Embedding the study of social science within power relations

The global community of political scientists has embarked on numerous debates about ‘the state of the discipline’ (King, Lehman, and Nie Reference King, Schlozman and Nie2009; Boncourt, Engeli, and Garzia Reference Boncourt, Engeli and Garzia2020). The topics addressed include the intellectual structure of political science – its specificity and relationship to other social sciences (Trent Reference Trent, John and Michael2012); the problem of hyper-specialization (Trent Reference Trent2014); the “hegemony” of rational choice theory and its consequences (Amadae Reference Amadae2016; Monroe Reference Monroe2005; Green and Shapiro Reference Green, Shapiro and Friedman1996; Shapiro 2005); the quantitative/qualitative divide (Pion-Berlin and Cleary Reference Pion-Berlin and Dan2005; Kasza Reference Kasza2005); and the marginalization of certain subdisciplines, such as political theory (Brown 2002 and Reference Brown2011). Other debates focus on the social and institutional structure of political science – the participation of women and minorities in the discipline (Brettschneider 1997 and Reference Brettschneider2011; Breuningand and Sanders Reference Breuning and Kathryn2007; Evans & Moulder Reference Evans and Moulder2011; Rocha Reference Rocha2016; Engeli and Mügge Reference Engeli, Mügge, Boncourt, Engeli and Garzia2020); university departments’ internal politics in terms of academic divisions, hiring policies and career development (Monroe Reference Monroe2005); the increasingly tense and competitive character of the job market and funding schemes; etc. Other main issues of debate have been the relevance of the discipline and the contributions that it does, or does not, make for improving public policy and the quality of democracies (Trent Reference Trent2009). As a result of the increasing political pressures for a stronger impact of the social sciences in recent years, these debates have tended to intensify (Walker 2015) and have often been fierce, as they have involved harsh conceptual critiques (Sartori 2004) as well as aggressive defenses (Laitin Reference Laitin2004) of the discipline.

This special issue focuses on the position of political science in relation to the field of power. To do so, it builds upon recent literature on the history and sociology of the social sciences. This literature has focused on two aspects of the phenomenon.

Building on a longstanding debate about the extent to which scientific developments are determined by internal factors (e.g. Merton Reference Merton1973), external influences (e.g. Bloor Reference Bloor1991) or a complex combination of the two (Whitley Reference Whitley2000; Bourdieu Reference Bourdieu2001; Camic and Gross Reference Camic, Neil and Judith2001; Camic et al. Reference Camic, Gross and Lamont2011), an important and growing research strand has aimed to assess the impact of political contexts, cultures, and systems – liberal democracies, colonial empires, communist regimes, postwar reconstruction, the Cold War etc. – as well as state policies on the development of the social sciences (e.g. Easton, Gunnell, and Stein 1995; Amadae Reference Amadae2003; Gunnell Reference Gunnell2004; Leiras and D’Alessandro Reference Leiras and Martin2005; L’Estoile Reference L’Estoile, Tilley and Gordon2007; Mespoulet Reference Mespoulet2007; Fourcade Reference Fourcade2009; Steinmetz Reference Steinmetz2013; Ravecca Reference Ravecca2015, Reference Ravecca2016; Heilbron et al. Reference Heilbron, Sora and Boncourt2018). However, authors disagree about the nature and extent of this impact. Some studies have argued that political contexts have an almost mechanical impact on knowledge production. Cold War tensions, for example, have been shown to have changed the way in which American political scientists wrote about the Soviet Union (Oren Reference Oren2003) and triggered the development of a specific kind of positivist rationality in the social sciences (Erickson et al. Reference Erickson, Klein, Daston, Lemov, Sturm and Gordin2013). Other authors have taken a more moderate stance by analysing the influence of political actors and contexts as mediated by disciplinary structures – which, like prisms, refract external influences and adapt them to the specific logics of disciplines (Bourdieu Reference Bourdieu1993; Maton Reference Maton2005) – and by the influence of intermediary actors, such as philanthropic foundations (Guilhot Reference Guilhot2005 and Reference Guilhot2011; Hauptmann Reference Hauptmann2012; Boncourt Reference Boncourt2015). The influence of politics on the development of the social sciences thus depends on the disciplines and periods under study (Solovey Reference Solovey, Solovey and Cravens2012).

Another research strand has sought to assess the effects of social scientific knowledge on the development of political institutions. For example, critical and reflexivist sociologists of European integration have shown that knowledge producers (scientists, experts, consultants, lawyers, economists, etc.) played a key part in shaping the European Union, understood as a “political, legal, economic, social, cultural and philosophical phenomenon” (Vauchez Reference Vauchez2008; Favell and Guiraudon Reference Favell and Virginie2009; Mudge and Vauchez Reference Mudge and Antoine2012; Roa-Bastos and Vauchez Reference Roa-Bastos and Vauchez2019; quote in Adler-Nissen and Kropp Reference Adler-Nissen and Kristoffer2015). They suggested that the social sciences of European integration had “theory effects” on the latter (Adler-Nissen and Kropp Reference Adler-Nissen and Kristoffer2015) and should, therefore, be studied in their own right (Rosamond Reference Rosamond2000; Reference Rosamond2015).

The articles gathered in this special issue contribute to studying these two types of processes. On the one hand, they analyze the way in which the political and social sciences are “politicized” (Lagroye Reference Lagroye and Lagroye2003). They highlight the instrumental role played by political actors and contexts in giving birth to and shaping the development of these disciplines, by showing how they are often constituted as stakes for political struggles and tools for the exercise of political power. On the other hand, contributions also assess the way in which disciplinary knowledge shapes politics and plays a role in reproducing unequal power relations in contemporary societies. Rather than focusing on one of these two processes, the articles show how political and scientific agendas are deeply interwoven into individual, institutional, and organizational trajectories and activities. By anchoring their analysis in the empirical study of individuals, organizations, and institutions, they highlight the extent to which actors circulate between scientific and political fields and how, therefore, the ideas, interests, agendas, and resources that they bring with them contribute to the interrelated construction of scientific and political structures.

Political science and power in the Americas: outline of the special issue

The articles gathered in this special issue offer a combination of differences and common points that serve these objectives. At the methodological level, they use a diversity of techniques and materials, ranging from archives and interviews to the quantitative analysis of journals. The combination of these methods strengthens the argument, as it highlights the multiple levels at which the interactions of political science and politics are tangible.

At the empirical level, the articles share a focus on the Americas and strike a balance between North and South American cases. This empirical focus has two virtues. On the one hand, it provides comparative contrast. Twentieth-century North America has played a key part in the institutionalization and intellectual structuring of political science. The significant financial backing offered by public and private actors from an early stage has allowed North American, and US political science in particular, to expand significantly (see Emily Hauptmann’s article) and exert a dominant influence on the international stage, not only at the scientific but also at the political level (as Emily Zerndt’s piece makes clear). By contrast, as highlighted by Paulo Ravecca’s study of Uruguayan political science, the structuring of the discipline in Latin America has been shaped by contradictory dynamics, linked in some cases to political regime changes and generally to a more peripheral position on the international cultural and scientific stage.Footnote ¹

On the other hand, the combination of North American and Latin American cases is a good way to highlight the transnational circulation and diffusion processes that shape the national trajectories of political science as a discipline. As shown by Lidiane Soares Rodrigues’s study of the Brazilian case, disciplinary histories are never purely national: they are shaped by ideas and actors that travel across national borders. This is especially true on a continent where North American actors, such as philanthropic foundations, heavily intervened in the conditional funding of Latin American political science, as well as in the training of its elites.

Through these different empirical focuses, the articles all provide an analysis of the interplay between political science and power relations.

Emily Hauptmann studies the history of data sharing institutions in American political science from the 1960s. In contrast to narratives that would describe these devices as instruments for the progress of knowledge, she reconstructs the indistinctively scientific, political, and professional motives that the setting up of these institutions served, for political scientists as well as for the US government.

Emily Zerndt studies the Comparative Survey of Freedom, first published by Freedom House in 1973, and now the most widely used indicator of democracy by both academics and the US government. By analyzing the trajectories of the individuals who created the Survey, she shows that this now-dominant policy instrument had its origins in both scientific and political power struggles.

Lidiane Soares Rodrigues studies the development of political science in Brazil. Rather than narrating this story as that of a progressive ‘autonomization’ or ‘institutionalization’ of the discipline, she studies the trajectories of the first generation of Brazilian professional political scientists and discusses the extent to which these actors were ‘converted’ to a supposedly neutral conception of their role, as opposed to a politically engaged one, in the context of the Cold War in its Brazilian developments.

Paulo Ravecca focuses on the trajectory of political science in Uruguay. He explores the impact of the right-wing dictatorship (1973-1985) on the epistemological and ideological beliefs of Uruguayan political scientists about democracy, capitalism, and socialism. The article highlights the interplay between politics and subjectivity (particularly, political trauma) in shaping the intellectual transformations of the discipline. The transition from the embrace of Marxism to the hegemony of liberalism within academia is interpreted as an intellectual, academic, and political shift.

Taken together, these four studies show that intellectual and political imperialisms are multifaceted processes shaped by multiple dynamics and actors. Rather than being only the fulfillment of pre-existing grand designs, they are also the incremental product of micro- and meso-level strategies, involving political as well as professional, intellectual, and individual interests.