Social Sciences and Modern States: National Experiences and Theoretical Crossroads

by Edited by Peter Wagner , Carol Hirschon Weiss , Björn Wittrock , Hellmut Wollman

• ISBN13: 9780521064040
• ISBN10: 052106404X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-06-05
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Modern social sciences have been committed to the improvement of public policy. However, doubts have arisen about the possibility and desirability of a policy-oriented social science. In this book, leading specialists in the field analyse both the development and failings of policy-oriented social science. In contrast to other writings on the subject, this volume presents a distinctively historical and comparative approach. By looking at earlier periods, the contributors demonstrate how policy orientation has been central to the emergence and evolution of the social sciences as a form of professional activity. Case studies of rarely examined societies such as Poland, Brazil and Japan further demonstrate the various ways in which intellectual developments have been shaped by the societal contexts in which they have emerged and how they have taken part in the shaping of these societies.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Notes on contributors

National Experiences in Comparative Perspective

The policy orientation: legacy and promise

Social science and the modern state: policy knowledge and political institutions in Western Europe and the United States

Political events and the policy sciences

From policy analysis to political management: An outside look at public-policy training in the United States

Networks of influence: the social sciences in the United Kingdom since the war

National contexts for the development of social-policy research: British and American research on poverty and social welfare compared

Political culture and the policy orientation in Dutch social science

Arenas of interaction: social science and public policy in Switzerland

The influence of social sciences on political decisions in Poland

The impact of social sciences on the process of development in Japan

Changing roles of new knowledge: research institutions and societal transformations in Brazil

Policy Sciences at the Crossroads

Frame-reflective policy discourse

Research programmes and action programmes, or can policy research learn from the philosophy of science?

Policy research: data, ideas, or arguments?

Social knowledge and public policy: eight models of interaction

Epilogue

Summing up: social sciences and modern states

Index

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