Word: socialism
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...hidden political questions in social science research can also be seen by considering advisory work performed for the government. Vernon feels that most consultants with government agencies lends the adviser an opportunity to press for "new initiatives, bright departures" in established policies. A political scientist who gave advice on counter insurgency warfare or political development in Vietnam. for example, would probably justify his activity by saying that he was merely offering technical assistance: the question of whether the policy was appropriate was irrelevant to his own technical, non-ideological role. By saying nothing about the purposes of counter-insurgency warfare...
Again it is important to note that the political scientist and the government are interested in the same problem, formulated in the same way. The social scientist's research has been designed in such a way that he can easily slip into an advisory role for the government. Although his own research has been "value-free," it actually depends on assumptions about policy which the government shares but makes explicit. By taking an established point of view as a frame of reference for his work, the political scientist can pursue what seem to be neutral, objective studies...
...Current theories of international relations operate within a social context in which truth, superstition, and different conceptions of ends and means struggle for influence upon thought and action. It is not by accident that they are lavishly supported by foundations, highly prized by academic institutions, and influential at least at the margins of governmental action. For they perform two important ideological functions, one for themselves, the other for the official doctrines of international relations...
...Social studies can be viewed as neutral about values and purposes if the observer stays within the value framework in which the research is conducted. Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man discusses the character of social science which does not question the basic values underpinning its investigations...
...given form of society is and remains the ultimate frame of reference for theory and practice, there is nothing wrong with this sort of [social science...