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Review: Return to Politics: Perestroika and Postparadigmatic Political Science Author(s): Sanford Schram Reviewed work(s): Return to Reason by Stephen Toulmin Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How It Can Succeed Again by Bent Flyvbjerg Unthinking Social Science: The Limits of Nineteenth-Century ParadigmsParadigms Explained: Rethinking Thomas Kuhn's "Philosophy of Science" by Erich von Dietze

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Source: Political Theory, Vol. 31, No. 6 (Dec., 2003), pp. 835-851 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3595714 Accessed: 18/05/2010 09:44 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sage. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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REVIEW ESSAYS

RETURNTO POLITICS Perestroikaand PostparadigmaticPoliticalScience RETURNTO REASONby Stephen Toulmin.Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 2002. 243 + x pp. MAKINGSOCIALSCIENCEMA1TER:WHYSOCIALINQUIRYFAILS ANDHOWITCANSUCCEEDAGAINbyBentFlyvbjerg. NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 204 + x pp. UNTHINKINGSOCIAL SCIENCE: THE LIMITS OF NINETEENTHCENTURY PARADIGMS, 2d ed., with a new preface by Immanuel Wallerstein.Philadelphia:Temple UniversityPress, 2001. 286 + xii pp. PARADIGMS EXPLAINED: RETHINKING THOMAS KUHN'S PHILOSOPHYOF SCIENCEby Erich von Dietze. Westport,CT: Praeger, 2001.183+xpp. BEYONDTHEIVORYTOWER:INTERNATIONAL RELATIONSTHEORY AND THE ISSUE OF POLICY RELEVANCEby Joseph Lepgold and MiroslavNincic. New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress, 2001. 228 + xii pp. SCHOOLSOF THOUGHT:IWENIFY-FIVE YEARSOF INTERPRETIVE SOCIALSCIENCE by Joan W. Scott and Debra Keates. Pnnceton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 2001. 403 + x pp. Political science is receiving increased critical scrutiny as a discipline these days, and much of thatscrutinyis coming from within its own ranks.A growingnumberof political scientistshave signed on to a movementto challenge the dominance of positivistic research, particularlyresearch that assumespolitical behaviorcan be predictedaccordingto theoriesof rationality andthatsuch predictionsunderwritecumulativeexplanationsthatconstitute the growth of political knowledge. Ithe movement to question such thinkingis most dramaticallyrepresentedin the networkof scholarsthathas AUTHOR'SNOTE: Thanksto Bonnie Honigfor helpfulsuggestions that improvedthis essay. POLITICALTHEORY,Vol. 31 No. 6, December 2003 835-851 DOI: 10.1177/0090591703252444 C)2003 Sage Publications 835

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developedin responseto the eponymousMr.Perestroikaletterthatraisedthis challenge in poignanttermswhen it first circulatedover the Internetback in Octoberof 2000. A loose collection of political scientists, from graduatestudentsto senior scholars,Perestroikansdo not always themselves agreeon which featuresof the dominant approachthey want to critique-some focus on the overly abstractnature of much of the research done today, some on the lack of nuance in decontextualized,large sample empirical studies, others on the inhumanenessof thinkingaboutsocial relationsin causalterms,andstill others on the ways in which contemporarysocial science all too often fails to producethe kind of knowledgethatcan meaningfullyinformsocial life. As a group,the Perestroikamovement,however,has championedmethodological pluralism,chargingthat exclusionarypractices have made graduateeducation less hospitableto historicaland field research,qualitativecase studies, interpretive and critical analysis, and a variety of context-sensitive approaches to the study of politics. The major journals of the field, Perestroikansargue,have become preoccupiedwith publishingresearchthat conformsto overlyrestrictivescientisticassumptionsaboutwhat constitutes contributionsto knowledge of politics. Perestroikais a healthydevelopment for political science and all othersocial sciences as well, opening for reconsiderationthese very questionableassumptionsaboutwhatconstitutespolitical knowledge in particularand social knowledge in general. Fromthe vantagepoint of manyPerestroikans,the dominantparadigmin the field operatesaccordingto the following hierarchyof assumptions:(1) political science exists to help promoteunderstandingof the truthaboutpolitics; (2) political science researchcontributesto this quest by addingto the accumulationof an expandingbase of objective knowledge aboutpolitics; (3) the growthof this knowledge base is contingentupon the buildingof theory thatoffersexplanationsof politics;(4) the buildingof theoryis dependent on the developmentof universalgeneralizationsregardingthe behaviorof political actors; (5) the developmentof a growing body of generalizations occurs by testing falsifiable, causal hypotheses that demonstratetheir success in making predictions;(6) the accumulationof a growing body of predictions aboutpolitical behaviorcomes from the study of variablesin samples involvinglargenumbersof cases; and(7) this growingbody of objective, causalknowledgecan be putin service of society, particularlyby influencing public policy makersand the stewardsof the state. This paradigmexcludes much valuableresearch.Forinstance,it assumes thatthe studyof a single case is "unscientific,"providesno basis for generalizing, does not build theory, cannot contributeto the growth of political knowledge, and,as a result,is not even to be consideredfor publicationin the

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leadingjournalsandis to be discouragedas a legitimatedoctoraldissertation project.1While therehave always been dissentersto the drifttoward"largen,"quantitativeresearchin service of objective,decontextualizedanduniversally generalizabletruthaboutpolitics, there is a good case to be made that the dissentershave increasinglybeen marginalizedas the centerof gravityof the discipline has drifted more and more towards reflecting these core assumptionsaboutknowledge of politics. Perestroikain political science has at a minimumprovidedan opportunity to haltthis driftby questioningthese assumptionsandposing alternatives.At its best, the Perestroikanimpulse createsthe possibility to questionthe idea thatpolitical science researchexists as a unitaryenterprisededicatedto the accumulationof an expanding knowledge base of universal,decontextualized generalizationsaboutpolitics. In its place, Perestroikawould put a more pluralisticemphasison allowing for the blossoming of morecontextual,contingent,and multiplepolitical truthsthatinvolve a greatertie betweentheory andpracticeand a greaterconnectionbetween thoughtand actionin specific settings. Perestroikalays open the possibility that political science could actuallybe a very differentsortof discipline, one less obsessed with proving it is a "science" and one more connected to providing delimited, contextualized,even local knowledges that might serve people within specific settings. Such a political science would thereforehave very differentstandardsas to what counts as meaningfulpolitical knowledge. It would, for instance,be less interestedin studyingsuch things as "development"or "modernization" in the abstract as objects of inquiry on their own, as when economics becomes the studyof "themarket"as opposed to the examinationof the variety of markets.Insteadof focusing solely on "development"or "modernization"per se, political science would be more aboutstudyingchangein particular countries or using concepts like development or modernization in contextuallysensitive ways to comparechange in differentcountries. This alternativepolitical science would also be less preoccupiedwith perfecting method or pursuingresearchstrictlyfor knowledge's own sake. As Rogers Smithhas underscored,"knowledgedoes not havea sake";all knowledge is tied to servingparticularvalues.2Therefore,this new political science would not be one that is dedicated to replacing one method with another. Instead,such a discipline, if that word is still appropriate,would encourage scholarsto drawon a wide varietyof methodsfrom a diversityof theoretical perspectives,combiningtheory and empiricalwork in differentand creative ways, all in dialogue with political actors in specific contexts. Problemdrivenresearchwould replace method-drivenresearch.

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My own version of Perestroikawould build on this problem-driven,contextually-sensitiveapproachto enable people on the bottom workingin dialogue with social researchersto challenge power.My Perestroikan-inspired political science would be open to allowing ongoing political struggle to serve as the context for deciding what methods will be used in what ways to addresswhich problems.This new dialogic political science would not find its standardsfor credible scholarship in arcane vocabularies and insular methodsthatareremovedfrom local contexts and seem objectivebut arenot withouttheirown agendas.Instead,my political science would find its standardsof knowledgein askingwhetherscholarshipcan demonstrateits contributions to enrichingpolitical discourse in contextualizedsettings. Such a new political science, however,would at the same time recognize the risks associated with connecting to ongoing politics. It would guard against losing its critical capacity for the sake of achieving relevance. It would retain its critical capacity while in dialogue with ongoing political struggle, providing therefore a powerful "critical connectedness"-what CharlesLemerthas called "globalmethods."3It would howeverbe less interested thanthe old political science in serving the statewith objectiveknowledge. It would forego the dreamof scientific grandeurthat aims to produce socially useful, decontextualized, objective knowledge, independent of politics. A political science thatforgoes the dreamof a science of politics in order to dedicateitself to enhancingthe criticalcapacityof people to practicea politics is, for me, an exciting prospect. A political science that does this to enhancethe capacityto challengepowerfrombelow is all the moreexciting.I would arguethatthe new political science would notjust be more politically efficacious but also more intelligent, offering more robustforms of knowledge aboutpolitics. Importantphilosophicaljustificationfor this Perestroikan-inspiredalternative to political science can be found in Stephen Toulmin's magisterial book Returnto Reason. Tolumin'sbook builds on his life's work in the philosophy of science, ordinarylanguagephilosophy,rhetoric,and the analysis of practicalarts.It is writtenwith an eruditionrarelyseen. Its sweepingpanoramaplaces the problemof scientismin the social sciences in a historically rich context. His primaryargumentis that since Descartes, and especially since Kant,Westernphilosophicalthoughthas been increasinglyenchanted with the dreamof realizinguniversalrationalityas the highestformof knowledge and the basis for truth.Yet, Toulminstresses thatit was only relatively recently with the twentiethcenturythatthis dreamcame to be ascendantas the hegemonic ideal for organizingknowledge practicesin the academyin generalandthe social sciences in particular.The dreamof universalrational-

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ity as the gold standardfor objective knowledge of truthbecame ascendant with the rise of modem science and the growing influence of the argument that science, as best representedby particularnaturalsciences, was the best routetowardachieving universalrationality,objective knowledge, and truth with a capital T. In its wake, the modem university was built, and then increasinglycompartmentalizedinto the multiversity,with growingnumbers of specialized disciplines, each increasinglypreoccupiedwith perfectingits own methodologicalprowess as to how to best arriveat truth. Toulmin'smainargumentis thatthis derangementwas a long time coming involving arduouseffortsas partof a campaignthatachievedhegemonic status relatively recently only in the twentieth century. For Toulmin, before then, much of the historyof modem Westernphilosophy can be understood in terms of striking a balance between universalrationalityand contextual reason. The campaignershad to confront time and again the problem that what is universallyrationalmay not be reasonablein particularsituations. For centuries,the dreamof universalrationalitywas counterbalancedwith the practiceof everyday reason. Humans experiencedtheir lives and made sense of them between these poles. Yet, the rise of modem science increased the emphasison the productionof objectiveknowledge in the most abstract and generalizableterms possible. Theory was everythingand practice was subordinatedto it. Theory-drivenmodernscience's preferreddiscoursewas mathematicsthat, since Descartes, was the ideal idiom for expressing in abstractand generalizabletermsthe objectiveknowledge of universalrationality. Sciences began to be rankedby the degree to which they could produce universalrationalityas expressed in mathematicalterms.Physics envy spread. Then again, in the twentieth century, science in general became ascendantas the best way to producesuch knowledge. The fact that"science as use" was conflated with "science as truth"helped greatlyin vaultingscience to the forefrontas the supposedsuperiorroadto truthas dramaticdevelopments in technology were increasingly showcased as proof positive that science not only could do thingsbutalso knewthe truthof whatit was doing.4 The idea that there is a distinctive scientific method that all sciences sharedbeganto gain greatercurrency,and all otherforms of knowledgeproductioncame to be seen as inferiorto the degreethatthey failed to conformto the dictatesof the scientificmethod.Physics envy morphedinto science envy with the social sciences increasinglymiming what was seen as the methods of the naturalsciences in orderto lay theirown claim to scientificlegitimacy. At this point, the precariousbalancebetween emphasizingabstractrationality andeverydayreasonwas now seriouslyupset, anduniversalrationalityin service of abstractgeneralizableknowledge statedin the mathematicalterms was seen as the only realformof truthworthtakingseriously.The wisdom of

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everyday reason was increasinglyrelegated to folklore or to applied fields and it itself startedto become a popular area of study, not so much for the truthsit affordedbut as an object of inquirythatcould be used as datato test various hypotheses about which types of people in what culturestended to thinkin whatways andwhy. The science of wisdom, as it were, whetherstudied in anthropologyor philosophy, was a sure sign that rationalityhad triumphedover reason. Toulmineffectively illuminatesthe rise of universalrationalityfirstin philosophy from Descartes on, then in the sciences, but also in the social sciences and appliedfields as well. He highlightshow a consistentbias in favor of abstractknowledge of universal rationality continued to work its way acrossdisparaterealmsof knowledgeproduction.Toulminis not a social scientist and in the past he has writtenaboutalmost everythingbut. Yet,Return to Reason demonstratesa real feel for how the social sciences rose in the shadow of the preoccupationwith the abstractknowledge of universalrationality andhow thatplayed out in selected fields. This is a wide-rangingbook, written in a very inviting conversationalstyle, from an Olympian vantage point;however,this is no meredilettanteruminationon the misguidedproject John Dewey called the "questfor certainty." My favorite example in the entire book is Lancelot Brown, the famous nineteenth-centurylandscaper,who was also popularlyknown as "Capability" Brown because the designs for his quintessentially British gardens developed out of the available landscape, ratherthan, as with the French style, imposing anidealizedimage of a gardenon the landscapeandforcingit to conformto thatideal. Toulminuses CapabilityBrownto demonstratehow Britishempiricismin contrastto Frenchidealism very pragmaticallyoffers a way to "playit as it lays" andwork with what is availablewithin anyparticular context ratherthan trying to impose abstract,universal ideals on situations. In Toulmin'shands, CapabilityBrown effectively illustratesthe value in a returnto reasonas a counterbalanceto the excessive emphasison abstract knowledge of universalrationality. Toulminis most convincingwhen he notes thatfor the social sciences, the scientistic preoccupationwith universalrationalitywas a particularlytroubling turn.His primarycase in point is the popularone-economics. He calls it the "physicsthatnever was."Toulmineffectively shows thatthe historyof the developmentof economics as a discipline involvedthe progressiveeliminationof historicalandsocial considerations,increasinglydecontextualizing its subjectmatterin ever moreabstractandmathematicaltermsto produceits own universal rationality of market-relatedbehavior. The application of abstracteconomic models to problemsof public policy increasinglybecame the vogue. Theory dictatedto practice in often-ruthlessterms, particularly

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when FirstWorldlending institutionsprescribed"structuraladjustment"or "shock therapy"policies that requirednation-statesto retrofittheir economies to conform to the models' requirements.The centralproblemhere for Toulmin,as for so manyothers,is thatthese sortsof applicationsall too often mistookcontextuallyspecific understandingsof predictablemarketbehavior as universallyapplicable,abstractedthem from those contexts, andimposed them in social settings, cultures,and political systems where they make very little sense at all, anddid so all too often at greatcost to the well-being of the people who were supposed to be helped by such "development"schemes. Toulmin counters these disasters of "top-down"theory-driveneconomic practicewith the example of MuhammadYunus,who works from the "bottom up" with his GrameenBank that provides small loans in over 50,000 Bangladeshi villages so that local people can develop "appropriate"enterprises fitted to their communities,values, and local practices.Yunus,a professional economist, is quoted by Toulmin as saying, "If Economics [as it stands] were a social science, economists would have discovered what a powerful socio-economic weapon creditis.... If we can re-designeconomics as a genuine social science, we will be firmlyon ourway to creatinga poverty-freeworld"(p. 65). Toulminends his tale of the disenchantmentof economics by saying, "This message does not, of course, affect Economics alone: similartraditionsin the otherhumansciences have led to similarmisunderstandingsand errorsof practicaljudgment"(p. 66). ForToulmin,the antidoteto the twentieth-centuryhegemonyof universal rationalismis respectfor everydayreason,as practicedin contextualizedsettings, in ways thatcan not be legislated by theoryfrom the top down and are open to living with the uncertaintythatsuch situatedknowledgesmustaccept as the ineliminablecontingencyof whatToulmincalls the "clinicalarts."The social sciences are, for Toulmin, more akin to "applied sciences," but "applied"mischaracterizesthe situation,suggesting thattheoryis appliedin practice-an idea most significantly popularizedby the reportsAbraham Flexnerwrote on professionalmedical educationin 1913 andon social work in 1915. Instead,drawingon the work of Donald Schon and others,Toulmin wants us to learn that social theory is betterseen growing out of practice,as an intensificationof those meditativemoments in social practice.Toulmin sees the need for social sciences, operatingever more beyond disciplinary boundaries,to be more aboutteachingpracticalwisdom, phronesis, as Aristotle termedit, as somethingthatgrows out of an intimatefamiliaritywith the contingenciesanduncertaintiesof variousformsof social practiceembedded in complex social settings. We need therefore to revise the standardsfor acceptable research methodologies, reincorporating context-sensitive research,such as case studies, not to dictate what is to be done but more to

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inventoryinfinitelyuniquecases fromwhich social actorscan learnto appreciate the complexities of social relationsandpracticevarioussocial craftsall the more effectively. Social science would be more like bioethics than like moralphilosophy,basingitself on the insightthatToulminprovideswhen he notes thatbioethics owes very little to moralphilosophy,which, as theory,is incapable of specifying from the top down most bioethical decisions, that insteadgrow fromthebottomup, in unlegislatedform,varyingwith contexts, negotiatingambiguity,living with uncertainty,and still doing the necessary work of determining life and death every day. Case study research for bioethicistsand manyothers,often conductedin dialogicalandcollaborative relationswith the people being studied,can help enable social actorsto use knowledge to address their problems. Such participatoryaction research would for Toulminbe more fitting of a real social science thatbetterunderstood its relationshipto its contingent, contextual and ever so thoroughly social subjects.ForToulmin,the returnto reasonwill thenbest be evidenced in the social sciences when wisdom of this sort is taughtnot as an object for scientific scrutiny,as evidence of culturalvariation,but as the very goal of knowledge productionitself. In his introduction,Toulmincites one book as a sign thatsome social scientistsaretappinginto the themes he emphasizes.The book is MakingSocial Science Matter:WhySocial InquiryFails and How It Can SucceedAgain by Bent Flyvbjerg.It too is a remarkablebook thatadds fuel to the idea thatperhaps Perestroikansare partof broaderacademic currents.Flyvbjerg'sbook takesus one step furtherdown the roadthatToulminhas laid out for us andit does it eloquently with its own impassionedargumentthatnot only demonstrateswhat is wrong with the social sciences today but provides a detailed list of examples of how a phronetic social science is alreadypossible and alreadyhappeninghere andthere amongthe detritusof contemporarysocial science. Flyvbjerg'sbook is such a breathof fresh air;he creativelyuses Aristotle, Nietzsche, Foucault,Bourdieu,and othersto make many of the same points as Toulmin,but in his own distinctiveway. He fuses an Aristotelianconcern forphronesis with a Marxistconcernforpraxis, addingin a Foucauldiancritique of Habermas'spreoccupationwith consensus to demonstratethat a phroneticsocial science that can offer a praxis worth pursuingis one that would work within any contextualizedsettingto challenge power,especially as it is articulatedin discourse.Flyvbjerg'sphroneticsocial science wouldbe open to using a pluralityof researchmethodsto help people challenge power more effectively. Flyvbjergbegins whereToulminleft us, in the presentwith social science hopelessly lost seeking to emulate the natural sciences with a quest for

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theory-drivenabstractknowledge of universalrationality.Flyvbjergadds a compelling critiquethatdemonstratesconvincingly thatthereis no symmetry between naturaland social science in that naturalscience's interpretive problemsarecompoundedby whatAnthonyGiddenscalled the "doublehermeneutic"of the social sciences. By virtueof its distinctivelyhumansubject matter,the social scientistsinevitablyarepeople who offer interpretationsof otherpeople's interpretations.And the people being studiedalways have the potentialto include the social scientists'interpretationsin theirs,creatingan ever-changingsubjectmatterand requiringa dialogic relationshipbetween the people doing the studying and the people being studied. For Flyvbjerg, this situationunavoidablymeans thatthere can be no theory for social science in the sense thatsocial science needs to forego the dreamthatit can create time-testedtheories of a static social reality. As a result, arguesFlyvbjerg,the social sciences should not seek to emulate the natural sciences. In such a comparison, the social sciences will always fare very poorly, being seen as inferiors incapable of producing knowledge based on tested theoriesthatcan evince predictionof the worlds they study. Instead, Flyvbjerg feels that the social sciences are better equipped to produce a different kind of knowledge-phronesis, practical wisdom-that grows out of intimate familiarity with practice in contextualizedsettings.Local knowledges, even tacit knowledges, thatcannot be taughta priori,grown from the bottom up, emergingout of practice, foregoing the hubrisof seeking claims to a decontextualizeduniversalrationality statedin abstracttermsof false precision.Add a sense of praxis,seeking the ability to push for change, leaven it with an appreciationof the ineliminablepresence of power, and this phroneticsocial science can help people in ongoing political strugglequestionthe relationshipsof knowledge and power and therebywork to change things in ways they might find more agreeableandeven satisfying. Such a phroneticsocial science can contribute to whatI have called "radicalincrementalism"or the idea thatpraxisinvolves promotingchange for the least advantagedby exploiting the possibilities in currentpolitical arrangements.5 Yet, what is most exciting is thatFlyvbjergnot only goes beyond critique to offer a positive program;he demonstratesit in detail, pointing to a rich varietyof contemporarywork fromthatof Bourdieu,to RobertBellah, to his own work.Flyvbjerg'sresearchspannedfifteen yearsandfocused on a major redevelopment project initiated by the Danish city of Aalborg, where Flyvbjerg continues to teach urbanplanning. His research on the project evolved over time, quickly becoming more phroneticas he came to appreciate how social science could makerealcontributionsto the ongoing dialogue over the city's redevelopmentefforts once his researchwas retrofittedto the

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specific context in which the issues of developmentwere being debated.At first, Flyvbjerg was put off that decision makers rejected the relevance of studies abouteducationelsewhere andhe came to be concernedwith power. Without saying so, he evidently took to heart the idea that he had to work harderto produce research that, even while it challenged power, demonstratedits sensitivity to the Aalborgcontext. In the process, power relations got challenged in a very public way, the framingof the developmentagenda got successfully revised to include more grassroots concerns, an ongoing dialogue with participantsin the redevelopmentprocess got richly elaborated,and social science researchthat gave up an interestin proving grand theories became criticalto a very robustdiscourse on urbanplanning.As a result,the Aalborgplanningprojectgained increasedvisibility as a successful projectthatwent out of its way to democratizeits decision makingin part by allowing social science research to help keep it honest, open, and collaborative. Phronetic social science such as this would be very different than the social science that predominates today. For Immanuel Wallerstein, that would be a good thing,at least for the most part.A secondedition of his 1991 work UnthinkingSocial Science: The Limits of Nineteenth-CenturyParadigms was released in 2001. Revised to include a new preface, these essays demonstratethe consistencyin Wallerstein'sthinkingeven as he continuesto add new concerns, as he did in his 1999 collection, TheEnd of the WorldAs We Know It: Social Science for the 21st Century.For over thirty years, Wallersteinhas championedhis World-SystemsAnalysis not just as a critique of global capitalism's 500-year climb to ascendancybut also, as the titles of his more recentbooks indicate, as a critiqueof the epistemological assumptionsthat undergirdthat system, especially in terms of the implications for social science. His preoccupationwith social science's role in the reproductionof the WorldSystem is not some idle theoreticalpoint.In 1996, as chair of the GulbenkianCommission on the Restructuringof the Social Sciences, he issued, with the nine otherinternationalcommitteemembers,a report,Open the Social Sciences, which has since been publishedin twenty differentlanguages.ForWallerstein,when the contemporarysocial sciences beganto be formedin the nineteenthcentury,they were organizedto produce specialized knowledges that would be consistent with the World System's need for a universalrationalitythat would rationalizeits dominanceacross the globe, over a diversityof culturesand wherevercapitalismsoughthegemony.Wallersteinplaces the quest for universalrationalityby the social sciences on a very dramaticworld-historicalstage and in a most criticallight. World-SystemsAnalysis provides, therefore, not just a way of understanding how the capitalist core metropole subjugates the periphery for

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resource extraction and expansion of commodity exchange relationships. World-Systems Analysis, more profoundly, is for Wallerstein a way of critiquingthe knowledge assumptionsthatinformthe WorldSystem. WorldSystems Analysis is first and foremost a way of unlearningor "unthinking" the social sciences thatservethe WorldSystem. Such an unthinkinginvolves breakingdown disciplinaryboundaries,rejoiningnormativephilosophyand empiricalresearch,understandingthe productionof knowledge in terms of its relationshipto the structuralimperativesof the WorldSystem, andfinally, andperhapsmost importantly,appreciatingthatthe WorldSystemis increasingly in crisis andthatits gripon knowledgeproductionis loosening, thereby opening opportunitiesin our time to contributeto its demise by developing the World-Systemscritique. Wallersteinhas muchto offerthe campaignto revitalizesocial science and move it in politically protean directions. I am a bit hesitant, however, to endorse what Wallersteincalls in a moment of modesty the WorldSystem "hypothesis."As historically rich and politically trenchanta critique as is Wallerstein's,it still risks merely replacingone paradigm,as he calls it, with another.I have two problemswith the Wallersteincall for a paradigmshift. First,his World-Systemsparadigmtriesbutfails to resolve its own contradictions regarding the relationship of structure to agency, with structure overdeterminingagency and agency largely becoming the pantomime of structuralinsistences. Second, I am increasinglyconvinced that social science is ideally better seen as postparadigmaticratherthan as organizedby one paradigmor another. For me, the idea of paradigmhas no relevanceto social science except as its own form of mimicry.Paradigmaticresearchis what naturalscientistsdo. Social science for the reasons provided in this essay ideally should not be seen as amenableto being organizedparadigmaticallyin any strictsense of the term. The strict sense of the term is of course subject to intense debate startingwith its authorThomas Kuhn. Erich von Dietze makes this clear in ParadigmsExplained:RethinkingThomasKuhn'sPhilosophy of Science. Dietze providesa very clearlywritten,extremelysystematicandcomprehensive recitation of Kuhn's theory of paradigm, the critics' complaints, Kuhn's responses, and finally Dietze's own assessment that suggests that Kuhn'sadmittedlybrilliantand importantwork failed to shore up paradigm as a sustainableconcept for understandingthe framing and structuringof knowledge productionin the naturalsciences. Dietze concludes by suggesting a "coherencetheory of evidence" as a replacementfor the concept of paradigm. Paradigm,Dietze notes, startedin Kuhn'sTheStructureof ScientificRevolutions and served as the lynchpinfor his theorythatin any one field "nor-

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mal" science was periodically punctuatedby "revolutionary"science that induceda conceptualtransformationof the subjectmatterand initiatednew ways of studying it. Dietze notes thatfrom the beginning Kuhnstruggledto respondto criticsby relyingin particularon two additionalconcepts-exemplarand disciplinarymatrix.An exemplaris an exemplaryexample, usually in the form of an innovativeexperimentor analytical treatment,that by its very success implied a particularway to understandand studythe subjectin question.To the extentthatthey arecontingentupon exemplars,Kuhn'sparadigms are to a greatdegree thereforeimplicit in the very act of "learningby doing" in a contextually sensitive fashion, making them in their own way forms of phroneticreasoning,learnedand elaboratedthroughsituatedpractice.6The disciplinarymatrix is the social, institutional,and organizational side of the process where cohorts of scientists were introducedto the paradigm andencouragedto practicenormalscience accordingto how they were socialized by the disciplinarymatrix.It thereforeis as if paradigmshad both materialand symbolic dimensions. Throughlearningto practiceexemplars, graduatestudents became normal scientists. Natural science was its own form of phronesis, if only so as to practicenaturalscientific reasoningin the context of actually doing it. Once a new exemplararises that is seen as providing a preferredunderstandingof the subjectmatterin ways that the prevailingparadigmcannot, scientistshave to learnthe new rules for studyimplied by the new exemplar. Translationinto the old system of study would not work because the paradigms were, in Kuhn'smind,to an ineliminabledegree,by definition,incommensurable.Each paradigm'sevidence is of a naturethatit always has to be evaluatedby its own standards,in its own context, making it impossible to use evidence to decide if one paradigmwas better than another.For Kuhn, knowledge does not grow cumulatively with one paradigm building on another.We shouldneversay thatwe now know more or betteronly, thatwith a paradigmchange we know differently.What was most radicalthen about Kuhn's notion of paradigmis that it unmasksthe necessary fiction that the twentiethcenturymetastoryof science teachesus aboutthe growthof objective knowledge. This Kuhnianclaim led critics to chargehim with relativism on the groundsthatKuhnseemed to be implyingthatone paradigmmightbe as trueor right as another.Kuhnspentmuch of the rest of his life responding to critics with clarificationsthat more often than not moved him away from the relativisticimplicationsof his work. Dietze is of the opinionthatKuhn'sresponsesdid not salvagethe concept of paradigmsuccessfully. Dietze missteps here by going beyond Kuhn in acceptingthe chargeof relativismas posing a legitimateproblemin need of solution.He thereforeconcludesby tryingto makethe best of whathe sees as

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an untenablesituationby offering an alternative-the coherence theory of evidence. This position builds on the Kuhnianinsight that empirical adequacy alone is not sufficient for theory adjudication.Underdeterminedby evidence, theories need more than facts to receive affirmationwithin a field of study.There are "superempirical"considerations,including in particular "coherencevirtues"appropriateto all knowledge claims regardlessof their theoreticalpremises.Beyond evidence, a knowledge claim mustfit logically with relatedclaims of a theory in ways that are consistent with the generic standardsof how interrelatedknowledge claims ought to be seen as fitting logically together. Dietze defends this perspective as one that salvages Kuhn'stheoryof paradigmfrom the chargesof relativism.Dietze concedes, however, that the superempiricaland transcontextualcriteriafor coherence among interrelatedknowledge claims are themselves constrainingconditions that need to be examined for their potential to exclude certainunderstandingsas illogical when they arein factjust logical accordingto a different standard. Dietze provocativelynotes at the end of his book thatKuhn'srelativismis really a productof a failureto breakmore fully with logical positivism.Kuhn took too seriouslylogical positivism'spress clippings and endedup showing that its supposed objective facts were more context dependent,value laden andtheoryladenthanit was preparedto admit.Kuhnwas rightaboutthat,but for Dietze, Kuhnmakeshis case in too aggressivea fashion, slidinginto a relativism thathe himself was reluctantto endorse. I leave it to othersto decide whetherparadigmor coherence theoryhelps moreto understandthatscience is not objective,does not producecumulative knowledge, and does not lead to universal rationalityor absolute truth. I would suggest however thatDietze prematurelyaccepts the chargesof relativism as pointing towarda legitimateproblem.Dietz tries to save Kuhnby standinghim on his head andmakingthe issue of relativismthe problemit is not. As RichardRortyhas remindedus, when someone calls you a relativist, the better responses include saying thank you for highlighting your wellfounded commitmentto challengingthe illegitimacyof the masternarrative of science.7 Yet, Dietze joins othersin appropriatelyleaving to the side whetherparadigm has relevanceto understandingsocial sciences. Given the subjectmatter, there ideally should be no normal science in any one of the social sciences. Regardlessof the fact thatboth naturaland social science areforms of learningin context thatproducevalue-ladenfacts, social life, as opposed to the objects of naturalscientific inquiry,involves multipleinterpretivelenses offering a cacophony of competingperspectivesemanatingfrom its origins in conscious, thinkinghumanbeings. Underthese conditions,no one form of

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disciplined study of social life should be organized paradigmaticallyto exclude the considerationof multiple perspectives. Ironically,the objectivistsin social science themselves most often resist the applicationof Kuhn'sidea of paradigmto theirfields since it implies that their scientific work was value laden. I agree with them about resisting its applicationto social science but for the differentreason that multiple perspectives are inherentin the subject matter.It is a sad irony then that even thoughthe objectivistsresistparadigm,methodologicalhegemonyby objectivists is the realitytoday in social sciences such as political science andeconomics. This is a doleful reminderthat paradigmsinvolve the very human power struggles of a disciplinarymatrixas much as they do the practicesof inquirydemonstratedin exemplars.Paradigmscan be imposed socially even where they are most inappropriateintellectually. Yet, it is one thing to issue a postparadigmaticcall for a phroneticsocial science and it is anotherto emphasize the idea that social theories should serve as the foundation for practice. The latter is exactly what Joseph Lepgold and Miroslav Nincic do in Beyond the Ivory Tower:International Relations Theory and the Issue of Policy Relevance. Lepgold and Nincic know the field of internationalrelationstheoryinside and out. Theirbook is well writtenand theirthesis is provocative.They arguethatacademic scholarshipon internationalrelations has become increasingly technocraticand disconnected from the practice of internationalpolitics. The authors succinctly overview the field's developments in this regard.Eventually they point to several strandsof contemporaryscholarshipon internationalrelations, which they suggest indicate ways in which academics studyinginternationalrelationscan make their work more relevantto, and even serve as a foundationfor, internationalrelationspractice. While I find the critiqueof the field's increasedtechnicismto be persuasive and consistent with the argumentsmade by Toulminand others, their examples of work thatis connected to internationalpolitics are less so. The authorsprovidetwo examplesof internationalrelationstheorythathave usefully connected to internationalpolitics-"interdemocratic peace"research on how democraciesaremore peaceful with one anotherthanotherpolitical systems, and internationalinstitutionsresearchon how institutionalizedsettings createconditionsandincentivesfor cooperationandconflict. The analysis providedon globalpeace neverreallydemonstrateseffectively how such theorizingprovides, any more than any otherpolitical ideology, the explicit basis for practicing international relations politics by nation-states or nongovernmentalactors.And internationalinstitutionsresearchtoo does not come across as the firm foundation for practice that the authors suggest, though with qualifications,it could be. Both examples are from within the

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hegemonic camp of objectivist political science and both share the hegemonic camp's insensitivity to context. Yet, more important,the very argument thatinternationalrelationstheory should overcome its alienationfrom practiceby reestablishingitself as a foundationfor practicestrikesme as misguided. The solution to overcomingthe alienationof internationalrelations scholarshipfrominternationalpolitics is not to reinscribeepistemicprivilege and the idea that theory is fundamentaland should serve as a blueprintfor practice, or even more concretely for specific public policies. This foundationalismsimply recreatesthe problemin the firstplace, encouraging scholarsto privilegetheoryas some legislatingandauthorizingactivitythatit is not. Such foundationalismreflects a lingering commitmentto universal rationality and fails to appreciate the contextualism that Toulmin and Flyvbjergemphasize as centralto understandingand contributingto social and political life. A betterapproachwould be a phroneticsocial science that sees theoryas growing out of the practices in specific contexts while still working to achievecriticaldistanceon prevailingunderstandingsof those politicalpractices. This would be the beginningof researchthatcould betterhelp ordinary people-nongovernmental actors-challenge power internationally. Phroneticsocial science alreadyexists; it is just not organizedor recognized as such, existing here andtherewhere scholarscome to it on theirown. It also has multiplesourcesof intellectualsustenance.One prominentinstitution that has at times successfully promoted social research that makes a phroneticapproachplausibleis the School of Social Science in the Institute for AdvancedStudy at Princeton,which from its inceptionin 1973 soughtto encourageinnovationin the social sciences by promotinginterdisciplinary work along interpretiveand critical lines. Independentof any university, including Princeton, the School has survived handsomely, celebratingits twenty-fifthanniversarysymposiumin 1997 with the publicationof Schools of Thought:Twenty-FiveYearsof InterpretiveSocial Science, editedby Joan Scott andDebraKeates.This collection includesessays by twentyprominent philosophers,theorists,and social scientists, each respondingto the symposium's theme to addresschangesin theirfield of studyin the last twenty-five years.As CliffordGeertz,the firstappointedprofessorat the School, notes in his introduction,the School was always meantto be a place thatwas open to innovationandresistedpromotingany one programor paradigm.It did,however, seek to challenge the orthodoxy of scientistic social science and it stressed interdisciplinarywork that contributedto what came to be called "interpretivesocial science."8 The essays in this volume area rich set of diversepieces. Some, like David Apter'spiece on empiricaltheoryin political science, tack more to a histori-

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cal line overviewing major developments in a field. Others, like William Sewell's piece on the rise anddecline of social history,tell interestingstories about significant events that were part of those developments. Still others, like Joan Scott's piece on the changing understandingof "history,"illustrate how a particularform of interpretivesocial science makes an importantdifferencein the practiceof social inquiryin specific areas.And still others,like Anna Tsing's piece on globalization, examine a substantiveissue and its implicationsfor a discipline like anthropology.Togetherthese essays comprise a rewardingcollection, suggesting the significance of what several of themreferto as the "interpretiveturn,"the subsequentlinguisticturn,and all the otherrelatedturnsthatfollowed, once the hegemony of scientistic social science had begun to be seriously challenged. Yet, this collection rarelypoints to an instance of what I am calling here with Flyvbjergphroneticsocial science. The interpretiveturnhelps provide resourcesfor developingsuch work;it does not by itself constitutethatwork. Will the road ahead take more turns?That depends to a large extent on the plays of power, in the academy,the government,the think tanks, and anywhere else knowledge and power are being "disciplined."

NOTES 1. The Perestroikalistservis repletewith examplesof dissertationadvisersandjournaleditorswho as a rulewill not considercase studies.The archivesof the listservcanbe accessed by emailing [email protected]. 2. See Rogers M. Smith, "ShouldWe Make Political Science More of a Science or More aboutPolitics?"PS 35 (2002): 199-201. 3. CharlesLemert,Social Things(Lanham,MD: Rowman& Littlefield,2001), 176-206. 4. "Scienceas use" versus"scienceas truth"is fromJacquelineStevens,"SymbolicMatter: DNA and OtherLinguistic Stuff,"Social Text20 (spring2002): 105-36. 5. See SanfordF. Schram,Praxisfor the Poor: Piven and Clowardand the Futureof Social Science in Social Welfare(New York:New YorkUniversityPress, 2002). 6. Etymologically,paradigmis from the Greekparadeiknunai:literally "to show beside," frompara, "alongside,"and deiknunai,"to show,"implying learningby imitatingan example. 7. RichardRorty,"ThomasKuhn,Rocks, andthe Laws of Physics,"CommonKnowledge6 (1997): 6-16; John G. Gunnell,"Relativism:The Returnof the Repressed,"Political Theory21 (1993): 563-84. 8. It is telling thatin orderto mountits challenge to orthodoxy,the School of Social Science at the Institutefor Advanced Study had to declare its independencefrom the supposedlyindependentivorytowerof the university,furthercomplicatingthe issue of whatit takesfor social science to challenge power.

-Sanford Schram Bryn Mawr College

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SanfordSchramteaches social theoryand social policy in the GraduateSchool of Social Workand Social Researchat BrynMawr College. He is the authorof Wordsof Welfare: The Povertyof Social Science andthe Social Science of Poverty(1995) and Praxisfor the Poor: Piven and Clowardand the Futureof Social Science in Social Welfare(2002).