When Form Trumps Function

I have been meaning to write about the goals of social science theory for some time. I had planned on reading up a little bit on the philosophy of social science first, but the Economist has forced my hand with a recent article on the state of economics as a discipline .

All of the social sciences, economics included, purport to provide insight into the ways our society work. In addition to explaining the world around us, one would hope that social science also gives us some insight into ways to improve these social workings as well. Unfortunately, for different reasons, the social sciences have failed to deliever well on these grounds.

As Mario Rizzo points out in a recent blog post , economists have lost sight of the real world in their quest for ever more cleverly constructed “models” that depict and predict reality. Clearly, with the recent global economic collapse (is that what we are calling it these days?) the economists, particularly the macroeconomists, got something wrong. Mr. Rizzo explains part of the problem is lack of methodological stagnation. Namely, economists put the math before the matter, the theorem before the reality. By doing this they lose sight of what really matters.

He also speculates on why this occurs:

It seems pretty clear that what we have is a collective insecurity. If we open the floodgates to methodological inquiry, or even worse, to methodological pluralism, we shall become like political science, or God forefend, like sociology. So let’s keep those with disruptive instincts out of the profession. If this is not possible, then let’s at least keep them out of the good schools.

Mr. Rizzo’s mention of methodological pluralism within political science reminded me of an article written  by Joesph Nye in the Washington Post this past April. Mr. Nye’s article was about the lack of political scientists involved in shaping policy decisions within the Obama administration–in comparison to economists for example.¹ One of the reasons Mr. Nye cites is an overemphasis by political scientists on mathematical models and a trend toward unaccessible and jargon filled theories:

Advancement comes faster for those who develop mathematical models, new methodologies or theories expressed in jargon
that is unintelligible to policymakers.

Methodological pluralism is not the problem Mr. Rizzo should be deploring, rather it is the kind of methodological pluralism that has sprung up in political science (which I sense is what was meant). The problem in political science is that while one can certainly find methodological pluralism within the discipline, that pluralism is increasingly developing on the fringes–away from reality. The following paragraph is particularly telling:

Some academics say that while the growing gap between theory and policy may have costs for policy, it has produced better social science theory, and that this is more important than whether such scholarship is relevant. Also, to some extent, the gap is an inevitable result of the growth and specialization of knowledge. Few people can keep up with their subfields, much less all of social science. But the danger is that academic theorizing will say more and more about less and less.

Many entering graduate students (myself included) are put off by this over specialization and detachment from reality. Where are the normative arguments? Where is the passion to provoke change? Where is the feeling of harnessing the tools of analysis and using them to make the world a better place?

As both Mr. Nye and Mr. Rizzo point out, they have been driven away by the academy itself. Departments socialize young graduate students into a particular ideology about research methods. Faculty and researchers envision themself as observers standing outside of the system looking upon it and analyzing it neutrally–reporting what they find. Journal submissions are reviewed by these same faculty members and it becomes a closed circle of reinforcing ideas. Scholars making normative claims must either face be established, senior, and well respected to have their voices heard, or they must be willing to be pushed to the fringe. ²

Of course one could point to some glimmers of hope, and indeed when met with the claims of Mr. Nye, Mr. Rizzo, and (humbly) myself, most social scientists would be able to rattle off a list of a few scholars making normative claims who are well respected. But, to do this is to miss the point.

The social sciences are an inherently normative endeavour. We study social systems that contain other human beings. These human beings support our research through their tax dollars, tuition dollars, or charitable donations. They do so in the hopes that our research will find solutions to the complex and diverse problems that afflict our social systems today.For political scientists to not do work that is accessible to policy makers is to miss the point of role of the political scientist almost entirely. Worse, it is to squander expertise and skills that could be used collectively to improve our governments and our democracies. By retreating behind walls of increasingly incomprehensible and technical methodologies and refusing to engage with the outside world in a direct way the social sciences, and political science in particular, have put far too much emphasis on the science part of their title at a great cost to the social.

Afterword:

I should note that my criticism is directed not at the individuals within the disciplines themselves, but rather at the framework that has been set up that perpetuates these problems. See my post on Science 2.0 for an analysis of how opening up the discipline and providing more transparency could not only make for better science, but also free many social scientists from a constraining system that does not reward them for their normative insights. (Though the same difficulties apply to the implementation of both projects.)