Social Science and Public Policy: An Examination of the Political Foundations of Modern Research

Abstract

Economics, sociology, psychology, and the other social sciences have in recent times begun to play a new and problematic role with respect to national and international policy. The problem of social policy has become acute precisely to the extent to which social science has become exact. Legitimation of policy recommendations from social scientists emerges in this period and not in previous periods because of a demonstrable feasibility of putting social science and social theory into a framework of political action. Demand for operations research analysts, tactical data systems, war gaming and simulation experts now rivals the search for basic engineering personnel. There is a paucity of exact information on how this transvaluation took place, due in part to the novelty of the situation and in part to the novelty of self-examination in the social sciences. What is at stake as a result of this newly acquired influence is not the feasibility of social science, but the credibility of social scientists. Any discussions of villains and values, which inevitably is what the study of social science and public policy boils down to, involves two distinct areas. One is the empirical basis of present relationships between social science and public policy, its formation and its