ESF and the Standing Committee for the Social Sciences – Constructing Institutions for European Social Sciences

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This article analyses the establishment of the Standing Committee of the Social Sciences in the European Science Foundation in the late 1970s. Using the fields theoretical framework, it focuses on the discussions in the Ad Hoc committee formed to set up the Standing Committee of the Social Sciences. The article shows how specific ideas about what social science should be, what Europe was and what kind of social science knowledge that was suitable for European coordination was central to the discussions and for the formation of the Standing Committee. Important for these discussions were the contemporary political discussions in Europe and especially the connections between scientific progress and increasing European collaboration. Alongside this, the discussions and initiatives were informed by the participants relation to US post-war social science, the impression that European social science was lacking behind and import of natural science models to social science. Importantly for the relative success of the Standing Committee of Social Sciences was the fact that the members were recognized scholars commanding significant amounts of academic and scientific capital.