scholarly journals Economics and sociology: Between cooperation and intolerance

2007 ◽  
Vol 52 (174-175) ◽  
pp. 131-151
Author(s):  
Bozo Stojanovic
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Group Behavior ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Mancur Olson

In social sciences two opposing tendencies act simultaneously: the growth of specialization and the need for synthesis. Similar tendencies are noticeable when economics and sociology are in question. The need for these two sciences to cooperate was noticed a long time ago. However, an increasingly intensive exchange has been achieved only recently, particularly in the explanation of individual and group behavior. The works of Mancur Olson are a good example how the results of economics can be inspiring for the research in other sciences, particularly sociology and political science. Applying the results he got by analyzing the logic of collective action, Olson managed to attain significant insight concerning the functioning of economics and society as a whole.

scholarly journals The Scientific Analysis of Hungarian Public Administration. New Trends and Methods.

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-93
Author(s):  
Ádám Rixer
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
The Other ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
The Real ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Scientific Analysis ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The One

The purpose of this paper is to introduce those scientific methods and new paradigms that are to overcome the one-sided jurisprudential methods of analysis of public administration. On the one hand, as it has been obvious for a long time, a sort of inter- or multidisciplinary method is needed for a strong scientific and material framework which allows further conclusions. And on the other hand, beyond multi- and interdisciplinarity, it is unavoidable to reestablish the philosophic synthesis between the legal norms regulating public administration and the facts of the real operation. Probably this direction will/may be the basis and the realiser of the change of paradigm (also) in Hungarian sciences of public administration. In general it may be stated that due to the crises social sciences more and more shall start examining the real meaning of things, the broader examination frameworks of the analysed phenomena, instead of descriptive questions analysing the ways of operation. In the era of crises, when everyday experiences falsify our expectations, legal and political science become more radical: it shall examine and revise the validity of its preassumptions – which it had considered firm before.

Making it abstract, making it contestable: Gender/sex as a politicized concept

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Mazzuca ◽  
Matteo Santarelli
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Biological Feature ◽  
Dynamic Approach ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Cultural Construct ◽  
Science Framework ◽  
The One

The concept of gender has been the battleground of scientific and political speculations for a long time. On the one hand, some accounts contended that gender is a biological feature, while on the other hand some scholars maintained that gender is a socio-cultural construct (e.g., Butler, 1990; Risman, 2004). Some of the questions that animated the debate on gender over history are: how many genders are there? Is gender rooted in our biological asset? Are gender and sex the same thing? All of these questions entwine one more crucial, and often overlooked interrogative. How is it possible for a concept to be the purview of so many disagreements and conceptual redefinitions? The question that this paper addresses is therefore not which specific account of gender is preferable. Rather, the main question we will address is how and why is even possible to disagree on how gender should be considered. To provide partial answers to these questions, we suggest that gender/sex (van Anders, 2015; Fausto-Sterling, 2019) is an illustrative example of politicized concepts. We show that no concepts are political in themselves; instead, some concepts are subjected to a process involving a progressive detachment from their supposed concrete referent (i.e., abstractness), a tension to generalizability (i.e., abstraction), a partial indeterminacy (i.e., vagueness), and the possibility of being contested (i.e., contestability). All of these features differentially contribute to what we call the politicization of a concept. In short, we will claim that in order to politicize a concept, a possible strategy is to evidence its more abstract facets, without denying its more embodied and perceptual components (Borghi et al., 2019). So, we will first outline how gender has been treated in psychological and philosophical discussions, to evidence its essentially contestable character thereby showing how it became a politicized concept. Then we will review some of the most influential accounts of political concepts, arguing that currently they need to be integrated with more sophisticated distinctions (e.g., Koselleck, 2004). The notions gained from the analyses of some of the most important accounts of political concepts in social sciences and philosophy will allow us to implement a more dynamic approach to political concepts. Specifically, when translated into the cognitive science framework, these reflections will help us clarifying some crucial aspects of the nature of politicized concepts. Bridging together social and cognitive sciences, we will show how politicized concepts are abstract concepts, or better abstract conceptualizations.

Collective Action

2019 ◽  
pp. 466-488
Author(s):  
Jac C. Heckelman
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Slow Growth ◽  
Policy Reform ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Institutional Instability ◽  
Selective Incentives ◽  
Mancur Olson

The theory of collective action, as outlined by Mancur Olson, is presented. Olson argued that individuals are subject to free-riding behavior, which can be overcome by selective incentives. The larger is the potential group, the greater the hurdles to successful formation. Thus, smaller groups with more narrow interests are more likely to form, leading to an emphasis on policy reform that concentrates benefits to the group while diffusing the costs on greater society. The accumulation of such groups will slow growth, and this sclerotic effect is reversed due to institutional instability. This chapter develops a critical appraisal of the theory and the accumulated evidence in the literature that follows from Olson.

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.

The Influence of Environmental Factors on Daily Behaviour

1982 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 1175-1193 ◽  
Author(s):  
R Herz
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Town Planning ◽  
Target Groups ◽  
Subjective Perceptions ◽  
Demand Models ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Observed Behaviour ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Transport Mobility

The question of the extent to which the concrete physical environment allows, causes, or even forces certain forms of behaviour to occur has been excluded from social sciences literature for a long time. More recent studies from environmental psychology show that the built environment, filtered by subjective perceptions, very probably influences the experience and actions of individuals. Town planning and transport planning is orientated towards the needs, demands, or simply the observed behaviour of social groups, segments of the population, and target groups of individuals. However, at this level the evidence about whether a spatiospecific determinant should be added to the sociodemographic, sociocultural, or socioeconomic determinants is very inconclusive. This paper investigates the influence of certain types of area on behaviour, and uses about 70000 weekday records at the level of differentiated groups of people. Everyday behaviour of the groups is quantified by their time budgets and daily programmes with broad groupings of out-of-house activities as well as various indicators of transport mobility. This study shows that with given characteristics of the individual and his household a series of behavioural parameters does not vary in space and thus these parameters can be used as input for behaviourally orientated transport demand models and transferred from one planning area to another.

Political Science and Public Administration: A Note on the State of the Union

1952 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 660-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roscoe C. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Russell Sage Foundation ◽  
Special Study ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
State Of The Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Original Essay ◽  
The Subject

By tradition public administration is regarded as a division of political science. Woodrow Wilson set the stage for this concept in his original essay identifying public administration as a subject worthy of special study, and spokesmen for both political science and public administration have accepted it since. Thus Leonard White, in his 1930 article on the subject in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, recognizes public administration as “a branch of the field of political science.” Luther Gulick follows suit, observing in 1937 that “Public administration is thus a division of political science ….” So generally has this word got around that it has come to the notice of the sociologists, as is indicated in a 1950 report of the Russell Sage Foundation which refers to “political science, including public administration….” “Pure” political scientists and political scientists with a public administration slant therefore are not alone in accepting this doctrine, which obviously enjoys a wide and authoritative currency.But if public administration is reckoned generally to be a child of political science, it is in some respects a strange and unnatural child; for there is a feeling among political scientists, substantial still if mayhap not so widespread as formerly, that academicians who profess public administration spend their time fooling with trifles. It was a sad day when the first professor of political science learned what a manhole cover is! On their part, those who work in public administration are likely to find themselves vaguely resentful of the lack of cordiality in the house of their youth.

Agency, Structure and Causality in Political Science: A Comment on Sibeon

Politics ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul A. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Recent Contribution ◽  
Ontological Commitments ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ontological Turn

Researchers in political science are devoting increasing attention to the ontological commitments of their theories – that is, to what those theories presuppose about the nature of the political world. This article focuses on a recent contribution to this ‘ontological turn’ in political science ( Sibeon, 1999 ). Tensions are identified in Sibeon's account of the causal interplay between agency and social structure. It is argued that these tensions can be resolved by reflecting explicitly on ontological issues, in particular the causal efficacy of social structure, using a particular approach to the philosophy of the social sciences known as critical realism. The value of such reflection for the explanatory power of political analysis is highlighted.

scholarly journals General Environment Of World

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 533
Author(s):  
Mohammed Viquaruddin
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Present System ◽  
Multidimensional System ◽  
Liberal Vision

This paper is an attempt regarding the general social/economical/ecological/political and more environments of world certainly with multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary approach. It is discussed that the problems of fore further can besolved through facts/reasoning/science/environment/social sciences etc. As beinga student of political science even peace science a try that can come into existenceor can be practiced only through many dimensions. The philosophy is developedto resist with whatever means we have in hand and are willing to fight for a betterscenario which would be something out of our reach! But can achieve through apositive and plural system not certainly perfect but different in its approach.Achievement to the threats and problems to the liberal vision are pervasive and thesystem is in much greater problematic that is commonly supposed. Protecting/Preserving/ Commanding it in the coming century and beyond will be easier saidthan done! We do not foresee the renaissance of any type we should be sure aboutthat alternative World Multidimensional System (WMS) could reasonably competewith the present multidimensional system on theoretical or practical grounds. It isnot enough that this system display substantial practical advantages and genuinetheoretical coherence. No one can deny that world get profit from present system.

scholarly journals Representação e ciências sociais

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-126
Author(s):  
Drance Elias da Silva
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Knowledge Representation ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
General View ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Social ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Expression Form

This Article may be situated within the rapport field between Philosophy and Social Sciences, at the search regarding to the concept concerning the Representation. Regarding to Philosophy, under a general view, the concept, concerning Representation, has been, since a long time, understood as a trail which one would get througl reaching to the real and true ones. Representation, as the thought contents expression form had not been known departing from Philosophy as a barrier against the objectivity concerning the knowledge. Representation, in its source, has been constituting itself a cognictive, inmanent reflection, related to the conscience inner subjectivity. But departing from the episthemological point of view, it has been not so easy for the campus concerning the Culture Sciences as a totality. In the theory regarding to knowledge, the Social Sciences campus and, more specifically, in the human life Symbolic dimension constitutive aspects, it has been, often, accepted negatively as an entry door for the histotical social reality. Nowadays, one may conclude that the contents concerning the Culture are deeply rooted within the histotical reality, which may present new dimension the reading regarding to the Symbolical side concerning the human life, under the view regarding to the unseen aspect, such as the intellectualistic Western dominant Culture allows understanding the way which could be in.

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