MAKING MAKING SOCIAL SCIENCE MATTER

MATTER TO US

Robert Adcock

ABSTRACT

This article pursues two line of inquiry in response to Bent Flyvbjerg’s advo-cacy of a phronetic social science in Making Social Science Matter (2001). First, I

explore how Flyvbjerg’s manifesto relates to the approach employed in his earlier

empirical work, Rationality & Power (1998). There are, I argue, notable disjunc-

tions between the practice of Rationality & Power and the preaching of MakingSocial Science Matter. Second, I explicate and rework Flyvbjerg’s contrast between

epistemic and phronetic social science with an eye to its reception by a specific

disciplinary audience: American political scientists. In doing so, I build on severalcontributions to Sanford Schram and Brian Caterino’s edited volumeMaking Politi-

cal Science Matter (2006). My aspiration is, however, rather different from that of

the volume: I strive to make epistemic and phronetic into accessible categories of

reformist reflection, not provocative banners under which to marshal revolutionaryopposition to our disciplinary mainstream(s).

KEY WORDS . context . epistemic . Flyvbjerg . phronesis . theory

1. Introduction

Bent Flyvbjerg’s Making Social Science Matter (2001) diagnoses a major prob-lem with contemporary social science and proposes a challenging remedy. Theproblem, as Flyvbjerg sees it, lies in the failure of social science’s aspiration toemulate the successes of natural science in producing ‘epistemic’ theoreticalknowledge. His proposed remedy is to drop the aspiration and instead pursue a‘phronetic’ form of knowledge distinctively suited to the study of human socialphenomena. Flyvbjerg’s labels explicitly reference Aristotle’s concept of practi-cal wisdom or prudence (phronesis), and the contrast which Aristotle drewbetween practical sciences serving phronesis and theoretical sciences pursuingepisteme. Flyvbjerg thus takes up the cudgels of classic debates, and we might

I would like to thank Alison Kaufman for her extensive feedback on multiple drafts, and John

Sides, Jonathan Hoffman, Eric Lawrence, and Stan Scott for conversations that deepened my grab

bag of political science examples.

Journal of Theoretical Politics 21(1): 97–112 Copyright ! 2009 SAGE PublicationsDOI: 10.1177/0951629808097285 Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore

and Washington DChttp://jtp.sagepub.com

at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY on October 14, 2009 http://jtp.sagepub.comDownloaded from

engage his provocative book as a contribution to contemporary iterations ofthese debates among philosophers. But Making Social Science Matter is not, asI read it, primarily intended to engage and persuade philosophers.

Flyvbjerg is a practicing social scientist writing for other practicing socialscientists. The genesis ofMaking Social Science Matter did not lie purely, or evenprincipally, in philosophical debates. The book grew out of Flyvbjerg’s reflectionsabout the conduct and reception of his own earlier empirical research, presentedin English in Rationality & Power (1998). Excited by the impact that his researchinto the politics of urban redevelopment in Aalborg, Denmark, had upon subse-quent events there, Flyvbjerg seeks in Making Social Science Matter to persuadeand assist other social scientists to undertake studies with a similar orientation,which he here christens as ‘phronetic’. In reacting to Flyvbjerg’s arguments, I pur-sue two lines of inquiry in this article. First, I read Rationality & Power alongsideMaking Social Science Matter to explore how Flyvbjerg’s later arguments aboutepistemic and phronetic social science relate to the approach taken in his earlierwork. There are, I argue, some notable disjunctions between the practice ofRationality & Power and the preaching ofMaking Social Science Matter.

Second, I readMaking Social Science Matter in light of its actual and potentialreception by a specific audience: American political scientists. How helpful arethe arguments advanced by this Danish professor of planning for scholars debat-ing the orientation and future possibilities of political science in the Americanacademy? Could introducing a contrast between epistemic and phronetic socialscience clarify and perhaps even redirect our debates, or is it only an invitation tocaricature and confusion? I take my cue here from Flyvbjerg’s (2001: 5) ownrequest that readers treat his prescriptive portrait of phronetic social science ‘asonly a first step that will undoubtedly need further theoretical and methodologicalrefinement’. I thus explicate and rework both sides of Flyvbjerg’s contrastbetween ‘epistemic’ and ‘phronetic’. In doing so, my goal is to give each categorya content that might speak clearly and productively to American political scien-tists. There is no need to start this endeavor from scratch – it has been ably begunby several contributors to Sanford Schram and Brian Caterino’s edited volume,Making Political Science Matter (2006). I selectively highlight moves in thisdirection taken in the volume, and I extend them with moves of my own. To beclear, however, my objective is perhaps rather different from that of many of thevolume’s contributors: I wish to make ‘epistemic’ and ‘phronetic’ into accessiblecategories of reformist reflection, rather than provocative banners under which tomarshal revolutionary opposition to our disciplinary mainstream(s).

2. Epistemic Social Science

In the opening chapter of Rationality & Power, Flyvbjerg (1998: 8) stresses hisintention to look ‘at what people actually do’ so as to ‘focus on practices rather

98 JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL POLITICS 21(1)

at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY on October 14, 2009 http://jtp.sagepub.comDownloaded from

than discourse or theory’. The case-study of Aalborg that unfolds through thesucceeding chapters follows through on this promise and illuminates its payoffs:the reader is engaged by a narrative and analysis enlivened by concrete detailsof the working of power in practice. The reader turning from Rationality & Powerto Making Social Science Matter might expect Flyvbjerg to extend his practice-centered emphasis by putting concrete examples of social science at the center ofhis reflections. This is indeed how he proceeds when presenting his positive visionof phronetic social science in Part Two of the book. But he takes a notably differenttack in Part One where he criticizes epistemic social science. The discussion here isanchored by an abstract ‘ideal type of scientific theory’ (Flyvbjerg, 2001: 38–9)drawn, not from examples of social (or even natural) science in practice, but fromthe philosopher Hubert Dreyfus. Following Dreyfus, Flyvbjerg presents modernnatural science as pursuing an ideal of explicit systematic theories that applyuniversally across all times and places, and which make possible precise predic-tions. The attribution to social scientists of an aspiration to emulate naturalscience by also pursuing this ideal is, in turn, the central trait of Flyvbjerg’s por-trait of epistemic social science. He believes this aspiration is all too prevalent,and argues that it sets social science up to fail because the contextual characterof human learning and social practices makes it unrealizable.

Flyvbjerg’s arguments about context and its implications deserve close atten-tion, but political scientists may be distracted (at least this one was) by his con-centration on an ideal type of universalizing predictive theory. Even within themost positivistic subfields of our discipline, how many scholars aspire to suchtheory? Is Flyvbjerg merely swinging at a straw man, or do his arguments havereal implications for other, more widespread, theoretical ambitions?

If the category of epistemic social science is to be more than a caricature, itneeds to be reworked. The role that Flyvbjerg gives theory in anchoring thecategory is unobjectionable. But we must adjust our view of the kind of theorypursued by epistemic scholars if political scientists are to recognize epistemicaspirations as playing an important role in our discipline. Two helpful avenueshere are opened by criticisms advanced in Making Political Science Matter.First, both David Laitin and Theodore Schatzki question Flyvbjerg’s focus onprediction. Laitin complains (2006: 39–40) that even many natural sciences donot aspire to predictive theory. Schatzki (2006: 119) notes how aspirationsamong social scientists have shifted in recent decades, suggesting that Flyvbjergoverstresses prediction because he fails to grasp the extent to which explanationand prediction have come to be seen as distinct ventures, with explanation stand-ing apart as the main concern of contemporary social scientists. Thus a first stepin giving the category of epistemic social science more traction with regard toactual practices is to recenter it around the pursuit of theories that are explana-tory, but not necessarily predictive, in aim.

A second step is to reconsider Flyvbjerg’s focus on theory applying across alltimes and places. In questioning this focus on the universal, Schatzki notes that

ADCOCK: MAKING MAKING SOCIAL SCIENCE MATTER MATTER TO US 99

at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY on October 14, 2009 http://jtp.sagepub.comDownloaded from

many contemporary social scientists expect theories to have only a boundedscope of applicability (Schatzki, 2006: 123). Political science is no exception tothis general observation. While universalizing endeavors find a home in ourdiscipline among some (but not all) rational choice theorists, no less prominentis the a priori rejection of all such endeavors by historical institutionalists. Whenpropounding historical institutionalism in the American Political Science Asso-ciation (APSA)’s most recent state-of-the-discipline volume, Theda Skocpol andPaul Pierson (2002: 711) thus identify, as a basic presumption of this research tra-dition, the belief that ‘overarching contexts – types of regimes, eras, regions, andcultures’ should ‘place bounds around the theorizing being done in any givenstudy’. Because Flyvbjerg also deploys ‘context’ against universal theories, apolitical scientist skimming his book might overlook the way in which his argu-ment differs from already familiar claims. Thus Laitin, for example, groupsMaking Social Science Matter as one of ‘many tracts’ using the ‘copout’ of‘appealing to context’ (2006: 38–9). Such a reading, however, shuts off one of themost useful payoffs of bringing Flyvbjerg into conversation with political science:his arguments can help us see that appeals to context are not all the same, butinstead diverge, even radically, in their character and implications.

Flyvbjerg’s great merit here is that he addresses, rather than evades, what wemight call the fundamental problem of context: what is it that distinguishes‘contexts’ from one another? Making Social Science Matter gives a consideredresponse to this question and follows through its implications. Summing up hisview in a rejoinder to Laitin reprinted in Schram and Caterino’s volume, Flyvb-jerg (2006: 63) declares, ‘in social science the relevant context to social andpolitical action is human beings’ everyday background skills’. When we ask iftwo or more apparently similar actions take place in the same or different ‘con-texts’ what we thus are doing – or should be doing – is to ask if the everydaybackground skills involved in the performance and reception of these actionsdiffer significantly. In exercising such practical skills people draw on their tacitknowledge of how those they interact with will probably understand and reactto various actions. This use of skills based in tacit knowledge involves intuitiveand holistic practical judgments that cannot be fully captured in explicit rules.As a result, all efforts to analytically explicate context ‘as just very complex setsof rules’ must come up short. Flyvbjerg’s (2001) answer to the fundamentalproblem of context thus leads him to argue that ‘context dependence’ should beunderstood as ‘an open-ended, dependent relation between contexts and actionsand interpretations that cannot be brought under rule-based closure’ (pp. 47–8).

This account of context has radical implications. But these become clear onlywhen Flyvbjerg moves beyond his preoccupation with universal predictive theoryto engage theoretical aspirations with wider salience for contemporary Americanpolitical scientists. For example, in a few all too brief pages, Flyvbjerg (2001)considers the pursuit of ‘second-order theories’, that is, theories bounded by expli-cit statements of background conditions under which they apply. For Flyvbjerg,

100 JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL POLITICS 21(1)

at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY on October 14, 2009 http://jtp.sagepub.comDownloaded from

such theories do not offer a viable alternative to universalizing agendas. Theaccount of context he wields against universal theory poses an equal challenge tosecond-order theories. If ‘background conditions in the social world’ are ‘patternsof behavior characterized by expert exercise of tacit skills’, and such skills cannotbe captured in explicit rules, then it is, Flyvbjerg concludes, impossible to realizethe aspiration of second-order theories to analytically spell out conditions underwhich they apply (pp. 44–5).

Whether or not we find Flyvbjerg’s arguments persuasive, we should recognizethe range of aspirations that fall within their reach. His criticism of epistemicsocial science involves more than a rejection of universalizing theory: it questionsthe very possibility of explanatory theory of any kind. It is the aspiration todevelop such theory – whether universal or bounded in scope – that should anchorour conception of epistemic social science. With epistemic inquiry understood thisway, not only rational-choice theorists but also many historical institutionalistsmay identify themselves as practicing it. This identification ought to be more thana provocation or a truism. It could be intellectually productive if, for example, itpushed historical institutionalists to clarify just where they stand on the fundamen-tal problem of context and its implications.

One of the intellectual possibilities here is on display in Making PoliticalScience Matter. Staking a position fundamentally opposed to Flyvbjerg, Laitinproposes the following view of what social scientists should mean when theytalk of context:

Appealing to context is merely to say that we have not yet discovered the variousfactors or the interaction of factors that produced outcomes of significance.Science is sensitive to context, if sensitivity means the desire to analyze it, to breakit down to its separate strands, and to hypothesize how the woven strands influencethe course of social events. (Schram and Caterino, 2006: 39, emphasis in original)

Understanding context in this manner presumes and promotes epistemic aspira-tions. Historical institutionalists embracing this view should be keen to frame andtest explicit hypotheses about undiscovered factors and/or interactions shaping thecontexts they appeal to. They can do this, I suspect, without following Laitin intohis further claim that such hypotheses ‘demand statistical verification with interac-tion terms and flexible functional forms’ (p. 39). But what is more problematic issquaring this view of context with the hostility to universal theories characteristicof historical institutionalism. Unpacking context in the way Laitin proposes shouldimply being, at the very minimum, open to the possibility of universal theory.

For political scientists reluctant to understand context as undiscovered factorsand/or interactions there are – besides Flyvbjerg’s anti-theory stance – two furtheroptions. First, they might identify and endorse another way of unpacking contextwhose implications differ from the positions spelled out either by Flyvbjerg orLaitin. But no leads in this direction spring to mind for me at least. A second option

ADCOCK: MAKING MAKING SOCIAL SCIENCE MATTER MATTER TO US 101

at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY on October 14, 2009 http://jtp.sagepub.comDownloaded from

is to accept Flyvbjerg’s account of context in terms of everyday background skillsbased in tacit knowledge, but try to rein in the anti-theoretical implications he drawsfrom it. A move in this direction is taken by Schatzki when, in stressing that manysocial scientists do not aspire to universal theories, he notes that they also do notexpect the boundaries of a theory’s application ‘to be fully and determinately formu-lated’. Researchers thus might, for example, see a theory as applying to societiesof a certain sociological type without proposing explicit rules that can fully delimitmembership in that type. Questions about whether borderline cases fall insidethe scope of this theory would then be left open to be decided through ‘detailedexaminations of particular cases’. This move ‘loosens the conditions under whichgeneralities hold’ and thereby ‘excuses theories from translating practices and under-standings into propositions’ (Schatzki, 2006: 122–3). Since it does not seek to unpackbackground conditions into fully explicit rules, this loosened approach to theorymight potentially be reconciled with Flyvbjerg’s tacit skills account of context.

The view of context and its implications that Schatzki points toward is philoso-phically intriguing and may have genuine appeal for some American political scien-tists. It allows pursuit of explanatory theories, but only if the theories are formulatedwith a looseness that respects the limits upon analytical articulation entailed by view-ing context in terms of background skills based in tacit knowledge. The pursuit oftheories that are explanatory thus parts way from, and comes into tension with, thedesire to formulate theories in fully explicit and systematic terms. Understanding thistension, not as an obstacle to be combated, but as a necessary implication of the roleof tacit knowledge in human social life, brings us to the borderline of my recon-structed category of epistemic social science. Earlier arguments in American politi-cal science that looked to tacit knowledge and context to differentiate and defend anotion of theory as necessarily loose pushed beyond the epistemic pale entirely (seee.g. Wolin, 1969). But Schatzki’s argument hints at the possibility of a moderateposition balancing on the edge of epistemic endeavor.

We might ask, however, why diverse political scientists remain so wedded topursuing theory of one sort or another. While I have criticized Flyvbjerg’s portraitof epistemic social science, in closing this section I want to flag his insightfulidentification of a plausible answer to this query. In situating theory at the core ofepistemic science Flyvbjerg (2001: 26) identifies two additional aspirations con-nected with it: (1) to achieve ‘a relatively cumulative production of knowledge’;and (2) to win ‘a strong, prestigious position . . . in society’. Epistemic scientists,natural or social, believe theoretical successes are essential if a science is to becumulative, and that cumulation is itself essential if their sciences are to deservesocial prestige and influence. The commitment of American political scientists totheory in one form or another can, I suspect, only be made sense of in light ofsuch beliefs about the requisites of cumulation and warranted influence.

The challenge Flyvbjerg poses is thus especially evident when he rejectsthese beliefs. In responding to Flyvbjerg, David Laitin encourages fellow politi-cal scientists to all ‘work inside a scientific frame’ by asserting that we must do

102 JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL POLITICS 21(1)

at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY on October 14, 2009 http://jtp.sagepub.comDownloaded from

so if our discipline is to be cumulative (Laitin, 2006: 53). Such an argument pre-supposes readers who believe their discipline is or should be cumulative. ButFlyvbjerg suggests that his account of context entails that social science ‘isneither relatively cumulative nor relatively stable’ (Schram and Caterino, 2006:64). Flyvbjerg can coolly reject theory since he breaks with the aspiration tocumulation. And he can, in turn, break with this aspiration because he alsodivorces social science’s potential for influence from any cumulative vision. Heoffers a vision of social science mattering without theory or cumulation, andindeed, mattering all the more precisely because it turns away from them.Aspirations to theory and cumulation are, Flyvbjerg proposes, only epistemicdistractions from the pursuit of work that matters. Casting them aside and takingup phronetic social science is his prescription for political scientists who want tomatter. What are we to make of this prescription? I, for one, find refreshing andmaybe even persuasive Flyvbjerg’s skepticism about cumulation in the socialsciences. But, as my last section will explore, I find his views about matteringsimplistic at best. Before turning to that topic, however, I want first to unpackjust what phronetic social science involves.

3. Phronetic Social Science

Flyvbjerg adopts the label ‘phronetic’ from Aristotle’s word for practical wis-dom. But the substance of phronetic inquiry as presented in Making SocialScience Matter is principally rooted in examples taken from practicing socialscientists, not in philosophical discourses. This gives Part Two of the book anengaging concreteness lacking in Part One’s criticism of epistemic socialscience. It also enables readers familiar with any of these examples to use thisfamiliarity to help them understand, evaluate, and perhaps contest Flyvbjerg’sviews. A model for such an active reading is provided by Brian Caterino’s sole-authored chapter in Making Political Science Matter (2006), which persuasivelycritiques Flyvbjerg’s treatment of Habermas. If there is a straw man in Part Twoof Making Social Science Matter it is Habermas, but at least the straw man hereis an identified person, rather than, as in Part One, an abstract ideal type.

My own active reading of Flyvbjerg’s presentation of phronetic social sciencetakes his positive, rather than his negative, examples as a starting point. Flyvbjergfleshes out his portrait of phronetic inquiry with sympathetic discussions of worksby Robert Bellah, Pierre Bourdieu, and Michel Foucault. But his principal positiveexample is his own research on Aalborg. By reading the earlier presentation of thatresearch in Rationality & Power (1998) alongside its subsequent reinterpretation inMaking Social Science Matter (2001), I highlight and question moves taken byFlyvbjerg in forging his portrait of phronetic social science. I then extend this lineof inquiry by also revisiting his Foucault and Bellah examples. By recoveringalternative intellectual moves open to, but not followed by Flyvbjerg, I rework the

ADCOCK: MAKING MAKING SOCIAL SCIENCE MATTER MATTER TO US 103

at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY on October 14, 2009 http://jtp.sagepub.comDownloaded from

category of phronetic social science to make it more accessible to American politi-cal scientists.

Reading Rationality & Power and Making Social Science Matter alongsideone another is quite jarring. I encourage readers to consider how Flyvbjerg’sretrospective views of his earlier research, and the lessons to be drawn from it,may have been affected by the way that research was received. More specifically,and contentiously, I want to suggest that the public reception of Flyvbjerg’sresearch helped lead him astray in his subsequent forging of his portrait of phro-netic social science.

Many social scientists aspire to have practical impact beyond the academy. ForFlyvbjerg this aspiration became an actuality. His research on Aalborg had a non-academic reception, and this reception had, in turn, political and social conse-quences that Flyvbjerg welcomed. I am not sure if Flyvbjerg was surprised (thoughRationality & Power conveys little expectation of the kind of reception hisresearch enjoyed), but the smooth flow here from aspiration through to desirablechange was exceptional. Aspiring to practical impact is far from sufficient (nor,I would note, necessary) to earn a non-academic reception. Moreover, such areception does not guarantee consequences, let alone consequences a researchercan welcome rather than regret. Any general discussion and advocacy of phroneticinquiry should be attentive to these potential disjunctions, but Flyvbjerg largelyskates over them. Sometimes practical aims appear as the core of his phroneticsocial science. But at other points he focuses on practical results. And at no pointdoes he wrestle with the worrying potential of research to have unintended practi-cal effects that might trouble its producer. Flyvbjerg’s blurring of practical aimsand results, and his oversight of unintended consequences, suggest a failure to stepback from his own experience and ask two key questions: (1) in what respects wasthe reception of his Aalborg research exceptional; and (2) how should this factorinto a general portrait of phronetic inquiry written for readers who, for the mostpart, are probably unlikely to enjoy a similarly satisfying reception?

Multiple issues arise here, but I single out for attention the task of clarifyingthe category ‘phronetic’. In discussing the reception of his Aalborg researchwhen using it to illuminate phronetic inquiry, Flyvbjerg (2001: 157–8) describes‘dialogue with groups outside of academia’ as being ‘at the heart of phroneticsocial science’. But concern with the potential gap between aim and resultshould prompt us to ask if the identity of Flyvbjerg’s research as an exemplar ofphronetic inquiry depended on its successful entry into public dialogue. Arestudies which aspire to, but fail to find, a public audience phronetic? What aboutstudies which win a non-academic audience but whose author(s) did not intendthem to do so? Flyvbjerg’s portrait centers on an ideal meshing of aim withresult, but we need to clarify how to conceptualize studies in which theydiverge. Alternative conceptual choices here give the category of ‘phronetic’social science significantly different content. I propose that direct practical aimsbe conceptualized as necessary for a study to count as phronetic, but practical

104 JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL POLITICS 21(1)

at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY on October 14, 2009 http://jtp.sagepub.comDownloaded from

results only as making an already phronetic work more phronetic, while beinginsufficient alone to make a study phronetic. No single clarifying choice herecan be consistent with everything Flyvbjerg says, but I think this proposal mayfit more of what he says than other alternatives.

With our attention thus focused on practical aims, we can next ask if studieshave to aim at a specific kind of practical impact to be phronetic. One consequenceof Flyvbjerg’s absorption in the reception of his own research is that the impactthis research had becomes an archetype for phronetic social science in general.Flyvbjerg’s research – and Flyvbjerg himself – became part of public debates inAalborg (and elsewhere in Denmark and Scandinavia) about how urban redevelop-ment went down the path it did, where it should go in the future, and how changesin decision-making processes might aid movement in a new direction. In line withthis example, the general portrait of phronetic inquiry in Making Social ScienceMatter centers on four questions:

1. Where are we going?2. Who gains, and who loses, by which mechanisms of power?3. Is it desirable?4. What should be done?

It is addressing these questions which, Flyvbjerg (2001: 162) states, ‘identifies awork in social science as a work of phronetic social science’.

Should we follow Flyvbjerg in identifying phronetic work with studies thataddress these four questions? We need not appeal to outside criteria to assessthis identification; we can simply ask how well it fits Flyvbjerg’s own positiveexamples. Reading Rationality & Power helps here because the book differs insignificant respects from what we might expect given Flyvbjerg’s presentationof his Aalborg research in Making Social Science Matter. Reading the earlierbook after the later, perhaps the biggest surprise comes when we reach its culmi-nating Chapter 20. We do not find prescriptions here about what should be done.Instead we find Flyvbjerg explicating ten general propositions about rationality,power, and their interrelation, which have, as he sees it, been concretely exem-plified in the Aalborg case as recounted in his earlier chapters. The framing ofthe propositions is such that they apply, at minimum, to any modern democraticsociety, and most are universal in reach. For example, ‘Proposition 8’ states sim-ply, ‘In open confrontation, rationality yields to power’ (Flyvbjerg, 1999: 232).

The general propositions are, curiously enough, not discussed in MakingSocial Science Matter, and stumbling upon them sparks two questions. Can theybe reconciled with Flyvbjerg’s later arguments about context and its implica-tions? How do they relate to the project of phronetic social science? I thinkreconciliation requires that we distinguish explicit systematic theories – whichFlyvbjerg challenges with his account of context – from general practical max-ims. The propositions of Rationality & Power can be read as practical maxims

ADCOCK: MAKING MAKING SOCIAL SCIENCE MATTER MATTER TO US 105

at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY on October 14, 2009 http://jtp.sagepub.comDownloaded from

summing up insights about the possibilities and limits of effective politicalaction, and doing so in a loose way compatible with the bounds upon systemati-zation implied by Flyvbjerg’s later argument about tacit skills. Presenting suchgeneral maxims with accompanying concrete examples has long been a classictool in the practical education of actual or aspiring actors to more effectivelyachieve their goals.

How, then, does this maxims-and-examples mode of practical teaching relateto phronetic inquiry? On the one hand, it is distinct from (though not incompatiblewith) addressing the four questions that anchor phronetic social science inMakingSocial Science Matter. But, on the other hand, it makes sense of a prominent fea-ture in Flyvbjerg’s prior presentation of the research that later came to function ashis most important example of phronetic work. As a further reference point, weshould note that Flyvbjerg cherishes Machiavelli as a classic practitioner of phro-netic inquiry, and maxims-and-examples are more prominent in Machiavelli thananswers to the four questions stressed inMaking Social Science Matter. As a clarifi-cation here I would propose conceptualizing phronetic inquiry as a broader categoryencompassing intellectual pursuits with varied practical aims. I have differentiatedtwo species of the category – one focused on teaching practical maxims, and oneaddressing questions about where we are going – but there might be others too.From this perspective Part Two of Making Social Science Matter appears as a gen-eral portrait, not of phronetic work as a whole, but of one major strand within it.

With phronetic inquiry as a whole sub-differentiated in this way, we can nowturn to the strand of work Flyvbjerg spotlights in Making Social Science Matter,and his portrait of it in terms of his four questions. Flyvbjerg’s own examplessuggest that two of these four questions define this strand of phronetic socialscience, while the other two questions are potential, but not necessary, supple-ments to it. Schatzki’s excellent chapter in Making Political Science Matter(Schram and Caterino, 2006) again provides a lead here. After summarizing therange of tasks covered in Flyvbjerg’s portrait of phronetic inquiry, Schatzkiraises a probing question: which of these tasks must be carried out for a study tocount as phronetic? To illustrate he revisits one of Flyvbjerg’s favorite exam-ples, Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. Schatzki notes that this work does notask what should be done, and he suggests this was a deliberate reflection ofFoucault’s belief that ‘prescription by the researcher’ is ‘a violation of theliberty, autonomy, and growth of others’ (Schram and Caterino, 2006: 126–9).Since Foucault is heralded by Flyvbjerg as paradigmatic for phronetic inquiry,and yet Foucault is wary of prescription, the question ‘what should be done?’surely should be conceived, not as defining, but only as one potential (and con-testable) supplement to, the species of inquiry which Flyvbjerg is advocating.

Following Schatzki’s lead, we can take another step in reworking Flyvbjerg’sportrait by also revisiting his treatment of Bellah et al.’s Habits of the Heart.Flyvbjerg (2001: 62–5) praises this book as an example of phronetic inquiry, but

106 JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL POLITICS 21(1)

at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY on October 14, 2009 http://jtp.sagepub.comDownloaded from

also laments its ‘failing to adequately incorporate issues of power’. He wishes thebook had asked his question: ‘who gains and who loses, and by which mechan-isms of power?’ We can, however, turn this criticism back on itself. Power con-ceptualized in a specific Foucault-inspired way is central to Flyvbjerg’s ownwork. But ought we to follow him in elevating it into a defining standard? Arestudies that ask and assess where we are going (i.e. address the two questions allFlyvbjerg’s positive examples share in common) to be conceptualized as less thanfull examples of phronetic inquiry if they do not also address his power question?Conceptual choices on this issue may vary depending on who we are trying toengage in conversation. But to make phronetic inquiry accessible to Americanpolitical scientists, I would propose conceptualizing Flyvbjerg’s power question(like his prescription question) as a possible extension, not a necessary part, ofphronetic social science.

Reworked along these lines, phronetic inquiry (or, more accurately, this onespecies of it) asks, where are we going, and is this development desirable? Ameri-can political scientists may well recognize works by their colleagues that addressthese questions, and do so in a way which aspires to engage non-academic audi-ences. Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone (2000) stands out as an example creden-tialed as phronetic by Flyvbjerg (2006) himself. But the kind of work I have inmind is also exemplified in Samuel Huntington’s best-selling Clash of Civiliza-tions (1996), and his more recent Who Are We? (2004). Further examples includeTheda Skocpol’s Boomerang (1997) and Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson’s OffCenter (2005). And, as a variation on the genre, we could also consider the Ameri-can Democracy in an Age of Rising Inequality report collectively produced by theTask Force on Inequality and American Democracy (2004), which Skopcol estab-lished during her term as APSA President.

These are only suggestive, not exhaustive, examples. But they suffice toground some key take-home observations. First, phronetic inquiry is not alien tocontemporary American political science or welcome only in the discipline’smargins. Prominent political scientists housed in prestigious departments havebeen involved in such work in recent years, either as individuals or as task-forceparticipants. Second, phronetic work presupposes no particular political align-ment. If Huntington is conservative, Pierson and Hacker are progressive liberals,and APSA’s Task Force carried a torch for that venerable old social scienceideal of non-partisan expertise. Third, as I have stressed, aspiring to engage non-academic audiences is different from actually doing so. My few examples varyquite dramatically in their success in finding a reception outside (or, for thatmatter, inside) the academy. The APSA Task Force’s report fell far short ofbeing the hit among the chattering classes that Clash of Civilizations was. Wecannot begin to think clearly about the promise and pitfalls of phronetic inquiryif we do not frankly recognize that there is only a partial and contingent overlapbetween phronetic political science and political science that matters.

ADCOCK: MAKING MAKING SOCIAL SCIENCE MATTER MATTER TO US 107

at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY on October 14, 2009 http://jtp.sagepub.comDownloaded from

4. Mattering

In the previous two sections I have clarified and reworked the categoriesof ‘epistemic’ and ‘phronetic’ so that American political scientists might betterrecognize their own pursuits in – or at least be sympathetically intrigued by – oneor the other category. Now I turn to the objective Flyvbjerg tries to advance byconstructing and contrasting these categories. This is summed up in his provoca-tive title, Making Social Science Matter (2001), which is, in turn, echoed inSchram and Caterino’s Making Political Science Matter (2006). These titlessuggest that social science, or political science more specifically, currently doesnot ‘matter’, but that it can and should do so. The epistemic vs. phronetic con-trast unpacks this presumed state of affairs into a diagnosis and a prescription:the cause of not mattering is infection with unattainable epistemic aspirations,and the cure is switching to a phronetic orientation. This framing is largelytaken for granted by Flyvbjerg, as well as by the editors and some contributorsto Making Political Science Matter. But I worry that it is, at best, partial andsimplistic, and at worst, actively misleading.

For social science as a whole my worry can only be a suspicion. I am notfamiliar enough with varied examples, from multiple disciplines, as practiced indifferent countries, to support convictions about ‘mattering’ at so general alevel. But as regards my own disciplinary home – American political science – Ican speak with a bit more confidence. A discussion that presumes or implies thatpolitical science does not currently matter starts off, I believe, on the wrongfoot. An alternative, more tenable, starting point is offered by Mary Hawkes-worth in her contribution toMaking Political Science Matter, which consciouslyrejects the framing established by Flyvbjerg. Hawkesworth contends,

The critical challenge for political science, in my view, is not how to make politi-cal science matter – it does, profoundly – but how to assist political scientists todevelop sophistication about our knowledge production, heightened awareness ofideological bias, normative presuppositions, and the political consequences of ourown research. (Hawkesworth, 2006: 168)

Her conclusion that political science already matters is not merely an assertion. Itbuilds on well-chosen examples. Hawkesworth thus singles out democratizationstudies and their relationship to transitions away from authoritarian rule whichoccurred in Latin America, Africa, and the former Soviet sphere in the 1980s and1990s. Disciplinary knowledge production in this field supported political andeconomic policy prescriptions for democratizing states, and political scientistswere, moreover, able to present these prescriptions to relevant actors through‘consultancies as well as full-time employment in international agencies’ (Haw-kesworth, 2006: 155–7). While Hawkesworth is more critical of these prescrip-tions and activities than I might be, she is surely on target in spotlightingdemocratization studies as an example of American political science mattering.

108 JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL POLITICS 21(1)

at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY on October 14, 2009 http://jtp.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Once we follow Hawkesworth’s lead and start thinking of consultancies andemployment, it is easy to brainstorm examples of American political scientistsmattering to the practical world. Some members of our discipline step out of theacademy to take formal positions in government and the policy world. Our lastSecretary of State is, after all, a member of Stanford’s political science depart-ment. And, for a perhaps less controversial example, we can point to the serviceat the United Nations of Harvard’s John Ruggie, who is currently the SecretaryGeneral’s Special Representative for Business and Human Rights, and was pre-viously Assistant Secretary General for Strategic Planning. Ruggie is just one ofmany political scientists honored by the APSA with its Hubert H. HumphreyAward for notable public service (a full list of recipients can be found onAPSA’s website). Alongside political scientists who take up formal full-timeposts, there are others who consult to government actors, international institu-tions, or NGOs. Scholars at major universities who specialize in currently pro-minent issues or countries – such as civil war, ethnic conflict, or terrorism;Russia, China, or Iran – are often solicited to consult. The private or public char-acter of their input varies, taking on a fully public dimension for only someaudiences, such as congressional committees. As an example, readers mightread James Fearon’s congressional testimony applying social science findingsabout civil wars to the case of Iraq (see http://iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/21258/Fearon-testimony-9.15.06.pdf).

Does the situation change if we shift from comparative politics and interna-tional relations to the study of American politics? Hawkesworth’s chapter inSchram and Caterino includes a briefer reference to focus group techniques indomestic politics (Hawkesworth, 2006: 154–5). The broad point I take her to bemaking is to flag the potential interplay between the work of political scientistswho develop, refine, and apply techniques that produce knowledge about theAmerican electorate, and political actors who do likewise. It is perhaps apocry-phal, but I have heard that Karl Rove kept abreast of relevant political scienceresearch and that members of our discipline were sometimes graced by emailsfrom him about their work. We certainly should not overlook differences in set-ting, funding, and purposes that differentiate academic scholars of Americanpolitical behavior from the staff of polling firms, and both, in turn, from cam-paign strategists and partisan activists. But techniques, ideas, and people domove between these settings. And via this movement, academic labor that pro-duces techniques, data, interpretations, and students (some PhDs do, after all,end up outside the academy!) can ‘matter’ to American politics in ways thatmight be indirect, but nonetheless significant.

Scholars of American politics are, for the most part, keen to stay at someremove from partisan politics, but they often do respond to media requests to com-ment on current events. In doing so these political scientists hope, I would suspect,to do what they can to improve public discourse, though they are far from naiveabout the difficulties involved. This interest has, more recently, led some scholars

ADCOCK: MAKING MAKING SOCIAL SCIENCE MATTER MATTER TO US 109

at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY on October 14, 2009 http://jtp.sagepub.comDownloaded from

to take a more proactive role as contributors to the blogosphere (see, for example,www.themonkeycage.com started by several political scientists at the GeorgeWashington University). Beyond the media – whether old or new – scholars ofAmerican politics also serve as expert witnesses in legislative and legal settings. Inrecent years, they have testified, or contributed to legal briefs, on such issues ascampaign finance reform, redistricting, blanket primaries, balloting in Florida inthe 2000 election, voting technology, and proposals to address census undercountsvia samples or other statistically based procedures.

It would take a major research project to study the ways and extent to whichthe varied engagements of American political scientists with the non-academicworld do or do not matter. Besides extensive data gathering and analysis itwould be necessary to conceptualize far more carefully what we take ‘matter-ing’ to involve. I make no pretence to having done the empirical and conceptualwork needed here. But I hope my grab bag of examples suffices to suggest thesorts of activities that should, I believe, be the starting point for an informed dis-cussion about political science mattering. To return to my opening quote fromRationality & Power, we ought to ground this discussion in ‘what people actu-ally do’ so as to ‘focus on practices rather than discourse or theory’ (Flyvbjerg,1998: 8).

In closing, let me offer some tentative thoughts about what we might find ifwe combined the categories of ‘epistemic’ and ‘phronetic’ social science withclose attention to the practical realities of mattering. A study of American politi-cal scientists engaged (or trying to engage) with the non-academic world would,I hypothesize, find that their scholarship is frequently epistemic in aspiration.Such aspirations would thus appear to be, at minimum, compatible with matter-ing. Indeed, epistemic pursuits are, I suspect, rarely the distracting exercise inphysics envy that Flyvbjerg imagines; they may more often be sustained bybeliefs about the kind of knowledge political scientists should produce if theyare to earn and deserve influence in the non-academic world. These beliefsought to be explicated and their plausibility in our contemporary polity debated,but the tired (and tiresome) tropes of scientism vs. relevance are, at best, adistraction from productive discussions about mattering.

If an epistemic vs. phronetic contrast is relevant to mattering, it is not becauseepistemic aspirations undermine mattering while phronetic studies necessarilyachieve it, but because these two categories have affinities with different modesof mattering. To promote phronetic work is to promote studies that strive to mat-ter principally through being read and discussed by the public, rather than by cre-dentialing their authors as experts who might subsequently apply their knowledgeto specific events as consultants, witnesses, or commentators. Should we encou-rage our political science colleagues to reallocate energies and disciplinary pres-tige to such phronetic work? Before becoming an advocate, I for one want toreflect and know a bit more about the potential consequences. A phronetic shiftpresupposes that there are prospective non-academic audiences for such work,

110 JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL POLITICS 21(1)

at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY on October 14, 2009 http://jtp.sagepub.comDownloaded from

and that influencing these audiences can, in turn, affect social and political poli-cies and events in a beneficial manner. While these preconditions held in Aalborg,Denmark, do they hold in other settings? What changes when the ‘we’ audienceappealed to in a phronetic study of where ‘we’ are going is national or global,rather than local, in scope? What changes when the ‘we’ are American publicsand elites rather than Flyvbjerg’s fellow Danes?

Finally, we should ponder any potential indirect consequences of Americanpolitical science shifting to better promote phronetic work. How would such ashift affect perceptions of our discipline among policy, political, and mediaelites? Would changes in these perceptions extend or undermine the existingopportunities some political scientists enjoy to take posts in government andother institutions, to serve as consultants to such institutions, or to testify orcomment in legislative, legal, and media settings? Persuasive answers to ques-tions like these require research and debate grounded in the actual practices ofAmerican political scientists and their relations to contemporary publics andelites. I hope I have persuaded readers that one step toward such research anddebates is to drop rhetorical framings of mattering which assume at the outsetthat an upswing in phronetic studies is indeed a recipe for a political science thatmatters. Indeed, it is not even clear that a phronetic turn is a recipe for makingpolitical science matter more; perhaps it could ironically, via indirect conse-quences, end up making American political scientists matter less than they cur-rently do! The promotion of phronetic inquiry by Flyvbjerg and some of hisAmerican readers is probably best seen as a proposal to make political sciencematter differently – a proposal that, to persuade American political scientists,needs to make a fuller and more nuanced case that departing from our disci-pline’s current modes of mattering is desirable in light of its possible and prob-able consequences.

REFERENCES

Caterino, Brian (2006) ‘Power and Interpertation’, in Schram and Caterino, Making Political

Science Matter, pp. 134–51.

Flyvbjerg, Bent (1998) Rationality & Power: Democracy in Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press.Flyvbjerg, Bent (2001) Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How It Can

Succeed Again. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Flyvbejerg, Bent (2006) ‘A Perestroikan Straw Man Answers Back: David Laitin and PhroneticSocial Science’, in Schram and Caterino, Making Political Science Matter, pp. 56–85.

Hacker, Jacob S. and Paul Pierson (2005) Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion

of Democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Hawkesworth, Mary (2006) ‘Contesting the Terrain: Flyvbjerg on Facts, Value, Knowledge, andPower’, in Schram and Caterino, Making Political Science Matter, pp. 152–70.

Huntington, Samuel P. (1996) The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

New York: Simon & Schuster.

ADCOCK: MAKING MAKING SOCIAL SCIENCE MATTER MATTER TO US 111

at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY on October 14, 2009 http://jtp.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Huntington, Samuel P. (2004) Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity.

New York: Simon & Schuster.

Laitin, David (2006) ‘The Perstroikan Challenge to Social Science’, in Schram and Caterino,Making Political Science Matter, pp. 33–55.

Putnam, Robert D. (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.

New York: Simon & Schuster.

Schatzki, Theodore (2006) ‘Social Science in Society’, in Schram and Caterino, Making PoliticalScience Matter, pp. 117–33.

Schram, Sanford F. and Brian Caterino (eds) (2006) Making Political Science Matter: Debating

Knowledge, Research, and Method. New York: NYU Press.

Skocpol, Theda (1997) Boomerang: Health Care Reform and the Turn Against Government.New York: Norton.

Skocpol, Theda and Paul Pierson (2002) ‘Historical Institutionalism in Contemporary Political

Science’, in Ira Katznelson and Helen Milner (eds) Political Science: The State of the Disci-

pline, pp. 693–721. New York: Norton.Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy (2004) American Democracy in an Age of

Rising Inequality. Washington, DC: American Political Science Association.

Wolin, Sheldon S. (1969) ‘Political Theory as a Vocation’, American Political Science Review63(4): 1062–82.

ROBERT ADCOCK is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the George

Washington University. His research focuses on nineteenth- and twentieth-centuryAnglo-American thought, specifically the history, philosophy, and methods of the

social sciences, and their relationship to the evolution of liberalism. He is the

co-editor of Modern Political Science: Anglo-American Exchanges since 1880

(Princeton University Press, 2007), and the author or co-author of articles in theAmerican Political Science Review, History of Political Thought, Journal of the

Philosophy of History, and elsewhere. ADDRESS: Department of Political Science,

2115 G St NW, Suite 440B, Washington DC 20052. [email: adcockr@gwu.edu]

112 JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL POLITICS 21(1)

at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY on October 14, 2009 http://jtp.sagepub.comDownloaded from