Stuart Blume, Joske Bunders, Loet Leydesdorff, Richard Whitley (Eds.), the Social Direction of the Public Sciences

P 86 - 6 Social Sciences and Political Projects: The Emergence and Demise of Reform Coalitions between Social Scientists and Policy-Makers in France, Italy, and West Germany by Peter Wagner For publication in: Stuart Blume, Joske Bunders, Loet Leydesdorff, Richard Whitley (eds.), The Social Direction of the Public Sciences. Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook XI, Dordrecht, Reidel, 1987. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the conference on "The Social D ire c tio n o f the P ublic Sciences", Amsterdam, Novermber 1985, and at two workshops o f the Theory and Methodology Group o f the Swedish Collegium fo r Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, Amsterdam, December 1985, and Uppsala, April 1986. I would like to thank the participants in the discussions for valuable comments and criticism s. Final Version, May 1986 Zusammenfassung In diesem Beitrag wird die Entstehung einer Policy-Orientierung - einer Konzentration der Forschung auf Politikfelder oder auf politisch administrative Prozesse im Hinblick darauf, Voraussetzungen für "bes sere P olitik" zu schaffen - in den Sozial Wissenschaften in Frankreich, Italien und der Bundesrepublik Deutschland als Interaktionsprozeß von Wissenschaftlern und Nicht-Wissenschaftlern untersucht. In einem be stimmten gesellschaftlichen Kontext gingen Sozialwissenschaftler Koali tionen mit den Teilen der politischen und wirtschaftlichen Eliten ein, die die Notwendigkeit eines umfassenden g e se lls c h a ftlic h e n Modernisie rungsprozesses sahen, und definierten ihre eigene Aufgabe als die der Vorbereitung der erforderlichen politischen Innovationen auf der Grund lage sozial wissenschaftlicher Expertise. Nachfolgende soziale Entwick lungen führen zu einer Desillusionierung und zur Suche nach anderen gesellschaftlichen Akteuren zum Engagement in auf Forschung gegründeter politischer Aktion. Der vorliegende Aufsatz versteht sich als Beitrag zu einer politischen Soziologie der SozialWissenschaften. Im Unterschied zu neueren Entwick lungen der Wissenschaftsforschung, die zu einer Betonung der mikroana lytischen Ansätze führten, wird die Auffassung vertreten, daß es mög lich is t, Einflüsse auf wissenschaftliche Entwicklungen makroskopischer und la n g fr is tig e r Natur auszumachen, wenn die Untersuchung des wissen schaftlichen Feldes und der Beziehungen verschiedener Forschergruppen in diesem Feld mit der Analyse der Beziehungen zwischen diesen Gruppen und nicht-wissenschaftlichen Akteuren in verschiedenen gesellschaft lichen Kontexten verbunden wird. Fälle intensiver Interaktion zwischen Wissenschaftlern und Nicht-Wissenschaftlern, die größere Gruppen von Forschern umfassen und über längere Z e it andauern, werden als g e e ig n e ter Ausgangspunkt fü r die Entwicklung eines solchen Ansatzes angesehen. Summary In th is paper the emergence o f a p o lic y o rie n ta tio n —a concentration o f research efforts on policy areas or on politico-administrative pro cesses with a view to "improving policy-making"—in the social sciences in France, Italy and West Germany is analysed in terms of an inter action between scientists and non-scientists« In a specific societal context social scientists joined reform coalitions with those parts of the po litica l and economic elites who saw the need for an incompassing societal modernization process, and defined their own task as designing the required political innovations on the basis of social science ex pertise. Later social developments led to a disillusionment with this approach and to the search for new social actors to engage in re search-based political action. With such a perspective this paper is understood as a contribution to a political sociology of the social sciences. In contrast to recent dev elopments in science studies which led to an emphasis on micro-level analysis, it is argued, that the search for ordering principles of a macroscopic and long-term nature in scientific developments can be fru itfu lly pursued when linking the study of a scientific field and of the relations inside the field between different group researchers with the analysis of the relations between these groups and actors outside the field in a specific societal context. Cases of intense interation between scientists and non-scientists, which involve a larger number of researchers and last over some time, are seen as a promising starting- p o in t fo r e la b o ra tin g such an approach. - 1 - Introduction In the post-World War II history of the social sciences in France, Italy, and West Germany a distinct period can be detected in which a policy orientation was (re-)introduced into these disciplines. In this period major research efforts, either on specific policy areas or on the politico-administrative processes themselves, were undertaken with a view to improving policy-making by putting it on a "scientific" or "more rational" basis. These processes took place in the 1960's and early 1970's and thus followed previous developments in the USA where the term "policy sciences"^ was coined, but they differed significantly from the US experience. The specific nature of the confrontation between the innovative approach and the established national science traditions and the interaction of the emerging policy researchers with actors in different politico-administrative systems had a significant influence on 2 the shape the process took. The key actors were groups in the political and economic elites who saw the need for an encompassing societal modernization process, including the introduction of rational planning procedures and the formulation of reform policies which would enable all social groups to participate in 3 economic and societal progress. Social scientists sometimes joined outright reform coalitions with these groups, shared their basic political convictions and saw their own task in designing the required 1 Daniel Lerner, Harold Lasswell (eds.), The Policy Sciences, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1951 2 For an attempt to analyse the long-term development of problem-oriented social science research see: Georg Thurn, Peter Wagner, Björn W ittro ck, Hellmut Wollmann, "The Development and Present State of Public Policy Research. Country Studies in Comparative Perspective", mimeo, Berlin 1984, an interim report from a research project presently pursued at the Wissenschaftszentrian Berlin and the Freie Universität Berlin in cooperation with the Swedish Collegium fo r Advanced Study in the Social Sciences. In the sections analysing the developments in Germany this paper partly draws on Hellmut Wollmann's analysis in this project. For further references on social science developments in Germany as well as in France and Italy see this report. 3 For an attempt to describe related processes in Austria in terms of a conflict between traditional and modernizing political forces, see Bernd Marin, Die Paritätische Kommission. Aufgeklärter Technokorporatismus in Österreich, Vienna: Internationale Publikationen, 1982, in particular part III. - 2 - political innovations on the basis of social science expertise. In Germany and Italy, the scientists' interlocutors were mainly members of groups in the major political parties, which had not. yet reached power positions, in France social scientists were more oriented to the process of "pianification", which as such took a more long-term perspective on social developments and seemed more open to heeding scientific advice and to in it ia t in g socia l re fo rm .T h e s e intense in te ra c tio n s between scientists and non-scientists, however proved to be of a short-term nature. Recognizing political and scientific deficiencies in their approach to a science-politics interaction, a learning process which was speeded up by social developments, researchers turned away from these coalitions. Some then started to search for new social actors to engage in research-based political action. In the following an attempt w ill be made to analyse these developments by tracing the social processes which brought about the new orientation in the social sciences. To do this, an analysis at the macro-level—some concepts of the state of the discipline and of socio-economic change in fluencing disciplinary perspectives—w ill have to be tied to one at the micro-level dealing with the behaviour of particular actors and their strategies. In this regard, the three-country-comparison may serve to elucidate the relative importance of certain "macro-structural" determinants as compared w ith m icro -le ve l c h a ra c te ris tic s s p e c ific to the situation. A comparative analysis starts out with im plicitly rejecting the idea of a world-wide sim ilarity of social science developments, an idea which could be based either on the assumption of universality of scientific 4 This difference may in part explain why in Germany political science was more involved in these processes, whereas in France sociologists played a major role. However, other factors enter into this, and I shall return to it below. The rationale of choosing different disciplines—sociology in France and Italy, political science in Germany—for the following analysis may be questioned, but this comparison, in my view, is the most appropriate here, as the interaction between actors in the science system and actors in the political system is to be stressed. Some unevenness in the argument, what concerns the comparison of disciplinary developments, is thus to be accepted. For sim ilar reasons the three countries were chosen for th is a n a lysis, as they were marked by short periods o f a p a rtic u la rly intense debate about modernization and concomitant social science- politics interaction. - 3 - progress or on the diagnosis of an American intellectual hegemony which dominates developments in dependent countries. Whereas the firs t argument probably need not be discussed among sociologists of the sciences, the second one is worth mentioning. A dominance of social science concepts of American origin in the post-World War II period, which was also strengthened by a Europe-oriented social science policy 5 of some major U.S. foundations, can certainly not be denied here, but this doubtlessly strong impact does not lead to the same developments.

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