Policy Sciences

Policy Sciences
Author: Arie Y. Lewin
Publisher: Pergamon
Total Pages: 528
Release: 1976
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal

Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal
Author: Heather E. Douglas
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2009-07-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 082297357X

The role of science in policymaking has gained unprecedented stature in the United States, raising questions about the place of science and scientific expertise in the democratic process. Some scientists have been given considerable epistemic authority in shaping policy on issues of great moral and cultural significance, and the politicizing of these issues has become highly contentious. Since World War II, most philosophers of science have purported the concept that science should be "value-free." In Science, Policy and the Value-Free Ideal, Heather E. Douglas argues that such an ideal is neither adequate nor desirable for science. She contends that the moral responsibilities of scientists require the consideration of values even at the heart of science. She lobbies for a new ideal in which values serve an essential function throughout scientific inquiry, but where the role values play is constrained at key points, thus protecting the integrity and objectivity of science. In this vein, Douglas outlines a system for the application of values to guide scientists through points of uncertainty fraught with moral valence.Following a philosophical analysis of the historical background of science advising and the value-free ideal, Douglas defines how values should-and should not-function in science. She discusses the distinctive direct and indirect roles for values in reasoning, and outlines seven senses of objectivity, showing how each can be employed to determine the reliability of scientific claims. Douglas then uses these philosophical insights to clarify the distinction between junk science and sound science to be used in policymaking. In conclusion, she calls for greater openness on the values utilized in policymaking, and more public participation in the policymaking process, by suggesting various models for effective use of both the public and experts in key risk assessments.

Democracy and the Policy Sciences

Democracy and the Policy Sciences
Author: Peter deLeon
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 176
Release: 1997-08-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1438400780

As originally proposed by Harold Lasswell, the policy sciences were dedicated to democratic governance. But today they are far removed from the democratic process and do little to promote the American democratic system. This book examines how in the context of American history and the development of the policy sciences, a more democratic, participatory policy analysis could be conceptualized in theory and administered in practice. Peter deLeon argues that for the policy sciences to move toward democracy, they must accept a new analytic paradigm that draws heavily on critical thinking and the writing of post-positivism. To further that end, he presents a "minipopulist" procedure that will allow more citizen participation without hamstringing the processes of government.

Science and Ideology in the Policy Sciences

Science and Ideology in the Policy Sciences
Author: Paul Diesing
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 485
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351491954

The purpose of this book is to examine how ideology operates--in the sense of influencing the conduct of inquiry--in the policy sciences, defined as economics, political science, and sociology. The author seeks to identify the main ideologies and show how each ideology produces a preference for certain problems, methods, and hypotheses; how it sensitizes scientists to certain phenomena and suggests certain interpretations of those phenomena; and how it closes off other phenomena and concepts from investigation and testing, or at least distorts that investigation. In this book, Diesing critically examines all the major schools of policy-related social thought from 1930 to 1975. He deals with Neoclassical Economics and its various applications, the Keynesians, the Systems Approach, the Schumpeter perspective, the Critical Intellectuals, the Pluralists, the J. K. Galbraith School, New Left Marxism, and the Ecological Paradigm of Schumacher and others. The world looks different if your perspective is that of a rational small businessman working in a society of hypothetical perfect competition, as opposed to that of a proletarian, looking up at your oppressors. Part One is descriptive and evaluative, considering each ideology in turn; Part Two considers the policy implications. "In 1982, Diesing published a remarkable book entitled Science and Ideology in the Policy Sciences. When I interviewed Diesing in Buffalo in the summer of 1984, he told me that to date, the publication had been reviewed in only two professional journals. I was astounded. Science & Ideology...was the best book I had read in a decade, and it related directly to all the policy sciences. The lack of professional response may partially reflect Diesing's disinterest in self-promotion, but beyond this is the 'community' problem. Scholars are recognized within disciplines, but there is only a tiny 'community of social science'. I consider this to be the most brilliant of Diesing's books. Like all of Diesing's works, it remains highly relevant today."--from the introduction by Richard Hartwig.

Design for Policy Sciences

Design for Policy Sciences
Author: Yehezkel Dror
Publisher: New York : American Elsevier Publishing Company
Total Pages: 176
Release: 1971
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

Textbook on an interdisciplinary research and systems analysis approach to government policy formulation and decision making - examines the inadequacy of contemporary behavioural sciences and scientific management, the need for a fusion between pure and applied research, etc., and concludes that the advancement of policy sciences is necessary even for handling the routine problems of everyday policymaking. Bibliography pp. 143 to 149.

Preventing Bullying Through Science, Policy, and Practice

Preventing Bullying Through Science, Policy, and Practice
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2016-09-14
Genre: Law
ISBN: 030944070X

Bullying has long been tolerated as a rite of passage among children and adolescents. There is an implication that individuals who are bullied must have "asked for" this type of treatment, or deserved it. Sometimes, even the child who is bullied begins to internalize this idea. For many years, there has been a general acceptance and collective shrug when it comes to a child or adolescent with greater social capital or power pushing around a child perceived as subordinate. But bullying is not developmentally appropriate; it should not be considered a normal part of the typical social grouping that occurs throughout a child's life. Although bullying behavior endures through generations, the milieu is changing. Historically, bulling has occurred at school, the physical setting in which most of childhood is centered and the primary source for peer group formation. In recent years, however, the physical setting is not the only place bullying is occurring. Technology allows for an entirely new type of digital electronic aggression, cyberbullying, which takes place through chat rooms, instant messaging, social media, and other forms of digital electronic communication. Composition of peer groups, shifting demographics, changing societal norms, and modern technology are contextual factors that must be considered to understand and effectively react to bullying in the United States. Youth are embedded in multiple contexts and each of these contexts interacts with individual characteristics of youth in ways that either exacerbate or attenuate the association between these individual characteristics and bullying perpetration or victimization. Recognizing that bullying behavior is a major public health problem that demands the concerted and coordinated time and attention of parents, educators and school administrators, health care providers, policy makers, families, and others concerned with the care of children, this report evaluates the state of the science on biological and psychosocial consequences of peer victimization and the risk and protective factors that either increase or decrease peer victimization behavior and consequences.

Ethics, The Social Sciences, and Policy Analysis

Ethics, The Social Sciences, and Policy Analysis
Author: Daniel Callahan
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1468470159

The social sciences playa variety of multifaceted roles in the policymaking process. So varied are these roles, indeed, that it is futile to talk in the singular about the use of social science in policymaking, as if there were one constant relationship between two fixed and stable entities. Instead, to address this issue sensibly one must talk in the plural about uses of dif ferent modes of social scientific inquiry for different kinds of policies under various circumstances. In some cases, the influence of social scientific research is direct and tangible, and the connection between the find ings and the policy is easy to see. In other cases, perhaps most, its influence is indirect-one small piece in a larger mosaic of politics, bargaining, and compromise. Occasionally the findings of social scientific studies are explicitly drawn upon by policymakers in the formation, implementation, or evaluation of particular policies. More often, the categories and theoretical models of social science provide a general background orientation within which policymakers concep tualize problems and frame policy options. At times, the in fluence of social scientific work is cognitive and informational in nature; in other instances, policymakers use social science primarily for symbolic and political purposes in order to le gitimate preestablished goals and strategies. Nonetheless, amid this diversity and variety, troubling general questions persistently arise.

The Policy Sciences

The Policy Sciences
Author: Daniel Lerner
Publisher: Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 370
Release: 1951
Genre: Policy sciences
ISBN: