scholarly journals Introduction: Beyond the Production of Ignorance: The Pervasiveness of Industry Influence through the Tools of Chemical Regulation

2021 ◽  
pp. 016224392110267
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Henry ◽  
Valentin Thomas ◽  
Sara Angeli Aguiton ◽  
Marc-Olivier Déplaude ◽  
Nathalie Jas
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Chemical Regulation ◽  
Practical Guidelines ◽  
Technical Regulations ◽  
Selection Of

Research on the influence of industry on chemical regulation has mostly been conducted within the framework of the production of ignorance. This special issue extends this research by looking at how industry asserts its interests––not just in the scientific sphere but also at other stages of policy-making and regulatory process––with a specific focus on the types of tools or instruments industry has used. Bringing together sociologists and historians specialized in Science and Technology Studies (STS), the articles of the special issue study the arenas in which instruments and practical guidelines for public policy are negotiated or used. The aim is to observe the devices in the making or in action, from the selection of actors to the production of thresholds, criteria, and other technical regulations. The introduction highlights how industry influence on expertise and regulation is undoubtedly far more pervasive and multifarious than has been conceptualized to date by social scientists. Putting this issue back at the heart of both the STS and social sciences research agendas is increasingly urgent and could lead to new inquiries able to highlight these logics even more widely, using fresh empirical examples.

Evidence-Based Policy Making in the Social Sciences

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Fuzzy Set ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Simulation Modelling ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Social

The purpose of this edited book is to make the case for why the social sciences are more relevant than ever before in helping governments solve the wicked problems of public policy. It does this through a critical showcase of new forms of discovery for policy-making drawing on the insights of some of the world’s leading authorities in public policy analysis. The authors have brought together an expert group of social scientists who can showcase their chosen method or approach to policy makers and practitioners. These methods include making more use of Systematic Reviews, Random Controlled Trials, the analysis of Big Data, deliberative tools for decision-making, design thinking, qualitative techniques for comparison using Boolean and fuzzy set logic, citizen science, narrative from policy makers and citizens, policy visualisation, spatial mapping, simulation modelling and various forms of statistical analysis that draw from beyond the established tools. Of course some of the methods the book refers to have been on the shelves for a number of decades but the authors would argue that it is only over the last decade or so that increased efforts have been made to apply these methods across a range of policy arenas. Other methods such as the use of analysis of Big Data or new fuzzy set comparative tools are relatively more novel within social science but again they have been selected for attention as there are growing examples of their application in the context of policy making.

A Note on “Public Policy”

1973 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 661-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Vaison
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Studies ◽  
Policy Analysts ◽  
Government Body

Normally in political studies the term public policy is construed to encompass the societally binding directives issued by a society's legitimate government. We usually consider government, and only government, as being able to “authoritatively allocate values.” This common conception pervades the literature on government policy-making, so much so that it is hardly questioned by students and practitioners of political science. As this note attempts to demonstrate, some re-thinking seems to be in order. For purposes of analysis in the social sciences, this conceptualization of public policy tends to obscure important realities of modern corporate society and to restrict unnecessarily the study of policy-making. Public policy is held to be public simply and solely because it originates from a duly legitimated government, which in turn is held to have the authority (within specified limits) of formulating and implementing such policy. Public policy is public then, our usual thinking goes, because it is made by a body defined somewhat arbitrarily as “public”: a government or some branch of government. All other policy-making is seen as private; it is not public (and hence to lie essentially beyond the scope of the disciplines of poliitcal science and public administration) because it is duly arrived at by non-governmental bodies. Thus policy analysts lead us to believe that public policy is made only when a government body acts to consider some subject of concern, and that other organizations are not relevant to the study of public policy.

Bioethics and Social Studies of Medicine: Overlapping Concerns

2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
LEIGH TURNER
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Studies ◽  
Social Reform ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health And Illness ◽  
Practical Recommendations

Polemicists and disciplinary puritans commonly make a sharp distinction between the normative, “prescriptive,” philosophical work of bioethicists and the empirical, “descriptive” work of anthropologists and sociologists studying medicine, healthcare, and illness. Though few contemporary medical anthropologists and sociologists of health and illness subscribe to positivism, the legacy of positivist thought persists in some areas of the social sciences. It is still quite common for social scientists to insist that their work does not contain explicit normative analysis, offers no practical recommendations for social reform or policy making, and simply interprets social worlds.

scholarly journals Doing things with description: practices, politics, and the art of attentiveness

2020 ◽  
pp. 146879412097597
Author(s):  
Nicole Vitellone ◽  
Michael Mair ◽  
Ciara Kierans
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
The Social

In a number of linked articles and monographs over the last decade (e.g. Love, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017), literary scholar and critic Heather Love has called for a descriptive (re)turn in the humanities, repeatedly taking up examples of descriptive methods in the social sciences as exemplifying what that (re)turn might look like and achieve. Those of us working as sociologists, anthropologists, science and technology studies scholars and researchers in allied social science fields thus find ourselves reflected back in Love’s work, encountering our own research practices in an unfamiliar light through it. In a period where our established methods and analytical priorities are subject to challenges on many fronts from within our own disciplines, it is hard not be struck by Love’s provocative invocation of the social sciences as interlocutors and see in it an invitation to contribute to the debate she has sought to initiate by revisiting our own approaches to the problem of description. Inspired by Love’s intervention, the eight papers that form this Special Issue demonstrate that by re-engaging with description we stand to learn a great deal. While the articles themselves are topically distinct and geographically varied, they are all based on empirical research and written to facilitate a reorientation to the role of description in our research practices. What exactly is going on when we describe an ancient papyrus as present or missing, a machine as intelligent, noise as music, a disease as undiagnosable, a death as good or bad, deserved or undeserved, care as appropriate or inappropriate, policies as failing or effective? As the papers show, these are important questions to ask. By asking them, we find ourselves in positions to better understand what goes into ‘indexing and making visible forms of material and social reality’ (Love, 2013: 412) as well as what is involved, more troublingly, in erasing, making invisible and dematerialising those realities or even, indeed, in uncovering those erasures and the means by which they were effected. As this special issue underlines, thinking with Love by thinking with descriptions is a rewarding exercise precisely because it opens these matters up to view. We hope others take up Love’s invitation to re-engage with description for that very reason.

Editorial: Taste of City, transnational food and place marketing

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-61
Author(s):  
Evinc Dogan ◽  
Ibrahim Sirkeci
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Place Marketing ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Migration Studies ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
Culinary Traditions ◽  
The University ◽  
Selection Of

In this special issue of Transnational Marketing Journal, we brought together a selection of articles drawn from presentations at the Taste of City Conference 2016: Food and Place Marketing which was held at the University of Belgrade, Serbia on 1st September 2016. We have supported the event along with Transnational Press London. We thank to Goran Petkovic, the Faculty of Economics at the University of Belgrade, and Goran’s volunteer students team who helped with the conference organisation. Mobilities are often addressed within social sciences varying across a wide range of disciplines including geography, migration studies, cultural studies, tourism, sociology and anthropology. Food mobilities capture eating, tasting, producing and consuming practices as well as traveling and transferring. Food and tastes are carried around the world, along the routes of mobility through out the history. As people take their own culture to the places, they take their food too. Food meets and mingles with other cultures on the way. Fusion food is born when food transcends the borders and mix with different ingredients from different culinary traditions. Although certain places are associated and branded with food, it is a challenging job to understand the role of food and taste in forming and reformulating the identity of places. 

scholarly journals Interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary career studies

2010 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana N Khapova ◽  
Michael B Arthur
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Psychology ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Psychology And Economics ◽  
Interdisciplinary Inquiry

This is the opening article in a Human Relations special issue on ‘Interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary career studies’. After introducing a story of an ‘exceptional — but real’ career, we argue for an urgent shift toward greater interdisciplinary inquiry. We reflect on the story to describe differences in the way each of psychology, sociology, social psychology, and economics views the concept of career. We turn to explore what career researchers, representing each of the above social sciences, might not see on their own. In contrast, we highlight how social scientists can move toward a) appreciating the limitations of our separate approaches, b) introducing more appropriate research methods, c) maintaining a wider cross-disciplinary conversation, and d) better serving the client — the person — in our future research. We continue with a preview of the remaining five articles in this special issue, and propose that these can serve as stimuli for a wider conversation.

Teaching Statistics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Gelman ◽  
Deborah Nolan
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Data Science ◽  
Teaching Experience ◽  
Introductory Statistics ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
What Works ◽  
Years Of Teaching Experience ◽  
Statistics Course ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Selection Of

Students in the sciences, economics, social sciences, and medicine take an introductory statistics course. And yet statistics can be notoriously difficult for instructors to teach and for students to learn. To help overcome these challenges, Gelman and Nolan have put together this fascinating and thought-provoking book. Based on years of teaching experience the book provides a wealth of demonstrations, activities, examples and projects that involve active student participation. Part I of the book presents a large selection of activities for introductory statistics courses and has chapters such as ‘First week of class’- with exercises to break the ice and get students talking; then descriptive statistics, graphics, linear regression, data collection (sampling and experimentation), probability, inference, and statistical communication. Part II gives tips on what works and what doesn’t, how to set up effective demonstrations, how to encourage students to participate in class and to work effectively in group projects. Course plans for introductory statistics, statistics for social scientists, and communication and graphics are provided. Part III presents material for more advanced courses on topics such as decision theory, Bayesian statistics, sampling, and data science.

Evidence-based policy making and social science

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerry Stoker ◽  
Mark Evans
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
Best Friends ◽  
Evidence Based Policy ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Will

This chapter looks at the tensions between the making of public policy and the offering of evidence from social science. Social science and policymaking are not natural ‘best’ friends. Policymakers express frustration that social science often appears to have little of relevance to say and social scientists will regularly complain that policymakers are not interested in using their evidence. Yet the two groups appear, almost against the will of the participants in them, to be thrown together. Policymakers are told to evidence their policies and social scientists are urged to step up to provide that evidence. The aim of this chapter is to help improve that situation by identifying some of the main blockages on either side of the social science and policy making fence and see how they can be addressed.

scholarly journals Behavioral Ecology of the Family: Harnessing Theory to Better Understand Variation in Human Families

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 275
Author(s):  
Paula Sheppard ◽  
Kristin Snopkowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Behavioral Ecology ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
Selection Of

Researchers across the social sciences have long been interested in families. How people make decisions such as who to marry, when to have a baby, how big or small a family to have, or whether to stay with a partner or stray are questions that continue to interest economists, sociologists, demographers, and anthropologists. Human families vary across the globe; different cultures have different marriage practices, different ideas about who raises children, and even different notions of what a family is. Human behavioral ecology is a branch of anthropology that is particularly interested in cultural variation of family systems and how these differences impact upon the people that inhabit them; the children, parents, grandparents. It draws on evolutionary theory to direct research and generate testable hypotheses to uncover how different ecologies, including social contexts, can explain diversity in families. In this Special Issue on the behavioral ecology of the family, we have collated a selection of papers that showcase just how useful this framework is for understanding cultural variation in families, which we hope will convince other social scientists interested in family research to draw upon evolutionary and ecological insight in their own work.

Historical Studies in Which Sciences? The Revolving Door of Engineering and Technology

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 41-49
Author(s):  
Cyrus C. M. Mody
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Basic Science ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Applied Research ◽  
Revolving Door ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
Engineering Sciences ◽  
The Social ◽  
Engineering And Technology

The first eleven volumes of Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences treated science for the most part as an academic, monodisciplinary pursuit of knowledge with little thought of application or contact with wider society. That changed abruptly in 1981 with Volume 12. Ever since, the journal’s name has steadily broadened, while its content has come to include ever more interdisciplinarity and application. The place of science depicted in the journal’s pages is now all of society, including industry and the engineering disciplines. One possible explanation for this shift, associated with Paul Forman, is that technology and applied research achieved cultural primacy over basic science after 1980. On this view, the journal is simply following society’s lead in turning away from basic science. This article argues, instead, that the field of science and technology studies, and its aim to understand science-as-part-of-society, is now taken for granted by the journal’s authors. On this view, the engineering sciences are simply one of several domains (alongside the social sciences, agricultural sciences, and biomedicine) where it is particularly easy to glimpse science’s participation in wider society. This essay is part of a special issue entitled “Looking Backward, Looking Forward: HSNS at 50,” edited by Erika Lorraine Milam.

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