As originally proposed by Harold Lasswell, the policy sciences were dedicated to democratic governance. But today they are far removed from the democratic process and do little to promote the American democratic system. This book examines how in the context of American history and the development of the policy sciences, a more democratic, participatory policy analysis could be conceptualized in theory and administered in practice. Peter deLeon argues that for the policy sciences to move toward democracy, they must accept a new analytic paradigm that draws heavily on critical thinking and the writing of post-positivism. To further that end, he presents a "minipopulist" procedure that will allow more citizen participation without hamstringing the processes of government.
This forward-thinking book examines the future of public policy as a discipline, both as it is taught and as it is practiced. Critically assessing the limits of current theories and approaches, leading scholars in the field highlight new models and perspectives.
The role of science in policymaking has gained unprecedented stature in the United States, raising questions about the place of science and scientific expertise in the democratic process. Some scientists have been given considerable epistemic authority in shaping policy on issues of great moral and cultural significance, and the politicizing of these issues has become highly contentious. Since World War II, most philosophers of science have purported the concept that science should be "value-free." In Science, Policy and the Value-Free Ideal, Heather E. Douglas argues that such an ideal is neither adequate nor desirable for science. She contends that the moral responsibilities of scientists require the consideration of values even at the heart of science. She lobbies for a new ideal in which values serve an essential function throughout scientific inquiry, but where the role values play is constrained at key points, thus protecting the integrity and objectivity of science. In this vein, Douglas outlines a system for the application of values to guide scientists through points of uncertainty fraught with moral valence.Following a philosophical analysis of the historical background of science advising and the value-free ideal, Douglas defines how values should-and should not-function in science. She discusses the distinctive direct and indirect roles for values in reasoning, and outlines seven senses of objectivity, showing how each can be employed to determine the reliability of scientific claims. Douglas then uses these philosophical insights to clarify the distinction between junk science and sound science to be used in policymaking. In conclusion, she calls for greater openness on the values utilized in policymaking, and more public participation in the policymaking process, by suggesting various models for effective use of both the public and experts in key risk assessments.
The purpose of this book is to examine how ideology operates--in the sense of influencing the conduct of inquiry--in the policy sciences, defined as economics, political science, and sociology. The author seeks to identify the main ideologies and show how each ideology produces a preference for certain problems, methods, and hypotheses; how it sensitizes scientists to certain phenomena and suggests certain interpretations of those phenomena; and how it closes off other phenomena and concepts from investigation and testing, or at least distorts that investigation. In this book, Diesing critically examines all the major schools of policy-related social thought from 1930 to 1975. He deals with Neoclassical Economics and its various applications, the Keynesians, the Systems Approach, the Schumpeter perspective, the Critical Intellectuals, the Pluralists, the J. K. Galbraith School, New Left Marxism, and the Ecological Paradigm of Schumacher and others. The world looks different if your perspective is that of a rational small businessman working in a society of hypothetical perfect competition, as opposed to that of a proletarian, looking up at your oppressors. Part One is descriptive and evaluative, considering each ideology in turn; Part Two considers the policy implications. "In 1982, Diesing published a remarkable book entitled Science and Ideology in the Policy Sciences. When I interviewed Diesing in Buffalo in the summer of 1984, he told me that to date, the publication had been reviewed in only two professional journals. I was astounded. Science & Ideology...was the best book I had read in a decade, and it related directly to all the policy sciences. The lack of professional response may partially reflect Diesing's disinterest in self-promotion, but beyond this is the 'community' problem. Scholars are recognized within disciplines, but there is only a tiny 'community of social science'. I consider this to be the most brilliant of Diesing's books. Like all of Diesing's works, it remains highly relevant today."--from the introduction by Richard Hartwig.
Textbook on an interdisciplinary research and systems analysis approach to government policy formulation and decision making - examines the inadequacy of contemporary behavioural sciences and scientific management, the need for a fusion between pure and applied research, etc., and concludes that the advancement of policy sciences is necessary even for handling the routine problems of everyday policymaking. Bibliography pp. 143 to 149.
The International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), an international think tank established jointly by the United States and Soviet Union in Austria in 1972, was intended to advance scientific collaboration. Until the late 1980s, the IIASA was one of the very few permanent sites where policy scientists from both sides of the Iron Curtain could work together to articulate and solve world problems, most notably global climate change. One of the best-kept secrets of the Cold War, this think tank was a rare zone of freedom, communication, and negotiation, where leading Soviet scientists could try out their innovative ideas, benefit from access to Western literature, and develop social networks, thus paving the way for some of the key science and policy breakthroughs of the twentieth century.
Policy analysis, as a practical matter, is hardly new. Throughout history, rulers have sought advice from priests or sages, and monarchs have conferred with counselors. The emergence of empirical social research in the nineteenth century laid the groundwork for policy advice that was more than an idiosyncratic political exercise, but it was not until well into this century that the systematic examination of policy issues became feasible. Advice and Consent traces the recent course of the "policy sciences," a term coined in 1951 to describe an analytic approach that draws on political science, sociology, law, economics, psychology, and operations research to examine specific social problems in context. Peter deLeon's unique contribution is to delineate two separate but related currents in the development of the policy sciences: first, the evolution of intellectual tools for analysis ("advice"); and second, the evolution of a perceived need for policy research as prompted by events such as the war on poverty ("consent"). Peter deLeon's concise and literate account of how these two trends shaped the policy sciences and affected each other clarifies the present state of policy research, explores its failure to realize fully its ideals, and frames the challenges facing the policy sciences as they struggle to complete their transformation from academic fancy to institutional fact.
Harold D. Lasswell is arguably the quintessential face of political science to the larger public of the past century. However, there is a side to Lasswell less well known, but of special importance in this day and age: the place of the profession of politics as an academic activity. This book, written at the start of the culture wars thirty years ago, outlines the basic core position of political science practitioners. It helps to explain why the field kept its collective cool, when other social science professionals veered to more extreme activist positions.The Future of Political Science grew out of the phenomenally rapid expansion of the study of government in the United States and elsewhere. The study of professionalism among physical scientists, lawyers, engineers, etc. was not matched by such internal examination within the social sciences until much later. Lasswell's overview centered on developments in the United States. There unfettered study of government reached unprecedented heights in the final stage of the twentieth century. The key concept of this volume, one that continues to inform discourse, is the relationship of political science as a mechanism for the study and teaching of the political system to the field as a tool of the Establishment. This concern grew in the wake of a variety of scandals and secret support sponsored by both government and non-government organizations alike.The Future of Political Science covers areas ranging from membership size and disparities, intervention scenarios in world events, the nature of creativity in political research collaboration in projects with the other social sciences, and the location of scientific centers of gravity in the study of politics. Because of Lasswell's works we have a field of the political science of knowledge as well as the sociology of knowledge.Harold D. Lasswell served as Ford Foundation Professor of the Social Sciences at Yale University, Distinguished Professor of Policy Sciences at Joh
