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THE FOCUS OF the present paper is the American led victories in the cold war and in the North/South struggle, and the consequent reassertion of American hegemony. These are seen [...]

A Gramscian perspective on the social sciences emphasizes their ideological function and the role of the social scientist as an intellectual. According to Gramsci, intellectuals are not a separate class, but serve the interests of particular classes. They also provide ideological support to form, maintain or overthrow historic blocs, a concept Gramsci created to describe a social formation which results in a new hegemony. According to the classification scheme of Burrell and Morgan, the Gramscian social science paradigm is mostly subjective and in support of radical change.

Refutes the very concept of a social science. Observes that the disciplines which study man and society are too heavily characterized by diversity, lack of consensus, and dissonance to be considered sciences. Classifies social science as a "non-science" and considers the term "social studies" to be a more honest and descriptive name to attach to the disciplines. (GEA)

Florida State University, Tallahasse, U.S.A. International Journal of Comparative Sociology Vot.27 (1986) pp.172-189 The first of the two major goals of this paper is to give more form and content [...]

Department of Political Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee 32306-2049, U.S.A. International Journal of Comparative Sociology Vol.35 (1994) pp. 82-104 [No abstract [...]

This chapter begins the process of characterizing social science by demonstrating that the enterprise is a sectarian one and that it exhibits national and regional characteristics. The first point is an obvious one, and the obvious is "proven" by reference to two empirical studies. Perhaps not so obvious to the reader is the importance to our analysis of these characteristics. The sectarian differences are often of such magnitude that the sects represent discontinuous phenomena, a charge important in evaluating the Millian dream and in determining the factors which Cause the disciplines. This discontinuity is suggested in the discussion below of Catholic social science, and it is revealed in the contrast between the dominant sects in the United States and Soviet Marxism. Any discussion between the protagonists of these two sects is likely to resemble the dialogue of the deaf, as they talk past each other. The first of the two empirical studies produced findings from a stratified sample of the professional personnel of eighty of the most prestigious graduate departments in the United States. Twenty such departments were selected from physics, chemistry, sociology and political science.

The observations and assertions are those already scattered throughout the essay, and the concluding statements are in accord with the rest of the essay. Several of the former are future orientated, and the ultimate remarks of the previous chapter on the Third World laid the groundwork for such a futuristic perspective. The notion that social science has become part of the Third World revolt helps support the conviction of the multinational version of the expanding and diversifying theory Of the universe of social science. A fatal blow to the convergence model was struck by the success of the Russian Revolution. The enterprise proved to be a discontinuous one before the Revolution, but the success of the latter put the resources of the Russian state at the disposal of the Marxist dissonant sects. The revolt of Third World social science merely provides additional insurance for a conclusion already assured. Whatever hopes the convergence model offered for the future should have been put to rest by the emergence of the Soviet state.

The current chapter completes the world tour of the disciplines by further exploration, this time by analysing the situation existing in Third World countries. Their social science interaction systems have been "set" in previous chapters as the peripheries subordinated to their respective centres. Here people expand upon this relationship, Pointing out, for example, that a relatively large amount of interaction occurs among the social scientists of Latin America. This helps account for the emergence of dependency theory in that region, our example of an indigenized Third World sect. In the scheme of things, the latter is a foretaste of the future, and key to a future of increasing dissensus of the disciplines. The future of the enterprise promises to continue to be discontinuous. This chapter makes this point by putting social science indigenization in the larger context of general indigenization and the revolt of Third World countries in social science in the context of their larger revolt.

The task in the current chapter is to trace the pattern of interaction Within the Soviet half of bipolarity. To do this, we have less direct data to work with, which forces us to rely more upon supplementary Sources and analogy with the American sphere. Chinese social Science receives some emphasis, because of its intrinsic importance and also because the Sino-Soviet break has contributed to the development of a configuration of social science suggestive of a diffuse bloc. The Soviet Union is so much the dominant political, economic, and educational power in the "Second World" that the multinational version would naturally hypothesize that she is dominant in social Science as well. We concentrate in this chapter upon education, Posited above as an intermediary variable which connects the fundamental political or economic or cultural causes with the final product. The long-range goal was identified as the creation of cadres sympathetic to communism and capable of running the institutions of their country. Other motives included Soviet concern over, and the attempt to block, the spread of English as the world's medium of communication.

Explanations of science are divided between the "internal" and the "external." The former holds that science is sovereign in the sense that its procedures and contents are essentially independent of, and Impervious to, outside influence. A practicing social scientist is hard Pressed to think of many examples of such a phenomenon in an age When "interdependence" has become a watchword of social science analysis. Traditionally, this "sovereignty" has been held to apply to natural science, an obvious candidate for this distinction. The multinational version holds that it does not apply to the social sciences, but neither does this approach reduce the social scientist to a complete victim of outside forces. The impact of the practitioner is recognized in the eclectic multinational approach, as is that of culture, politics, economics, and education. The last named serves as an intermediate and subordinate variable caused by the other factor's mentioned and as a point of entry for their influence. This section also recognizes social science as a part of the knowledge industry of the developed countries.

This chapter and the next two must be considered as complementing each other. Together, they present a picture of the social sciences communications structure of the world, give an indication of out disciplines in the Third World, and identify present trends and suggest future prospects. The current chapter describes--"constructs" is a more meaningful term--the communications system of the First World. Emphasis within this construction has been put upon the United States. The latter emerges at the apex of First World social science, as the centre even for Europe, and as the world's social science superpower. The interaction patterns of the Second and Third World have been reserved for the following chapters, and the latter features the revolt of social science against what is perceived there as being First World domination. The overwhelming American dominance in the early post-war period will be seen to have already deteriorated in several First World countries. For these reasons, the future of social science promises to be both less American and less consensual. The post-war extension of the Soviet brand of the disciplines is a subject of the following chapter, as well as the Sino-Soviet break, and the renewed Chinese interest in our subjects starting in 1977.

This chapter on social science communities provides some evidence in support of its claims. Like its predecessor, however, it depends in part for validity upon its congruence with the rest of the Trend Reports. Criticism lodged elsewhere, and often verified there or here, forecloses the option of adopting Sorer's larger-than-life portrayal of the scientific community for application to social science. He alleges that the scientist is so taken with the contributions of his foreign colleagues that he develops competence in one or more foreign languages. This appears strange and inappropriate to the readers who learn in other parts of this essay that the typical American social scientist is monolingual and chooses to receive few professional messages from his foreign counterparts and that French sociology is ingrown to the extent that it centres on Paris. The current chapter concentrates upon the social science community, but makes an occasional reference to the role of the university. By examining these institutions, we emphasize that social science is a group effort. But our turning to them by no means signifies that we have abandoned myths and ideologies.

Attached to each of the social science sects, is a specific ideology. The ideology has two purposes, one sectarian, the other personal. it serves a given sect, and in doing so, it also serves those social scientists who adhere to that sect. The ideology thus legitimizes the sect as a social science, as well as those who practice in that sect as social scientists. The legitimization takes place at the sectarian level, and not the disciplinary level because social science is a multi-sect enterprise, it thus allows members of one sect to de-legitimize other sectarians. Soviet Marxists can do this to American Functionalists; and both can do this to the Fascists. Legitimization for physics is at disciplinary level, because this science is non-sectarian, unparadigmatic at any given level of analysis. As we shall see below, the social science myth is erroneously aimed at the disciplinary level, arguing that once a social science always a social science, regardless of sectarian differences in geographic domain or changes over time. The myth is that part of the ideology which responds to the questions of the professional self-identity of social scientists, what their craft is, and what it is becoming. Since the myth is part of an ideology, the functions of the latter are its functions as well. People emphasize that the ideologies are at work in a sectarian setting, each ready to do service for its sect and against the competition. The previous chapter emphasized the many sects existing in a given discipline. The present one arms them for verbal battle against each other. Contrary myths thus contribute to the discontinuous nature of the enterprise.

Presents an introduction to the December 1985 issue of the journal "The Multinational Version of Social Science."

The existence of social science sects and the fusion with their respective myths and ideologies tend to give social science an inward-looking perspective, and one which helps account for its combative pre dispositions and for its discontinuous nature. The same inward-focused perspective is made evident in this, the third step in the effort to mark the characteristics of social science. The present section takes a position essentially the same as the one adopted for sociology by Ayala. He divided sociology into national branches, and then asked rhetorically how one can attach the term national to a discipline which aspires to discover general truth without respect to time or place. There is no German Physics or French chemistry, only national aspects of a unitary discipline and a unitary history. His explanation is that these sciences develop as cumulative knowledge. If some national centre of physics or chemistry should deviate from the international standard, the critical experiment would mediate the difference and establish unity.

The first of the two major goals of this paper is to give more form and content to the process whereby the third world indigenizes the social sciences—elements seriously lacking in the present literature. Indigenization is seen in this paper as a phenomenon, whereby third world social scientists reject paradigms from the first world and formulate their own "authentic" ones. The form and content referred to above, this model process, are con structed by drawing an analogy with Paula Freire's revolutionary pedagogy. In drawing this analogy, we achieve the second major goal of the paper, which is to warn first world social scientists and educators of the existence and the magnitude of the indigenization movement in the third world. There this movement is seen as part and parcel of the strug gle for decolonization, from both colonial and neo-colonial structures. First world social scientists and educators are thus put on notice that their paradigms which they typically view as international reference models, valued for their intrinsic scientific worth, are typically pictured as part of the neo-colonialist postwar extention of the United States. And the struggle is to reject them and to formulate "authentic", indigenous models, as Latin American did when it formulated dependency theory. The author concludes that the above development bodes ill for the naturalist's dream of an emerging consensual, mature social science parallelling natural science. This dream is likely to remain just that, a dream. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]