards the appropriate theory, i.e., one that has explanatory power and is
testifiable, and
•
generating and employing reliable data, conducting robust and policy-relevant
analyses and modelling
I told you in the beginning that I would “bend the title” of the session. However, I
have, after all stuck to the title of the workshop, reinventing social sciences, to which
I may not have contributed, but I have, at least, given you a candid view, and some
concrete expectations, from a non-social scientist.
38
Chapter 8
WHAT CAN PUBLIC POLICIES DO?
by
Norman M. Bradburn
U.S. National Science Foundation
I take this assignment as an opportunity to reflect on the interplay between social
science theory and research and the formulation and implementation of public
policies. What are can public policies realistically do about producing changes in
society that they are intended to accomplish and what can the social sciences
contribute to formulation and successful implementation of these policies? These are
extremely complex questions, and I can only scratch the surface in the time allotted.
Let me start by giving you a bit of my experience with these issues. I am a social
psychologist by training and my career has been largely spent as an empirical social
scientist involved partly in the evaluation of U.S. governmental social programs
during the 1960s and 70s, a period in the U.S. of great experimentation with social
policies to solve social problems. I have not, until recently, been involved in policy
making, but I am quite familiar with the implementation of many of the most
important social policies in the U.S. over the past 4 decades.
I want to make two points in this talk. The first is that policies are formulated as
essentially static instruments; that is, they assume a set of conditions and change one
or two of the parameters of that set. Frequently the perception of the initial set of
conditions is faulty due to lack of data or good analysis, and may be dominated by
views of a modal case, which might not, in fact, be reflective of the underlying
distribution of conditions. Governmental policies are blunt instruments to bring about
social change. They almost never consider the dynamics put in motion by those
changes. Thus, they inevitably suffer from unintended consequences. These
unintended consequences are often large enough to nullify the positive effects of the
policies or, even, to produce the opposite effect from that intended.
Second, the implementation of governmental policies often falls far short of that
envisioned by the designers of the policies either because they are underfunded or, in
order to be successfully implemented, they require bureaucratic changes that do not
occur or both. In the U.S. at least, the costs of policies are projected through
economic models used by budget planners in the administration and in the Congress.
These models often do not agree, may severely under- or overestimate the true cost of
the programs, and larger budget considerations may affect the actual funding levels
for programs. In program evaluation, the first, and, too frequently the only thing we
can ascertain, is whether the program ever got implemented at all, and, if it did, how
closely did it resemble its original design.
39
In order to make these points more vivid, I will give you two brief examples. I start
with a small, some might say trivial, policy change implemented in the 1970s after the
oil embargo. The problem was an acute shortage of oil, and a number of policies to
deal with the situation were implemented quickly. One of them was changing to yearround daylight savings (summer) time in order to save electricity. As you know, the
U.S. is a large country spanning 4 time zones. The variance in hours of daylight over
the year is also sensitive to how far north one is, with much greater variance for the
northern than for the southern parts of the country. In addition, for economic reasons,
some areas near the edge of a time zone had opted years before to join the time zone
to the west of them, so that they were in effect already on perpetual summer time.
Demographic analysis easily showed that the conditions that gave rise to the particular
setting of the times had changed–-the time zones were established when the country
was largely agricultural–-and that the present geographic distribution of the
population and time distribution of work hours made it sensible to adjust the clocks by
one hour throughout the year to increase the hours of daylight, on average, when the
population was awake and needed them. Positive popular support for the policy was
confirmed by public opinion surveys, although it was noted that there was a minority
of the population that was adamantly opposed to the policy.
While the policy achieved what it was designed to do in the aggregate, several areas
of the country were adversely affected by the policy for geographical reasons or,
because they had already opted for the policy (but under a different name), the policy
in their areas did not have the desired effect. In one of the areas, Southwestern
Georgia, the consequence of the new policy was that school children in rural areas,
where they had to take a bus to school, had to wait for the bus in the dark during the
winter. Parents complained that the children were in danger of being hit by cars in the
dark and, a few weeks into the new policy, indeed a child waiting for a bus in the
early morning was hit and killed by a car. This event was given great play by the
mass media and support for the policy evaporated almost overnight. The policy was
repealed the next spring.
This example illustrates my point about the bluntness of policy instruments and
unintended consequences. While the policy did produce the effect it wanted and, for
the vast majority of the population, did increase the useful hours of daylight in the
winter, the policy could not, because of geographical reasons, and did not, because of
historical reasons, produce the same effect for everyone. For complex reasons related
to American politics, those who were adversely affected in this case, although a
minority of the population, were able to exercise veto power over the policy. (As an
aside, later analysis of data on traffic accidents showed that the very slight increase in
deaths in the early morning was off set by a decrease in deaths from traffic accidents
in the afternoon when it stayed light longer).
My second example is much more important one and one with which social science
research has been heavily involved. This is the policy related to racial segregation of
public schools in the U.S. Social science research on the effects of racial segregation
on individuals had been a potent force in the Supreme Court decision declaring the
“separate but equal” doctrine unconstitutional, and led to the dismantling of legally
backed segregation of public facilities including schools. The implementation of this
decision, which challenged long standing mores, habits and social organization,
particularly in the south, was openly resisted and, on occasion, required the use of
40
force to implement the policy. School integration has been one of the most
contentious issues in the U.S. Social science analysis had indicated that school
integration was perhaps the most important instrument for long term change in social
relations between the races as well as for improving the economic condition of
African-Americans.
Even after the end of legal segregation, the historical and economic effects of
residential segregation meant that many schools, which had local attendance areas,
continued in effect to be de facto segregated. A famous and influential study by the
sociologist James Coleman found that educational achievement was as much a
consequence of familial conditions as it was of the schools. One of the most important
findings was that in classrooms that were racially mixed (and in effect economically
mixed) the African-American children did better than comparable children in
segregated schools and the white children did not do any worse. This study was
interpreted as a call for intervention by the government into the principle of local
attendance areas and led in many cities to a court-ordered program of busing children
out of their local attendance areas to schools in other areas in order to achieve racial
balance and the presumed effects on achievement of racial integration.
This policy has proven to be one of the most politically sensitive policies pursued by
the U.S. government in the past few decades. It has been attacked and defended using
social science analysis and empirical studies of the effects of busing. For the
purposes of this discussion, I would like to point out a few features of the issue that
illustrate my main points. First, the policy of busing students was a policy that
changed one element of a complex system; one that arguably did not follow from the
Coleman report. The Coleman Report was based on comparison of classrooms that
had been voluntarily integrated as a result of a large set of circumstances, many of
which were not measured in his study. To generalize the finding to conditions in
which the integration was produced by external policies took a leap of faith and had to
be based on social theories coming from more general social science analysis.
Second, the policy was static in that it failed to take into account the reaction of
parents whose children were subjected to busing (mostly white children being bused
into predominately black schools) or whose schools were affected by busing in
children from out of the area (predominately black children from inner city areas
being bused into predominately white schools in middle class areas of a city). The
consequence was a large scale movement of white families from the central cities to
the suburbs, a phenomenon that was referred to as “white flight.” Over a decade or
so, there was a vast change in the racial composition of urban schools and a greater
segregation than before the policy was instituted because the proportion of white
children in the cities declined markedly. While Coleman initially supported busing,
he quickly saw the unintended consequences of the policy and became one of its
leading opponents.
The policy was also never fully or thoroughly implemented. For many years, busing
was restricted to the schools in one school district, and there was no busing across
district lines. Busing is costly and, in many cases, school districts lacked funds to
implement the policy unless specifically forced to do so by suits brought by parents
who supported busing. After the effects of “white flight” became clear so that it was
impossible to achieve integration within a single district, courts began to order busing
41
across district lines. This resulted in considerable litigation, but perhaps more
importantly required longer bus rides for the children and support for the policy
declined among parents of all races. Attention shifted to efforts to improve the schools
regardless of their racial composition. Social scientists are now deeply involved in
advising school districts and legislators on policies to improve the achievement of
children in all schools.
As is probably obvious from the examples I have chosen, I approach these issues from
the perspective of a social systems theorist and fault applications of social science
analysis and research that fail to think through the dynamics of social systems and to
pursue research that enables us to model more completely the effects of policy
changes. I do not underestimate the difficulty of this task, but it is the direction that I
think social sciences must be going. This requires new theories, new tools and new
data. The development of economic theory and modeling has improved our
understanding of the dynamics of economic systems and the probable effects of
economic policies, although we obviously have a long way to go before we
understand things fully. I believe that there are promising new techniques, such as
stochastic modeling of social interactions, that can lead to better understanding of the
dynamics of social systems at both the micro and macro levels. We also have
powerful new computational tools that enable us to build more realistic models. The
data to support these models, however, are often insufficient to support them. I am
less sure how much progress we will be making on that front in the near future.
In sum, I see a re-invented social science as more concerned with formal theory
building using dynamic models, closely coupled with empirical testing of the theories
and requiring larger and better data bases to provide adequate data for testing those
theories. Such a future also requires changes in our training of social scientists so that
they will have the skills necessary to carry out this program. Whether we are up to
the challenge remains to be seen.
42
Chapter 9
WHAT ARE THE CONDITIONS OF APPROPRIATE
PUBLIC POLICIES FOR SOCIAL SCIENCES?
by
Ali Kazancigil
UNESCO, MOST Programme
In UNESCO's World Social Science Report 1999, taking stock of the remarkable
development of the field during the previous hundred years, Peter Wagner argues that
"the twentieth century …. (is) one of the emergence and breakthrough of social
science"12. Concerning their performance in the twenty-first century, he maintains
that "it depends on the reflexive self-awareness and sound judgement of current and
future scholars to build on … experiences (of the previous period) for another century
of work in the attempt to make the social world as intelligible as it can be"13. In the
same volume, discussing the future of the social sciences in the twenty-first century,
Immanuel Wallerstein predicts that " …. social science will be an intellectually
exciting arena, a socially important one, and undoubtedly a very contentious one"14.
These are views from social scientists. How about policy-makers? Do they share a
similar representation - making the world more intelligible and being socially
important - of these disciplines? I have no international survey in hand on the issue,
but amongst those who have the decision-making responsibility in public policymaking, the answer would probably be in the negative for a large majority of them.
At best, it would be a selectively and restrictively positive one: amongst the
participants in the April 1998 OECD Workshop on social sciences, in Paris, of which
the current Lisbon Workshop is a follow-up, two views emerged regarding the
influence of the social sciences: the absolute sceptics according to whom they are not
of much use in policy-making and problem-solving; and the relative sceptics, who
grant that certain disciplines, such as economics and management, have a
considerable, but diffuse, influence15.
12
World Social Science Report 1999, Paris, UNESCO/Elsevier, 1999 (edited by Ali Kazancigil and
David Makinson), p. 16.
13
Idem, p. 39.
14
Idem, p. 49.
15
Van Langenhove, Luk. "Can the social sciences act as an agent of change in society?", Social
Sciences for Knowledge and Decision-making, Paris, OECD, 2001, p. 15.
43
The gap between social scientists and policy-makers
There is comprehensive literature on social science-policy relations, and some
international programmes working in this area, such as the one I created at UNESCO,
on the Management of Social Transformations (MOST), the over-arching goal of
which is to contribute such linkages, by studying their conditions and modalities and
making proposals for their improvement16. One of the workshops of the OECD series,
in June 2001 in Bruges, was devoted to the issue of social sciences and decisionmaking. The dichotomies which oppose researchers and policy-makers are wellknown: different professional cultures, time frames, paces, languages, rationalities.
Also rather familiar by now are the recommendations to narrow the gap, adressed to:
a)
b)
The social scientists: do interdisciplinary, policy relevant team work,
rather than individual disciplinary research; respond more
enthousiastically to demands from government, society and markets;
re-write and re-package research results for policy-makers; be
available to meet and work with them frequently, and integrate their
needs and views in research designs.
The policy-makers: address demands for input to researchers in the
early stages of the policy process and not as an after-thought, or only
for legitimation purposes; establish mechanisms for meeting
researchers and engaging with them in learning processes; support
social science infrastructures with decent funding.
The naturalistic model of social sciences
The foregoing is fine and may be useful. Still, even if such recommendations were
properly implemented, there is a probability that obstacles to a wider use of social
sciences in public policy-making would not be easily removed, unless root causes of
these difficulties is acknowledged and coped with. One such cause is discussed here.
The case may be construed as follows: the whole question of social science
knowledge/policy-making relations is set in a paradigm, which is shared by quite a lot
of social scientists, as well as a majority of policy-makers. This paradigm can be
dubbed the naturalistic view of the social sciences17, as well as their relations with
policy-makers. The excellent analysis, made in the Gulbenkian Report, of the
historical developments of the social sciences shows how the latter were constructed
along the Newtonian model of natural sciences18. A proper understanding by the
policy-makers of the problems created for the social sciences by the naturalistic model
is necessary, if the negative representation of these disciplines as "underdeveloped
16
By way of example, let me quote the MOST project on knowledge use: "Factors that improve the use
of research in social policy", under which comparative case studies are implemented in some 40
countries from various regions of the world, on the basis of a research design prepared by Prof. Carol
H. Weiss, from Harvard University. See also the chapter by Carol H. Weiss, "Research-policy
linkages: how much influence does social science research has?", World Social Science Report 1999,
op. cit., pp. 194-205.
17
Phillips, D.C., The Social Scientist's bestiary: a guide to fabled threats to, and defences of,
naturalistic social sciences, Oxford, U.K., Pergamon Press, 1992.
18
Wallerstein, Immanuel, et. al. Open the social sciences. Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on
the restructuring of the social sciences, Stanford University Press, 1996, pp. 60-69
44
natural sciences" is to change. Such a shift in the external image of the social sciences
is a condition for generating adequate public policies to their advantage.
The naturalistic conception of social sciences is not altogether wrong, but it is
reductionist. Indeed, an important part of the social sciences are close to natural
sciences, in terms of their concepts, theories and empirical data-based, quantified
methods and research techniques. However, that is only a part of the field: the social
sciences also stretch towards the humanities, cultural studies and philosophy.
Empirical as well as hermeneutic paradigms constitute the field. The real value-added
of the social sciences, in terms of understanding the world, as well as responding to
demands from policy-makers lies precisely in their capacity to be at once
critical/reflexive and realistic/utilitarian19. The natural sciences are also critical, but
only about their own scientific results, and not at all on the social conditions of their
profession. As regards the critical capabilities of the social sciences, the picture is
different: they go beyond their own work, to also cover their relations to society and
to policy-making (they perform this fonction as regards the natural sciencesociety/policy interface, as well). They have the conceptual and methodological tools
to do so.
Therefore, the social sciences must be assessed in their own right, and not in
comparison to natural sciences: they are at once contextual and universal. They
cannot be expected to produce social engineering, offering ready-made formulas and
solutions for application in all settings and circumstances. Their observations and
findings cannot be replicated, given the enormous quantity of variables and their
combinations, which are more complex than in natural phenomena, many of them not
being quantifiable. This situation, however, does not invalidate their scientific nature,
nor their capacity to be policy-relevant. It is not the uncertainties of the subjectmatter of a discipline which determine its scientific or non-scientific nature. If this
were the case, climate science would not be scientific either.
The social sciences are thus characterized by two appartently contradictory poles: one
is the requirement to be closer to the inner features and historical trajectories of the
social formation under study, which introduces an inevitable fragmentation, but which
is necessary to understanding the context and formulating workable and effective
public policies. The other is the requirement of universality, mainly through
international and intercultural comparisons. The two together define their scientific
nature and value-added. None of the two is to be sacrified to the other.
The natural sciences, which so powerfully influenced the social sciences both
conceptually and organisationally, have been undergoing an epistemological shift,
away from the Newtonian paradigm, as discussed in the Gulbenkian Report: the
positivistic epistemology on which they grew is being replaced by one based
complexity and such factors as irreversibility and non replicability, observed in
certain natural phenomena, and the quest for a less mechanical definition of the
concept of nature20. These developments not only bring natural and social sciences
closer, but also question the mechanistic theories and methods, which the social
19
Delanty, Gerard. Social Science: Beyond Constructivism and Realism, Buckingham, U.K., Open
University Press, 1997.
20
Op. cit., p. 61.
45
sciences generated in their urge to imitate the older and better established branch of
science.
The foregoing considerations have implications for the re-structuration of the social
sciences, as well as the introduction of different criteria for the evaluation of social
science programmes and research results.
They also have implications for social science-policy linkages and the kind of public
policies that should be introduced in support of social sciences.
As regards social science/policy-making linkages, much of the dichotomies between
these two professional cultures, which become obstacles to a broader use of social
science knowledge in policy would have a diminishing influence, if the specific
nature of the social sciences and the kind of goods it can deliver were acknowledged
by policy-making communities. Such an understanding would dissipate the
mechanistic, linear illusion that the analyses and knowledge produced by the social
sciences can have a direct and readily measurable influence on public policy
formulation. Political decision-making is a complex, deliberative, interactive and
impredictible process, in which the supposedly objective "scientific truth" is at best a
very small input, the bulk of it being subjective perceptions and calculations of the
decision-maker. This may be an explanation of the current crisis of scientific and
technological expertise, which has difficulties in coping with the increasing
uncertainties and risks21. Contrary to "hard" science-based expertise, social sciencebased expertise can be more successful in such configurations, having the tools to
analyze and render intelligible certain subjective or idiosynchratic factors of policymaking, by combining quantitative as well as qualitative methods and indicators.
Some prescriptions for effective public policies for social sciences
On the basis of the above analysis, an attempt can be made to formulate certain
prescriptions addressed to policy-makers, on how to produce relevant public policies
for supporting social sciences and their role in society:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Put high on the policy agenda the question of how to make an optimal
use of the inputs the social sciences can make to public policy-making,
with their specific features, and not as ancillary disciplines of natural
sciences and technologies.
Acquire a correct knowledge of the nature of the social sciences and
what they can deliver as inputs for policy-making.
In the light of the above learning process, develop a proper
understanding of what such notions as research-policy linkages,
knowledge transfer, valorisation, mean in the case of the social
science.
Remember that the interface between scientific knowledge and public
policy functions on the basis of social science concepts and tools
21
Cf. on the crisis of scientific expertise in relation to governance: Kazancigil, Ali, "Governance and
Science: market-like modes of managing society and producing knowledge", International Social
Science Journal, Nº 155, March 1998, pp. 69-79.
46
5.
On the basis of political will and proper understanding of their nature,
formulate and implement effective public policies for social sciences,
in two directions:
a) provide adequate funding for data infrastructures and research
facilities; offer strong incentive: to international and
interdisciplinary research, as well as to re-structuring social science
teaching, curricula and degrees; up-grade the teaching of the social
sciences at the secondary school level;
b) accompany the above supportive measures and incentives in favour
of autonomous, long-term social science, by well-endowed, large
policy-oriented social science research programmes, in strategic
issues, defined in a way to allow these disciplines to use all their
potential.
Need for global advocacy in support of the social sciences
Since there is no reason to believe that public policy-makers would spontaneously
adhere to the above prescriptive recommendations and consider social sciences more
positively and seriously, some initiatives must be introduced to persuade them to do
so.
I'd like to conclude by mentionning such an initiative which is being planned. It has
been conceived as a follow-up to the OECD Roundtable Series and to the Lisbon
Declaration (see Chapter 12).
The initiative, introduced by UNESCO's Management of Social Transformations
(MOST) Programme, together with the United Nations University and its newly
established Research and Training Programme on Comparative Regional Integration
Studies, UNU/CRIS, in Bruges, aims at establishing a "Global Coalition for the
Social Sciences in the 21st Century".
This broad, inclusive, flexible and cost-effective Coalition would serve as a forum for
advocacy vis-à-vis political, social and economic actors, design of policies and
actions, as well as exchange of views and experiences towards strengthening the role
of the social sciences in society and in public policy-making, and their contributions
to understanding and coping with the increasing complexities, uncertainties, risks, as
well as opportunities of modern societies and economies in all regions of the world,
so as to advance towards the goals of sustainable development, human security and
welfare and democratic governance.
Currenty there is no equivalent mechanism, which is very much needed. All relevant
partners ready to participate will be welcome, such as the European Commission,
OECD, various UN bodies, the World Bank, regional IGOs, national research
councils, governmental bodies, universities, private foundations, international social
science organizations, such as the International Social Science Council, the
International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences, and regional ones such as
CODESRIA in Africa, CLACSO and FLACSO in Latin America, AASSREC in Asia,
European Science Foundation.
47
The list is an open-ended one. We hope to start the Global Coalition in 2002. The
International Conference on "Social Sciences in the 21st Century", which the
International Social Science Council and UNESCO are organizing in the autumn of
2002, in Vienna, will be a significant occasion to make progress on this Global
Coalition
48
Chapter 10
CHALLENGES FACING SOCIAL SCIENCES IN EU SCIENCE POLICY
by
Teresa Patrício
ISCTE – Instituo Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa, Lisboa
In 1996, the Gulbenkian Commission on Restructuring of the Social Sciences
organised and published a report entitled “Open the Social Sciences”, encouraging
theoretical reflection on its future role within a multidisciplinary perspective. In 1997,
the Portuguese Ministry of Science and Technology organised a meeting with
European Ministers of Research and published “The Social Science Bridge” which
contributed towards the establishment of funding social science research in the
European Union Fifth Framework Programme of Research and Technological
Development. In complementary ways, both events and the subsequent publications
contributed toward promoting general reflection on the role of the social sciences in
responding to demands beyond the national level.
The OECD provided impetus by organising – together with Member countries - four
international workshops, including the present one. The workshops spanned several
continents and covered various themes – infrastructures and databases, knowledgeproduction, decision-making and innovation. This workshop is the fourth and final
workshop on the theme of “Re-inventing the Social Sciences”, thereby closing a cycle
that began in Ottawa, then moved to Bruges, then Tokyo and finally here, to Lisbon.
The workshops sought to strengthen the social sciences so that a robust problemsolving approach was achieved. At the same time, the discussion on global concerns
was prominent.
This workshop is another step in the process of reflection and analyses of what role
the social sciences should play in a problem-solving, interdisciplinary approach to the
production of knowledge. Moreover the role of expert knowledge in public
involvement procedures and in public policy and decision-making is a central and
crucial issue.
Presently the challenges facing the social sciences are varied. Some of the more easily
identifiable challenges arise from the social and political changes resulting from
information and communication technology, from the search for a sustainable
production and development, from the process of globalisation and geo-political
issues, from public concerns with security and quality of life, and with living with
ever-increasing levels of risk. With pressure increasing from policy-makers in the
search for answers, social scientists face mounting challenges to provide “solutions”.
Confronted with such different challenges, how should social scientists respond?
Undoubtedly, theoretical questions - basic from the origins of the social sciences will remain seminal to the progress and influence of the social sciences. High
49
standards of research are achieved through constant scrutiny of publication through
the peer review process and will remain the basis for intervention of social sciences in
society. Moreover, disciplinary work as well as the advances and contributions
achieved in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research is likely to continue to be
based on sound disciplinary practices. The search for objectivity underlies the
promise, the task and the challenge confronting the social sciences.
Not all challenges, however, are new issues in the social science milieu. C. Wright
Mills in “The Sociological Imagination” (1959) expressed the apprehension of social
scientists with the results of their work. “Just now, among social scientists, there is a
widespread uneasiness, both intellectual and moral, about the direction their chosen
studies seem to be taking. This uneasiness, as well as the unfortunate tendencies that
contribute to it, are, I suppose, part of the general malaise of contemporary intellectual
life. Yet perhaps the uneasiness is more acute among social scientists, if only because
of the larger promise that has guided much earlier work in their fields, the nature of
the subject work which they deal, and the urgent need for significant work today.”
(1959)
For Mills, affirmation of personal biases is required so that social problems can be
confronted as public issues. Epitomising this question Mills states – No one is
“outside society”; the question is where each stands within it.
From a similar perspective John Ziman confronts the old adage of objectivity. In
“Human Brickwork in the Social Science Bridge (1998), Ziman looks at objectivity as
a social virtue, and concludes that the social and human scientist is under the
influence of a diversity of interests and values, where the ideal of social objectivity is
unattainable in principle. The task of the social scientist is to define reality and
discern meanings within a comparative understanding of past and existing social
structures. Social sciences can be used or abused. Social sciences can serve many
functions and different masters. Questions of interest, influence, contracts commercial or government, are the present social science environment. While certain
challenges seem to have been around for some time, the question is are there new
challenges facing social scientists and if so, how should they prepare themselves to
contribute to the resolution.
Michael Gibbons et al. (1994) in the seminal work “The New Mode of Production”
attribute the changes of science and research in contemporary society to a Mode 2
type of production where knowledge is created in broader, transdisciplinary social and
economic contexts. This new context of knowledge production increases the concern
of scientists and technologists to the implications of their work. Thereby the concerns
with social accountability are increased and incorporated from the beginning in the
work of the researchers. Gibbons et al. refer to the general context of knowledge
production but the ramifications for social scientists are compelling. Moreover, the
authors predict the changing and far more open institutional contexts of knowledge
production. Social scientists need to be attuned to these new developments and
prepared for the new demands, tasks and responsibilities that arise for them. These
include defining and solving problems as well as evaluating their performance and the
results. These new tasks also include pressing considerations of timing with regard to
problem solving. Social scientists can also play a role in helping to determine and set
policy agendas and ensuring public debate.
50
Some feel that the social sciences are confronting a contemporary crisis as they have
failed to live up to their task of being socially and politically useful. Others see the
social sciences as not contributing enough towards developing society and solving
social problems as a result of budgetary constraints, institutional problems,
disciplinary boundaries and the gap between knowledge and practice (UNESCO
Social Sciences World Report, 1999). The increased complexity of the science and
technology production system – referred to as the knowledge-based economy (OECD,
1996), or the learning society (Lundvall and Johnson, 1994) or the “new” economy –
indeed provides a series of new challenges for the social sciences. Without attempting
to be exhaustive, some of these challenges include the selection of criteria to establish
research priorities, the search for excellence and ways of ascertaining excellence,
network research, resolution of scientific controversies, the involvement of users, and
the general contribution of the social sciences to policy decisions. While all these
topics merit extensive analysis, in this paper I will examine the new challenges faced
by social scientists in their relationship to policy makers within the context of the
European Union’s science and technology policy.
The study of the relationship between science and politics is not new. Since the postwar period, following Vannevar Bush’s Science: The Endless Frontier (1945) the
literature on science policy has been abundant. While much of the earlier literature
focused on linear relationships between science, technology, innovation, and
economic development, more recently the relationship has been deemed of greater
complexity. Nearly fifty years later the European Commission published Society: The
Endless Frontier (1998) by Caracostas and Muldur, while the title clearly shows
tribute to Vannevar Bush’s work, the adopted perspective is an alternative to the
linear techno-determinist vision of innovation.
The European Commission’s proposal of science and technology policy is centred
within a social framework of innovation. A closer relationship to society is advocated
– encouraging public-private partnerships, creating advisory boards representing
diversity of interests, bringing together and involving the various agents of change in
society. What role can the social sciences play in this perspective? The proposal is
clear. Social sciences are connected to the multidisciplinary paradigm of “sociotechnical” action and the creation of new “socio-industrial complexes” based on the
Scandinavian model of meeting social needs. In other words, the proposed path for
the social science is through joint efforts with the “hard” sciences and technology and
engineering fields to promote innovation as well as economic and technological
growth.
The direct implications for social science research funding were not immediately
drawn until social scientists realised that at the European level, funding would only be
made available for joint multidisciplinary projects with the “hard” or “exact” sciences.
Overall, many of the policy objectives were social – sustainable development, job
creation, social cohesion, improved quality of life – but the means to achieve them
were defined through a scientific and technological base. In short, the social sciences
by themselves were just not “applied” enough and therefore their contribution fell
short in the drive to achieve an industrially competitive and technologically
innovative Europe.
51
Consequently, the Commission’s initial proposal for the 5th Framework Programme
did not include a separate social science research programme. Instead social scientists
were to be encouraged to collaborate with their colleagues in the natural and
engineering sciences, thereby advancing multidisciplinary work within a problemsolving approach. This was an enormous challenge for European social scientists with
little experience in multidisciplinary work. On the other hand, it implied abandoning
the short-lived social science programme developed during the previous 4th
Framework Programme. The TSER - Targeted Socio-Economic Research programme
had been introduced in the mid 1990s with a budget of 147Meuros. It should be noted
that the collaborative research projects developed between European social scientists
were an important first step and it was critical to not lose the momentum created by
the TSER programme.
It was within this context that the discussion of the future of the social sciences
centred upon bridging some of the gap between social scientists and policy-makers.
Some of the themes raised were the economic, political and social questions
associated with the European Union construction process such as enlargement, the
role of democratic institutions, and the impact of the euro. Other relevant themes
associated with the problems accruing from large-scale migration processes, the
changing family structure, socialisation and religion, labour and employment
conditions, defining scientific and technological priorities; promoting a closer
understanding of the public to science and technology; and the contribution to science
policy. Not all these potential research areas of social sciences were to see the light of
day in the 5th Framework Programme.
After a prolonged and rather difficult negotiation period, the end result was the
creation of a “key action” (not a full research programme) on the socio-economic
knowledge-based society within the Human Potential and Mobility Programme with a
budget of 190Meuros. Among the areas of research included were societal trends and
structural changes; technology, society and employment; governance and citizenship;
and new development models fostering growth and employment. Thus, social
scientists in Europe were given a lifeline to continue the collaboration begun under
TSER. Multidisciplinary work between the “soft” and the “hard” sciences would also
be encouraged as the general objectives of the research and technological
development policy were to create employment, improve social cohesion and promote
sustainable development. Between 1998 and 2002 almost 300 projects were financed
and the average size of a project corresponded to .55Meuros.
When the fifth framework programme came to an end (2002) the Commission
embarked upon the uncertain venture of evaluating the influence and impact of the
socio-economic research in the activities of the different thematic programmes. In
other words, was multidisciplinary research a reality at the European level? And how
could this be measured?
The report “The overall socio-economic dimension of community research in the fifth
European Framework Programme” (European Commission, 2003), candidly
acknowledges encountering “difficulties, lack of commonly agreed definitions,
consistent datasets and robust assessment methods”. The conclusions express reserved
optimism regarding the European collaboration of the social sciences as well as their
possibility for future participation “…in the field of social sciences and humanities,
52
the research is largely carried out at the national level, often by individual researchers.
Thus, the scientific community in social sciences and humanities has limited
experience in entering into partnerships within large consortia and, consequently, in
the perspective of Framework Programme 6, the challenges for social sciences and
humanities to use new instruments (integrated projects and networks of excellence)
will, in principle, be greater than for other sciences.” (2003)
The relationship of social scientists and policymakers received an unexpected impulse
when in January 2000 the Commission adopted a Communication proposing the
creation of a European Research Area. This project essentially aims at “creating
favourable conditions to increase the impact of research efforts by strengthening the
coherence of research activities and policies conducted in Europe”. At the Lisbon
European Council on 23-24 March, the Heads of State or Government endorsed this
project and set a series of objectives and an implementation timetable. Subsequently,
the Research Council resolution adopted in June 2000 called on the Commission, in
close co-operation with the Member States, to present to the Council objectives and a
methodology with a view to mapping excellence in all Member States, to
benchmarking research and technological activities and to co-ordinate science policy.
In parallel to the objectives of establishing the ERA, mounting concerns with the
future of the EU institutions and the involvement of its citizenry and the process of
enlargement were evident. The reform of the European political context of
governance, as proposed by Romano Prodi, is an attempt to modernise the European
Union’s political structure, bringing the Union closer to its citizens. The challenge of
effective governance created by the enlargement of the European Union would
require innovative and creative solutions – (clearly a role for political scientists). The
EU White Paper on Governance (2001) identifies the need of changes in modern
society and the effects of globalisation and scientific expertise on the democratic
process. The discussion on science and governance can establish forms of confidence
centred on the scientific and technological system. Increasingly, politicians and
policy-makers rely on scientific and technological expertise for their decisions. And
yet, experts do not always speak with a single voice of authority. The question of
personal biases and values is once again raised. Nonetheless, the EU has identified the
need to develop a system of scientific advice and expertise with regard to the
formulation and use of scientific advice both in support of EU policy design and
implementation. Questions about ethical scientific conduct by scientists and ethical
political conduct and dilemmas faced by policymakers in science and technology are
more and more frequent. One can make the case that both the European Research
Area communication and the EU White Paper on Governance could provide the
necessary new fertile ground for a budding relationship between social scientists and
policymakers.
On a more traditional footing, the Sixth Framework Programme of Research and
Technological Development (2002-2006) contemplated a thematic priority area on the
social sciences with a budget of 355Meuros, as well as a new innovative programme
called “Science and Society”, which considers ways of overcoming the separation of
science and society and provides mechanisms for European policy contributions.
European funding programmes help establish co-operation among social scientists
and contributes to a European dimension of public policies. Overall, the European
53
Union construction process led to new questions confronting policy makers to which
social and political scientists could effectively contribute.
The preparatory documents and the subsequent Science and Society Action Plan
support a general approach to questions of concern to society such as ethical questions
of bioresearch, transparency of research and risk management, the role of expertise
and foresight studies, the precautionary principle, science and governance, public
understanding of science, scientific information system, attractiveness of science and
science careers and women and science. The issues promoted by Science and Society
Action Plan can all serve as potential policy tools for implementation at the European
and the national level.
The question posed by Science and Society requires discussion and debate as well as
research and analyses on the policy proposals for implementation at the European
level. The timing of this debate coincides with calling into question the way decisionmaking powers are exercised in the European Union. The search for a research policy
agenda that addresses the promotion of a better understanding of science and
technology by the public and promotes a dialogue between scientists, industrialists,
policy-makers and citizens is a promising area of research for social scientists.
Science policy studies often rely upon attitudes, opinions and the general public
understanding of science. Attitude surveys on science and technology are conducted
in several countries at different times and these can play an important role on
controversial policy decisions such as providing federal funds for stem cell research,
conducting scientific experiments on animals or supporting math or science
programmes in education establishments. Policymakers may also want to encourage
public debate and discussions on many of these controversial topics (the experience
with consensus conferences in Denmark are one seemingly successful example).
In the United States the National Science Foundation Science and Engineering Report
(2002) states with characteristic openness the difficulties encountered of getting
Americans to understand science. In fact, it seems Americans are highly supportive of
science and technology but lack knowledge of them. Americans in general, the report
continues, have the ability to think critically and manifest problem-solving skills. This
together with a general public confidence in the scientific community makes the US
society highly supportive of science and technology. Is trust of science particular to
the US society?
Contrasting with the NSF Report of public attitudes and understanding of science, the
UK Select Committee on Science and Technology – Third Report (2000) approaches
the crisis of the loss of public confidence in scientific advice to government. The UK
S&T - Third Report follows in the wake of the BSE crisis and public policy priorities
are directed at addressing the public uproar and scare. The BSE scare and other
controversies such as GM foods and crops, the management of nuclear waste have
affected the public and society. The distrust is manifested on the scientific
information on science-related policy issues.
The UK Report raises the context within which science and scientific advice is
produced – whether it is associated with government or industry – and thereby raises
questions as to its “independence”. The values and the uncertainties of scientists
54
should be declared and expressed openly. A crisis of trust is the result of uncertainty
and disagreement among experts. The loss of confidence in science and the
corresponding belief in increasing risk society led to recommendations of stipulated
guidelines on scientific advise on how risk information will be received by the public.
Simultaneously the Report proposes improving dialogue and communication between
scientists and the public and through the public understanding of science.
Facilitating communication among scientists, policy-makers and the public on a wide
variety of topics that affect people could serve to increase trust and confidence in
science and would promote more effective policy-making. Workshops and
programmes promoting an informed dialogue between scientists, engineers,
industrialists, policy-makers and students could be developed. Scientists should be
encouraged to visit schools as a general form of communication and dialogue. New
forms of communication need to be tried. In this regard, the role of the media in the
promotion of scientific and technological awareness and in promoting dialogue has
not been sufficiently explored. In the scope of the information and knowledge-society
new forms and means of attraction can and should be utilised. But there are numerous
other actions that can be developed. A better understanding of risks affecting society
requires further research in particular in the area of public understanding of science
and technology and in science and education and in science communication. Much
can be done in this field to promote a better understanding and to bridge the lack of
trust between scientists, including social and human scientists, and policy-makers.
One recent example of an attempt to bridge the gap between scientists and
policymakers can be found in the United States. Subscribing to the motto of “less
science and more policy” the Howard Hughes Medical Centre and the Centre for
Strategic International Studies entered an agreement to advice policymakers on
matters where science and policy intersect.
Subsequent development of the social sciences at the European level can to a large
extent be ascertained by the de facto contribution and participation of the social
sciences to the Fifth and Sixth Framework Programmes. Together with the problemsolving approach social scientists are called upon to help resolve societal problems in
a wide-range of fields – health sciences, environment, user-friendly information
society, energy, sustainable development, including the more “traditional” societal
problems such as employment, industrial competitiveness, immigration policy, and
changing family structure.
The problem-solving approach has attempted to bridge the separation between the
social sciences and the natural or exact sciences. No longer seen as a difference
between the soft and the hard sciences, both work within the range of probabilistics.
Social sciences work with probabilities, not certainties, and many of the natural
sciences also are within the realm of the probabilistic. The global warming of the
earth’s atmosphere is a case where scientists work under the probabilistic.
The present threats to science lies in the disenchantment of the public to science, from
the perception that scientists are an interest group like any other, and therefore neither
neutral nor disinterested. While the new mode of production (mode 2) requires
renewed social accountability and responsibility on the part of the knowledge
producers, there are counter pressures that point to short-term solutions namely the
“quick fix” or the “technological fix”.
55
While the challenges posed to social scientists within the EU policy context are
multiple, the opportunities for advancing knowledge production with new forms of
collaboration between European and international partners are new. A specific
research programme with funding on citizens and governance in the knowledge-based
society, a science and society programme within the context of creating a European
Research Area and a European Educational Area are new opportunities confronting
the creativity and capacity of social scientists.
References:
Caracostas and Muldur, Society: The Endless Frontier, European Communities,
Luxembourg, 1998.
Gibbons, Michael et al., The New Mode of Production – The dynamics of science and
research in contemporary societies, Sage, London, 1994.
EU White Paper on Governance, European Communities, Luxembourg, 2001, p.75.
Interdisciplinarity and the Organisation of Knowledge in Europe, ed. by Richard
Cunningham, Euroscientia Conferences, Cambridge, 1997.
Lundvall, B-A. and Johnson, B, “The learning economy”, Journal of Industry Studies,
1, 1994.
Mills, C. Wright, The Sociological Imagination, Oxford University Press, Oxford,
1959.
“National Science Foundation Science and Engineering Report”, Washington DC,
2002.
Open the Social Sciences, Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on Restructuring of
the Social Sciences, Stanford University Press, 1996.
“Science and Society - Action Plan”, European Communities, Luxembourg, 2002,
p.32.
Social Sciences for Knowledge and Decision-Making, OECD, Paris, 2001.
The Social Science Bridge, Ministry of Science and Technology, Lisbon, 1998, p.
208.
“The overall socio-economic dimension of community research in the fifth European
Framework Programme”, European Commission, Brussels, 2003.
“UK Select Committee on Science and Technology – Third Report”,
2000.
World Social Sciences Report, UNESCO, Paris, 1999.
56
Ziman; John, “Human Brickwork in the Social Science Bridge” in The Social Science
Bridge, Ministry of Science and Technology, Lisbon, 1997.
57
Part 4
CONCLUSIONS
58
Chapter 11
FROM OPENING TO RETHINKING THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
By
Luk Van Langenhove
United Nations University Maastricht
Introduction
One might wonder what needs to be ‘re-thought’ or even ‘re-invented’ in the Social
Sciences? Well, in the many debates and discussions I had over the last years on
social sciences, I have heard a lot of disillusion and discontent with the current state
of affairs. Mostly it turns down to the claim that the social sciences are not
contributing enough to improving our understanding of society, let alone to solving
societal problems.
Some blame this situation to the fact that governments have not sufficiently invested
in the social sciences. Others blame social scientists themselves, claiming that they
are not delivering the right goods. Still others point to the state of flux and rapid
change in today’s societies that makes understanding and forecasting ever more
difficult.
In my view (Van Langenhove, 2001) what is needed is a re-thinking movement along
the following four lines:
First, there is a need to re-invent the infrastructural needs. Living in a globalised
world means that national infrastructures will have to be framed into international
infrastructures. Traditional social science developed around the concept of a nationstate and the expression of national culture (Martinotti, 1999). More and more the
social sciences will have to transcend local situations if they want to play a role in
understanding the global world.
Furthermore, the ICT revolution is changing the way in which the social sciences
research is performed and communicated. The Internet provides social sciences
researchers with a lot of opportunities for transdisciplinary collaborations, datasharing and web-based data-archiving. Also the qualitative methods are benefiting
enormously from new computer applications.
Secondly, the public legitimisation of the social sciences needs to be reinvented.
Although it is widely accepted that this legitimisation depends upon two aspects: (i)
the claim of making the world more intelligible and (ii) upon the contribution to
problem-solving and policy-making in society, it seems to be one of the major
problems of the social sciences that they are not sufficiently able to demonstrate
achievements in both fields.
59
Thirdly, the social sciences have up to know divided the ‘complex’ world into
‘simple’ ‘variables’. It was the only way to try to follow the model of the natural
sciences. Today we know the limits of that model (Van Langenhove, 1996) and we
know that within the natural sciences themselves other models are emerging.
Dealing with complexity is possibly the most challenging task before us. It means that
the social sciences will have to be able to investigate the complex social reality at its
different temporal, spatial and aggregation levels.
Fourthly, a re-invention of the disciplinary structures seems a pressing task. While
most research is still done from the vantage point of single disciplines, social
problems are multidisciplinary. As noted by Wallerstein (1998), the disciplinary
boundaries no longer represent obviously different fields of study with different
methods, but the corresponding corporate structures and boundaries are still in place
and very effective in disciplining the practices of research.
Together these four challenges can be interpreted as a plea for change. To be sure, I’m
not the only one making such claims and pleading for changes. The main problem is
however that it looks like that the institutional organisations that embody the social
sciences are not able to engage in such changes themselves. The pressures for not
changing are much bigger. This is why governments have indeed a crucial role to
play. Not only have they an important part of the resources available as a leveragetool, they also are one of the biggest "buyer" of results.
But then of course, governments also need impetuses to change. This is where the
international organisations come in: they can analyse and recommend to Member
Countries feasible means of action that can answer various political concerns.
1.
The Gulbenkian Foundation : Opening the Social Sciences
It is remarkable that throughout the whole history of the social sciences there have
been many dissonant voices that have seriously questioned the practice of the social
sciences. One could expect that this would have provoked a radical change in how
social sciences research is conducted. But the many critical questions about the nature
of the subject of a discipline, about its boundaries, about what is methodologically
correct have on the whole not really changed the mainstream activities of the
academic community. At best it only resulted in excitement or healthy self-reflection.
At worse, it has been experienced as anxiety-provoking and threatening ...
Nevertheless, there seems to be a growing consensus about the deficiencies of the
social sciences and also about the possible remedies. The Gulbenkian Commission
on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences has delivered one of the most interesting
analyses. In Open the social sciences, the Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on
the Rethinking of the Social Sciences (published by Stanford University Press, 1996).
Radical measures were suggested to turn things round: from how to award university
chairs, to setting syllabi and raising funds (Wallerstein, 1996).
Three major issues have been addressed in this report:
60
The first one is that it showed how social science was historically constructed as a
form of knowledge and why it was divided into a specific set of disciplines in a
process that went on between the late eighteenth century and 1945. The second one is
that it revealed the ways in which world developments in the period since 1945 raised
questions about this intellectual division of labour and therefore reopened the issues
of organizational structuring that had been put into place in the previous period.
Thirdly, this report presents possible ways in how the social sciences might be
intelligently restructured in the light of their history and recent debates. In this context
the Gulbenkian commission stated that one way of rethinking the social sciences is
the "expansion of institutions, within or allied to universities, which could bring
together scholars for (...) work in common around specific urgent themes". It was also
stressed that there is a need for establishing integrated research programs that cut
across traditional lines.
2.
The OECD’s work on the Social Sciences : Re-thinking the Social Sciences
The OECD has a long tradition in looking at the Social Sciences. Already in 1966, a
report "The Social Sciences and the policies of governments" was submitted to the
2nd Ministerial Meeting on Science. In 1976, the OECD Committee for Scientific and
Technological Policy examined the social sciences policies of three countries (France,
Finland and Japan). Based on these assessments, a report was published in 1979,
"The Social Sciences in Policy-Making" in which the following recommendations
to Member Countries were made:
o
o
o
o
o
o
That a more flexible and pluralist system of financing research should
be devised;
That the social sciences research system should be developed in a more
balanced way;
That the role of science policy bodies should be broadened so as to
ensure the development and use of the social sciences;
That communication between the government and the scientific
community should be intensified;
That contacts between governmental and non-governmental social
sciences specialists should be stepped up;
That decision-makers should be urged to take account of social
sciences findings.
These recommendations probably are all still valid today. It is also remarkable that
after the 1976 initiative nothing happened within the OECD regarding the social
sciences for more than 20 years. It was only in 1997 that the Belgian delegation in the
CSTP group on the Science System proposed to look once again at the problem and
examine the position of the social sciences in the scientific system in such a way as to
further social sciences research. The Belgian proposal was inspired by the
groundbreaking work of the Gulbenkian Commission. Many other delegations
supported this request and in April 1998 a Workshop on the Social Sciences was held
in Paris that focussed on the problems encountered by Social Sciences disciplines
today and on the ways forward. Amongst the topics discussed at that Seminar were:
61
•
The status of the social sciences:
It was stressed that the social sciences do not enjoy the
same status as that of the natural sciences in the eyes of
both the scientific community and the general public.
This has serious consequences on public funding and
public legitimisation.
•
The influence of the social sciences:
Two conflicting attitudes were observed: those who
stress that the social sciences do not seem to be of much
use in resolving the problems facing society versus
those who think that some social sciences disciplines,
e.g.; economics, or management, do have a
considerable, albeit diffuse, influence.
•
Institutional rigidity and interdisciplinary:
The division or labour between the different social
sciences disciplines and subdisciplines was widely
recognised of being a setback for going more status and
influence. On top of the disciplinary boundaries,
reflected in institutional rigidity, the methodological
discords make that there is a lack of unity in studying
Mankind and Society.
In 1999 the OECD published the proceedings of this workshop under the title "The
Social Sciences at a turning point?” (OECD, 1999). Following the 1998 workshop
the CSTP decided in March 1999 to organise a number of follow-up international
workshops on the social sciences under the general heading of "Re-inventing the
Social Sciences" and I had the privilege to chair the international Steering Group that
co-organised these workshops with respective local organisers.
The first workshop was held in Ottawa in December 1999 and was entitled “The
Social Sciences for a Digital World: Building Infrastructure for the Future”. That
workshop focused on infrastructure and the challenge of digitalisation for the social
sciences (OECD, 2000). The Ottawa workshop tackled issues such as developing
infrastructure investments, disseminating best policy practices, developing new
surveys. It became clear that innovations in the ICT sector are providing exciting new
research opportunities for the social sciences.
The Bruges workshop was held in June 2000 and dealt with “The contribution of the
Social Sciences to Knowledge and Decision Making”. Amongst the topics discussed
were public consultation and decision making, problem-oriented collaboration
between social scientists and policy makers, and quality assessment and dissemination
issues in the use of social science by policy makers (OECD, 2001a). The Bruges
workshop touched upon a set of issues that would appear to provide a new perspective
62
for social sciences research: the social sciences as a process of interactive and
continuous learning.
The Tokyo workshop in December 2000 focussed on “Social Sciences and
Innovation” examined issues related to the contribution that social sciences could
make to technological and social innovations (OECD, 2001b).
A final workshop was held in Lisbon in November 2001. This workshop dealt with
interdisciplinarity and rounded up the previous workshops. A ‘Declaration on
Strengthening the Role of the Social Sciences in Society’ was adopted in Lisbon.
The Lisbon declaration draws upon the conclusion of the five workshops and
addresses the specific issue of the changing demand for social sciences input in
policy-making and the ways by which the gaps between demands and supply can be
bridged.
-
-
-
-
-
Governments, through national science policies for the Social
Sciences, should give recognition to the key role of the Social
Sciences in both the acquisition of knowledge about the Social
realm and in their contributing to all policy-making processes;
the international social science system and international
organisations should emphasise the promotion of excellence and
quality in their actions;
national university teaching systems should reconsider the
practices of social sciences education in order to encourage
interdisciplinarity at postgraduate training while reinforcing
teaching the disciplinary base at undergraduate level;
the social science system should reposition itself vis-à-vis society
and establish an increased connectivity of social sciences to
society. This means that societal groups concerned should be able
to participate in social research. It also means that social scientists
should participate in societal, ethical and other related debates, as
well as in decision-making at institutional and societal level;
international organisations should stimulate global social sciences
programmes or globally focussed efforts of participatory and
transdisciplinary research of great relevance on problems of global
interest.
3. Two Ideas for Strengthening the Generative Power of the Social Sciences
The natural sciences have not only contributed to solving many practical problems,
but also made it possible that lay-people can understand many aspects of the material
world they live in. In a similar way, the social sciences should contribute to the
general understanding of our societies by all those who are part of it. Kenneth Gergen
has once called this the generative power of the social sciences: the power of theories
to “unset the common assumptions within the culture and thereby open new vistas for
action” (Gergen, 1982: 133). Or in other words: “the capacity to challenge the
guiding assumptions of the culture, to raise fundamental questions regarding
contemporary social life, to foster reconsideration of that which is ‘taken for granted’,
and thereby to furnish alternatives for social action” (Gergen, 1978: 1346).
63
In my view (cf. Van Langenhove, 2001), the social sciences lack to a great extent
such generative power. The reasons for that are multiple, but I see four main reasons:
(i)
the disciplinary divide;
(ii)
the influence of positivism;
(iii) the lack of adequate financing and
the gap between the social sciences community and the communities of practitioners
and decision-makers.
In the context of the OECD work on re-thinking the social sciences (OECD, 1999;
OECD, 2000; OECD, 2001a; OECD, 2001b), I have advocated a radical restructuring
of the social sciences. I have claimed that social policy research needs to re-invent its
infrastructure needs, re-invent its public legitimacy, learn to deal with complexity, and
re-invent its disciplinary structures.
Here, I would like to broaden this perspective with some ideas about the ontological
and epistemological basis of the social sciences. In my view, it is positivism that
blocks the social sciences from having more generative power (cf. Van Langenhove,
1995). Hence, the quest for a non-positivist approach of the Social Sciences that
keeps the highest standards of methodological soundness and quality control. All to
often, anti-positivism has been wrongly equated to post-modernism…
IDEA ONE: WE NEED A NEW ONTOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL
SCIENCES
In everyday life, as in science, thinking about the world presupposes the usage of a
referential grid that serves as an ontological basis. Within the physical sciences the
referential grid in use has long been the perceived material world consisting of
material objects that are located in space and evolve in time, interrelated by influences
propagated from one to another. With the emergence of the physical sciences in the
eighteenth century, scientists have tried to explain the world by setting up
experiments and by developing theories. As such, the perceived material world
became to a large extent understandable in terms of causal interactions between
observable material entities. The key elements in this process of understanding (and
predicting) material processes were the Euclidean conception of space, the Newtonian
view of movement and the Human model causality. Together these three theoretical
frameworks constitute the ontological referential grid of the classical natural sciences.
The Newtonian-Euclidean worldview is largely in concordance with how people
perceive and experience the everyday world.
When the social sciences emerged as separate academic disciplines, they implicitly
adopted this ontological grid when adhering to Newtonian experimental methodology.
This implied an epistemology of the psychological and the social in three realms: an
observable Realm 1 (mainly behaviour); a Realm 2 that could be observed with the
help of ‘psychological instruments’ such as tests (for example, an attitude); and an
unobservable Realm 3 that includes concepts such as mind and self. But today one
can argue that there is no logical need to apply the Newtonian-Euclidean grid as a
model for a social world grid. Moreover, it can even be argued that on the whole the
64
referential grid of the classical natural sciences is simply inadequate for the social
sciences from an epistemological point of view.
Although there have always been many epistemological differences amongst social
scientists, there does seem to be a relative ontological consensus about what the
relevant social entities are that make up the subject matter of the social sciences, the
‘substances’ of the social world, so to speak. In the standard ontology, three different
levels of societal phenomena are usually considered : people, institutions and
societies. People tend to be treated as complex, causally interacting ‘things’;
institutions as groupings of people; and societies as higher-order aggregates of people
or groups. As thing-like substances, each of these can be located in the NewtonianEuclidean space/time grid of the natural world, just like natural entities and
phenomena. This seems so obvious that it hardly receives any attention. However,
by locating social phenomena within a natural world location grid, the door is opened
for the imperceptible transposing of properties of the natural world to the social realm.
Rom Harré (1983) is one of the first to have convincingly argued for the use of a
specific grid in order to locate and understand social and psychological phenomena.
His alternative consists of a person/conversations referential grid in which speech acts
are metaphorically treated as the ‘matter’ of social reality. Thus, while the natural
world Umwelt is perceived as consisting of things located in time and space, the social
world Umwelt is in this view treated as consisting of speech acts located in persons
and conversations. People, institutions and societies can thus always be situated
simultaneously in two referential grids: the space/time grid and the
persons/conversations grid. Persons are in this view pictured as the locations for
social acts. As a ‘space’ (a set of possible and actual locations), the array of persons
is not necessarily Euclidean. The grid of temporal locations, the time-aspect of
human life, is also subject to changes. The distinction between past, present and
future does not map neatly onto psychological time partly because the social and
psychological past is not fixed. The social future can influence the social past. The
occurrences of acts are the moments of social time. Speech acts can be located in
persons and institutions and in the course of conversations. Persons, institutions and
conversations all have their natural grid correlate: persons and institutions exist as
material entities that evolve in space and time. Conversations have a material
substance too, but unless recorded, they only have a passing existence in time; there is
no spatial correlate of conversations.
If social scientists would put the persons/conversations grid first, a total new approach
of doing social sciences research emerges: one in which the framework of analysis is
much closer to the everyday-life grid.
IDEA TWO: WE NEED A PARTICIPATIVE APPROACH TO SOCIAL
SCIENCES RESEARCH
“Participatory methods” is an umbrella term, which describes interactive approaches
that actively involve a range of stakeholders, ranging from decision-makers to
laypersons. The rationale for participative social sciences research can be explained
against the background of two questions:
65
! From whose perspective is research performed?
! How can social science research influence decision-making?
The first question has to do with the values of the initiator, which are of primary
importance in defining a research issue that are of primary importance when initiating
research. Who determines this and on what grounds?
While, in the case of basic research, it is mainly the researchers themselves who
decide what to study, in applied research it is the body that commissions and/or pays
for the research. For instance, an academic sociologist or a government can decide to
initiate a research project on inter-group relations between immigrants and nonimmigrants. Seldom, if ever, are the immigrants and non-immigrants implicated in
that decision and, in the majority of cases, their role in the research process will be
limited to passively responding to actions. Most will never even see the results. At
best, the research results might influence a development path because they will be
used in making decisions on, for example, how to improve inter-group relations in a
community.
In the case of participative social science research, the people involved will have an
active say in i) defining research goals; ii) conducting the research; iii) interpreting
the results; and iv) translating them into development paths. Such an approach to
social sciences takes as its starting point a community of enquiry that uses theoretical
and methodological expertise to influence the process of change.
In the view of some academics, this perspective may seem utopian since it ignores the
distinction between experts and laypersons. I think that that is wrong because such
working methods are already common in some disciplines, for instance psychological
research (Reason and Heron, 1996) and in certain practises such as management
performance audits in organisations (Argyris and Schön, 1974). There is no reason
why it could not work for other societal issues.
In my view, this also means that we need more non-linear transfers of social science
knowledge. The problem is, of course, how relationships between “producers” and
“consumers” can be organised in a non-linear way? Here I think we should refer to
the concept of learning organisations. What is needed are new means of organising
scientific research in such a way that researchers, together with all the stakeholders
involved in the problems under study, can engage in an individual and collective
learning process. Such new organisational forms of research not only involve the
handling of large amounts of data, but also require a continuous monitoring and
steering of the communication processes between scientists, policy makers and the
general public. Information Highways can certainly play a facilitating role in such
enterprises, but I consider it totally wrong to believe that technological tools will
suffice. Such a view, once again, treats the people who act as decision-makers as
passive “users” of scientific information. Dealing with societal problems involves
much more than scientific information: at the end of the day, choices are always
ethical and political and have to be framed in the dynamics of the social interactions
in which they occur (Harré and Van Langenhove, 1998). Thus, the issue of managing
social science information as a contribution to the resolution of societal problems is
far from simple – as a matter of fact, it too needs to be studied. New forms of
managing such information within our complex democracies are needed and, once
again, increasing societal learning seems to me to be the crucial challenge. I believe
66
that this can only be achieved by paying greater attention to knowledge brokering in
social sciences. Today, the function of social science knowledge-brokerage hardly
exists as it is considered that part of the task of social scientists is to collect all
relevant material and organise the dissemination of results. Maybe what is needed is
a new division of labour, where social scientists are active at a local level and are
assisted by knowledge-brokers who link “local” research with globally available
information. Surely, today one can find a great deal of information on any subject
whatsoever in books, journals and on the Web. But easy access to the Web should
not make us think that social scientists can therefore easily frame their (local) work in
the global context: the abundantly available information needs to be translated into
knowledge. Also, whatever the results of a given local research project, they need to
be actively channelled into those places where they can be use and, in the first place,
into organisational learning processes.
4. Conclusions
My position is that we need a double paradigm - shift in the social sciences: a
paradigm-shift from publication-driven research towards change driven research and a
paradigm-shift from disciplinary-driven research agenda’s towards research driven by
problems and their driving forces. Such a double paradigm-shift, which should not
loose out of sight the strictest quality control, can in turn only be realised if there is a
shift in science policy (Van Langenhove, 2001).
The social sciences have to be able to generate knowledge that can be of relevance for
all those who want to change a given situation. As such social sciences research
should try to bring together researchers with those who play a role in the phenomena
researched and those who are in a position to make decisions about the phenomena
studies. But social sciences cannot claim to act as a change agent ‘on behalf’ of the
rest of society: social scientists have to work together with industry, governments and
civil society.
The key issues are thus: empowerment through social sciences and participative
research that includes all stakeholders involved. Also it has to be acknowledged that
there is no point in breaking up the complex societal issues and their interrelations
into simple disciplinary issues.
My personal position is that indeed a radical rethinking of the social sciences is
needed. International organisations can play an interesting role in such a process by
making governments aware of the problems in their national social science systems
and by stimulating the development of new approaches.
The institutional
organization of the social sciences will be a major obstacle in changing the social
sciences. Governments can intervene in using the available public money to stimulate
new transdisciplinary initiatives. But also, governments could set the example by
using innovative social sciences research projects as much as possible in their own
functioning.
The next step should be the establishment of a broad and inclusive global coalition for
the Social Sciences in the 21st century. Such a coalition should put pressure on
national social sciences systems to create the conditions that should allow the social
67
sciences to have more generative power for advancing towards the goals of
sustainable development, human security and welfare and democratic governance.
Currently there exists no equivalent mechanism, which is very much needed. Also,
this coalition could be concerned in strengthening the social sciences infrastructures
in transition and developing countries. But, the social sciences also need to continue
its critical self-reflection and its quest to be innovative. For this we do not only need
policy-oriented research but also interdisciplinary oriented basic research.
References:
Argyris, C. (1980). Inner Contradictions of Rigorous Research, Academic Press, New
York.
Gergen, K. (1978). “Towards Generative Theory”, in Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 36, pp. 1344-1360.
Gergen, K. (1982). Towards Information in Social Knowledge, Sage, London.
Harré, R. (1983). Personal Being : A Theory for Individual Psychology, Basil
Blackwell, Oxford.
Harré, R. & L. Van Langenhove (1998). “The Dynamics of Social Episodes”, in R.
Harré & L. Van Langenhove (eds.), Positioning Theory. Moral Contexts of
Intentional Action, Basil Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.
Lengyel, P. (1986). International Social Science : the UNESCO experience. New
Brunswick, N.J. : Transaction Books.
Martinotti, G. (1999). “The Recovery of Western European Social Sciences since
1945”, in A. Kazancigil and D. Makinson (eds.), World Social Science Report 1999,
UNESCO Publishing and Elsevier, Paris.
OECD (1999). The Social Sciences at a Turning point? Paris: OECD.
OECD (2000).Social Sciences for a Digital World. Building infrastructure and
databases for the future. Paris: OECD.
OECD (2001a). Social Sciences for Knowledge and Decision Making. Paris: OECD.
OECD (2001b). Social Sciences and Innovation. Paris: OECD.
Van Langenhove, L. (1995). “The Theoretical Foundations of Experimental
Psychology and its Alternatives”, in J.A. Smith & L. Van Langenhove, Rethinking
Psychology, Sage Publications, London.
Van Langenhove, L. (1996). The Theoretical Foundations of Experimental
Psychology. In : Smith, J., Harré, R. and Van Langenhove, L. (Eds.). Rethinking
Psychology. London : Sage.
68
Van Langenhove, L. (2001). Rethinking the Social Sciences? A point of view,
Foundations of Sciences, 5, 103-118.
Wallerstein, I. et. al. (1996). Open the social sciences-Report of the Gulbenkian
Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences. Stanford : Stanford
University Press.
Wallerstein, I. (1998). Differentiation and Reconstruction in the Social Sciences.
Paper presented at ISA Research Council, Montreal, Aug. 6.
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Chapter 12
LISBON DECLARATION – SOCIAL SCIENCES: A NEW PARTNERSHIP
Adopted on 8 November 2001
Today’s world is characterised by rapid and profound changes at all levels of
geographical scale from global to local. We live in a fascinating phase in world
history with major challenges to both social scientists and policy-makers. Social
science knowledge is a powerful resource for understanding and coping with the
growing complexities, uncertainties and risks in our world. Governments, as well as
social and economic actors, should therefore make a more systematic and extensive
use of social science as a source of expertise on societal issues as well as of citizens’
participation in governance.
This requires a thorough re-assessment by both social scientists and decision-makers
of the ways in which the social sciences may contribute to public policies. In
particular, attention is to be focussed more than ever on combining autonomous
curiosity-driven approaches with more directly policy relevant ones. There is also a
need to reconsider current balances between:
• publication-driven and change-driven approaches;
• a primarily discipline-oriented approach and an orientation focusing on
problems and major driving forces that change society;
• nationally focussed and internationally or globally developed activities.
In this perspective, the social sciences should make every effort to further:
• open up to society and to other knowledge fields in humanities, natural and
life sciences;
• strengthen their capacities for interdisciplinary, international and global
cooperation;
• foster quality assessment in terms of both academic and policy-oriented output
and develop innovative new forms of such assessment that further
interdisciplinary cooperation.
For social sciences to achieve such objectives, a major condition is their intellectual
and professional autonomy, as well as their capacity to articulate policy-relevant work
with a reflexive and critical dimension. They should also place an emphasis on their
increased connectivity to society and its actors and should not avoid working with
them. The Communities and societal groups concerned in an issue should be able to
participate in social research. In addition social scientists need to participate more
than ever in public debates on societal, ethical and related issues, as well as in
decision-making at various levels. In this respect, there is a growing need for the use
of participatory research methods and well-designed public involvement processes.
70
The actors of the social sciences system are called upon to take the following steps:
•
Social scientists are urged to put greater emphasis on breakthroughs in Social
Science theory and practice, to set up evaluation systems that support longterm autonomous research as well as short-term demand-driven research. They
should open up for true internationalisation, involving views and insights from
other parts of the world that currently are not participating in the development
of social sciences and the knowledge generated by them. Next to their
scientific work, social scientists should pay continuous attention to ethical and
normative issues that have a bearing on their profession, such as pro-actively
contributing to narrowing the North-South and West-East gaps in social
sciences infrastructures and facilities, and such as striving towards eliminating
social and gender inequalities. They should also foster multilinguism in Social
Sciences, as this is a condition for their universality.
•
Universities should reconsider the practices and organisation of their social
science departments in order to encourage and reward inter-disciplinarity in
their postgraduate training and research, while reinforcing teaching the
disciplinary base at undergraduate level. Deliberately stimulating processes of
recognition and self-organization might be an effective tool to achieve this.
•
Governments, through their national science policies, should give adequate
resources and due recognition to the key role the Social Sciences have to play
in the acquisition of knowledge and understanding of society and social
change and in contributing to all policy-making processes. They should
introduce education in Social Sciences in pre-university teaching in order to
make them part of all citizens’ culture, in part by strengthening the social
science contributions in existing school subjects like economy, law, history
and geography.
•
International governmental and non-governmental organisations, including
foundations, should stimulate international and global Social Sciences
programmes, including participatory and transdisciplinary research on
problems of global interest. The further internationalisation of the Social
Sciences is a necessity!
71
Annex
RE-INVENTING THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
List of Participants
Austria
Menasse-Wiesbauer, Elisabeth
Ministry of Science
Belgium
Burgelman, Jean Claude
IPTS, Free University of Brussels
Canada
Bouchard, Louise
University of Ottawa
Renaud, Marc
SCH Research Council
Denmark
Eyerman, Ron
University of Copenhagen
Finland
Ervelä-Myréen, Eili
Academy of Finland
Vuorinen, Pentti
Ministry of Trade
France
Boiteux, Martine
Ministry of Research
Dupuy, Jean Pierre
Ecole Polytechnique
Vaicbourdt, Nicolas
Counsellor for University Co-operation at the French
Embassy to Portugal
Germany
Joas, Hans
Free University of Berlin
72
Kocka, Jürgen
Social Sciences Research Centre
Pawlik, Kurt
University of Hamburg
Israel
Herzob, Hanna
Tel Aviv University
Japan
Takeishi, Akira
Hitotsubashi University
Yokenura, Seiichiro
Hitotsubashi University
Mexico
Azuela, Antonio
Universidad Autonoma do Mexico
Portugal
de Abreu, Trigo
ICCTI
Alves, Teresa
CEG
Amancio, Ligia
ISCTE
Arriscado Nunes, Joao
Universidade de Coimbra
Barbosa, Antonio Manuel
New University of Lisbon
Barreto, Antonio
Instituto de Ciências Sociais
Bonfim, José
ICCTI
Campos Guimaraes, Rui
Universidade do Porto
Caraça, Joao
Gulbenkian Foundation
73
Cardoso, José Luis
Technical University of Lisbon
Carvalho, Luis Francesco
ISCTE
Carvalho Ferreira, José Maria
Technical University of Lisbon
Castro, Alberto
Catholic University of Portugal
Castro Caldas, José Maria
ISCTE
Correira Jesuino, Jorge
ISCTE
Costa Pinto, Antonio
Instituto de Ciências Sociais
Cruzeiro, Eduarda
Instituto de Ciências Sociais
Dias, Olga
ICCTI
Esteves Pereira, José
New University of Lisbon
Faisca, Ana Maria
ICCTI
Ferreira de Almeda, Joao
ISCTE
Firmino da Costa, Antonio
ISCTE
Fortuna, Carlos
Universidade de Coimbra
Freire, Joao
ISCTE
Gaspar, Jorge
University of Lisbon
Godinho, Mira
Technical University of Lisbon
74
Gonçalves, Eduarda
ISCTE
Henriques, Luisa
ICCTI
Hespanha, Antonio
Instituto de Ciências Sociais
Kovaks, Ilona
Technical University of Lisbon
Lourenço, Nelson
New University of Lisbon
Machado Ferraro, Joao
Instituto de Ciências Sociais
Madureira Pinto, José
Universidade do Porto
Miranda, José David
ISCTE
Moura, Francisca
Gulbenkian Foundation
Nunes Almeida, Ana
Instituto de Ciências Sociais
Oliveira Ramos, Luis Antonio
Universidade do Porto
Oliveira Valério, Nuno Joao
Technical University of Lisbon
Pais Mamede, Ricardo
ISCTE
Palmeirim, Manuela
Universidade do Minho
Paquete de Oliveira, José
ISCTE
Patricio, Teresa
ICCTI
75
Pina Cabral, Joao
Instituto de Ciências Sociais
Pinto Coelho Aguiar, Alvaro
Universidade do Porto
Reis Torgal, Luis
Universidade de Coimbra
Rodrigues, Joao
ISCTE
Rodrigues, Maria Joao
Special Adiser to the Prime Minister
Rosas, Fernando
New University of Lisbon
Santos Pereira, Tiago
ICCTI
Silva, Manuel Carlos
Universidade do Minho
Soares da Cunha, Mafalda
Universidade de Evora
Sousa Borges Santos, Vasco
New University of Lisbon
Souto Sepulveda, Fernanda
ICCTI
Teixeira Fernandes, Antonio
Universidade do Porto
Vale, Jorge
Instituto de Ciências Sociais
Villaverde Cabral, Manuel
Instituto de Ciências Sociais
South Africa
Orkin, Mark
Human Sciences Research Council
Sweden
Therborn, Göran
The Swedish College for Advanced Study
76
Wallstén, Margit
Foreign Ministry
United States
Bradburn, Norman
NSF
Wallerstein, Immanuel
Binghamton University
European
Commission
Mitsos, Achilleas
DG Research
Sors, Andrew
DG Research
European
Science
Foundation
Banda, Enric
Secretary General
OECD
Maass, Gudrun
Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry
Oborne, Michael
Director, Advisory Unit on Multi-disciplinary Affairs
UNESCO
Kazancigil, Ali
MOST Programme
Kosinski, Leszek
ISSC
United
Nations
University
Van Ginkel, Hans
UNU Tokyo
Van Langenhove, Luk
UNU Maastricht
World Bank
Aubert, Jean Eric
77