Social scientists' attempts to influence public policy

1978 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Scientists

scholarly journals Reflections on the Ethics of Social Experimentation

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Macartan Humphreys
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Adverse Effects ◽  
Experimental Research ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Ethical Guidelines ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Standard Procedures ◽  
Power Differentials ◽  
Social Experimentation

AbstractSocial scientists are increasingly engaging in experimental research projects of importance for public policy in developing areas. While this research holds the possibility of producing major social benefits, it may also involve manipulating populations, often without consent, sometimes with potentially adverse effects, and often in settings with obvious power differentials between researcher and subject. Such research is currently conducted with few clear ethical guidelines. In this paper I discuss research ethics as currently understood in this field, highlighting the limitations of standard procedures and the need for the construction of appropriate ethics, focusing on the problems of determining responsibility for interventions and assessing appropriate forms of consent.

scholarly journals The Chicago School, Human Ecology, and Neighborhood Effects: A Reappraisal. Paper presented at the 2012 American Sociological Association Annual Meeting.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew J Moehr
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Health Education ◽  
Neighborhood Effects ◽  
Human Ecology ◽  
American Sociological Association ◽  
Chicago School ◽  
Policy Options ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
Number Of Publications

Marxist, field theoretic, and feminist approaches are three viable alternatives to the ideas of human ecology. Since the neighborhood effects literature has grown from the traditions of the Chicago School and human ecology, it may be time to reassess the paradigm and look to improve its theoretical grounding. And without too much exaggeration, I would hasten to add that it is a critical moment to begin this project. In their review of the extant literature, Sampson, Morenoff, and Gannon-Rowley (2002, 444) drew a graph of the number of articles with “Neighborhood Effects” in the title for each year from 1960-2000. The most visible feature is the doubling of publications between 1990 and 2000. Along with the shear number of publications, the neighborhood effects literature is also important because it touches upon a number of current public policy debates. Without questioning the assumptions of the paradigm, we, as social scientists, will be constricted in our ability to explore alternative policy options in a number of fields like health, education, crime, job markets, and the built environment. Thus, the time is now to begin explicitly (re-)theorizing the neighborhood effects literature.

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.

Policy History and the Sublime Immodesty of the Middle-Aged Professor

1997 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 358-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Alchon
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Political History ◽  
Middle Aged ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Policy History ◽  
The Sublime

The idea of policy history arises from an awareness of“something missing.” In the view of some social scientists, politics and public policy too often have been treated ahistorically by their disciplines, with evidence subordinated to theory. For some historians, the apparent waning of disciplinary interest in political history has been similarly distorting. Because of these things, social scientists, political historians, and more than a few social historians increasingly function as “policy historians,”as scholars especially alive to the vagaries and contingency of public policy and its history.

Empire of Light

2020 ◽  
pp. 106-123
Author(s):  
Jason Blakely
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Scientific Authority ◽  
Francis Fukuyama ◽  
Military Violence ◽  
Social Scientific

False claims to scientific authority were used to advance the American and British war on terror. In popular rhetoric, President George W. Bush borrowed (and distorted) one of the most influential theses of political science, the claim that democracies do not fight with one another. Bush also named prominent political scientists, including Francis Fukuyama—who claimed history had reached its culmination in liberal democracies—to prominent advisory positions in government. In addition, other prominent social scientists, such as Samuel Huntington, provided alternative social scientific justifications for the war on terror and later nationalistic public policy that relied on creating permanent outsider identities for Muslims and Latinos. Scientism helped American and British citizens imagine that their use of military violence was fully rational and objectively justified as the war on terror turned into the rise of ultranationalism.

Testing Theories about Advocacy and Public Policy

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Burstein
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Theory Testing ◽  
Weight Of Evidence ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
Future Work ◽  
The Impact

One critical way that social scientists contribute to our understanding of policy change is developing and testing theories to explain the impact of advocacy efforts by nonparty organizations and activists to influence policy. What does the theory testing discover? To find out, this article analyzes all tests of such theories published in 25 major journals in political science and sociology between 2000 and 2018. Nineteen theories were tested and are generally quite similar, proposing that advocacy will affect policy and seeing electoral concerns as the basis of that influence. But they differ in terms of whose impact they seek to explain: there are different theories for interest groups, social movement organizations, and nongovernmental organizations. Predictions made by the theories are consistent with the data just over half the time. The theory-testing articles fail to show what their findings add to the weight of evidence for or against their theories, rarely test competing theories against each other, and seldom generalize or make specific suggestions for future work. This article highlights the most constructive suggestions for future work and argues for breaking down barriers between subdisciplines and systematically spelling out the value added by each new test of theory.

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.

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