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UNESCO has frequently been criticized for not having devoted enough of its efforts and resources to the social sciences. To some extent, such criticism may appear justified (and not to social scientists alone), and it provides little comfort to know that UNESCO is, in this respect, by no means unique, but reflects orthodox patterns and attitudes in relation to the social sciences. However, its work In this field is hampered ab initio by two serious obstacles which do not prevail to the same degree in other scientific disciplines. In the first place, there is the lack of international associations of social scientists. UNESCO is not a university or research center which aims primarily at the advancement of the frontiers of human knowledge, but is, rather, a clearing house whose main purpose is to make available already existing knowledge for socially and internationally useful purposes. UNESCO can, and does, perform a significant function by planning projects which cannot be carried out by a single country, but depend on the working together of scientists from many parts of the world; such projects, desirable as they may be, cannot be easily realized in those areas of learning, however, in which, as in the social sciences, no—or no effective—international professional organizations exist. Much of the actual research and writing in an internationally planned enterprise has to be "farmed out" to individual institutions and persons in various countries, and the absence of representative international social science associations has constituted a serious obstacle to the implementation of UNESCO programs.

Address before the Academy of political science, New York, Apr. 11, 1933.

Field experimentation enables researchers to draw unbiased & externally valid causal inferences about social processes. Despite these strengths, field experimentation is seldom used in political science, which relies instead on observational studies & laboratory experiments. This article contends that political scientists underestimate the value of field experimentation & overestimate their ability to draw secure causal inferences from other types of data. After reviewing the history of experimentation in the discipline, the authors discuss the advantages & disadvantages of field experimental methods. They conclude by describing a number of research topics that seem amenable to experimental inquiry. [Copyright 2003 Sage Publications, Inc.]

Description based on: Vol. 603 (winter 2006). ; Imprint varies. ; Supplements accompany some issues. ; Mode of access: Internet.

Little attention has been devoted in this country to political areas and their relationship to each other. Not much is to be gained from a theoretical discussion of this subject, and this article is based upon a detailed study of conditions in Illinois. Similar problems present themselves in every state, although the details vary in different parts of the country, and the effort is made here to bring out the general issues involved, using the conditions in a single state as the basis for discussion.Attention should at the outset be called to the fact that the situation is complicated by the fact that this state has but one great city. The position of Chicago and Cook County constitutes one of the serious political problems in connection with reorganization of state and local government.

The past twenty years have seen considerable shifts and struggles in 'government science' - that is, in the way the state funds, supports, regulates, conducts and uses scientific and technological activity. Focusing on federal labs and agencies, Strategic Science in the Public Interest explores how these labs have been located within, and often buried by, the larger commercially-focused federal innovation agenda. G. Bruce Doern and Jeffrey S. Kinder examine four labs whose mandates deal with the Alberta oil sands, environmental technologies, wildlife research, and mining and metals, respectively. The authors use these cases to explain why a better middle-level approach to analysis is needed for strategic public interest-centred government science. They illustrate the importance of understanding the variety, as well as the similarity, of federal science and technology labs and agencies, and of instituting policies that reflect this diversity. The growing importance of Related Science Activities (RSA) is also explored, as well as the core trade-offs between commercial and public goods science in their mandates and their internal capacities.