Limits on Technocratization of the Law: The Elimination of the National Labor Relations Board's Division of Economic Research

Abstract

Because classand state-centered perspectives converge to predict the increasing use of science by capitalist states and because social scientists have increasingly pervaded U.S. governmental agencies, the elimination of the Division of Economic Research in the National Labor Relations Board in 1935-40 represents a theoretical and historical anomaly. This case study of the Division demonstrates that a theory of technocratization must account for both the reductions as well as the increases in the government's reliance on science. Explaining variation in state agencies' reliance on social science expertise requires an examination of the relationships among agency actors, state actors outside the agency, and class actors outside the state. Analysis must consider (1) social scientists' contribution to agency effectiveness; (2) agency impact on the class organization of society along with agency deviation from the ideology of the dominant class; (3) the balance of power in Congress and the Executive; (4) agency internal politics and its resource dependence on the external environment.