Social Sciences and the Democratic Ideal: From Technocracy to Dialogue

Social sciences were launched on a wave of expectation that scientific study of society would yield practical benefits, through improved understanding, policy and organisation. This expectation was strengthened through the twentieth century: social sciences staked out new disciplinary areas and developed distinctive methodologies (such as game theory) alongside those imported from the natural sciences. Promising transferable skills for students as well as technical insights for policy makers, they were major beneficiaries of universities' postwar expansion. But the social sciences now have a harder time selling themselves, partly because they lack any clear consensus as to the values they serve and the direction they should take. Social scientists are a dispersed group with clearly different views about what they stand for, why we should read them, and why universities and governments should continue supporting them.