The policy scientist of democracy revisited

Beware of the tyranny of words in this connection. What one member of the discipline recently described as the ‘professional’ turn in political science is better called ‘careerism,’ which one might define (following Lasswell 1971: p. 128) as ‘the fragmented cultivation of skill for opportunistic purposes….’ That is not enough for a genuine professional. See also Lasswell (1971: pp. 11–13).

Farr et al. (2006: p. 580) ignored this paragraph but cited the previous paragraph in the original of this memorandum. Lasswell (2003) publishes this and two other memoranda from 1943 that illuminate the early development of the policy sciences and are still relevant to guiding its continuing evolution.

Another important Lasswell collaborator and early contributor to the policy sciences, Abraham Kaplan (1963: p. 94), concurs that a contextual approach ‘implies not only that values can be appraised only in a concrete setting, but also that there is always an appraisal to be made.’

Kaplan (1963: p. 93) concurs that general statements of preferences are justified empirically by realists, as distinguished from idealists. ‘The realist bases judgments of values on what experience discloses to be good. But the disclosure requires assessments in the light of ideals that point beyond any given experience, though not beyond experience as a whole.’

Levi (1949) as quoted below (note 22) suggests the need to justify and clarify precision as a criterion.

Hence, ‘it is a mistake to prejudge empirical inquiry and to entertain dogmatic convictions that [for example] a specific institutional pattern necessarily produces similar results, or is always conditioned by the same constellation of factors.’ Compare the early Lasswell (1930: p. 260): ‘If events appear to be predictable, this is so because our knowledge of contingencies is limited, and our sequences of similar configurations may still be treated as special instances of “no sequence.” The stable is a special case of the unstable, to put the ultimate paradox.’

Contextuality is also recognized in those sciences that focus on the explanation of singular events, which are no less scientific than those that focus on invariant laws of nature. For an introduction to these two kinds of science see Gould (1989). On connections between contextuality and policy practice see Brunner (2006).

See Auer (2007) for a review of the decision process model that corrects certain misconstructions prevalent in political science and public administration.

While Lasswell made the framework available to others, he avoided any attempt to impose it in conventional academic struggles for hegemonic status. He understood that it is futile to insist on a standard framework or uniform usage of key terms amidst many academic and practical specializations. It is also unnecessary because translations among frames of reference are always possible (Lasswell 1971: p. 85; see also Lasswell and Kaplan 1950: p. x).

By analogy, no one would blame Michelangelo for the failure of a lesser artist to achieve equivalent results given tools and materials equivalent to Michelangelo’s. For more on general concepts and theories in practical problem solving see Brunner (2006).

‘There is no valid objection to be raised against the development of professional specialization. There are, however, valid objections against poorly integrated professional training’ (Lasswell 1971: p. 139).

The authors acknowledged ‘contradictions in the discipline he powerfully shaped’ but claimed Lasswell was responsible for the alleged contradictions in his life and work (p. 585).

Perhaps this is an echo of Lasswell’s garrison-state construct. Eisenhower’s farewell address includes other substantive and stylistic signs that Lasswell may have influenced it either directly or indirectly.

Consider the context. Major civil rights leaders disavowed instruments of violence as a matter of principle and practical prudence. Their economic resources were far from sufficient to buy enough political support. And at the outset they had far more opponents than allies in seats of power. A major political asset was the conscience of Americans socialized to believe that all people are created equal in terms of rights, or that these rights are prescribed in the Constitution, in the Bill of Rights and Amendments XIII (1865), XIV (1868), XV (1870). Civil rights leaders and their followers skillfully capitalized on this asset though sit-ins, marches, and related actions that drew attention to systematic violations of the civil rights of African Americans, intensifying the guilt of many Americans and transforming it eventually into effective political support.

Similarly, Dahl (2002: p. 136) summarized his multiple criteria for a fully democratic state in one paragraph, then observed that ‘the democratic ideal that I have just described is too demanding to be achieved in the actual world of human society.’

Lasswell (1950: p. 230) recalled ‘what James Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson during another tense period in our history (May 13, 1798): “Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.”‘ Compare Eisenhower (1961: p. 1037) on the ‘recurring temptation [in crises] to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties…. But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs ….’

Compare Dahl (1970: p. 4): ‘because democracy has never been fully achieved, it has always been and is now a potentially revolutionary doctrine. For every system purporting to be democratic is vulnerable to the charge that it is not democratic enough, or not “really” fully democratic.’

Compare Machiavelli as quoted in Lasswell and Kaplan (1950: p. 106n): ‘Men are apt to deceive themselves upon general matters, but not so much when they come to particulars. The quickest way of opening the eyes of the people is to find the means of making them descend to particulars, seeing that to look at things only in a general way deceives them.’

As Etheredge (1976) demonstrated in the case of the unreturned cafeteria trays, the piling up of theoretical generalizations is not equivalent to solving a practical policy problem in a particular context.

On the mechanism of defense through partial incorporation see Lasswell et al. (1952: p. 5–6).

On the generation of professional insecurities see Brunner and Willard (2003).

Consider Levi’s (1949: p. 1) opening paragraph: ‘It is important that the mechanism of legal reasoning should not be concealed by its pretense. The pretense is that the law is a system of known rules applied by a judge; the pretense has long been under attack. In an important sense legal rules are never clear, and, if a rule had to be clear before it could be imposed, society would be impossible. The mechanism … provides for the participation of the community in resolving the ambiguity by providing a forum for the discussion of policy in the gap of ambiguity…. The mechanism is indispensable to peace in a community.’ The parallel pretense, also long under attack, is that positive social science can be a system of known laws applied by a scientist. Bernstein (1983) identifies the vast territory as lying Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, but his ‘relativism’ is a radical relativism, not the disciplined relativism of genuine professionals.

Farr et al. (2006: p. 582) ignore this. They claim instead that ‘the limits and obligations of that service (to citizens and leaders) were, in Lasswell’s formulation, left almost wholly unclear.’

As an example of this expectation, the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Lederman 1992: p. 1123) once claimed that ‘what’s good for American science, American scholarship, and education is good for America.’