Suchergebnisse

SOCIAL SCIENCE DOES NOT PRIMARILY PROVIDE WELL-DEFINED INPUTS INTO SMOOTH DECISION AND PROGRAMMING PROCESSES. NOR IS ITS ROLE LIMITED TO SERVING AS A DISTANT DISCOURSE FOR THE TRAINING OF PROFESSIONALS TO OPERATE THE APPARATUS OF MODERN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ADMINISTRATION. RATHER, IT IS THE PRE-EMINENT FORM OF INSTITUTIONALLY BASED AND DISCURSIVELY REPRODUCED INQUIRY ABOUT SOCIETAL PHENOMENA. IT EMERGED AND EVOLVED IN CLOSE INTERACTION WITH THE EVOLUTION OF THE MODERN STATE AND OF THE SECULAR TRANSFORMATION OF EUROPEAN SOCIETIES FROM PRE-INDUSTRIAL TO INDUSTRIAL, FROM RURAL TO URBAN, FROM TRADITIONAL TO MODERN. THUS, SOCIAL SCIENCE IS THE DISCURSIVE CONCOMITANT TO THE VAST INCREASE IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND COMMUNICATIVE CAPACITIES THAT CHARACTERIZED THE NEW TYPE OF STATE FORMATION OF LATE NINETEENTH-AND EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA.

Argues that social science is largely a phenomenon of the late nineteenth /early twentieth century. It reflects concerns of the new industrial and urban civilization rapidly changing living and working conditions. This transformation to 'modernity' forced the 'social question' into the political arena. (AFH)

Since the early 1970s, policy scholars have paid great attention to issues of policy implementation, treating it as the 'missing link' between policy formulation and results. Drawing upon examples from Swedish energy policy, argues that political and social conditions are so prone to change that implementation must be a dynamic process if it is to be effective. This has distinct conceptual and practical implications for the study and design of policy implementation. (Abstract amended)