The Social Sciences and Democracy

Review of The social sciences and Democracy, edited by Jeroen Van Bouwel, london, Palgrave macmillan, 2009, 268 pp. £58 hb, isBn 9780230224391This book is bringing an interesting and valuable contribution to the literature on how democratic are the social sciences and whether the concept of democracy can help the debate on consensus and the lack thereof amongst competing approaches/ alternatives. Thus, this book is trying to develop the many facets of the relation between the social sciences and democracy. The social sciences are characterised by the lack of epistemic and theoretical unity and by a plurality of interests encountered in the epistemic realm. in this context, a relevant place to frame this scientific plurality and the interactions within social sciences is the idea of democracy. The book attempts to draw parallels between models of science, i.e. envisaging a plurality of epistemic interests, and models of democracy, i.e. a plurality of political, social, economic and moral interests.The first part of the book looks at the relation between social scientific experts and the public in a democratic society. social scientists, in their relation with the public and society can be distinguished as technocrats, epistocrats or democrats. The impartial and neutral social scientist is the technocrat. as Jeroen van Bouwel states (3) the technocrat is a social scientist 'that provides technical insight and optimal problem-solving strategies to the public and society and is impartial vis-a-vis the ultimate goals the public and society should pursue.' The epistocrat not only behaves like the technocrat, but also 'knows the goals that society should pursue.' according to the democratic view, the impartiality and universality advanced by some social scientists should be replaced by an 'inclusionary and democratic approach which might involve nonscientific stakeholders...in order to obtain better social science.'The first chapter of the book by Patrick Baert, helena mateus Jeronimo and alan shipman analyses the technocratic model as the early view in social sciences, i.e. social sciences are neutral vis-a-vis the ultimate goals that are pursued and they link the idea with the social sciences' struggle for identity. They argue that whilst social sciences are crucial to the workings of democracy and they are part of the democratic process, the dialogical model has emerged as a coherent alternative to the technocratic model. The dialogical model of social science offers a way out by showing the importance of involving citizens within a broader debate about science- driven policies. The relationship between the technocratic and democratic dialogue plays a central role in chapter two as well. stephanie solomon argues that a call to democratize expertise 'is philosophically incoherent' (41). using examples from feminist theory (lynn hankinson nelson) and the sociology of science (Brian Wynne), she succeeds in demonstrating how existing attempts to democratise science 'blur the distinction between experts and stakeholders.' she looks at how to incorporate nonscientists in the social scientific discussion as experts. finally, she analyzes how the scientific practice can be democratised and how can be maintained 'an epistemically coherent notion of expertise in science.' (42)Whilst part ii of the book concentrates on how can social sciences develop further the idea and practice of democracy, part iii focuses on science, freedom and pluralism. in chapter 5, harold Kincaid explores the interactions between normative democratic theory, the social sciences and the philosophy of science. The author argues that 'normative democratic theory often rests on the dubious social science- overly thin notions of the social - and that social scientific study of democracy not only does that but also makes important normative assumptions in the process.' (113) he challenges the notion of liberal democracy, arguing if the assumptions are valid in the normative democratic theory and political thinking. …