Social Science under Watch: Following the Money Trail Philippe Fontaine Social Science for What? Battles over Public Funding for the “Other Sciences” at the National Science Foundation. By Mark Solovey. London: MIT Press, 2020. x; 398 pp. $50.00. With the rise to authority of the social sciences after World War II, the division of knowledge between science and the humanities has gradually lost relevance and the differentiation of three, instead of two, cultures is now widely accepted. Needless to say, the increased significance of the social sciences in public life since 1945 has been achieved at the expense of the humanities, if only because the former often impinge on the turf of the latter. Likewise, the formidable reputation of the physical sciences in the wake of the war played no minor role in prompting social scientists to take them as a template for establishing their credentials as scientists. Caught between two lumbering elders, the social sciences have often met with the indifference of one, for failing to catch up, and the criticism of the other, for forgetting their origins. Because of conflicting attractions, disciplinary idiosyncrasies, and political temptations, the social sciences have suffered from an uncertain self-image. Mark Solovey’s book title is reminiscent of Robert S. Lynd’s Knowledge for What? (1939), which considered the place of social science in American culture at a time when the National Science Foundation (NSF) had yet to be created, and when private foundations still served as the main source of funding for social research. Like Lynd’s book, Social Science for What? examines the central question of the social sciences’ utility, but it does so in a different way. Once the NSF was established, indeed, public attention shifted: away from the critique of social science for its putative lack of serviceability and toward the evaluation of its scientific legitimacy as a precondition for its practical relevance. Starting with discussions predating the NSF’s founding in 1950 and closing with the end of Ronald Reagan’s second mandate, Solovey offers a lively, balanced, and powerful analysis of the changing status of the social sciences within History of Political Economy 54:1 DOI 10.1215/00182702-9548351 Copyright 2022 by Duke University Press Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/hope/article-pdf/54/1/161/1505330/0540161.pdf by LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE user on 25 March 2022 Perspectives on Social Science for What? 162 Perspectives on Social Science for What? Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/hope/article-pdf/54/1/161/1505330/0540161.pdf by LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE user on 25 March 2022 the federal science agency. One of his main conclusions is that despite their gradual recognition as full participants in the NSF, the social sciences not only failed to shake up the hierarchy of the sciences but also continued to suffer from problems of scientific legitimacy. In other words, even though the NSF has become an important source of governmental support for the social sciences in the postwar era, it has persistently shown ambivalence toward their scientific maturity, which leads Solovey in his last chapter to reexamine the possibility of a new National Social Science Foundation. In the past twenty years or so, Solovey has earned his place as one of the leading students of the politics–patronage–social science nexus, from the immediate postwar period through the end of the Reagan era. The book under review constitutes the latest, and probably not final, installment in his long-running effort to ascertain the place of social science within the NSF and more generally in American culture. The book capitalizes on the conclusions of his earlier work, but it also offers a more integrated and mature analysis, in which previous results combine to provide a meaningful picture of social science patronage in the postwar United States. As it makes a signal contribution to our understanding of the quest for scientific legitimacy in the social sciences after World War II, the book is likely to interest historians of recent economics, who in the past thirty years have repeatedly explored the reasons for the discipline’s notable success. Indeed, since 1945 economists have shown their discipline to stand apart from its neighbors in social science. In the words of Michael Bernstein (2001: 152) economists have successfully presented themselves “as the practitioners of a rigorous, dispassionate, and apolitical discipline,” while many of their fellow social scientists have been criticized for showing the opposite qualities. While they may not have enjoyed the same prestige as that of their natural science colleagues, physicists in particular, after World War II, economists have nonetheless been more successful at shielding themselves from the a priori suspicion endured by many of their fellow social scientists. Even if the history of science has by now demonstrated the unquestionable contribution of social scientists to the war effort, this was not the case at the end of the war. In the public arena, the success of physics appeared impressive enough to relegate social scientists to the back seat. Moreover, for most conservative politicians, the negative memories of the New Deal conjured up an unfavorable picture of social scientists’ involvement with public affairs, which complicated a serene assessment of their merits. The suspicion toward social science informed preliminary discussions about the founding of the NSF. As Solovey reminds us, “Among the central questions in this debate . . . was whether the social sciences even deserved to be included in the proposed agency” (21). That outright exclusion may have been considered is a clear indication that the actual contribution of social science to the war effort did not suffice to change the opinion of leading administrators and policymakers about the social science enterprise. This is why it is important, as Solovey suggests, to consider the social sciences as a whole rather than individually. While some natural scientists and engineers may have formed a good opinion of the occasional social scientist whose path they crossed during the war, that does not mean that their preconceptions about social science as a whole changed dramatically. In the mid-1940s, the dominant view of Perspectives on Social Science for What? 163 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/hope/article-pdf/54/1/161/1505330/0540161.pdf by LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE user on 25 March 2022 intellectual life included a hierarchy of knowledge in which the physical sciences stood at the top and the humanities at the bottom, with the social sciences somewhere in between but lacking a definite place. Well into the second half of the twentieth century the idea of a dualism between science and the humanities continued to frame intellectual life, to the point that it could still fuel an important controversy between the “two cultures” in the 1960s (Ortolano 2009). That may have been truer of Britain than of the United States, but it would be a mistake to underestimate that force when considering the place of the social sciences in the US. After all, the National Endowment for the Humanities was established in 1965, at a time when the place of social science within the NSF remained dependent upon its adherence to scientistic ambitions. Because of its uncertain—not necessarily worse—place in the hierarchy of knowledge, social science had to fight a different battle from that of the humanities in order to get public support. In trying to convince an influential scientific elite, based in the natural sciences and engineering, that the social sciences had to be included in the NSF, social scientists bore in mind the risk of being excluded from an important source of funding for basic science. In the process, they endorsed a scientistic position, which helped secure their inclusion, but put themselves under the tutelage of their colleagues from the natural sciences, thereby drawing themselves away from their more humanistic peers—who, as a result, may have felt even more estranged from science itself. For social scientists, embracing the scientistic position may have been a means to an end, but for academia as a whole that orientation reinforced durably the institutional arrangements designed to facilitate the subsidizing of research in the postwar era, with the NSF (including the social sciences) on the one hand and the National Endowment for the Humanities on the other. That orientation also impacted the social sciences, which could be said to display distinct degrees of scientific advancement and, accordingly, distinct levels of legitimacy in the eyes of NSF administrators. Commitment to scientism was crucial to the development of NSF social science throughout the 1950s. It went together with steering clear of sensitive and applied subjects, which were left for large private foundations to finance. There was nothing ineluctable about endorsing a scientistic approach to the social world or even about avoiding problematic topics. Still, the dominant position of natural scientists and the fragile place of social science at NSF; the efforts of a number of its leading practitioners to develop a more scientific approach to human behavior in the interwar period; the hostile political climate from the late 1940s and early 1950s; the belief in the virtues of basic and value-neutral science; as well as the existence of other sources of funding for applied and sensitive work—all contributed to making subservience to the project of a unified scientific enterprise controlled by natural scientists appear as the lesser of two evils (76). A change of circumstances, however, could make that trade-off look more debatable. That change occurred from the late 1950s to the late 1960s, and in 1960 it occasioned the creation of a special division for social science at the agency. Now the social sciences could be said to enjoy the same organizational status as the natural sciences. More importantly, following the post-Sputnik expansion of the federal science establishment, the nature of public policies during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations 164 Perspectives on Social Science for What? Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/hope/article-pdf/54/1/161/1505330/0540161.pdf by LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE user on 25 March 2022 encouraged reconsideration of the idea that basic social science could help solve social problems and made it easier for NSF leaders to locate social research within the unity-of-science viewpoint and hardcore emphasis characteristic of the agency’s approach (89). Throughout the period, undeniable progress was made, including the rise of the social sciences’ share of the NSF research budget and recognition of political science as a field of study eligible for support. Social science’s new achievements, however, illustrated greater consistency between its efforts and the nature of the agency’s objectives. At the NSF, a better place for social science still meant adherence to the agency’s policy principles as defined by natural scientists, not acknowledgment by the latter that social scientists had their say in what makes social science a science. This constitutive tension received special attention in the late 1960s following social science’s increasing influence on governmental policies and programs. For NSF leaders, the growing influence of social science made it even more important to separate it “from the contentious spheres of ideological conflict, social reform, partisan politics, and public policy” (112). Supported by two liberal Democrats, two legislative initiatives, representing distinct visions, revived the question of the place of social science within the agency. One was the work of Emilio Q. Daddario who, as chairperson of the Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Development, oversaw annual hearings on NSF appropriations. It called for a number of changes, two of which were especially relevant to NSF social science. The first one may have seemed symbolic, but to the extent that labels count when it comes to scientific legitimacy, it proved to be more than that. Daddario wanted the charter of NSF to explicitly mention the “social sciences” rather than just “other sciences.” The second one called for the agency’s mandate to include support for applied science, which meant that social research that promised practical applications potentially fell under the NSF purview. Following debate, Congress passed the Daddario amendment in the summer of 1968, but that was not enough to put an end to controversy regarding the social sciences’ scientific nature and their actual position at the NSF. As indicated by the difficult integration of the social sciences in a new NSF program called “Interdisciplinary Research Relevant to Problems of Our Society” (IRRPOS), when it came to defining the practical effectiveness of basic social science, it was the physical sciences and engineering that set the tone. Occurring during discussion of the Daddario amendment, the second legislative initiative illustrated a reaction to the common perception at the NSF that social science was second-class science. The proposal called for a new social science agency that acknowledged that there is more to social science than commitment to the scientistic vision and value neutrality. Oklahoma Democratic Senator Fred Harris led that initiative. As Solovey points out, taking his distance from the customary interpretation, it is unclear that social scientists as a whole doubted the merits of the Harris proposal. Some may have, but that is an indication that it represented a real alternative to the form of federal funding the NSF advocated for social research, one that allowed for better support for humanistic social research. Harris’s proposal failed, however, and left unchanged the hierarchy of the sciences it hoped to overthrow—and with it the subordinate position of the social sciences within the NSF. Perspectives on Social Science for What? 165 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/hope/article-pdf/54/1/161/1505330/0540161.pdf by LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE user on 25 March 2022 As suggested by Solovey, the more conservative 1970s were not ideal for the resuscitation of Harris’s vision. The view that the social sciences stood in a subordinate position relative to the natural sciences after World War II had remained largely unaffected by the more hospitable political and intellectual climate of the 1960s. It could be reasonably expected that the return to power of a conservative administration would not help question the second-class status of the social sciences at the NSF, much less support the creation of a dedicated agency for them. In practice, the 1970s marked a setback for the social sciences, notably as a result of a decrease in federal science spending. In addition, growing skepticism about their practical relevance came together with increased need for the social sciences to demonstrate their usefulness in the political arena, making it crucial for the NSF to control more closely troublesome programs such as Man, A Course of Study (MACOS) and Research Applied to National Needs (RANN). Yet, as Solovey aptly notices, these two programs were not the responsibility of the NSF social science division, which continued to be “the major organizational unit responsible for basic research programs for the disciplines and for some interdisciplinary fields of study” (165) until it was closed in 1975. In the summer of 1975, an important institutional reorganization took place within the NSF: the division for the social sciences was closed and these sciences were placed together in the New Directorate for Biological, Behavioral, and Social Sciences (DBBSS). Richard Atkinson, who served as NSF director from 1977 (having been acting director in 1976 and deputy director in 1975), briefly ran the new directorate. Atkinson’s taste for cognitive psychology together with his commitment to the unity of the sciences made him suitable for the role, though a specialist in developmental biology soon took over. Atkinson’s presence at the head of the NSF from 1977 was more of a surprise, even if the psychologist was its former deputy director. Atkinson may have been confident that his position would enable him to protect the social sciences, but the elimination of the division for the social sciences did not benefit them, even if economics fared better than anthropology, political science, and sociology. With reduced organizational standing, the social sciences lost visibility within the agency and were not even on a par with other divisions within the new directorate. What Atkinson achieved, however, was to reinforce the view that a hardcore scientific orientation was crucial to the flourishing of the social sciences at the NSF. Hence, by the late 1970s, big social science projects fared better than “the average social science project, which received roughly $55.000” (191). Here again, the natural sciences pointed the way forward. Following their lead seemed the only option for the social sciences if they wanted to escape long-standing criticism for practical irrelevance or unjustified social advocacy. Despite Atkinson’s genuine efforts, NSF social science remained subject to permanent skepticism and incapable of forging its own future. Inevitably, similar questions resurfaced under different guises again and again. This time, it was wondered if, after all, the social sciences would not be better off without the biological sciences and with their own directorate. Unsurprisingly, reiterating the superiority of the subordination solution, the new permanent director of the NSF, electrical engineer John Slaughter, argued to the contrary. Already by the early 1980s, the social science community’s frustration with the NSF was notable. With the beginning of the Reagan administration, it turned into 166 Perspectives on Social Science for What? Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/hope/article-pdf/54/1/161/1505330/0540161.pdf by LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE user on 25 March 2022 pessimism: “The very survival of the social sciences at the NSF emerged as a serious question for the first time in the agency’s history” (210). With the 1981 budgetary proposal and its draconian cuts, the worries about the place of the social sciences within the agency reached an unprecedented level. Partisan attacks against the social sciences were not especially novel, but the general critique of liberalism and its presumed harm to American society came with the affirmation of a vision that challenged not only the scientific legitimacy of the social sciences but also their raison d’être. Students of society could not expect much from those who rhetorically doubted its very existence. An interesting finding in Solovey’s book is that social scientists eventually responded by reaffirming the social sciences’ inclusion within a unified scientific enterprise and the need to distinguish between scholarly social research and social advocacy. It shows that thirty years after the creation of the NSF, social scientists seeking its support had absorbed its vision of the social sciences. Yet, there is more to the influence of federal funding on social science. As Solovey points out, the crisis of the early 1980s shows that social scientists were able to develop a capacity for self-promotion and self-organization that their long-term partnership with the NSF made timely, when their place within the agency came under attack. Among advocacy organizations, the role of the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA) deserves special mention here. Likewise, the difficulties of the early 1980s gave economic reasoning place of pride in the defense of the NSF social science. That leading and mainstream economists emerged as defenders of the agency’s support to basic social science appears ironic when we remember that the economics profession was keen to mark its differences with other social sciences after World War II. The kind of social science supported by the NSF made it easier for economists to take such a stance. Contrary to the common perception that the troubles faced by the social sciences were gradually subsiding as the Reagan years unfolded, Solovey offers “a more complicated and less upbeat story” (237). Throughout the 1980s, the attacks against the social sciences outside and inside the agency persisted, as well as the conviction that they could benefit from closer relations with the natural sciences. Solovey emphasizes, however, the relatively privileged position of economics at the NSF. Here it is especially relevant to distinguish between economics’ postwar rise to authority within the social sciences and what happened after 1980, when economic reasoning (and not just economics) became the object of particular attention in American political culture. Clearly, the transformation of economics from the late 1940s placed it in an ideal position to meet the expectations of NSF leaders. In addition, the occasional convergence of the economic work funded by the NSF with the Reagan administration’s economic policy agenda helped the agency in its effort to demonstrate the policy relevance of its economics program. It seems sensible, however, to suggest that the relatively privileged status of economics at the NSF was more generally encouraged by increased familiarity with, and greater recognition of, economic reasoning among NSF leaders as a result of its diffusion within American society at large. That is confirmed by Solovey’s remark that “the NSF’s engagement with economics was not characterized by a conservative bent in a more general or profound sense” (267). Perspectives on Social Science for What? 167 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/hope/article-pdf/54/1/161/1505330/0540161.pdf by LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE user on 25 March 2022 Economics fared better than other social sciences, but overall their lot did not improve at the NSF in the Reagan years, raising the question of whether the dominance of a natural science model of social research was not after all detrimental to its future. Opposition to scientism took different forms in the 1980s. In the political arena, the legacy of the New Left continued to support the view that inadequate attention was paid to important value-laden social research and critical scholarship, while the resurgence of conservatism entertained antiscientistic criticism centered on the affirmation of the “right” sort of values as opposed to moral neutrality and cultural relativism. The challenges to the scientistic position also reflected scholarly concerns based in the history, philosophy, and social studies of science, which opened new horizons for social scientists and encouraged them to redefine the scientific identity of their fields on the basis of the community they belong to rather than abstract rules borrowed from the natural sciences. Another significant challenge to scientism emerged from a resurgence of the interpretivist tradition. In considering the study of social, as opposed to natural, phenomena, that tradition insisted that the meaning that people invest in their actions is central to their understanding and that Verstehen analysis is an important stage in knowledge acquisition. Needless to say, the interpretivist challenge constituted a serious threat to the unity-of-science standpoint as endorsed by NSF leaders. Solovey concludes his book by considering the past, present, and future of the social sciences at the NSF. Much has been said already about the book’s key findings regarding NSF social science from the mid-1940s to the late 1980s. It is interesting therefore to consider certain features of NSF social science in the post-Reagan era. One notable milestone was the establishment of a Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate in 1992. The second occurred when a sociologist rose to the position of acting director between June and October 2010 and between March 2013 and March 2014. Both events gave more status and visibility to the social sciences at the agency, but, as Solovey reminds us, “if we take the period 1990 to 2019 as a whole, it is clear that the social sciences remained marginal in NSF leadership positions” (304). Part of the problem is that because of their position in the agency’s hierarchy, natural scientists are entitled to express their opinion about the directions of social science research in a way that limits the ability of its practitioners to shape its future as they see fit. To this should be added the continuing skepticism of a number of politicians who seem unable or unwilling to recognize epistemic differences between the social sciences and laypeople’s opinion about social phenomena, and accordingly wonder whether the use of taxpayer dollars by social scientists does not corrupt the democratic process. In that respect, Solovey is eager to “appreciate anew the NSF’s longstanding importance in promoting good governance of science and public trust in ways that have purposefully included the social sciences” (310). There is no question that in the past seven decades, the legitimacy of the social sciences as part of a unified scientific enterprise has been consolidated within the NSF, if only because the agency has provided “support for work that is not narrowly focused on practical payoffs or on matters of partisan conflict and ideological warfare” (312). However, this has not prevented the social sciences from being the poor relation at the NSF. 168 Perspectives on Social Science for What? References Bernstein, Michael A. 2001. A Perilous Progress: Economists and Public Purpose in Twentieth-Century America. Oxford: Princeton University Press. Ortolano, Guy. 2009. The Two Cultures Controversy: Science, Literature and Cultural Politics in Postwar Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/hope/article-pdf/54/1/161/1505330/0540161.pdf by LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE user on 25 March 2022 In view of the above, it may be asked whether alternative possible funding structures would place the social sciences in a better position within the federal science system. Solovey suggests “that the idea of creating a national social science foundation deserves serious reconsideration” (314). At the moment, nothing indicates that such a proposal would gain much traction, but its discussion would bring to the forefront a number of important questions, among which one in particular needs to be mentioned: is it better to be a small frog in a big pond or a big frog in a small pond? Solovey does not have an answer to that question and perhaps he thinks (like me) that it is just good to be a frog, but his book nonetheless offers a splendid contribution to the ongoing debate over the place of the social sciences within the federal science establishment since 1945.