Making Political Science Matter? Phronetic Social Science in Theory and Practice

| | ⅜ Review Essay Making Political Science Matter? Phronetic Social Science in Theory and Practice Edward W. Gimbel Real Social Science: Applied Phronesis. Edited by Bent Flyvbjerg, Todd Landman, and Sanford Schram. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 320p. $95.00 cloth, $32.99 paper. eal Social Science: Applied Phronesis, edited by Bent (Virginia Eubanks’ “Feminist Phronesis and Technologies Flyvbjerg, Todd Landman, and Sanford Schram, is of Citizenship”), transitional justice in post-Amnesty Law R an interesting read in the context of the current Brazil (Tricia D. Olsen, Leigh A. Payne, and Andrew G. assault on both the scientific status and the practical util- Reiter’s “Amnesty in the Age of Accountability: Brazil in ity of social science in general and political science specif- Comparative Context”), and how cartographic represen- ically. In it, the editors collect examples of social scientific tations of “at-risk” communities in Toronto have served to work that embrace what Flyvbjerg and others have deflect critical attention from the broader structural con- described as phronetic social science. This approach makes ditions of neoliberal policy (Ranu Basu’s “Spatial Phrone- creative use of the Aristotelian intellectual virtue of phro- sis: A Case Study in Geosurveillance”). “Methodologically” ⅜ nesis, or practical wisdom, which the editors identify with we see approaches that emphasize researcher participation the knowledge of how to address and act on social prob- in social projects, digital ethnography, post-structualist dis- lems in a particular context. Rather than emphasizing the course theory, Foucauldian genealogy, feminist epistemol- universal truth (episteme) that has traditionally been the ogy and sociology of knowledge, and others. summum bonum of social scientific inquiry, or fixating If we seek a unifying theme across these essays, even on the know-how (techne) that is characteristic of meth- the idea of phronetic social science advanced by the edi- odologically driven approaches, Flyvbjerg, Landman, and tors falls somewhat short as it takes on various aspects Schram present examples of social scientific research where throughout the individual essays—as anti-hegemonic contextual knowledge, deep understanding of embedded phronesis (William Paul Simmons), spatial phronesis power dynamics, and immediate relevance to political real- (Basu), and feminist phronesis (Eubanks). Whatever ity take center stage. In so doing they give the lie to those phronetic social science means to the editors, it takes on who would deny the practical relevance of social research. a wide range of meanings in the hands of the authors At the same time, however, the editors develop an under- collected here. In my reading the substantive essays are standing of phronesis that marginalizes valuable elements united less by a common understanding of the intellec- of Aristotle’s understanding of the intellectual virtue, most tual virtue of phronesis and more by a commitment to its notably its basis in self-examination, while simultaneously expression in praxis.1 This is social science that is engaged bringing phronesis much closer to techne by seeking to with the social world and political action in very direct develop their phronetic social science along methodolog- ways. Flyvbjerg’s own substantive essay discusses how social ical lines. research can influence public deliberation, policy, and To begin with the essays themselves, the subject matter practice by way of relationships between social scientists of the substantive pieces collected in Real Social Science is and the media. In “Power and Conflict in Collaborative remarkably diverse, engaging with the economic human Research” Corey Shdaimah and Roland Stahl similarly rights of women in the small cities of upstate New York interrogate the relationship between social science and policy making, in this case where researchers actively par- ticipate in social projects negotiation. For their part, Leo- Edward W. Gimbel is Assistant Professor of Political Science nie Sandercock and Giovanni Attili were invited to at the University of Wisconsin—Whitewater (gimbele@ undertake the digital ethnography project described in uww.edu). their essay “Unsettling a Settler Society: Film, Phronesis doi:10.1017/S1537592713002296 © American Political Science Association 2013 December 2013 | Vol. 11/No. 4 1139 ⅜ | | ⅜ Review Essay | Making Political Science Matter? and Collaborative Planning in Small-Town Canada” by The Perestroikan challenge to hegemonic visions of polit- local anti-racism activists, and their work takes on an ical science has roots that go back to the debate within the explicitly political cast as a result. Simmons is perhaps philosophy of the social sciences between positivist visions most explicit about the political nature of social science of science and more interpretive approaches. These ten- when he writes in “Making the Teaching of Social Justice sions found clear expression in debates within political Matter” that “a phronetic social science, to the extent that science surrounding behavioralism. Behavioralism emerged it is concerned with questions of social justice, must get in force in political science in the 1950s as a broader neo- involved in doing politics” (p. 247). Whatever phronesis— positivist current within the social sciences found expres- and phronetic social science—may be, it must be expressed sion in calls for a more scientific approach to politics. The in political practice. These pieces offer a firm rebuke to contributions to the war effort made by the natural sci- those who would critique social science as disconnected ences (physics most obviously and in particular) ignited from and irrelevant to the social world. within these departments the feeling that the route to These essays are, on the whole, enlightening and well political significance lies through the aspiration to sci- worth studying in their own rights, and the editors are to ence. In his history of the movement, James Farr traces be commended for seeking out and assembling such an out the affinities that united otherwise diverse scholars engaged and engaging set of authors. I am left, however, under the revolutionary banner of behavioralism, focus- with a somewhat uneasy feeling with respect to the broader ing on “(1) a research focus on political behavior, (2) a and elusive idea of “phronetic social science.” Thus, while methodological plea for science, and (3) a political mes- there is much to be said about and praised in the substan- sage about liberal pluralism.”2 tive chapters of the volume, my focus will be on the over- Behavioralism rose to prominence quickly,3 and just as arching theme and theoretical structure of the larger project quickly engendered a backlash, but as Farr notes, “postbe- of which this volume is a part. My unease can be summed havioralism neither inspired the allegiance nor provoked up quite straightforwardly in the question, “Is this phro- the challenges that its namesake had.”4 In the era after nesis?” It may seem strange to focus so intently on the use behavioralism the discipline settled into a fraught status of the term phronesis in critiquing a volume as generally quo where no single approach could claim the broad sup- superb as this one, but there is more at stake here than port that behavioralism enjoyed in its heyday, and the ⅜ semantics. The appropriation of phronesis evident in this scholars of a fractured discipline oriented themselves around volume and its predecessors serves not only to potentially “separate tables” according to methodological, ideologi- misidentify the very real contributions made here, but cal, and political affinities.5 Thus behavioralism’s rise to also to foreclose other critical applications of the Aristo- establishment doctrine was followed closely by a period of telian notion of phronesis in the analysis of political sci- renewed criticism of this new establishment, and a set- ence as a discipline and the political world more generally. tling in to a status quo. Over the years, absent a purposive More specifically, if we take seriously Aristotle’s under- and coherent opposition, adherents of a loose behavioral- standing of phronesis as an intellectual virtue that requires ism characterized by a preference for quantitative meth- self-examination and the interrogation of one’s own val- odologies began to calcify into an institutional hegemony ues in relation to the world of action, we have reason to over the discipline less by design than by default. believe that phronetic social science as it is presented here The same tensions that gripped the discipline in the loses something of value in its appropriation of phronesis. wake of the behavioral revolution re-emerged in the con- To see how this is the case, it will be necessary to consider text of the Perestroika movement, albeit with different the larger project of which Real Social Science is a part. expressions and consequences. The methodological plea This collection is continuous with a pair of earlier for science characteristic of behavioralism had held strong, texts authored by Flyvbjerg or prominently featuring his and by the turn of the century there was a growing dis- work and approach. The first, Making Social Science Mat- satisfaction with the perceived continued hegemony of ter, was published in 2001 and immediately became some- broadly positivist, quantitative, behavior-oriented research thing of a bellwether among political scientists inspired at the highest levels of the

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