"Selling Out" and the Sociology of Knowledge

In: Policy sciences: integrating knowledge and practice to advance human dignity ; the journal of the Society of Policy Scientists, Band 2, Heft 3, S. 271-277

Abstract

Personal experience suggests that it is a great oversimplification to assume that those analysts or sci'ts who work on gov sponsored contracts are forced by their personal econ & power interests to make their work conform to the ideology of the military-industr establishment. The belief is expressed here that many enter gov sponsored res programs in order to influence the more hard-line militarists with liberal-minded ideals. The SofK on which this self-interest assumption lies must be supplemented by a culturology of knowledge. In terms of the latter, an important obstacle to good policy analysis for gov comes from the fact that most analysts are heavily influenced by a rather narrow academic & intellectual subculture that makes it difficult for them to understand with sufficient balance the problems that face decisionmakers in the real world. Modified HA.