Social Science Research Council
The uprisings which surged through the Arab world in 2011 did not come from nowhere. They represented in part the manifestation of a long, structural transformation in the region’s public sphere which radically undermined the ability of states to control or shape information. Challenges to authoritarian regimes, on the streets and online, had been growing […]
After receiving the National Bank of Sweden’s 1973 ‘Nobel’ Prize in economics – shared with development economist Gunnar Myrdal – Friedrich von Hayek (1899-1992) held an unusual dinner speech where he quite explicitly criticized the prestigious prize he had just received: “…if I had been consulted whether to establish a Nobel Prize in economics, I […]
Contrary to repeated claims of the disappearance of the intellectuals, their participation in public discussion has never been livelier than in today’s advanced democracies, Axel Honneth argues. Instead, he traces an epochal transformation that has brought about two fairly distinct types of reflexive positions: the constantly growing number of normalized intellectuals as the cultural byproduct […]
In 1876, the first issue of the Revue historique was published in Paris. The birth of the journal is commonly seen as a founding moment. History was now defined as a professional discipline, with explicit scientific and more precise methodological requirements, with specific and codified forms of training and a strong sense of academic community. […]
Economics has a long history of engagement on important public policy issues, and its early history was driven in large part by the desire to answer important public policy questions. However, ties between academic economists and the public, the press, policymakers, and economists in business and government have declined in recent decades.{{1}} This has reduced […]
A few years ago, at some international social science conference around the time when Michael Burawoy issued his call for “public sociology,” I was struck by the thought that never before in the history of mankind had there been so many people as today so well trained in analyzing and explaining social life.{{1}} Still, the […]
The founding of the American Sociological Society took place in 1905 at the annual meeting of the American Economics Association.{{1}} Sociology’s declaration of independence marked the coming of age of the new discipline, taking it from a social movement of reformers and utopians into the era of 20th century professionalism. Lester Ward, vociferous opponent of […]
It is no easy challenge to situate the place and role of academic scholarship into the public sphere. The main reason is that both “academic knowledge” and the “public sphere” have over time taken novel forms and are still being transformed into yet newer forms. And this means that figuring out the place of history […]
Stephen Walt’s observations about the “growing gap between university-based scholars and both the policy world and the public sphere” echo, as he points out, many such laments in recent years, and much virtuous self-criticism in the academy. Political scientists (and area studies specialists) have been quick to castigate themselves about the irrelevance of their work […]
Fifteen years ago, I was one of several political scientists asked to participate in an interdisciplinary conference organized by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences to analyze transformations in four disciplines over the last fifty years.{{1}} That request prompted me to become more of a student of the history of American political science, its […]