An assessment is made of the expanding policy sciences movement--the proliferation of policy science centers, the existence of a specialized journal, and the large number of programmatic books being published. This paper focuses on the role that policy scientists assign to themselves in the whole decision process, i.e., their strategy. Four characteristics of the policy scientist's self-image are discussed: his work should include reassessment of a problem's goals; he represents a new type of professional; he cannot be expected to contribute to the general knowledge of specific academic disciplines; he is concerned with making recommendations that are acceptable to his sponsor. The research style of the policy scientist is examined, and four basic characteristics of this style are identified: a tendency to bypass microsociological data; an interest in futurism; an emphasis on a so-called systems approach; and an identification with interdisciplinarity.
The relation between the social sciences and the solution of practical problems has been much discussed in recent years. But few detailed descriptions are available on the many ways the two "systems" interact. The present writer is the principal investigator for an ONR-supported project on the utilization of sociology. The project is conducted in the frame of Columbia's Bureau of Applied Social Research. It tries to develop a theory of applications, in a doubly restricted sense. It concentrates on sociology and empirical social research and considers other social sciences only to the extent that examples of interdisciplinary collaboration do actually occur; and it concentrates its attention on applications in the rather specific sense of solving concrete problems and tries to clarify the process of utilization in such cases. Other positions--for instance, that social sciences should provide general enlightenment for men of affairs--are in our project only examined from the literature and without the collection of specific cases.
We were, of course, especially interested in watching what I call here the policy science movement: the proliferation of policy science centers, the existence of a journal under this name and the large number of programmatic books. The following pages are part of a much longer assessment which included a discussion of the