Introduction and Overview

TY - JOUR

T1 - Introduction and Overview

AU - Cohen, Amy B.

AU - Gary, Brett

AU - Noakes, John

N1 - Funding Information: COHEN AMY B. University of Pennsylvania GARY BRETT University of Pennsylvania NOAKES JOHN University of Pennsylvania 05 1991 34 5 510 517 sagemeta-type Introduction search-text Introduction and Overview AMY B. COHEN BRETT GARY JOHN NOAKES University of Pennsylvania The articles in this issue are drawn from papers given at the October 1990 conference "Visions of Society: Perspectives from the Social Sciences," sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania's Program for Assessing and Revitalizing the Social Sciences (PARSS). Supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, scholars from 30 universities, colleges, and research institutions have participated in the program regularly since 1984, discussing major questions in the social sciences and humanities and gener- ating and sharing research in a variety of thematically convened interdisci- plinary seminars attended by faculty and graduate students. PARSS was founded out of the recognition that institutionalized disciplin- ary boundaries- their specialized languages and internal debates - have worked to isolate the social sciences from each other and from the humani- ties. But we also know that the disciplines are interested in similar problems; each discipline has helped to shape the current research questions and paradigms that reach across academic boundaries. There is a widening interchange among the disciplines, an interchange which PARSS has helped to foster at Penn. At Penn and.elsewhere, the drive toward a dialogue that extends across the universities' divisions of department and school is no longer new. These interdisciplinary discussions are producing fresh perspec- tives on the major problem areas in the social sciences. With the beneflts of interdisciplinary dialogue, we are asking new questions and, sometimes, finding unexpected responses. PARSS chose to mark the end of its first phase with a 3-day, intemationally oriented conference. The "Visions of Society" conference was convened to further the devel- opment of the foundations of social science inquiry through an examination of the basic tenets that social scientists bring to their research. In constructing the conference, we decided to stand back from our particular research AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST, Vol. 34 No. 5, May/June 1991 510.517 0 1991 Sage Publications, Inc. 510 Cohen et al. / INTRODUCIION AND OVERVIEW 511 agendas and consider the values and assumptions which have animated our work. What ideological and moral constructions guide contemporary re- search in the social sciences? How have the political and social transforma- tions of the late 20th century affected these constructions? How do they differ among disciplines and among national research communities? What range of visions should contemporary scholars confront? The conference brought together leading scholars working in the social sciences. The PARSS planning committee chose session topics to match the ambitious goals attendant to a reexamination of social science inquiry in a rapidly changing world. What is the relationship between the study of social systems and the social world itself? The conference speakers were asked, in accordance with their areas of expertise, to examine concepts of the economy, society, culture, polity, and global unity. The keynote and concluding speak- ers were asked to address social science theory and practice as a whole; they were asked to consider and to assess the social scientific enterprise as it confronts and is confronted by worldwide social change and the contempo- rary university, respectively. The articles that comprise this issue are in much the same form as those delivered at the conference. With the exception of the keynote address, delivered by Neil Smelser, each of the authors included herein was asked to prepare a "background" paper for his or her session topic. The session meetings were held in modified seminar format, with a great deal of discus- sion following on the background presentation. Because of the energy generated and the topicality of the sessions, we chose to publish the confer- ence proceedings without delay. Thus, many of the papers retain the conver- sational approach and style of a semi-formal talk. We offer them here with the same spirit of discussion. Given the wide-ranging goals of the conference, the keynote address required an internationally recognized scholar whose accomplishments tran- scend narrow disciplinary boundaries. Neil Smelser is just such a social scientist. He is primarily known as the author of nine books exploring the relationship between the social and the economic, the motivations of collec- tive actors, and the theory and methods of sociology. In addition, he has edited 12 volumes, capped by his editorship of the recent Handbook of Sociology, the first attempt to bring together the diverse interests of contemporary sociology in 25 years. Smelser's work has been translated into nine languages and his stature in the international social science community is reflected in his recent election as vice president of the International Sociological Association. In his keynote address, "The Social Sciences in a Changing World Society," Smelser resourcefully melds his theoretical concerns about the 512 AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST increasing complexity of societies and the patterns of commonality among developing cultures with his vision of the future of the social sciences. Sketching the major contours of social change in the world today, Smelser covers vast intellectual ground, ranging from the internationalization of economies and cultures to the pressures on nations toward rationalization to the concomitant rise worldwide in the value of knowledge. Smelser then outlines the implications that these changes have for the social sciences. Social science will, he assures us, thrive in the coming world. Of particular note, Smelser sees the increased democratization in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union as simultaneously creating a demand for pragmatic social knowledge and improving the ideological infrastructure necessary for effec- tive social scientific inquiry. To complete his mosaic of analysis and predic- tion, Smelser discusses the implications and prospects for trends toward the internationalization of the social sciences. Amartya Sen's elegantly clear article, "What Did You Leam in the World Today?" was delivered at the conference session titled "The Efficient and Equitable Economy." His article, too, explores the extraordinary and rich terrain of inquiry provided by recent world historical change. Sen draws examples from his recent work, coauthored with Jean Dreze, on Hunger and Public Action to challenge the seemingly clear economic and social policy lessons to be derived from the 1989 revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe: that the market system has proved beyond any doubt to be superior to state intervention in efficiently delivering basic goods and services. Sen directs our attention to services provided by the state that market system price mechanisms have failed to efficiently and equitably deliver. His thesis develops from the essential and important distinctions made between effi- ciently provided "economic opulence" and inequities in what he calls the "basic requirements of good living," meaning public health services, social security, adequate nutrtion, expectations of longevity, and a clean environ- ment. Sen agrees that market economies have proved their greater ability to deliver certain kinds of commodities and services; he shows, however, with powerfully drawn examples, how the public sector has historically enhanced and should continue to contribute to the equitable and, indeed, efficient distribution of necessary public goods. The conference then shifted focus from economy and economic policy to an exploration of the polity and political governance. Amitai Etzioni has spent his professional life engaged in public policy questions. His contribu- tion to the conference was a theoretical discussion of "The Good Polity." The good polity, he argues, has normally been a utopian construct because it can only be achieved when "the government is responsive to all the needs of all members of the community." Skeptical that a society composed of so many Cohen et al. / INTRODUCITION AND OVERVIEW 513 levels of interest can ever achieve consensus from the bottom up, Etzioni suggests "guidance" (as opposed to "control") as a more useful model for moving toward a new design. He draws from his broad body of works to develop two questions he deems necessary to developing a guidance theory for the good polity: Under what conditions, he asks, can "guiding forces" be made more powerful, so as to more successfully lead? And, what will render the social polity "more malleable," so as to be more effectively guided? Ann Swidler was the last speaker on a full day of conference discussions that considered the world not only as it is but as it might someday become. Her presentation at the session on "The Ideal Society" was especially apt, as it explores the relationship between the social sciences and the human search for, and articulation of, normative values. Her article begins by turning to sociology's founding theorists to explore the profound implications of the historical tension within sociology between moral and normative ideals of social life, on one hand, and the imperatives of objective social science, on the other. She argues that while Marx, Weber, and Durkheim did not share the same normative vision of society, they each had a vision of "meaningful human experience ... dependent on a certain kind of collective life." Further, she notes the overriding commitment of each of these theorists to sociological realism, grounding their normative visions in the analysis of historical events and possibilities. In her search for a contemporary meaning of the "ideal society," Swidler explores the relationship between individuals and institu- tions in the construction of cultural meanings by the practitioners of cost- benefit analysis. Swidler concludes that economists fail to understand that the "values people are willing to pay to realize are not inexplicable, pristine preferences" but, instead, are located in the relationship of the individual to the institutional. Swidler then shifts her critical focus to sociology, fashioning a provocative critique of the dominant normative concerns of contemporary sociologists, which, she argues, can "impair sociology's ability to grasp causal processes in the social world." Kenneth Boulding graciously agreed, on very short notice, to address the conferees on the topic of "A World Order." His talk, delivered largely extemporaneously, was a breathtaking and witty journey through the major changes in human life of the past 5 centuries. The article printed here is a somewhat revised reconstruction of that presentation. In working to define the concept of world order and the relationship between it and social science, Boulding draws the readers' attention first to the events leading to the development of the concept of a single world. He traces the beginning of these events to the crucible of Christian Europe in the 15th century, arguing that the disorganized political structure and the "working class" roots of Christianity combined to inspire advances in science, economics, and folk 514 AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST technology, which together led to explosive changes in world history. After locating the historical construction of the modem concept of a world, Boulding engages the complex concept of order in the world. As do many of the authors in this issue (see Rosen, Sen, and Swidler), he argues that this concept is more easily approached through its converse, disorder. He argues that "the world must be regarded as an ongoing evolutionary process, not as a fixed and static state." But within that theoretical construction, the expan- sion of the learningprocess and the disorderly cycle of producton-consumpton- depreciation must themselves be seen as contributors to social order. Bould- ing ends his article by returning to a long-standing issue in his work, one that corresponds with themes raised by Rosen and Sen: How do we preserve diversity and still maintain order? Lawrence Rosen's fascinating article, "The Integrity of Cultures," pro- vides a rich and careful consideration of central questions at the intersection of law and anthropology. Using rich examples drawn from his fieldwork in both North African societies and the American and British court systems, he asks: What does it mean to talk about the integrity of cultures? From these examples, he argues that our theories of culture and the metaphors that we use to explain them are too dependent on the notion that cultures are or should be coherent, orderly, and deeply structured. Similarly, he argues that our notions of integrity depend too strongly on this same sense of orderliness. As a solution, Rosen suggests the appropriation of new metaphors and new language, so that the disorderly and indetermninate that are invariably part of the grain and texture of cultural life are built into our understanding and ways of talking about cultures. Chaos theory, "fuzzy logic," and fractal geometry are all possible sources for new metaphors through which, he notes, it is possible to situate the "ambiguous, the amorphous, and the chaotic at the heart of the concept [of culture] itself." Rosen uses three examples -the Arabic concept of haqq, the uses of the cultural defense plea, and the debate over the right to cultural integrity in international adjudication -to explore the deeper understandings and the potentially more just consequences that might be derived from less rigid notions of integrity and culture. Since 1943, when Street Corner Society was published, William Foote Whyte has been regarded as one of America's leading sociologists. His presentation on "The Social Sciences in the University" concluded the conference and, accordingly, is the final article in this issue. In recent years, Whyte, who is Research Director of Programs for Employment and Work- place Systems at Comell University, has become the foremost champion of participatory action research. He reminds us that the method of analysis can be, and often is, as powerful in shaping the outcome of social science research as the use of theory. As Whyte wrote in the May/June 1989 issue of American Cohen et al. / NTRODUCMION AND OVERVIEW 515 Behavioral Scientist, participatory action research is "a powerful strategy to advance both science and practice" by involving "practitioners in the re- search process" (p. 502). The article that appears here is infused with the spirit of this unique approach and builds on its premises to criticize the fields of economics and sociology on their ability to generate useful knowledge. Whyte takes econ- omists to task for failing to place their research within the appropriate social and organizational contexts, leading to misleading assumptions about the motivations of economic actors, and worse, inaccurate information about the state of the economy. For example, he notes the tendency of economists to follow the lead of the courts and legal theory, treating the corporation "as if it were an individual" rather than as the complex group of individual and economic interests that it actually encompasses. Sociology comes under fire by this perceptive critic for its unwillingness to broaden its information sources. Whyte notes that participatory action research provides more current information about the social world than that produced by those engaged in hypothesis testing within the established theoretical literature. Whyte argues that participatory action research improves on orthodox social science prac- tice through inclusion of the practitioners in the analysis, offering immediate and practical applications for social scientific knowledge. Whyte's criticism of the way in which social science knowledge is produced brings into question the role envisioned for that information by Etzioni and Smelser. Etzioni sees social science knowledge as the interme- diary between political leaders who must make decisions and the demands of diverse, often competing, social groups. Like Whyte, Smelser sees great utility in applied social science; in fact, Smelser predicts an increasing demand for information to aid in the solution of social problems. However, Smelser and Whyte clearly disagree on the definition of applied social science. The applicability of social science knowledge to social problems is only one theme that emerged at the conference. For example, the onrgins of values, interests, and commitments have been the subject of much contentious debate in the social sciences. Several of the articles presented here grapple with this basic issue in faming new approaches to societal and political issues in the contemporary world. Smelser, exploring the rise of new social movements that emerge from previously untapped bases of solidarity, argues for seeing their development as "a kind of neoprimordialism." While these movements avoid taditional affiliations, such as church and family, they maintain a "timelessness of reference that we associate with those traditional forms." Swidler challenges that notion. "Human choices," she argues, "depend on the social world." In 516 AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST other words, the process by which interests emerge is far more historically and institutionally mediated than Smelser suggests. Etzioni agrees with Swidler that the production of interests is an ongoing social process; he argues that it is in institutions that different group or community interests are articulated, organized, and mediated. But Etzioni's argument is closer to Smelser's: There are, he says, "nondesignable factors" that must be ac- counted for by those designing the good polity. He reminds us that there are interests in a pluralistic society that are not "necessarily cooperative." Another shared theme of articles in this issue is the problem of, as Boulding puts it, "how we develop political structures and create political order and widely recognized legitimacy in an area of extremely diverse cultures, many of which have long traditions of animosity towards each other." Boulding's proposal for overcoming the problem of cultural relativ- ism dovetails with Swidler's suggestion for overcoming this seemingly intractable paradox of modernity. Swidler suggests that the inability to see, act, and make normative judgments beyond one's own immediate cultural milieu "can be seen as a failure of institution building." Boulding is somewhat more specific, proposing the increased development of non- governmental organizations to mediate between and foster dialogue among the competing cultures, nations, and interests. His thesis is predicated on the development of a democracy dedicated to the learning process, encour- aging "debate, discussion, and diversity," but he notes that under present conditions, this must be left to the "development of new types of institutions that we have never thought of before." ONE FINAL NOTE In Whose Keeper? Social Science and Moral Obligation, Wolfe (1989) suggested that the social sciences are "the theatre of moral debate in modern society" (p. 7). If Wolfe is right, the visions that inform the work of contemporary social scientists take on a heightened importance. When this conference was being planned, there was a feeling of hope in the air. Eastern Europeans had demanded and achieved fundamental changes in their states and societies. There was talk in the United States, for a number of months, about how we were going to spend the "peace dividend" that came with the thawing of the Cold War. Smelser reflected this buoyancy in his keynote address to the conference, predicting that this fall of barriers to international cooperation and the concomitant free exchange of information could do nothing but facilitate more, better, and more influential social scientific inquiry. Cohen et al. / INTRODUClION AND OVERVIEW 517 But the hopefulness of the recent past has been abruptly broken; as swiftly as the barriers came down in Eastern Europe, new walls have gone up. New conflicts have gained center stage around the world - notably in the Middle East and in the Baltic states- undermining the optimism ofjust a few months ago. The theatre of moral debate has gone momentarily silent-no one, it appears, is listening. "Visions of Society" was organized to answer the question of whether or not the social sciences were equipped to explain and, indeed, to influence the tremendous changes sweeping the globe. Taken together, the articles pre- sented here do much to describe how the events of the recent past can have come to pass. But the question yet hanging in the air is what, if anything, social science can do (has done) to influence worldwide social change. Even as the buoyancy of mood has passed, we hope that the suggestions made here -to increase and democratize the learning process, to develop new institutions, and to formulate judicious strategies within and between insti- tutions to mediate cultural diversity-will come to pass and wil lead to a more peaceful new world order. REFERENCES Whyte, W. F. (1989). Introduction. American Behavioral Scientist, 32, 502-512. Wolfe, A. (1989). Whose keeper? Social science and moral obligation. Berkeley: University of California Press. Whyte, W. F. ( 1989 ).

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