Building Policy-Related Technical Communities

Abstract

The development of valid and useful social science requires social structures different from those of basic disciplines and departments. One such structure is a "technical community"; whereas a basic scientific community ideally looks only to its own members for definitions of problems, a technical community also looks to laymen. In planning to build or strengthen policy-related technical communities, we must systematically examine various aspects in which they differfrom scientific communities and may vary among themselves. These include the ways in which knowledge and expertise are relevant to policy; the boundaries between the expert knowledge of a particular technical community and other available knowledge; the balance between general and specific knowledge; the systems of careers and quality control needed; the types of organizations in which research and analysis are to be done; and the ways in which knowledge producers can be linked with users and practitioners. Although government policies can foster technical communities, their success requires the consent of members of present scientific communities. This consent in turn requires the dispelling of prejudices held by many basic social scientists, as well as careful testing as to what particular technical communities can accomplish.