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Combining political-economic, sociological, and historical approaches, Professor Guston provides a coherent new framework for analyzing the changing relationship between politics and science in the United States. After World War II, the "social contract for science" assumed that the integrity and productivity of research were automatic; a belief that endured for four decades. But in the 1980s, cases of misconduct in science and flagging economic performance broke the trust between politics and science. New "boundary organizations" were created to mend the relationship between scientists and politicians.
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BETWEEN POLITICS AND SCIENCE The problems of delegation are fundamental to the relationship between politics and science. Politicians must be able to see, and scientists show, that research is conducted with integrity and productivity. In this book, David H. Guston combines political-economic, sociological, and historical insights to analyze the ways the integrity and productivity of research are negotiated in the United States. He shows how, after World War II, a "social contract for science" assumed integrity and productivity were the automatic products of unfettered scientific inquiry. Surveying four decades of controversies in science policy, Guston demonstrates how this assumption endured inquiries into the loyalty, the financial accountability, and the technological goals of scientists. But in the 1980s, as his rich empirical studies show, cases of misconduct in science and flagging economic performance broke the trust between politics and science. To reconstitute this trust and resolve the problems of delegation, scientists and nonscientists now collaborate in new "boundary organizations." Guston's focus on these boundary organizations reveals hidden layers of detail in the management of science policy and suggests that deft institutional design can create stable partnerships between politics and science. David H. Guston is Assistant Professor of Public Policy in the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He is also a faculty associate of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Professor Guston coauthored Informed Legislatures: Coping with Science in a Democracy and coedited The Fragile Contract: University Science and the Federal Government. His articles have appeared in Science and Public Policy, Social Studies of Science, Policy Studies Review, Policy Sciences, and many other publications.
BETWEEN POLITICS AND SCIENCE Assuring the Integrity and Productivity of Research DAVID H. GUSTON Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521653183 © David H. Guston 2000 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2000 This digitally printed first paperback version 2006 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Guston, David H. Between politics and science : assuring the integrity and productivity of research / David H. Guston. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-521-65318-5 1. Science and state — United States. I. Title. Q127.U6G87 1999 338.973f06-dc21 99-12786 CIP ISBN-13 978-0-521-65318-3 h