Transformation theory: scientific or political?

2002 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Pickel
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Transformation Process ◽  
Transformation Theory ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
Scientific Project ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Postcommunist Transformation

This essay argues that the search for a scientific theory of transformation is ill-conceived. Postcommunist transformation is not a scientific project but a political project. It therefore requires a political theory rather than a scientific theory of transformation. The distinction is important because social scientists as political actors have played a siginificant role in the transformation process. Several examples are provided to illustrate the relationship between social science and transformation. In political theories of transformation, social science knowledge is subordinated and instrumental. This does not reduce the significance of social science, but rather reconceptualizes it. The legitimate functions of social science in transformation theory have critical, constructive and applied dimensions.

Third Wave criminology

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Edwards ◽  
James Sheptycki
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Crime Control ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Public Issues ◽  
Pressure Groups ◽  
Science And Politics ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Relationship

Evidence-based policy-making implies greater clarity in the relationship between science, politics and crime control. This is especially the case with a highly polarizing topic like gun-crime. Specifically, the enrolment of social science by pressure groups, political parties and other political actors raises questions about the possibility and desirability of a scientifically detached appraisal of the problem. One resolution is to reject the feasibility of objective detachment, treat science and politics as synonymous and locate criminology firmly in the domain of politics and morality—to `take sides' as it were. This renders the purpose of academic criminology problematic, for if its practitioners are to be regarded as inevitably partisan, what do they contribute as social scientists to public issues defined as political and moral in content? Why should criminological knowledge claims be especially valued over that of other political and moral actors? More recently, attempts to define concepts about the formative intentions, intrinsic and extrinsic to the politics of scientists' work, suggest ways of demarcating science from politics in this and other criminological disputes. They provide a rationale for the distinctive contribution of social science to public controversies over crime and control.

Reflections on Local Population Studies and Social Science History

2018 ◽  
pp. 43-51
Author(s):  
Osamu Saito
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Population Studies ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Local Source ◽  
Personal Reflection ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Source Materials

This personal reflection of more than 40 years' work on the supply of labour in a household context discusses the relationship between social science history (the application to historical phenomena of the tools developed by social scientists) and local population studies. The paper concludes that historians working on local source materials can give something new back to social scientists and social science historians, urging them to remake their tools.

Politics and Research: Epistemological Moments

1990 ◽  
Vol 15 (01) ◽  
pp. 149-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adelaide H. Villmoare
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Law And Society ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship

In reading the essays by David M. Trubek and John Esser and Boaventura de Sousa Santos, I thought about what I call epistemological moments that have provided contexts within which to understand the relationship between social science research and politics. I will sketch four moments and suggest that I find one of them more compelling than the others because it speaks particularly to social scientists with critical, democratic ambitions and to Trubek and Esser's concerns about politics and the intellectual vitality of the law and society movement.

scholarly journals Samfundsforskning og tekst - det skotske tilfælde som metodisk problem

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Henrik Halkier
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Post Graduate ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Relationship

The present paper explores some possible links between linguistics and social science, departing from an example of textual analysis originating in research in progress. Particular attention is paid to the characteristics of historical textual analysis and to the relationship between social phenomena and the concepts employed by social scientists. It is argued that the presence of common theoretical problems and shared methodologies provides an interesting starting point for future interdisciplinary research and for up-to-date teaching of post-graduate students.

scholarly journals Ancient Greek History and Contemporary Social Science

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
State Government ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Qualitative Approaches ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Theories ◽  
Greek History ◽  
The Relationship

Social scientists and political theorists have recently come to realize the potential importance of the classical Greek world and its legacy for testing social theories. Meanwhile, some Hellenists have mastered the techniques of contemporary social science. They have come to recognize the value of formal and quantitative methods as a complement to traditional qualitative approaches to Greek history and culture. Some of the most exciting new work in social science is now being done within interdisciplinary domains for which recent work on Greece provides apt case studies. This book features essays examining the role played by democratic political and legal institutions in economic development; the potential for inter-state cooperation and international institutions within a decentralized ecology of states; the relationship between state government and the social networks arising from voluntary associations; the interplay between political culture, informal politics, formal institutions and political change; and the relationship between empirical and formal methods of analysis and normative political theory. In sum, this book introduces readers to the emerging field of “social science ancient history.”

History and Social Science in the West

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Passmore
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
External Force ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The West ◽  
Grand Theory ◽  
Academic History ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter analyzes the relationship between history and various disciplines within the social sciences. Historians and social scientists shared two related sets of assumptions. The first supposition was of a world-historical shift from a traditional, hierarchical, religious society to a modern egalitarian, rational one. Second, history and social science assumed that progress occurred within nations possessed of unique ‘characters’, and that patriotism provided the social cement without which society could not function. Nevertheless, academic history seemingly differed from social science in that it was untheoretical and predominantly political. Yet historians focused on the nation’s attainment of self-consciousness, homogeneity, and independence through struggle against internal and external enemies—a history in which great men were prominent. Historians and sociologists unwittingly shared versions of grand theory, in which change was an external ‘force’ driven by the functional needs of the system, and in which meaning derived from measurement against theory, rather than from protagonists’ actions and beliefs.

Can Law Learn from Social Science?

2001 ◽  
Vol 35 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 205-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Nelken
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Political Critique ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Styles Of Reasoning

In this paper I shall be discussing a fundamental problem in the relationship between law and the social sciences. Many social scientists have pointed out that the “pull of the policy audience” in legislative and administrative exercises and the confines of practical decision-making in legal settings can compromise the proper development of academic social science and blunt the edge of political critique. The danger is real enough. But they have given insufficient attention to the opposite concern which will be my topic in this article. Here the charge is that the introduction of social scientific styles of reasoning can have ill effects for legal practice by threatening the integrity of legal processes and the values they embody. How can social scientists be sure that they have properly understood the nature of law or the meaning and point of the legal rules, procedures, and institutions which they attempt to analyze and seek to improve? What warrant can they have that social scientific interpretation, at any level, does not end up creating law in its own image? If this is a genuine risk, what implications follow for the way law should learn from social science? I shall argue that there are no easy answers to these questions even, or especially, where law apparently welcomes contributions from social science.

How War Opened the Door to the Ivory Tower during the First World War and Peace Closed It Again

2019 ◽  
pp. 20-41
Author(s):  
Michael C. Desch
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Basic And Applied Research ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
First World ◽  
Pure Research

This chapter illustrates the results of the intersection of disciplinary and international security dynamics through exploring the relationship between social science and policymaking in war- and peacetime. The former suppresses disciplinary inclinations to favor internal disciplinary agendas that lead social scientists to eschew policy relevance. However, during peacetime, social science disciplinary dynamics led them to disengage with practical policy issues. This was the direct result of the effort to make the discipline more scientific, as the distinction between “basic” and “applied” research had become one of the most important ways of distinguishing whether a scholar was doing science or not. Of course, many social scientists remained eager to find a way to square the circle between professionalization and practical relevance. To do so, they reassured themselves with the notion that the results of pure research will just trickle down and inform concrete policy decisions without their directly engaging with policy issues.

scholarly journals Hip-Hop's White Audience

Elements ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-16
Author(s):  
Billy Hubschman
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Audience Analysis ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship

This paper seeks to unpack the relationship between Hip-Hop and its white audience. As Hip-Hop's audience continues to grow, it is important to note shifts and changes in the genre that results from this increased popularity, specifically, this paper will take a look at Hip-Hop's white audience and provide an overview of some of the research social scientists have been conducting on the subject. The paper is divided into two sections according to the different kinds of research conducted by scholars: audience analysis, both qualitative and quantitative, help illustrate the perspective of Hip-Hop's white audience; content analysis, both of lyrics and videos, highlight the ramifications of Hip-Hop's white audience on the genre itself. As a literature review, this paper does not seek to make an argument on the relationship between Hip-Hop and its white audience as much as provide an overview of the arguments being made by certain social science scholars. 

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