Suchergebnisse

Much criticism of area studies has come from social scientists, some of whom consider area studies to be "soft," emphasizing description and culture, while social science is "hard," emphasizing mathematics, rigor, and replicability. Loren Graham, an area studies specialist, and Jean-Michel Kantor, a mathematician, maintain that this contrast is simplistic and undervalues area studies. They show that an area studies approach can help understand, not only society, but mathematics and quantitative approaches themselves. They use an area studies approach to help explain developments in set theory and relativity theory and call for a resurgence of area studies, for both intellectual and political reasons. At the same time, they do not undervalue social science, and celebrate its achievements. As they argue, a sophisticated understanding of social reality will require multiple approaches, including both social science and area studies.

Social science studies of the commons are characterized by two relatively clear-cut theoretical traditions, here labelled 'the tragedy of the commons' and 'co-operative action theory'. These differ substantially both in their basic assumptions and epistemological prescriptions; or 'hard cores' and 'protective belts', to use Lakatos's (1974) tools for evaluating scientific research programmes. It is suggested that 'the tragedy of the commons' tradition scores higher on Lakatos's criterion of coherence, whereas 'co-operative action theory' has been more successful in the production of novel empirical findings. Furthermore, the contrasting effect between the two traditions is believed to have contributed to an overall growth of knowledge within the field of study.