Social Science and the Sources of Policy: 1951–1970

In: PS, Band 3, Heft 3, S. 294-310

Abstract

"… [T]here is no necessary conflict among these three desires of the American social scientist: to be a scientist like physical and biological scientists, to provide useful technical services, and to be significant at the level of policy. The chapters of this symposium are intended to illustrate their compatibility."This statement indicates a major theme of The Policy Sciences – a volume that marked, as of 1951, the aspirations of a group of leading American social scientists for the policy applications of their disciplines. The harmony of goals that it suggests is no longer evident today.The possible incompatibilities among the goals of pure science, applied science, and policy can be seen by examining The Policy Sciences in two decades' perspective. They are of three major kinds:1. To provide intelligent advice on practical problems, the social science disciplines need to include systematic valuative discourse in a way that natural science does not.2. Applied social science (like applied science generally) differs from pure natural science in stressing valuative dependent variables that may not be closely related to the conceptual schemes of pure science, and independent variables related to alternative choices open to the actor.3. Different roles and channels of influence are appropriate for pure and applied science; and for applied social science in democratic regimes, participation and consent on the part of those influenced are of vital significance.