really ‘knowledge’ which can legitimately be examined in univer-
sities – or merely pragmatic common sense which can be used by
those who agree with its (conservative and liberal?) assumptions? To
meet such objections there has been a development of more methodo-
logically aware ‘new institutionalism’ of which Peters (1999) discerns
no fewer than seven varieties. The sceptical will continue to argue
that the operations of representative institutions are merely a
deceptive mask for the real politics of exploitation below (see the
section on Radical criticism, p. 19), whilst the ambitious see only
scientifically established theories as the acceptable basis of knowledge
in the twenty-first century.Social science and politics
The proposition that our knowledge of politics should be scientifically
derived seems, at first sight, undeniable. The application of scien-
tific method in many other spheres (e.g. physics, biochemistry,
astronomy) has yielded not only a broad consensus on the truth of
various scientific ‘laws’, but also practical results in the shape of space
travel and ‘miracle’ drugs. If the application of systematic obser-
vation, computerised analysis of data, the testing of hypotheses
through experiment and the painstaking building of small bricks of
fact into enormous edifices of knowledge can work in one sphere, why
not in another? Since human beings are currently at such logger-
heads over the nature of politics, it might be thought, indeed, that the
construction of a science of politics is the most urgent intellectual task
of our time.
The problems of creating a valid science of politics seem, however,
to be so enormous as to place the whole project in some doubt. They
include problems of value conflict, of complexity, of method and of
philosophy.
It is tempting to dismiss conflicts of value as irrelevant to scientific
investigation. The conventional argument is that science is morally
neutral (‘value-free’), but can be used for good or evil. Thus the struc-
ture of the atom is the same everywhere, whether our knowledge of
this structure is used to destroy civilisations, to fuel them or merely
to understand their most basic constituents.
It is easier to apply a knowledge of biochemistry to creating
individual health than it is to use a knowledge of politics to create a12 POLITICS