s u on "urn

an Capital

( SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL)

Volume 52/ Numbers 2-3/ June-September 1998 • 810 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10019

Council Announces Leadership Change

Kenneth Prewitt, pre ident of the Council ince 1995 (as well as from 1979-1985), will re ign the presi­dency effective October 1. He has been nominated by Pre ident Clinton to direct the U.S. Cen u Bureau, and Senate confirmation hearing are expected in September. Cen u 2000 ha become controversial because of disagreements over the Bureau's proposal to u e tati tical ampling to remedy its u ual under­count of urban minoritie ; Mr. Prewitt hopes to work with Congre and the profe ional community both within and outside the bureau to en ure a Cen u free of politic.

Interim president appointed

Albert Fi hlow of the Council on Foreign Relation , chair of the executive committee of the Council' board of director ,ha announced the appointment of Orville Gilbert Brim a interim pre ident. Mr. Brim received a Ph.D. in ociology from Yale University and taught at the University of Wi consin before joining the Rus ell Sage Foundation as a taff officer in 1955. He was Rus ell Sage pre ident from 1964 to 1972 and then erved for ten years as pre ident of the Foundation for Child Development. Since 1989, he ha directed one of the mo t intellectually ambitiou of the MacArthur Foundation re earch network , on Succe ful Midlife Development. Mr. Brim know the SSRC well, having erved on re earch planning committee and a a funder of Council program .

The Council's executive committee called him "a first-rate ocial scientist and a proven, mature cience administrator."

Search process

Paul B. Balte of the Max Planck In titute for Human Development (Berlin), chair of the board of directors, has announced the formation of a Pre -idential Search Committee. Cora Marrett, provo t of the University of Mas achusetts, Amherst, will be chair. Members include: Lisa Anderson, dean of the School of International Affairs, Columbia University; Jean Comaroff, profe sor of anthropology, University of Chicago; Anne Petersen, senior vice-pre ident for program, W.K. Kellogg Foundation; Burton Singer, profe sor of demography and public affairs, Office of Population Research, Princeton University; Marta lienda, director, Office of Population Research, Princeton University; Kenneth Wachter, profe or of demography, University of California, Berkeley and David Weiman, SSRC program director; as well a Mr. Balte and Mr. Fi hlow (ex officio). Mary Byrne McDonnell, executive program director of the Council, will erve as taff to the committee.

A de cription of the po ition of Council pre ident will be widely circulated. Per ons wi hing to apply or to propo e candidate are urged to contact Chair, Pre idential Search Committee, SSRC, 810 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10019.

29

Introducing the Human Capital Initiative by Mary B me McDonnell

The Social Science Re earch Council, in cooperation with the American Council of Learned Societie , h embarked on an initiative concerned with the devel­opment of intellectual capital on a global cale. A erie of planning meeting began in January 1997

and engaged orne 60 individual from around the world in three eparate e ion held in New York; Bellagio, Italy; and Kuala Lumpur, Malay ia. The meeting a i ted in identifying individual who might it on an international teering committee and w rking group convened around the human capital agenda. In fall 1997 a nine-member, fully interna­tional teering committee wa appointed, and it held it fir t meeting in January 1998.

Thi initiative begin from the premi e that there i a global need for new kind of re earch profe ional who are capable and comfortable under tanding local ituation in relation hip to global, tran national and

Human Capital Committee

Li a Ander on, dean of the ch I of International and Public Affairs at Columbia Univer. ity, agreed to chair the committee. She i joined on th committee by: Paul Evan ,director, Center for A ia Pa ifie Studie , University of York; C.T. Kurien, profe .. or emeritu , Madr In titute of Development tudie; Wilfredo Lozano, director, Facultad Latinoamericana de ciencia. ; Kurt Juergen Maa ,. ecretary general, In titut fuer Au land beziehungen, Elzbieta Matynia, East and Central Europe Program, ew ch I for Social Re earch; Joyce Moock, a ociate enior vice pre ident, Rockefeller Foundation; Thandika Mkandawire, direc­tor, nited ation Re earch In ·titute for Social Development; Salim asr, program officer, Ford Foundation (Cairo) and Wang Gung Wu, director, Ea t A ian In titute, Univen.ity of Singapore. Together th experti e of thi group. pan. th globe.

taff: Mary Byrne McDonnell, executive program dire tor, SSRC; teven Wheatley, e ecutive director, ACLS.

30\1

international trend and impact . We need a hort­hand to refer to thi long and complicated thought and many of the u eful term -human re ource , capacity building, human capital-already have pe­cific meaning. We are talking pecifically about human analytic re earch capacity at the tertiary level and beyond. Thi refer to training-but not only to training-to u ing and u taining intellectual re earch capacity internationally, particularly around the et of big i ue facing humanity over the corning decade . We are u ing the term "human re earch capital" to refer to a proce that engage the que tion of form­ing an intellectual community. We work from an a umption that thi re earch capacity may be devel­oped in many type of in titution , may be employed in variou way through our ocietie . It ubject matter and it participant will be fully international.

For an SSRC pre entation on thi ubject in April 1997, committee chair Li a Ander on prepared a et of remark on "Human Capital in the Social Science " from the per pective of her di cipline, area pecialty and in titutional backgr undo A revi ed ver ion fol­low . We have a ked member of the newly appointed Human Capital Committee, or their nominee , to re pond to thi article from their own national, di ci­plinary and in titutional per pective ,and everal of the e piece al 0 appear. Thi i ue of Item al 0

include excerpt from talk pre ented at "Social Science Around the World," a ympo ium in honor of the SSRC' 75th anniver ary which took place in New York City on June 11, 1998. The e pre entation contribute to the attempt to create a global map of the ocial cience de cribed later in thi i ue.

• CONTE T OF THIS IS UE • Council Announ e Le de hip acl I cience Around the

Change 29 World 43 Introducing the Human C pital

Initi tive. lory B\"m~ McDoflfl /I

Human C pital in the acial cience • Li a Afld~r. Ofl

acial ci n e and acial Reality. C. T. Kuri~fI

acial cience and a Rapidly GI alizing W rid. H~/ga o"'olfly

The Human Capital Progr.am: The et tep. lory Bym~ McDoflfle/l

Latin America. Eliza~/h J~lifl 43

30 t m Europe. Michad D. K~/III~dy 44

31 Middle East. Ra hid KllOlidi 47 4

36 50

Oi rtati n Field Re 38 F How. hip Progr.am. KtfllOfl

W. "OIU ler 53 Current tivitie t the Council 5

40 Rec nt Council Publicali n. 65

VOL 1E 52, N MB R 2/3

Human Capital in the Social Sciences by Lisa Anderson *

Although there i much debate about the ignificance of "globalization," there i little doubt that time-hon­ored provinciali m -intellectual a well a geo­graphical-are being challenged by new per pective , identitie and commitment . Our growing awarene of our world citizen hip al 0 remind u of the depth of our immediate attachment . How will our experi­ence of imultaneou global participation and local affiliation hape and re hape each other? How will cholars in the ocial cience and humanitie reflect

and mold tho e ame hifting relation hip ? Indeed, what will be the contour , the role, the purpo e of ocial cience re earch in the future? What kind of ocial cience and what kind of ocial cienti t will

we need? With whom, how, and where will they work? What will they need to know? In what kill hall they be trained?

In addre ing the e que tion , we adopt two premi e about the nature of cholarly re earch in the future. Fir t, we tipulate that pre ing public policy que tion in the world-famine, plague war, poverty, tyranny--demand remediation and are amenable to human intervention. Second, we a ume that good ocial cience re earch hould contribute produc­

tively to under tanding, and ultimately olving, tho e problem.

PIau ible a the e premi e may eem, they are not indi putable. Famine and plague were con idered act of God long before they became i ue of public policy. Moreover, in ofar a they are public policy que tion , their pur uit may eem to di tract from the pur uit of truly cientific-theoretical as oppo ed to applied- ocial re earch. For reader who believe that famine i divine retribution or that ocial cien­tific re earch hould bear no relation to ocial need, little of what follow will be very u eful.

For tho e who agree that re earch in the humani­tie and ocial cience i appropriately engaged in addre ing important public policy i ue broadly

• Lisa Ander.on i dean of the hool of International and Public ffairs. Columbia Univ rsity and chairs SRC' Human Capital

Committ .

Ju ElSEPTEMBER 199

con trued-the SSRC among them-the production and maintenance of humani t and ocial cienti t and the in titution in which they learn kill and con­duct re earch mu t be central. Tho e cholar are our "human capital'" identifying their need , purpo e and audience , and con tructing the nece ary up­port-the training, re earch collaboration , vehicle for di emination of finding - hould be a principal aim of tho e of u involved in po tgraduate ocial ci­ence and public policy education.

Three per pective from which to approach thi project pre ent them elve . We need to a k about the producer and con umer of ocial cience re earch­who they are and where they work. We need to know to what kind of i ue ocial cienti t will be devot­ing their attention. Finally, we need to con ider what kind of training and in titutional upport the an wer to the fir t two que tion ugge t.

The practitioner parameters and purchaser of ocial science r earch

One of the mo t dramatic change in ocial cience in the la t fifty year ha been the internationalization of it practitioner. Social cience re earch, a exem­plified and upported by the SSRC, initially developed a a quinte entially American project. American ocial cienti ts became more involved in international

i ue through area tudie , including in the enor-mou Iy influential area committee jointly pon ored by the SSRC and the American Council of Learned Societie . But the empha i remained the training of American and the trengthening of American in titu­tion , notably re earch univer itie , in international and area tudie .

Incremental reform reflected the expan ion of the arena, the work ite, of ocial cience re earch a international cholar were added to the joint SSRC­ACLS area committee and international ocial ci­ence meeting were held throughout the world. Ultimately, however, area tudie a originally config­ured in the United State fell victim both to global change and, let u give credit where it i due, to their own ucce . The original purpo e of area tudie­the edification of American and the illumination of exotic corner of the world-were largely accom-pli hed: there are no di ertation left to be written merely becau e the author wa the fir t American ocial cienti t to vi it the place.

ITEMsl3 1

Today most social science graduate programs in the United States have sub tantial numbers of interna­tional students, and most American graduate students have traveled outside the United States. While their origin does not nece arily give international students pecial intere t or insight into the demography or

public health of their home countries, nor does casual touri m confer expertise on labor markets or ethnic conflict to Americans, both have served to dilute the parochiali m often found in the United State gradu­ate tudent population only decades ago.

Ju t as the provenance of the practitioners of area­based ocial re earch has expanded, so too have the parameter of the public policy to which social sci­ence re earch is devoted. Public policy que tions no longer re pect national or ideological boundarie . Environmental degradation, urban poverty, health cri e demand new mixe of internationally recog­nized technical kills and intimate local knowledge. No ociety i immune from que tion of nuclear wa te and public health, energy con ervation and con umer preference , di ease transmi ion and family tructure, poverty, public as i tance and infor­mal economie . The e is ue reflect common dilem­ma whether they are confronted in New York or Cairo, Mo cow or Mexico City, even if their ucce -ful re olution obviou ly require familiarity with pe­cific place and people .

The "internationalization" of ocial cience ha cau ed no small anxiety among area peciali t , par­ticularly in the United State and particularly in the context of po t-cold war triumphali m. Regional pe­ciali t are haunted by vi ion of ocial cienti t couring the globe, eeing only regularitie ,common

pattern , univer allaw and mi ing the quite tangi­ble, important, even gloriou ,variation among the world' ocietie. It i certainly po ible, indeed per­hap inevitable, that enthu ia m for common project , hared vi ion and collaborative in ight will di tort

our initial e timation of the pecific character of orne i ue in orne place . Yet acknowledging the univer-al character of orne of our problem (and, one

hope, orne of our olution) hould ultimately have exactly the oppo ite effect. Rather than rely on anec­dote and conviction, we will be able ystematically and analytically to locate variation among world region , in the e timation of climate change, the ig­nificance of AIDS, the impact of electronic media or the definition of human right . Indeed, we will find

32\ITEMS

variation even in the pIau ibility, the strength and the vulnerabilities of our social scientific paradigms themselves.

Our commitment to sustaining rigorous, systematic and analytical social science will be all the more cru­cial with changes in the nature of its purcha ers-and I use the term intentionally. With the world-wide retrenchment of the welfare state, governments are no longer as influential as they were, in either defining public policy or setting intellectual agendas. Thi presents both an opportunity and a challenge. For decades, research scholars have been concerned that funding by governments-particularly, but not solely, the American government~mpromised the integrity of social science research. We will now have an opportunity to test that proposition, for we will be conducting more and more of our research without that funding.

A governments around the world reconsider their involvement in funding advanced research and higher education, much research activity is moving out of universities, to privately funded, for-profit think tanks and con ulting firms, and universities themselves are turning to the private sector to sponsor their research operation . Whether this constitutes an improvement over government funding i an open question; in any event, it i a feature of the re earch environment throughout the world. As American scholars worry over the fate of federal funding of area studies centers at univer itie , half the world away India's education ecretary, P.R. Da gupta, warn that "higher educa­

tion ha to be market-friendly. It can't just look to government." I

Market-friendline doe not nece arily mean the commercialization of ocial cience, although some of u may undertake contract re earch for pharmaceu­tical companie expanding market hare in the devel­oping world, ju t a orne ocial cienti t have been worked for government , doing everything from a e ing the popular ba e of enemy regime to improving ocial ervice delivery to the urban poor. Market friendline will mo t often mean acknowl­edging that re earch conventionally under tood as ocial cience-meeting the ame tandard of rigor

and review-i being done not only in univer itie

I quoted in Jon than Karp, "Change of coun.e: India' ivory towers try to get practical," Far & Itm Economic RtvitM,', November 14, 1996.

VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2J3

but at international accounting firm like Price Waterhouse and nongovernmental organization like Human Rights Watch. Academic ocial cienti t cannot afford to imply bemoan or ignore thi shift in the locus of re earch. Rather we mu t actively engage with the e new entrant into the ocial cience ector and participate in the training and development

of ocial cienti ts who work out ide the conventional univer ity etting to en ure that long-recognized ci­entific tandard and control are maintained.

The internationalization of ocial cience practi­tioner , the globalization of public policy, the privati­zation of upport for scientific research dictate change in the job de cription, the training and the in titu­tional support of all social cienti t . So too will the nature of the que tion that will be po ed to them.

The topics of social science research

The trategie we adopt to fo ter production and maintenance of ocial cienti t ,a well as the com­munitie and institution in which they will thrive, will depend not only on our as e ment of hifting ource or upplie of re earch cholar but al 0 upon

our predictions about demand: the need for ocial cience re earch in the future. Several clu ter of

i ue appear likely to eize our attention in the coming decade .

Much of the ocial cience of the 21 t century will be devoted to public policy que tion growing out of human interaction with the natural environment or, increasingly, the humanly-altered natural environ­ment. From effort to tem ecological degradation and promote health, to contain population growth and harne genetic engineering, ocial cienti t will be engaged in developing, as e ing and promoting new techniques for profitable and u tainable interaction with the natural world. Thi will require clo er col­laboration with cholar from the natural cience than has been our practice in the pa t; our di ciplinary parochiali m are no more appropriate to the new world than i our area tudie provinciali m.

In addition, ocial cienti ts will continue to explore human ociety it elf, examining the myriad form of human exchange and communication in fam­Hie ,market and bureaucracie . How global and local ocietie hape each other in international migration and dia pora communities, and how change in the cale and medium of exchange alter

Ju FJ EPTEMBER 1998

identitie will loom a large and pre ing que tion . If face-to-face interaction produced olidarity through the idiom of kin hip and imagined communi tie con-tituted the ba i of nationali m. for example, the vir­

tual communi tie of the electronic media may well produce novel way of defining and legitimating them elve .

Political theory and political practice con titute a third arena of re earch for ocial cience. Enlighten­ment conception of the individual and individual right , which underpin We tern definition of democ­racy and human right, are highly charged notion, conte ted in much femini t cholar hip a well a by tho e who ee their export a the late t expre ion of We tern imperiali m. Di pute about the very uni­versality of the Universal Declaration of Human Right are not merely academic feud : they hape religiou conflict and international trade di pute in the Middle Ea t, East A ia and el ewhere. In another example, the vexed debate about clitorectomy in recent year iUu trate how conception of women, of right , of adulthood, and of the relative latu and power of local and global communi tie have changed as a procedure on e viewed as a right, perhap a priv­ilege, is now con idered an abu e. So too, challenge to the tate posed by the growing importance of upernational identitie and ubnationalloyaltie a

well as by the privatization of much of the welfare tate' traditional domain will command u tained

attention from ocial cienti t , as will growing atten­tion to human right , more wide pread adoption of liberal democratic practice among previou ly author­itarian regime , and continued pursuit of economic reform.

Finally, ocial re earcher will need to be elf-con-ciou and reflective about their own program and

project . A we develop more ophi ticated method and more elaborate model , we mu t keep in mind that our ocial cience re t on a conception of knowledge that value quantification, mea ure real­ity in numerically preci e, probabilistic term and favor , if not require , a conception of the human elf as a data point, a tati tic-a "human capital."2

2 For an hi torieal treatment of thi que lion. Alfred W. Crosby, Th~ M~asu~ of R~ality: Quantification and w~ tl!m itl)', 1250-16()(). Cambridge Univen.ily Pre ,1997.

[TEMsl33

Thi per pective i widely hared in advanced indu -trial countrie -political polling, rna marketing, medical re earch have popularized the vocabulary of quantitative economic and tati tic -but it i by no mean univer al even in the United State. Indeed, re i tance to being a "namele facele number" i the tuff of late-20th-century American folklore, and, a popular reaction to report of leaking nuclear w te or new of miracle cancer cure ugge t kep­tici m about "lie , damn lie ,and tati tic "doe not abate in the face of threat to per onal health and well-being.

The cleavage between cientific communitie and their ocietie i even deeper in much of the re t of the world. Where literacy i n t a foregone conclu-ion , "numeracy" i often even Ie common.

Indeed in orne place keptici m about or ho tBity to cientific method reflect government policy, a regime are reluctant to collect or di eminate infor­mation in thi form. The official population figure for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia i a tate ecret; half the total volume of economic tran action in Egypt goe unrecorded. In the e kind of context , the work of providing appropriate training, congenial work et­ting and other in titutional upport for ocial cience i even more pre ing and important than it i in the United State .

We hould al 0 re i t contenting our elve imply with decrying the "bad data et" of developing coun­trie . Confronted with the all too frequent ab ence of even crude cen u figure, we need to develop cien­tific method Ie un elfcon ciou ly reliant on num­ber and ocial cienti t Ie mitten with the tech­nology of tati tic or econometric for it own ake.

Moreover, we need to be alert to the di tortion -of human elf-definition, identity, intere t -that may inhere in our collective commitment to quantification. In conducting our "thought experiment " and de ign­ing our re earch protocol , we mu t re i t the all-too­human temptation to extrapolate from our own logic to divine the preference of people to whom miracle may be a real a probabilitie are to u .

Creating and u taining "human capital" in the ocial ciences

All of thi ugge t the de irability, if not the nece ity, of new model of how we create ocial ci­enti t who know omething about the world. Mo t

34\1TEM

importantly, it ugge t that the catchment area for the next generation of ocial cienti t hould be under tood a the whole world. Thi may mean a variety of initiative : expanding fellow hip opportu­nitie for international tudent in American univer-itie ,enhancing univer ity-ba ed ocial cience

training and re earch in other part of the world, in erting ocial cience training into the NGO/non­profit ector agenda more eriou Iy, co pon oring training and re earch program with private con ult­ing firm or re earch in titute . Becau e the practice of ocial cience articulate with the public and pri­vate ector and with other element of civil ociety in uch varied way acro the world, we mu t be expan ive and eclectic in our definition of the ite of re earch and training.

So too we mu t enlarge our conception of the method and methodologie of ocial cience. Where "bad data" confound our conventional approache ,we hould look more eriou ly at the fact-finding model of re earch developed in legal re earch and u ed to very good effect by human right re earcher . Equally importantly, we hould prepare the ocial cienti t of the future to collabo­rate far more clo ely with their counterpart in the natural dence. Even a we recognize and explore the boundarie of the cientific paradigm, we mu t en ure that ocial cienti t are more knowledgeable and confident about the cientific enterpri e in neu­r biology, epidemiology, phy ic ,environmental cience . We need ocial cienti t who can com­

fortably and ympathetically navigate between the realm of the natural cience and the much larger arena of keptici m about the cientific enterpri e altogether. If area tudie once erved to introduce and familiarize American with the many culture in di tant reache of the world , a comparable initia­tive hould utilize the unique kill and per pective of ocial cienti t to addre the "two culture " that now re ide ide by ide 0 awkwardly both at home and throughout the globe.

We hould al 0 con ider ocial cience training a life-long project. We who work in univer itie hould not expect our tudent to replicate our own

career : few ocial cienti t in the 21 t century, in the United State or el ewhere. will find permanent employment teaching what they learned in graduate chool for forty year -and tho e who do 0 will

pr bably not be the be t or the brighte t. Scholarly

VOLUME 52. N MBER 2/3

career will look different. Depending on their kill and preference, ocial cienti ts will move in and out of univer itie , re earch in titute , think tank , government, not-for-profit advocacy organization, private bu ine firm -and they will till be chol­ar . They will want and need a variety of mecha-ni m to continue and extend their training: po tdoc­toral training (and retraining) fellow hip hould become routine. Mid-career program hould pro­vide not only the venerable abbatical re t and renewal to ea oned profe ional in and out of uni­ver itie but al 0, and perhap more importantly, expo ure to and training in new re earch technique , innovative method and di ciplinary advance. If, in our production of the next generation of ocial cien­ti t , we are open to new ource of upply for the "raw material" and look to new ite and method for their' proce ing," we will reap enormou benefit in the inventivene and intellectual vitality of our cholar hip. A it tand now the convention that

govern how ocial cience i done are too often narrow and unduly tylized. Though we rarely con­cede a difference between pure and applied cience, we often di tingui h between "literature-driven" and "problem-driven" re earch, failing to teach our tu­dent that the e approache are two ide of a coin. Literature-driven work i too frequently driven by data et than important que tion -the re earcher ' curio ity i technical rather than intellectual-and the re ult are trivial: the infamou mathematical demon-tration of corruption' detrimental impact on devel­

opment in Africa. Yet olely problem-driven work i too often born of the day' headline, almo t entirely de criptive and quickly dated, a the now du ty helve of Kremlinology atte t.

The reinvigorating of the ocial cience will be enhanced by the internationalization of cholar hip and the concomitant integrative impetu to cro -di­ciplinary and truly comparative re earch. When there are good job in African univer itie for mathematical modeler , when re earch in titute in Southea t A ia hire fir t-rate young game theori t , when econome­trician compete for work in the Middle Ea t, we will find tran itory problem Ie di tracting and technical virtuo ity Ie con uming. Social cience a a whole

JUNFiSEPTEMBER 1998

will be infinitely better informed and more u eful­not only to other academic ocial cienti ts and humani t but to the pre umed beneficiarie , the ulti­mate "end-u er ," of ocial cience re earch: the people who e economie work better, who e health improve , who e life chance multiply.

Technologically thi vi ion of internationalization i cIo er than it may appear. At Shanghai Academy for the Social Science five year ago there wa one computer for each of the fifteen re earch in titute ; today about one-third of the re earcher have their own per onal computer and all the in titute are linked to the Internet. Indeed, according to Academy vice-pre ident Yu Xintian, by the end of thi year "if a cholar doe not pa the national computer te t, he! he cannot get a higher academic title."3 Many parts of the developing world are quickly catching up with our technical facility (indeed, if we are com­placent, we will quickly fall behind our elve ); the international cientific elite will oon di po e of world-cIa re earch equipment even in countrie where many of the ordinary people till live in poverty.

Where they do not-in much of Africa and the Middle Ea t-we mu t recognize that the impedi­ment to the development of internationally recog­nized ocial cience are not technical.

Social cientific re earch pre ume not ju t techni­cal infra tructure, equipment, tran port, kill , train­ing but, far more important, freedom of a ociation, information, expre ion. To that extent, genuine ocial cience may repre ent a direct challenge to

the e tabli hed order. The internationalization of ocial cientific chol­

ar hip and the creation and maintenance of intellectu­ally re pon ible and ocially aware cholar i a pro­foundly political project. If we are to pur ue it, we mu t to be prepared to acknowledge and accept the con equence : thi will be a difficult, often con-tentiou , but ultimately rewarding effort. •

3 Yu Xlntian. ''The Advantage, honcoming and Developing Trend of Chine Re archer.. in Social ei nee nd Humanitie ," prepared for "Hum n Capital Need and Chall nge Facing th Global Re arch Community: Condition in A ia," Kuala Lumpur, Malay in, Jun 2, 1997.

ITEM 135

Social Science and Social Reality by C. T. Kurien *

In re ponding to Li a Ander on' piece, let me indi­cate two ba ic premi e . The fir t i that in the final analy i all ocial cience mu t be about ocial real­ity. The econd i what may be de cribed a the" itu­ational factor," that i , the va t majority of cholar will remain bounded-to their particular di cipline , to their countrie and localitie and to in titution .

I take it that it i not nece ary to ju tify the fir t premi e, which i al 0 Ander on' -that pre ing public policy que tion will occupy the attention of the cholarly community. I hope so, because one of the profe ional vice of that community i the ten­dency to e cape from real-life problem into the anc­tuary of ab tract rea on. To be ure, there can be no eriou re earch without ab traction even in the ocial cience ; perhap e. pecially in the ocial cience,

which cannot conduct controlled laboratory experi­ment . But if ab tra tion i not to become mere pro­duction of cobweb , however elegant, it mu t be treated as an intermediate tetr-between tarting from orne concrete reality and returning to it with greater under tanding. Ab traction can only be a view from the top to gain per pective on what i on the ground. But far too often it turn into the cult of climbing, moving farther and farther from the ground realitie . In the o-called advanced ocial cience like economic thi i already a wide pread di ea e.

If re earch ha to be about orne a pect of ocial reality, hould it aim to predict, or to explain and interpret? A great deal of ocial cience re earch in the pa t wa mi guided becau e of the perception that the e sence of cience wa the earch for regularitie that formed the ba i of prediction. Thi was po sibly the ca e in a tronomy or even phy ie., but certainly not in cience like biology. In any ca e, ocial ci­ence do not have to imitate phy ical cience. If they are to contribute to the under tanding of ocial phe­nomena, they will earch for imilaritie as well a for difference , becau e the concrete i alway a mix­ture of the two.

• C.T. Kurien i profe emeritu at the Madras In titute of Development Studie ..

36\lTEM

Let me now turn to my econd premi e. It is true that th 21 t century will see the breaking down of many once-rigid boundarie , but it i naive to expect that a world without boundarie is going to emerge even in the long run. True, communication technolo­gie and travel facilities will make the sense of the globe an experiential reality for many people, and in the proce orne parochiali m may di appear. The pirit of jealou nationali m may al 0 wane to orne

extent. But a Anderson recognize, upra national con ideration and ubnational commitment will emerge and gather trength. Thi i becau e the ocial space intrin ically involve the breaking and making of boundarie .

The ame i al 0 true of academic boundarie . Some di ciplinary boundarie will be broken; other will ju t di integrate. New pecialization will ari e, po ibly cutting acro exi ting boundarie . However, nothing like a grand ynthe ized cience of ociety i going to evolve.

The que tion, therefore, i how in the decade ahead to move toward re earch into ocial problem that will tran cend geographical and cultural paro­chiali m and di ciplinary boundarie . It eem to me that a mUlti-pronged trategy i nece ary. It main feature mu t be to empha ize the relation hip be­tween ocial problem and analy i from the mo t elementary to the rno t advanced level . Tracing thi relation hip hould form the ba i of teaching ocial cience at the undergraduate level. At that level the

thru t mu t be to present real-life ocial problem in a tructured manner 0 that tudent come to under­tand the principle of tructuring, rather than to

unfold the logical tructure in the ab tract. To take an example from economic , in tead of introducing tu­dent to the theory of competitive market , they hould be enabled to appreciate the variety of factor

that influence the functioning of different real-life market . To tho e for whom the undergraduate course is terminal (the va t majority of tudent in any coun­try of the world), uch training will be more u eful than a fragmentary and diluted introduction to the "theoretical" corpu of the di cipline.

To tho e who go on for graduate tudie, that foun­dation will underpin a rigorou theoretical approach. A proper internalizing of categorie and y terns, with the awarene that the e are ultimately related to real-life i ue, will enable tudent at the doctoral level to take up concrete problem for rigorous analy-

VOLUM 52. NUMBERS 2J3

i . The di ertation topic of mo t Ph.D. cholar will and hould be of thi kind. (A few will, and hould, concentrate on y tematization and theoretical

advance .) If thi procedure i followed it doe not matter whether the earch for the di ertation topic i literature-driven or problem-driven. With uch an approach, cholar will not he itate to tran gre the boundarie of their di cipline a the treatment of problem call for it.

With rare exception , during the doctoral re earch, cholar will tay at a ingle in titution. In titutional

mobility will, of cour e, increa e, and a few will al 0

manage to pend time in countrie other than their own. But in principle all doctoral tudent will learn how to open up to new problem , new method and new di cipline . That kind of opening up, olidly based on real-life i ue rigorou Iy analyzed, i acad­emic univer alization or globalization. No one will feel too threatened to move to new territorie , meet new peer and deal with them a equal . The problem will be for tho e who approach uch ituation with imperiali tic de ign , but they will be hown their place and their parochiali m will be expo ed.

Center of po tdoctoral re earch, whether in the univer itie or in eparate re earch in titution , will in turn become place where cholar with different background and orientation meet and enrich one another. Having cholar from different part of the world will be natural in uch global center , and they will emerge in many part of the world.

The procedure I have de cribed may appear low moving, but that i quite deliberate. For there i the

JUNE/ EPTEMBER 199

danger that in the intere t of globalization (a good thing in it elf), we may ru h to different form of p eudo-globalization. It will become po ible through the internet to acce quanti tie of information from data bank from all corner of the globe and combine them to produce "global" re earch paper . It will be po ible to move around the world and contract col­laborative re earch program of an interdi ciplinary nature, and 0 on. The e have a place, but hovering around the globe i not ub titute for becoming global; only tho e who have been adequately grounded can become genuinely global.

Finally, a word about funding. Re earch, like edu­cation in general, i a public good which will not follow the market principle of being able to pay for it elf. Hence ub idy i unavoidable. In mo t oci­etie ,the tate has been the agency to provide that ub idy, which ha advantage and di advantage .

But urpri ing a it may appear to orne, market­friendly private concern con tantly practice the prin­ciple of ub idy. (The co t of advertizing, for example, i covered by the price of the good .) Hence it will not be trange at all if private corporation turn to ub i­dizing re earch, even ocial cience re earch. There are advantage and di advantage in private ub idie too, and in both public and private in tance researche have to learn to figure them out and to lay down their condition for accepting ub idie . A the thru t of marketized globalization gathers momentum, researchers in the ocial cience hould explain to the public that the principle of ub idy i ju t as univer al a the prin­ciple of pricing, and the two often go together. •

lTEMs/37

Social Science and a Rapidly Globalizing World by Helga NowotllY*

Are we conceptually equipped to deal with a rapidly globalizing world? Do we have the nece ary mean and tool in term of cientific competence, profe -ional organization and methodology to take on the

challenge that the Human Capital Initiative ha put on the agenda?

Three major pitfall await u , if we are to engage in road mapping-i.e., looking ahead, charting the terrain and mapping it with the be t cognitive and technical mean at our di po aI-to obtain a globally extended look at our field of inquiry. Thi compri e the collective knowledge and imagination of the dri­ver of change a well a tho e who are mo t deeply affected by it. The identification of linkage within the cience and other form of ocial knowledge and practice remain crucial. The ftf t pitfall concern the po ibility that the earch for global competence i likely to take u into territory where map imply do not yet exi t. Wor e, the exi ting map --crude and tandardized a they are-may have been drawn up

for very different purpo e . They may readily be rni -interpreted, leading un u pecting u er a tray. Thi i the danger inherent in what Pierre Bourdieu call "Ie ru e de la rai on imperiali te," the unintended cun­ning inherent in taking for granted the preten ion of one' own culture to being univer al. According to Arjun Appadurai, two option are available in interna­tionalization. One con i t in taking the hidden arma­ture of our re earch etho a given, and proceeding to look for allie . Thi i weak internationalization. The other i to invite a conver ation in which the very ele­ment of what con titute re earch are ubject to debate and cholar from other ocietie are invited to bring their own ideas about what i central in pur uit of new knowledge. The latter i trong international­ization, in which participation doe not require prior adherence to pecific ideas about which road map to u e. (Appadurai 1997)

• Helga Nowotny of the Swi Federal In tilUle of Technology in Zurich. Switzerland. i vice·pre ident of the European Science and Technology A mbly.

3 \ITEM

The econd pitfall in road mapping ari e when there are no recognizable road . Li a Ander on tipu­late that good ocial cience re earch hould con­tribute to under tanding and ultimately olving ocial problem . But the actual proce of reaching con en-u on public policy priori tie -a Ander on i the

fir t to admit-<iefining them and arriving at a cour e of action, i fraught with difficultie ,e peciaUy at a global level. What may look like olid and easily rec­ognizable road on one map may on another map-­corre ponding to another kind of ocial reality-imply di appear, 10 t in a terrain where mud lide ,

earthquake or de ert and render unrecognizable what hould be or had been there. Even under uch condition , human being manage to eke out a living, and ocial communitie attribute meaning to what bind them together. Road in the We tern en e may imply not be there-and yet people move around,

exchange and communicate. The third pitfall concern the very proce of map­

ping, the act of e tabli hing orne kind of corre pon­dence between different ocial realitie and our re earch-guided repre entation of them. Mapping i the clo e t equivalent to experimentation that the ocial cience know. But how do our mapping proce­

dure fare when we admit to a plurality of method , each one an wering to pecific kind of que tion , but all re ponding to criteria of practical reproduction? What role i played by the changing materialitie of re earch proce e, e.g. by acce to new empirical data collection method like computer-a i ted elf­interviewing? (Thrner et al. 1998) How do our preva­lent mapping procedure compare to experimental y tern in term of encompa ing heterogeneou ele­

ment and their potential recombination? In other word , how are ocial cientific object produced and reproduced, tabilized and de tabilized, deformed and reformed, in way irnilar to what happen in the nat­ural cience?

None of the e pitfall i in urmountable, but they erve a reminder of the many un tated cultural

a umption that underpin the heterogeneou notion of what con titute ocial cience re earch and it global capacity. Better preparation for the proce e of globalization pre uppo e a better under tanding of how globalization, like technology, alter the nature of ocial interaction-not only among our research ubjects but al 0 in our relation hip to cien-

VOLUME 52. NUMBERS 2/3

tific ubjects. European ocial science re earch, far from being equipped to immerse itself in this chal­lenge, neverthele i on its way to tackle the diver-ity of re earch culture and tradition , national

research y tern or the comparability of data. The 5th Framework Program of the European Union con­tain orne innovative feature that aim toward a better integration of ocial cience re earch in areas of great practical concern to the EU. Improving the quality of life and management of living re ource , creating a u er-friendly information ociety, or pro­moting competitive and u tainable growth al 0

demand far greater cooperation with the natural ci­ences and engineering. One important dimen ion of the 5FP call for the focused development of a ocial cience knowledge to underpin policy deci ion

acro s a wide range of public concern . Bringing u er and producers of knowledge, including ocial cience knowledge, into clo er interaction i another

central feature built into the 5FP tructure. While these tep do not nece arily imply interna­

tionalization, they repre ent important mile tone in the Europeanization of ocial cience re earch. Overcoming difference in language and the cultural

Jv PlSEPTEMBER 1998

under tanding that go with them, facing the demand of comparability of data and a fine-tuned under tand­ing of the functioning of different political in titu­tion while tudying the emergence of a common European identity, call for unprecedented effort in improving ocial cience re earch capacitie . With them go an expan ion of graduate training and a vari­ety of exchange cherne for tudent. None of the e effort en ure that a globally competent ocial cience re earch capacity i yet in place, but they broaden and deepen the experience of European voice to be heard in the common que t. •

Notes

Appadurai, Arjun, 1997. ''The Re earch Ethic and the Spirit of lnternationali m." Item , vol. 51, no. 4, pp. 55-60.

Bourdieu, Pierre, 1998. "Sur Ie ru e de la rai on im¢ri­ali te." Actes de La recherche en Sciences SociaLes, mar 1998, pp. 109-118, 121-22.

Turner, C.F. et al., 1998. "Adole cent Sexual Behavior, Drug U e, and Violence: Increa ed Reporting with Computer Survey Technology." Science, vol. 280, May 8, pp. 867-873.

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The Human Capital Program: The Next Steps by Mary Byrne McDonnell*

During the planning proce s for the Human Capital Initiative [ ee p. 30 for an introduction], we identified three critical clu ter of i ue to analyze in the initial few year . The fir t i communication and connec­tivity. Thi include new technologie but al 0 asks que tion about languages-training and u age-as well a about network formation and function a a tool for re earch and di emination. A econd clu ter concern the changing nature and role of intellectual , including how intellectual engage the many commu­nitie they erve. Related to thi changing role i the expan ion of the term "intellectual " to include the many walk of life that employ intellectual and re earcher . Another dimen ion i the extent to which diver e communi tie -intellectual NGO , , local communitie ,donor and policymaker -mu t join together to tackle the kind of re earch que tion that will garner public attention in the coming decade . A third clu ter center on the re earch methodologie needed to cope with emerging i ue. For example, developing deeper and more nuanced under tanding of the intricacie of comparative and team work approache will greatly enhance the ability to work acro culture and per peetive , making it more po ible to gain u eful in ight into phenomena who e impact i both wide pread and local.

Work plan

The January 1998 meeting re ulted in a work plan to be implemented over the coming month . A a device for focu ing the committee' energie it wa agreed to et the goal of a major conference in 2000, which would itself produce a volume intended as a eminal analy i of trend ,condition and competen­

cie , while at the arne time offering tool for fixing the problem that have been identified.

With thi goal in mind, the committee will begin to work along four track . By the next meeting of the Human Capital Committee in November 1998, we

• Mary Byrne McDonnell, an hi torian. i executive program director of the RC.

4O\JTEM

expect to have made progre along each of the e track , providing document , draft and data of vari­ou kind to a i t the committee in de igning next tep toward the conference.

Track I. The article by Li a Ander on and other on "Human Capital in the Social Science " that appear in thi i ue of Item , along with everal other piece , will be reprinted a the initial volume in a new Council Working Paper Serie on Building Intellectual Capital for the 21 t Century. I U ing the work of one author as a foil again t which other can comment, react and demon trate alternative per­pective i a model which, if ucce ful in thi ini­

tial experiment, may be used regularly in the work­ing paper erie .

Track 2. A a way of framing the di cu ion of each of the three i ue clu ter that form the initial agenda, working papers have been commi ioned on the following five topic : The role of the intellectual in a changing world; communication and language, new technologie and research, impact of interna­tionalization and the relation hip between intellectu­al and both the ource and audience of their work out ide the border of the academy. Author will write from their own national, di ciplinary and in ti­tutional per peetive . The e e ay will be a first take at defining the large i ue that the committee hope to addre in preparation for the conference. They may be publi hable as tand-alone e ay or, more likely, they may erve a point of departure for further di cu ion, working group ,meeting and commentary on the road toward developing pub Ii h­able 50-100 page monograph in the working paper erie .

Track 3. One of the mo t ucce ful element of the planning meeting that launched thi initiative wa the member' pontaneou thumbnail ketche of human capital condition in diver e part of the world. We believe an important early tep we can take i to develop "map " of each world region which will enable u to under tand what i ue, capacitie and con traint (in titutional, political, economic, etc.) characterize each region with re peet

I Volume 2 i aI in production. It Ie ul from the planning meet­ing held in Bellagio, Italy in July 1997 and will u c from the African experience to e amine the que ti n of building intellectual c pital through network fonnation .

VOLUME 52, NUMBER 2J3

to the formation of intellectual re earch capacity. Later in the proce ,they may be linked together

within a ingle working paper to form a global map. Thi map will be u eful in and of itself for program and in titution involved in academic programming around the world. At the ame time, it would allow u to ee commonality and differentiation on a broad cale, providing a en e of area that require pecial

attention (additional working paper , a working group or a pot on the conference agenda), where ynergie of intere t might be fo tered in the earch

for olution to problem or where other (founda­tion , mini trie of education, NGO ) may want to focu energy and attention.

A a fir t tep, we have asked a few qualified indi­vidual , orne from the committee and orne other , to provide a 3-5 page informal letter in re pon e to three que tion from u . The three que tion are tho e that drove our original planning proce :

1) What are the area and i ue that will require intellectual firepower in the future?

2) What i globally competent ocial cience re earch capacity? That i , what type of "ideal" global-local re earcher are required given the re earch need you have identified?

3) What are the in titutional con traint that inhibit the production of an adequate upply of appropriately trained, u tained

and utilized re earcher ?

We ee the Council ' y tern of Regional Advi ory Panel (RAP) as central to the proce of develop­ing the e e ay on regional condition .2 Thu , we have circulated the regionally focu ed letter we have received to the RAP for their comment , critique and elaboration . We will a k each RAP to prepare a re pon e about it region through di cu ion among it member, with member of other RAP and with member of the Human Capital Committee. It i worth noting that all RAP member will receive all the letter . Although a RAP will only be a ked to

2 The SSRClACLS Regional Advi ry Panel (RAP) are composed of holars from variou world region . RAP addre a broad array of

intellectual and infrastructural i ue of concern within their region ; they work with each other in are of concern acros world region .

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998

re pond to the letter about it region, we expect that RAP member will be timulated by reading about condition around the globe. Therefore, we imagine that the individual RAP re pon e will be enriched and enlivened by compari on with condition in other parts of the world. We expect that thi y tem­wide conver ation will not only a i t the human capital program but will al 0 work to bind the RAP into the y tern more clo ely than if an annual meet­ing were the main ource of contact.

It i our intention to organize thi conver ation­among member of ingle RAP ,acro RAP and with the Human Capital Committee-largely via electronic mean . We are in the proce of develop­ing a technology plan to enable the Council to better act as a facilitator of international cholarly conver-ation . We have recently acquired the capacity to

generate private e-mail Ii ts that include internet addre e. Over time we al 0 hope to be able to timulate topically focu ed conver ation among the

full international y tern or any of it part via Ii t­erver or u er-net technology.

Track 4. During the January meeting, the Human Capital Committee con i tently identified the u e and role of network a it top priority. Thi com­plicated and multidimen ional ubject will likely require the formation of a working group to pull together the variou thread. The e thread range from practical que tion uch a what kind of net­works (topical, di ciplinary, dome tic, international, binational, multinational, regional) exi t, for what purpo e and under what condition , to the more forward-looking i ue of how to en ure that they thrive and contribute ignificantly to the creation, maintenance and di emination of ocial cience re earch and knowledge on particular topic . A related but broader take on the ubject would look at the role of network in the development of the indi­vidual profe ional. We would like to think about network both in the formal and bounded en e of re earch network on a particular topic and in thi broad en e of linkage and contact that form com­munitie , which them elve contribute to the profe -ionalization of individual re earcher and of the ocial cience.

It wa agreed that there wa no ingle implemen­tation trategy for working on thi broad i ue and that we hould tart to work along multiple path .

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The Africa RAP i planning workshop based on the re ult of the Bellagio conference. The e will pro­vide analy i of exi ting research networks within Africa with an eye to determining in what areas new network might be developed and defining new organizational strategies for creating network that function well in underdeveloped institutional envi­ronment . We al 0 expect orne di cussion of net­work to emerge in the letter produced as part of Track 3.

An additional early trategy will begin to look at network ets of profe ional linkage or nascent communitie . Beginning from the notion that there are today ocial cienti ts who embody the "ideal" re earcher of the future, the ta k i to query the e individual about their network --calendar , link-age , conta t -and determine what their profe ional live look like and what they think i important to do.

42\ITEM

A related que tion i to what extent the e network fo ter better ocial cience re earch and better u e of that re earch. Thi tudy could include not only networks as in people and in titution , but journal . It hould provide a useful picture of what network , contacts and demand are required today to be a member of the global re earch community.

We di cu sed whether or not we hould look at be t practice beyond what the Africa RAP i cur­rently doing. For example, in A ia, re earch net­work are highly developed on a ub et of i ue-ecurity, agro-food-and not in other area . Further,

we a ume that different in titutional environment mean that different kind of networks become valu­able and that different topic or di cipline may gen­erate different u e for network . It will be impor­tant to examine ome of the e i ue a we move toward the 2000 conference. •

VOLUME 52. NUMBER 2J3

Social Sciences Around the World

The Social Sciences in Latin America

by Elizabeth Jelin * I tart with a que tion and an anecdote. The que tion i ,I it good or bad for ocial cience in Latin America or in general in the world that a pre ident of one of the large t countrie in the world, Brazil, i a world-renowned ocial cienti t? It' al 0 po ible that the next pre ident of Chile will be a world­renowned ocial cienti t. We al 0 have everal min-i ter and other government official .

Next the per onal anecdote. I lived through mili­tary dictator hip in Argentina from 1976 onward. I traveled a lot, and every time I would enter or leave the country I had to fill out an immigration form. One of the item in the form wa occupation, and I would y tematically leave it blank. The immigration official would u ually write "hou ewife, ama de ca a." I wasn't going to lie but I al 0 wa n't going to ay that I am a ociologi t. I wa afraid of aying that

in a government immigration office. Now, what do the e two thing -my friend

Fernando Henrique Cardo 0 being the pre ident of Brazil and my fear regarding my profe ional identi­fication a a ociologi t during the dictator hip-have in common? I think they are indicator of the politi­cization of the ocial cience in Latin America. Social cience i part of public and political life in do 'e relation hip to power and to power truggle .

There are good hi torical and tructural rea on why thi i the ca e. Fir t, Latin America ha a tradi­tion of public univer itie , and in particular, highly politicized public univer itie . For example, it' the pre ident of Mexico who elect the pre ident of UNAM, the Mexican National University, and it' a political appointment. Student movement have long been important in Latin American politic . Thi year mark the 80th anniver ary of La reforma universi­taria, a major tudent movement that tarted in Argentina and pread el ewhere, calling for the democratization of public univer itie . Student trike are till common.

• Elizabeth Jelin i profe r of ociology I Ih Univer;idad de Bueno Aire .

Ju ElSEPTEMBER 199

Another rea on for the politicization of ocial ci­ence tems from the fact that ba ic funding for re earch, or ba ic lack of funding for re earch, come from public fund . The cience budget in Latin American countrie are extremely low and do not meet the minimum international tandard in term of their percentage of GNP. Within them, ocial cience get very, very little, and has to truggle politically to get anything. Finally, and thi i a major fact in the region, ocial cience ha been ubject to the whim of political in tability, and we have had a long hi tory of political in tability.

But there i more to it than the e tructural and in titutional rea on . Latin America ha a culture of ocial cience activity that draw on a model of intel­

lectual and academic life-the en ayi ta tradition, the e ayi t who look at reality, comment on it intelli­gently and participate actively in political debate. After the Second World War and e pecially from the late 1950 onward, modern ocial cience wa intro­duced into the region, with pecialized profe ional training in ociology, anthropology and political ci­ence. The e di cipline were introduced in academic environment , implying the growth of pecialized experti e.

The re ulting ten ion between the ocial cienti t operating a an intellectual and the ocial cienti t doing narrowly defined re earch project i one of the mo t intere ting feature of Latin American ocial cience today. When I look at tho e who are making

it in politic today, they combine both. It' not the intellectual debate in the ensayi ta tradition, and it i not the narrowly defined, re earch-oriented ocial ci­ence, but it' the combination of both.

What are the important development nowaday? Fir t, there i the growth of private univer itie , but of a very pecial type; it' not the Harvard and the Yale . The univer itie that are expanding in Latin America are profe ional chool , u ually offering bu ine admini tration cour e geared to the demand of the rich bu ine das who can pay high tuition for the education of their children. The e new univer i­tie are not creating new condition for the expan ion of ocial cience re earch. Meanwhile, public univer-itie are in big financial trouble. There i a pu h

ITEMsl43

toward what i called u tainability, which mean get your own money for re earch from private fund which lead to the commodification of ocial cience through contract re earch. The e trend accompany the economic policie that are being implemented in the region, geared to efficiency, to open market , to re ult that have immediate application, to ati fy demand through the marketplace.

Yet the ocial cience a a community of cholar are quite lively. If we look at financial inve tment in Latin American ocial cience and look at output-I am not thinking of quantitative but of qualitative output (good idea , depth of interpretation, creativity, rigor in re earch)-we ee urpri ing efficiency. Why i it 01 I would ay that political commitment, politi­cal engagement and moral outrage are a very trong ource of motivation to pur ue knowledge. It i not

that we have to counterpoi e political commitment and objective ocial cience. Rather, one i pu hing the other.

A econd important element i links to the out ide world. Latin American ocial cience and the en ay­iSla before that have been international from the tart. In the late 1940 , for in tance, Sao Paulo was

much more co mopolitan than the United State. Tran lation of old European literature were plentiful; intellectual debate were lively. Max Weber wa tran lated into Spani h about 30 year before he was tran lated into Engli h. Gram ci wa tran lated into Spani h much earlier than into Engli h. So intellec­tual and political elite have long been quite geared to (European-oriented) internationali m.

And thi i where the SSRC come in, becau e I think that upport from the out ide-not only finan­cial upport but al 0 intellectual upport and dia­logue-are crucial a et for the development of ocial cience in Latin America. The SSRC joint

committee erved that purpo e for more than 40 year . Given the politicization of ocial cience, being part of an international community and dialogue pro­vide a continuou check again t the danger of falling into political dogmati m.

A further reason why productivity i relatively high in the context of carcity and dimini hing re ource i related to the proce of democratization, beginning in the 1980 . Democracy i creating more room for diver ity and for dialogue-between intel­lectual debate and profe ional experti e, and among the di cipline . Yet thi i a very pecial type of

44\ITEM

democracy, a democracy with increa ing income polarization and increa ing ineqUality. The di crimi­nation and polarization that pervade ociety are al 0

pre ent in the ocial cience. The gap between tho e intellectual and academic elite that are part of the international circuit (including me!), other col­league who earning enonnou income from con­tract re earch, and the re t-I am thinking of provin­cial univer ity profe ors anywhere in Latin America and mid-career locally-trained profe ional -are widening. It i critical now to de ign trategie and way to help to counterbalance thi polarization.

Internationalizing Social Science in Eastern Europe

by Michael D. Kennedy·

In the last ten year , a truly global network of chol­ar and practitioners ha been formed around the making of tran ition in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Thi population of mini ters of finance, con ultants, economi t, ociologi t ,political cienti t and others ha been produced by orne marvelou educa­tional initiative -for in tance, the Center for Economic Re earch in Graduate Education (CERGE) in Prague-and ha been coordinated by uch bodie a the William David on In titute at the Univer ity of Michigan. Thi culture i of cour e rife with debate , but it nonethele i organized around a b ic narra­tive that anticipate the future in term of global eco­nomic integration and view the pa t in term of an anachroni tic tati t or ociali t culture.

Thi tran ition culture i , however, quite elective, and dependent on the variou type of capital located in different national ite. Con ider the number of tudie that have made Hungary and China central to

the tran ition debate in ociology. Thi i not because Hungary and China are omehow more deci ive than Ru ia and Poland or any of the other countrie for defining the y temic tran formation. Their centrality derive from the global circulation of intellectual cap-

• Mi hael Kennedy i director of the Center for Ru ian and East European Studie at the University of Michigan, AM Arbor. Please addle commen to the author at the Center for Ru ian and t European ludie, 1080 South University, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, M148109 or to rnidake umich.edu. See also <http://www.umich.edul-iioet/creesl>

VOLUME 52. NUMBERS 213

ital that i a ociated with Hungarian and Chine e ocial cience capacitie . In the case of the former,

indigenou and ~migre Hungarian cholars and their We tern collaborator are remarkably prominent in the ociology debate . The Chine e dia pora and the American area tudie project in Chine e tudie has produced a nearly equivalent et of cholars. If one move over to economic and bu ine tudie, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Ru ia are overwhelmingly important for defining the ocial ci­ence problematic, with the first three providing many of the po itive Ie on, and the last case po ing orne of the greate t potential threat to tran ition at a global level. I

An increa ingly ophi ticated debate about the dynamic of tran ition thu i taking place with a y­tematic bias built into the re earch. Tho e place with the mo t intellectual capital, those place per­ceived to be exemplary and those place perceived to be the greate t threat to the tran ition project are the ite that provide the experts, experience and data for

formulating theorie and que tions for re earch. The problem, then, for internationalizing ocial

cience in po t-communi t countrie i not only to que tion how quickly variou national tradition of ocial cience might be brought into a global conver­ation about tran ition, but al 0 to que tion how privi­

leging the concern of tho e people already advan­taged by their intellectual capital or by the promise or threat of their place for an implicit global future i haping the development of international ocial ci­

ence in and about that region. The que tion of privi­lege i al 0 important for con idering the relation hip between the development of indigenou ocial ci­ence and international practice.

Even as networks of cholarship are being interna­tionalized, the indigenou ocial cience infra truc­ture of po t-communi t countrie i being tran -formed and occa ionally de troyed. The de truction wrought by wars in the former Yugo lavia deserve its own di cu ion which I can't provide here. More generally, however, Academie of Science, once the pinnacle of pre tige, now fight with in titution of higher learning over claim to cholarship. State uni­ver itie and private universitie compete for the

I See, for example, From Plan to MarUI: World D~~lopm~nt R~porl, 1996.

JUNEISEPTEMBER 1998

attention of the accompli hed. Scholar with interna­tional ocial cience qualification ,e pecially if they are younger than forty-five, are likely to be drawn into much more lucrative market re earch opportuni­tie or multinational employment or directly into poli­tic . Social cience projects become projects of policy re earch, whether for one' own tate or for the multinational organization that want to learn about human right, women' rights, minority right or indu trial upgrading. Social cience re earch in Ea tern Europe and Eura ia ha been commodified through it dependence on tate power, private capital and the financial upport of multinational organiza­tion and collaboration .

While in mo t place cholar are no longer politi­cally con trained, they are economically con trained to pur ue project that pay. Whether it i a worldwide comparative tudy of inju tice, or EU- pon ored work on acce ion to the European Union, thi commodifi­cation of cholarship ha of cour e produced many excellent tudie. Many cholar in the global circuit are thriving and even overwhelmed by the number of opportunitie presented to them. But becau the e network are well-worn and increasingly exclu ive, internationalizing ocial cience tend to augment indigenou inequalitie in cholarly capacitie . Thi tendency can, however, be oftened by trategic action on the part of international partners and indigenou actor . There are many pattern that I have een, but I might ju t mention one for illu tration.

Lviv State University in Ukraine, from an extremely rudimentary ocial cience foundation in the early 1990 ,ha through judiciou u e of international fund a ociated with Soro , USIA, the Ford Found­ation and other ource developed a di tinctive col­laborative capacity that imultaneou ly draw upon old and newly-acquired trength in focu group and oral hi tory tudie. It maintain a local hi torio­graphical concern with the di tinction of Poli h, we tern Ukrainian and ea tern Ukrainian identitie and ocial relation. Lviv State Univer ity has taken the re ource it has acquired and u ed them to develop in titutional capacitie that benefit others through a combination of teaching and exemplary re earch. It i al 0 developing a capacity to integrate local experi­ence as points of theoretical intervention and not ju t as data point in international social science.

One can di tingui h trategie in the cultivation of

I 1s145

international ocial cience according to the depth of internationalization they invite and the ea e with which it i di tributed. Tran ition culture exempli fie one that i clo ely tied to power, ha relatively ample re ource ,invite y tematic data collection and vig­orou debate and ucceed to the extent it convince a wider range of international cholar and practition­er to participate. At the ame time, recruitment into that project depend upon a broad political orienta­tion, a relatively particular knowledge b e and at lea t a ba ic Engli h language capacity. The interna­tional urvey re earch community i Ie obviou Iy political, but like tran ition culture it ha the capacity to a e competence in relatively unambiguou way . Evaluating the quality of ampling trategie , que tionnaire de ign and other kill enable the community to identify who can become member and who cannot. Both tradition can extend their re earch project rather moothly by the addition of new mem­ber from acro the world. The core cholar hip of both communitie thrive with the internationalization of their practice of knowledge production.

Neither of the e field invite the trong vi ion of internationalization that Arjun Appadurai recom­mend in which the re earch ethic i it elf put into que tion.2 To a con iderable extent, women' tudie and identity tudie do. In the ca e of the fonner, the definition of experti e varie depending on the way in which femini t paradigm articulate with indige­nou cultural and intellectual politic . A a con e­quence, gender tudie promi e ub tantial intellec­tual tran fonnation in it encounter with Ea t European lifeworld . Tho e network that u e iden­tity a their catchword have Ie obviou political challenge , but have more problem a ociated with theoretical range. The virtuo ity required to navigate the variety of di cour e a ociated with identity po e barrier for many cholar, n t only for tho e

2 By which he me os the "commitment to the routinized production of cenain kind of new knowledge, a peci I n of the y tem tic for the production of uch knowledge, a quite particular idea of the helf life of good research re ults, a definite n of the pecialized community of ellperts who precede and follow any pecific piece of re h, and a pos-itive valuati n of the need to detach morality and political intere t from

holarly re arch." Arjun Appadurai, "The Research Ethic and the Spirit of Intern ti n Ii m," II~ms vol. 51, no.4 (1997), p.S9.

46\1TEMS

who e Engli h i a econd or third acquired language. Neverthele ,identity' poly emy demand ub tan­tial theoretical innovation (and occasional confu ion) among tho e who would u e it to organize interna­tional cholar hip.

The e four c e illu trate an important point for the internationalization of ocial cience. The mo t ea ily di tributed ocial cience practice are tho e that minimize the epi temological uncertaintie of inquiry, which claim to be beyond politic , and which require a relatively narrow et of di cur ive compe­tencie that do not require elaborate Engli h language kill . The mo t challenging are tho e communitie

of di cour e who e con titution require theoretical virtuo ity aero a wide range of di cipline and con­te ting epi temologie , and wh e global defmition i open to conte t by local refonnulation . In thi ca e, we run the ri k of narrowing the cholarly conver a­tion ever further to tho e with ufficient Engli h lan­guage facility to challenge paradigm and reframe the articulation of global and local cultural fonnation . One of the central que tion for the internationaliza­tion of ocial cience, therefore, i whether way might be found to broaden acce to international ocial cience practice while nonethele cultivating

theoretical agility beyond tho e already privileged by the reigning di tribution of global practice and re urce.

A trong program of internationalization require a mea ure of reflexivity that orne mode of interna­tional collaboration are unlikely to cultivate. At the ame time, thi deep internationalization i likely to

privilege tho e already mo t accompli hed on the global circuit of cholarship. Appadurai' project de erve upport, but I al 0 think SSRC and the foun­dation hould help extend that vi ion to include tho e Ie theoretically ver atile and adept in Engli h. In particular, by encouraging type of data collection that feature not only tran parent behavio or categor­ical re pon e , but al 0 problematize mode of repre-entation and expre ion a well a the challenge of

tran lation, we can off et the privilege a ociated with acce to the reigning core of theory production and greater experience working in Engli h. Thereby we might not only globalize our re earch community. We could expand our convention of knowledge pro­duction to meet the challenge i ued by deep interna­tionalization of ocial cience re earch even a we

VOLUME 52. NUMBER 213

diver ify the criteria through which membership in that international ocial cience community can be recognized.

The Social Sciences in the Middle East

by Ra hid Khalidi*

The ocial cience in many c untrie of the Middle Ea t, like mo t of higher education in that region, are in cri i . Thi i partly a cri i of tate and ocietie which have failed to fund the univer itie ufficiently. It i partly a cri i of the univer itie them Ive, which have failed to develop into centers of excel­lence in teaching and re earch. And it i partly a cri i of the ocial cience di cipline in the Middle Ea t, which have failed to addre important prob­lem and take out vital re earch territory, thereby pa ing up the opportunity to e tabli h a po ition of influence and re pect for them elve .

Some Middle Ea tern countrie uch a I rael and Thrkey have avoided a few of the e problem , while private univer itie in Thrkey, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan are better off in certain re pect than their larger public counterpart. And many gifted ocial cienti t are able to operate even in the e condition .

But the general picture i a grim one of gro Iy underpaid and overworked cholar, teaching huge number of tudent in overcrowded facilitie , with poor re earch upport and little acce to interna­tional cholar hip, operating under a variety of politi­cal and ocial pre ure.

Beyond the e daunting material challenge lie a plethora of political and intellectual one . The po t­colonial era eem to have lingered on in the Middle Ea t longer than el ewhere. Whether it i the continu­ing effect of French rule in North Africa, or the backwash of a conflict between Arab and I raeli rooted in the Briti h mandate period or the eemingly unending repercu ion from many decade of heavy­handed external interference in the affair of Iran, i ue left over from the colonial era often retard debate and tultify the intellectual atmo phere.

The war conflic and ten ion that grow out of the e "old" i ue particularly benefit the military and

• R hid KhaJidi i profe r of Middle t hi tory nd director of the Center for International tudi t th Uni\lersity of Chi a o.

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the ecurity force , which can wreathe them elve in a national ecurity my tique. Their heavy hand can be een in every Middle Eastern tate without exception,

including even tho e with e tabli hed democratic y­tern , like I rael and Thrkey. Such a ituation tend to freeze the intellectual agenda, and make it all the harder to addre i ue like democratization and civil ociety ver u the power of the tate.

Where are ocial cienti t to tand in a ociety polarized between authoritarian repre ive tate dominated by clerotic regime clinging to power at any co t while the people remain divided, repre ed and poor, and oppo ition which claim to be democ­ratic but are often violent, intolerant or dominated by ob curanti t religiou bigots? The choice i not alway 0 tark, but thi de cription appJie in orne measure to well over a dozen tate, including a number of the large t and mo t populou one . The e are not condition conducive to productive cientific work. In the mo t extreme circum tance, ocial ci­enti t frequently find them elve in the front line , whether over i ue of freedom of peech or the ethnic rights of Kurd in Thrkey, i ue of religiou freedom in Egypt-or imply becau e they are ecu­lar intellectual in Algeria.

Becau e 0 many colonial and po tcolonial era conflict have not been re olved, there i lingering re entment of the We t, which i een a having cau ed them, and of the United State in particular. Thi ha led to a continuing u pi cion of Euro­American cholar hip, and of much el e which i We tern, in a number of Middle Ea tern ocietie. There i neverthele exten ive intellectual collabora­tion between Euro-American and Middle Eastern ocial cienti t , partly becau e many of the latter are

eager to obtain acce to the late t finding of Euro­American ocial cienti t , and to participate in joint activitie and thu hare the comparatively lavi h re ource they command.

All too often, however thi collaboration ignore the mo t riou i ue on the regional agenda, often in favor of flavor-of-the-month appr ache imported from the We 1. What re ult i therefore often Ie collaboration than cooptation of regional ocial cien­ti t . In other ca e , a few well-connected Middle Ea tern cholar in each country tend to dominate acce to the international academic circuit, blocking other and monopolizing re ource ,and h wing up

ITEMs/47

at panel after panel and in one edited volume after another.

What future i there for the ocial cience in the Middle Ea t? Clearly, mo t of the problem I have outlined are not amenable to ea y olution, and are in any ca e far beyond the capacity of individual to affect directly. Until and unle they are re olved, the predicament of the ocial cienti t in thi region i unlikely to improve ignificantly. Perhap , however, ocial cienti ts in the Middle Ea t, in collaboration

with other el ewhere, can help to chart out the path to the re olution of uch conflict , which after all part of what we as ocial cienti t are uppo ed to be about.

The Social Sciences in South Asia

by Veena Das*

While it i true that the tradition in the ocial ci­ence cannot be aid to corre pond with national boundarie it i al 0 a fact that the e boundarie interact with cholarly enterpri e in complex way . Hence as an Indian, I can only peak of ocial ci­ence in the other countrie in the region from my perspective a a ocial cienti t practicing from within the context of an Indian univer ity. I can bear te timony though to trial and tribulation of co-oper­ative venture and the vulnerability of collaborative enterpri e in the e region .

It i not po ible to understand the organization of knowledge without orne reference to the colonial enterpri e within which que tion of modernity were fir t po ed in the e ocietie. In brief, one can ay that the organization of knowledge under the colonial regime in South A ia as umed continuity in the pat­tern of life for centurie . Much of colonial knowl­edge and intervention wa premi ed on the idea that ocietie in South A ia had remained completely tatic; that they lacked a en e of hi tory and that

novelty was introduced by the benign and enlightened rule of the Briti h. It may appear urpri ing to many that many ocial cienti t , almo t until the 1960 , seemed to have hared thi framework. Since the tatic nature of ociety in South A ia wa taken for

granted many believed that the task of creating an

• Vccna Das i a profe r of sociology t the University of Delhi.

48\ITEM

Indian ociety wa one in which ocial cience and national tradition were in oppo ition to each other.

Thu thi particular imagination of India (and by analogy other countrie in the region) led to a counter di cour e produced by cholars in South A ia (but not only by them) of placing the ideas and intere ts of We tern cholar within the field of inquiry rather than eeing them a record of di intere ted ob ervers. For a while then ocial cience and the proce e of nation-building came to be een a con­joint enterpri e . The relation hip between We tern ocial cience, coloniali m, nation-building and the

creation of national tradition in ocial cience was not a imple one. In the ca e of India, there wa a hunger on the part of ocial cienti t to claim their tradition . It wa clear, though, that to make the e tra­dition vibrant and alive they would have to be brought into relation hip with new concern ari ing both out of the new knowledge and the new demand of nation building. The ten ion in much of the writ­ing of ocial cienti ts in thi region in the fir t two decade after independence reflects thi . There has al 0 been a trong influence of ocial cienti ts in national enterpri e in India. Thi might be the induc­tion of economi ts in the drafting of planning; the collaboration of hi torian in writing hi tory text­book that would reflect a more nationali t and ecu­lar pa t than the writing of Briti h historian ; or the creation of a public di cour e by the active collabora­tion of ocial cienti ts with the print media.

I believe that the Emergency in India in 1976, when ba ic human rights were upended, marked a water hed in the elf-definition of ocial cienti ts. The critique of nationali t hi toriography by the ub­altern chool i now well known. What i Ie known but i of equal importance i the knowledge generated by economi t on e timation of poverty, debate on what con titute well-being and how far had the tate in India ucceeded in addre ing the e i ue. It i intere ting that que tion of swaraj ( elf-rule) in ci­ence were po ed, but the idea of national tradition wa hifted to the domain of civil ociety rather than the tate. The role of conflict, inequality and the under ide of development all received attention. In titutionally the growth of ocial movement and what came to be known later as NGO wa important. While there was a di tancing from the tate, there wa al 0 a certain romanticization of "people." There wa an elu ive earch for "authenticity" in the knowl-

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edge produced in the countrie in thi region. The 1980 were a period of harp rise in local

movements. I ue relating to the environment, vio­lence again t women the and search for greater local autonomy came to the forefront. Ironically thi was al 0 a period of the centering of an identity politic which led to fundamentali t movements, growth of ten ion between religiou and ethnic group and a great increase in collective violence in Sri Lanka, Paki tan and India. The 1980 al 0 aw the beginning of collaboration between ocial cienti ts in the region. Example can be drawn from the books pro­duced on collective violence, the Partition of the ub­continent, the democracy movement in Nepal and the organization of voluntary action in Banglade h. A universitie collap ed because of the tate of civil war in Sri Lanka, or the demand of fundamentali t move­ments in Paki tan or corruption in India, voluntary organization uch as BRAC, ICES, Sharkatgah and others played a leading role in forging the e co-oper­ations. The e enterpri e however were fragile, vul­nerable and ubject to political pre ure. The e cala­tion of u picion between India and Paki tan following the te ting of the nuclear bomb in thi region point to the vulnerability of building u tained communitie of ocial cienti ts whose intere t are not dictated by national jingoi m.

The importance of the South Asian Diaspora al 0

became evident in the 1980 . The importance of con-tructing tradition in locale other than that of their

home countrie ; of hybridity a a form of identity; of travel, tran portation and circulation rather than root­edne s-in other word the experience of being "unhomed"--came to the center of di cu ion in American universitie . Thi led to lively debate within the region a to whether the voice of tho e who were locked in their localities would be 10 t to ocial cience. Many cholars in India have at 0

pointed to the manner in which magazine like India Today and the internet have become major ource of data leading to high theory with thin data.

The decline of universitie in thi entire region has erious con equence for the future of ocial cience.

Thi decline has been accompanied by the growth of global in titution that have influenced the production of knowledge in the region in accordance with their own agendas. On the ground that universitie are

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998

tied up in inflexible bureaucratic rule (which i cor­rect), global in titution have inc rea ingly turned to NOO or independent network of cholars to do the research they need in order to promote new way of thinking. Unfortunately thi ha led to the growth of puriou knowledge because there i more intere t in

generating con en u on new program than in gener­ating a critical a ses ment of them.

The que tion i further complicated by the fact that a good deal of local knowledge i required for the implementation of globally programmed initiative . Yet the decline of univer itie , e pecially the neglect and imultaneou politicization of regional univer i­tie and college ,mean that the cholar recruited to collaborate with global in titution do not alway have the conceptual re ource to critique the para­digm within which the e program often work. Hence it i not difficult to get ocial cienti ts to col­lect data according to the agenda et by global in ti­tution . I do not wi h to imply that all the project initiated by global program uffer from the e defi­ciencie , but only to ugge t that thi has happened in many in tance . The problem i confounded by the lack of re ource for re earch in univer itie and by the fact that critici m of globalization in the public di cour e tend to be in the nature of rhetorical had­owboxing. A u tained anaIy i of the in titutional change that re ult from globalization has yet to be undertaken. Thi i a major challenge for under tand­ing globalization and its impact on the ocial cience in the region.

From what I have aid it would be clear that the ocial cience are in a critical period. From my point

of view the mo t important task in thi region i to develop a community of ocial cienti t that cut acro national boundarie . The example of Inter­national Centre for Ethnic Studie in Colombo i par­ticularly important becau e it ha provided leadership in time of great danger to the whole region. The que tion of international collaboration thu need to be addre ed at everal level . Further, the con e­quence of the imultaneou decline of univer itie and the growth of global in titution produce a trou­bling configuration. It i in the intere t of ocial ci­ence and all who are engaged in tran lating ocial cience finding into policy that competent and criti­

cal tudie are produced.

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The ocial ciences in Africa

by Michael Chege*

The e are very personal perception of what the tatu of ocial cience in Africa happen to be today.

A in all other region of the world, we have huge argument and conceptual difference about where we tand, where we came from and where we are going. Thi in it elf i po itive. I con ider that the principal weakne that afflicts ocial cience in Africa today i a problem that affect ocial cienti t in general in other part of the globe. Many of the tenet of Social Science Methodology 101- eparat­ing value from fact , di tancing one elf from tenden­tiou political po ition and the proce of making paradigm , te ting hypothe e and recon tructing par­adigm again a a re ult-appear to have been 10 t ight of. Thi could very well con titute the origin of

our di agreement . The dominant paradigm informing African ocial

cienti t and their work after the Second World War could be roughly ummarized under three general heading . First there wa a dependency per pective, which reached it high water mark in the 1970 and ha not fully di ipated yet. It empha i i not on the internal ocial cientific variable but rather, the external, primarily economic variable , particularly colonial exploitation and imperiali m. To the extent that they are part of the cene, local actor appear either a accomplice of Africa' external tormentors, or a their implacable foe . Walter Rodney' How Europe Underdeveloped Africa i the c1eare t exam­ple of thi approach. Dependency per pective ought to contradict, via homegrown analy i , the dominant "modernization' and liberal "development" para­digm that appeared in the We t after the war, and their accompli hment in bringing hi tory and external factor to bear on African development tudie hould not be underrated.

Second, there i another important chool drawing primarily from the humanitie , predominantly from literature, but al 0 from the ocial cience. It doted on back-to-the-root , back-to-traditional African per-

• Michael Chege i director of the Center for fric n tudie , Unive ity of Florida.

50\ITEM

pective and an attempt to redi cover local ocio-cul­tural origin and use them to come to term with the ocial difficultie of the present. Thi i evident in

the hi tory of Cheikh Anta Diop, in orne version of African humanitie , in African literature and in the poetry of Leopold Senghor, for example. African ociali m, "negritude," African personality and 0 on

were the chooI' defining terms and watchword . Third, we have recently witnessed the rebirth of

the c1as ic liberal humanistic approach. En hrined primarily in democracy and nea-c1as ical economic , it came into full blo om after the fall of communi m in 1989, culminating in the liberation of South Africa from apartheid in 1994. To orne extent thi i as much the product of past failure as it i the re ult of political and economic pre ure emanating from the World Bank, the IMF and We tern bilateral donor . This line of thought has sought to recon truct on African oil the idea of liberal democracy and market-based economics once di paraged by African ocialism and allied nationalistic doctrine .

In the meantime, much has been written on the decline of social cience in Africa, orne of it true. I do not believe that the disintegration of the ocial ci­ence community on the continent i as uniform as i often supposed. Some African in titution have done well under the circumstance , even as others coUap e. Nor is it true that Africa lacks a creative community of social scientists de pite the evident in titutional distress in many local universities. Mo t of the work that is coming from Africa i no longer being done in universities but rather in clearly e tabli hed indepen­dent institutional network, though ometime work­ing with specific university re earch centers. I have in mind here the Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa based in Dakar, Senegal; the Organization for Social Science Re earch in Ea tern Africa, based in Addi Ababa; the Southern African Political Economy Serie in Harare, Zimbabwe; the African Economic Re earch Con ortium based in Nairobi, Kenya-all of them glued together, or glued eparately I might ay, by meeting , conference , competition , publication , book and in three ca e , regular academic journal . It i addening to ee how little thi work i referred to, in North America e pecially, by ocial cienti t unfamiliar with mo t of it content, orne of whom repeatedly pontificate on the poor tandard of ocial

VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2J3

cience re earch in Africa. The real truth i that there are rigorou debate

ymptomatic of a vibrant, if till mall, African ocial cience community. Not ju t in South Africa but

indeed on the internet recently, there' been a great debate on the relevance of the experience of the re t of Africa to South Africa after apartheid. Thi was timulated by the publication of Mahmood

Mamdani' book Citizen and Subject (Princeton University Pre ,1996), which draw on orne of the work from CODES RIA and OSSREA and orne of the work done in universitie like Dar e Salaam. I was irnpre ed by the publi hed work of OSSREA between 1993 and 1997, which I recently reviewed on behalf of one of its major European donor . Some of it upersede the much-vaunted re earch on Africa publi hed in the We t.

I think therefore that it i important, e pecially for ocial cienti ts, for Africani t , not to mourn prema­

turely the death of critical ocial cience in Africa-omething which we read about much too often for

our own comfort the e day . Rather, the challenge i to go back to Methodology 101, under which African publication hould be judged critically by the ame tandard a the others. Show u what i wrong with

the hypothe i the exi ting African material e pou e , how u what i wrong with its empirical data, how

u what i wrong with the e conclu ion drawn from both. Better till, expound the paradigm that better reorder African empirical reality. That i how ocial cience i going to grow and develop in Africa. That

i the only way we are going to make progre ,not by endle debate on orne my tical all-African decline and the need for a ure-fue methodology (like rational choice) that might rever e it.

I'm particularly addened by a certain tendency toward polemical, platitudinou tatement by ocial cienti t , often backed up by tati tical data bank

and model that have ab olutely nothing of value to add to our under tanding of the continent' contem­porary predicament. In Africa thi unfortunate polem­ical tendency take the per pective of, Look, we are not re pon ible for our own ituation and the prob­lem we are going through; it' they over there, the coloniali ts, the imperiali t exploiter and their local allie , the out ider who have con pired to produce thi tragedy. The mirror image from North America or from Europe tend to be, Oh no, we have it figured

JUNFlSEPTEMBER 1998

out up here, e pecially after the fall of communi m. Liberal democracy and market economic ,that' all you need to develop. The e African and their baleful culture are entirely re pon ible for the development me in the continent. Their culture hinder them from eeing the light of neo-liberal paradigm , from being more like u .

From both approache ,there' a tendency to want to look at thing too much, you have to excu e me, in black and white, omething that I con ider e pecially unacademic and dogmatic. To cite ju t one example, I'd like to draw your attention to an article by William Easterly and Ro Levine, both di tingui hed development economi t affiliated with the World Bank, that appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Economic last November. It argue , on the b i of 30 year of accumulated tati tic on individual coun­try growth rate and ethnicity in ub-Saharan Africa and Southeast A ia, that clo e to 50 or 60 percent of the economic growth differential between the two region can be explained by one and only one fact: too many ethnic group in Africa. (And, of cour e, the proclivity of African ethnic group to quarrel over en ible macro-economic policy, education, infra­tructure and ound financial management.)

Any reader with even a cursory under tanding of Africa will appreciate how ridiculou uch an expla­nation i when cited to explain economic regre in Tanzania (which the article urpri ingly doe ) or the record high growth rate in Botswana (where ethnic "homogeneity" i aid to be a cau al factor) while ignoring the tragedy of even more homogenou Somalia. There i no room in thi uppo edly de­tached analy i , for example, to explain why it was po ible for South Africa to overcome its handicap of cultural, racial and ethnic diver ity in 1994, de pite a conflict-driven hi torical ituation; or why, for exam­ple, Rwanda and Burundi, with an extremely low degree of ethnic diver ity, happen to be among the mo t un table and deadly place on the continent.

Indeed, everal colleague and I who are currently working on a panel that examine the entire pan of growth in Africa from 1965 find that, tati tically peaking, wider di tribution of ethnic identity tend

to be po itively a ociated with economic growth. Thi i not to ay that one cau e the other; cau al relation hip cannot be automatically deduced from tati tical a ociation. Ro and Levine' tudy give

ITEMs/51

many intervening variable hort hrift in the ru h to prove how ethnically perver e African are, and how that tran late into negative growth tati tic .

In the arne manner, dogged effort to legi late a ingle universal paradigm-rational choice-for area tudie can only damage African tudie within Africa. Rational choice (like all model , including those of African ethnic diver ity and economic growth) mu t prove it mettle by how well it fit empirical ob ervation , how accurately it predicts relation hip between ocial and economic variable . It cannot claim the moral high ground on the ba i of alleged mathematical rigor alone.

52\1TEMS

A after the Second World War-a brutal experi­ence born of lip hod ocial theorie -we need to revi it the basic in ocial research and reconcile them with empirical finding in Africa a they are, rather than as we wi h them to be. That require informed debate on both ide of the Atlantic. Shoddy " cientific" finding create an acrimoniou and ten­dentiou environment, characterized by more intellec­tual heat than light. De pite many di appointments, African cholars have played a part that i eldom recognized by the heat- eeking intellectual mi ile of their antagoni ts. A the SSRC enter its next 75 years, we hope we can use it a a forum to diffu e that heat. •

VOLUME 52. NUMBERS 2J3

Second Round: The International Dissertation Field Research Fellowship Program by Kenton W. Worcester*

The election committee for the International Dissertation Field Re earch FeUowship Program (IDRF)I held it econd meeting on April 18-19, 1998, to award fellow hip for area-based research. The committee named 49 feUow for 1998, out of a pool of 883 completed application . The IDRF program i administered by the SSRC in partner hip with the American Council of Learned Societie . Funding for the program i provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The program, which was founded in 1996, represents one of the larger and more pre ti­giou ource of upport for advanced graduate train­ing in the ocial science and humanitie .

The purpo e of the IDRF program is to enable tu­dents of outstanding promise to develop ophisticated re earch project addressing issue of compelling sig­nificance that re onate acro s di cipline and area . It eek to promote cholarship that treat place and etting in relation to regional, global and tran na­

tional phenomena as well as particular hi torie and culture . The fellow hip are intended to encourage doctoral candidate to u e their knowledge of di tinc­tive area , culture , languages, politie ,economie and hi torie , in combination with their ill ciplinary training, to addre i ues that go beyond their ill ci­pline or area specialization . Following the comple­tion of field re earch, fellow participate in cro -di-

• Kenton W. Worce ter, a political scienti t, i program director of the Intern tional Di senation Field Research Fellow hip Program.

I Selection committee: Anthony Appiah, Harvard University; Valerie Bunce, Cornell University; Rhonda Cobham-Sander, Amherst College; Pamela Cros ley, Dartmouth College; Caroline Ford, University of Briti h Columbia; Elli Goldberg, University ofW hington; Terry Karl, Stanford University; Ivan Karp, Emory University; Juarez Brand30 Lope , Mini try of Labor, Brazil; Margaret Ne bit, V: College; Rayna Rapp, New School for Social Research; John Rogers, Thfts University; Juliane Schober, Arizona State University; Dae-Sook Suh, University of Hawaii, Manoa.

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998

ciplinary work hop that are de igned to facilitate network-building and help fellow identify the broader implication of their research project .

The program i open to full-time graduate tudent in the humanities and ocial cience -regardle of citizen hip--enrolled in doctoral program in the United State , and it invite propo aI for field re earch on all area of the world, a well a for re earch that i comparative, cro s-regional and/or cro -cultural. Propo aI that identify the US a a ca e for comparative inquiry are welcome; however, propo a1s that require no field re earch out ide the United State are not eligible. Propo aI reque ting support for a econd year of field re earch are funded only under exceptional circumstance .

Announcements for the 1998 program were ent to univer ity department , re earch centers, di cipli­nary a ociation, regional tudie center and to individual who contacted the program directly. Information about the program wa al 0 made avail­able on the SSRC web ite and through electronic cholarly information network . An announcement pecifically targeted at potential applicant in the

humani tic di cipline wa prepared by ACLS. Application to the 1998 competition were pre-

creened at the taff level for eligibility and minimal competence. Each application that made it pa t the pre- creening tage wa read by three creener (in 1997 the program only u ed two). A total of 82 creener, even more than la t year, reviewed up to

30 application each in their area of di ciplinary, the­matic and/or area pecialization. Rating and evalua­tions provided by creener were used to identify a pool of 94 finali ts. The e application were for­warded to a 14-member election committee, chaired by Rayna Rapp, Department of Anthropology, New School for Social Re earch.

Application were received from doctoral candi­date at 116 in titution , up 13 from the previou year. The fellow are drawn from a total of 26 in ti­tution , of which 12 are u ually de cribed a public. Five of the fellow are based at the Univer ity of Chicago; four each are ba ed at Columbia Univer ity, Harvard Univer ity, Yale Univer ity and the Univer-ity of Penn ylvania. The e five universitie repre­ent the home in titution for ju t over 40% of the

fellows; in 1997, the top five in titution were re pon ible for 53% of the fellow .

ITEMs/53

Univenity. Number of Fellow., % University ofChica2o 5 10% Columbia University 4 8% Harvard University 4 8% University of Pennsylvania 4 8% Yale University 4 8% University of California. Berkeley 3 6% CorneU University 2 4% EmOry University 2 4% University of Michigan 2 4% Northwestern University 2 4% University of Texas, Austin 2 4% Claremont Graduate School 1 2% Duke University I 2% Muud!wctIIlnItitute oCT I 2% Michigan State University I 2% New York University 1 2% Princeton University 1 2% Rut2Crs University 1 2% Stanford University 1 2% Temple University 1 2% University of California. Davis I 2% Uniwnity oCCalifomia, SIIla Barbara 1 2% Uniwnity oCIlliuois, UrbIna 1 2% University of New Mexico 1 2% University ofWashingtoll, Seattle 1 2% University of Wisconsin. Madison 1 2% TOTAL 49 100%

A majority of both the applicant and fellow are women. In 1997,62% of the fellow were women, wherea in 1998, 53% of the fellow are women. Forty-two of the 49 fellow are US citizen or perma­nent re ident . An overwhelming majority of the fel­low applied to the program in the third or fourth year of graduate chool (40 out of 49). The remainder were in the fifth (7), ixth (1) or 8th (1) year.

Gender, Number of Fellow., ,,_ Men 23 47% Women 26 53% TOTAL 49 l00-AI

Citiullthip, Number of Fellow., ,,_ US Citizens cl pennanent residents 42 86% Non-residents 7 14% TOTAL 49 100%

Of the 49 fellow ,r ughly 33~ are in anthr pol­ogy, 29~ are in hi tory and 18~ are in political ci­ence. A a re ult, and di appointingly, fully 80% of the 1998 fellow are drawn fr m the e three di ci­pline . The remainder are in the field of art hi tory,

54\1TE 1

geography, literature, religion, ociology and urban planning. A total of 22 di cipline were repre ented in the applicant pool, which mean that lightly under 25% of the e 22 di cipline are repre ented in the Ii t of awardee .

DiJclDUae. Number of % Fellow., '-::":-~Ion 16 33% Historv (incl. History of Scieocc) 14 29% Political Scieocc 9 18% Sociolon 3 6% Lan~~ 'tcratuM 2 4% R.cliliousStudies 2 4% Art Historv (incl. Architecture) 1 2% GeoJDiDIiV 1 2% UIban Plannin.l 1 2% TOTAL 49 l00-AI

The geographic mix of the applicants and fellow i broadly remini cent of the 1997 competition. In 1998 ju t over 30% of the fellow will be conducting field re earch in Latin America or the Caribbean; 18% will be working in We tern Europe; 14% will be working in Southea t and/or East A ia; and 10% will be working in Sub-Saharan Africa. The e five world regions are respon ible for 72% of the feUow hip . The figures for 1997 were 22% Latin America; 13% East and Southeast A ia; 7% Africa; and 11 % each for Western Europe and the former Soviet Union. The percentage of fellow working in Mrica, Latin America, South A ia and We tern Europe ro e in 1998; the percentage of feUow working in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Near and Middle East fell in the ame period. The fact that the 1998 competition failed to provide any fellow hip to applicants working in the Near and Middle East i particularly regrettable.

In it first year the program c1as ified 11 % of the fellow as "cro -regional" in that their project required ub tantial field work in more than one world region. In 1998 the number fell to 6~. Given the extraordinary demand that are placed on gradu­ate tudents pur uing project in more than one world region, the percentage of cro -regional application i expected to remain maller than the percentage of application that only require field re earch in a ing1e ite, nation or region.

A before, fellow are working on a rich and diver e range of topic , all the way from the "a cen­dancy" of mathematic to the politic of quatting in

VOLUME 52, NUMBER 2/3

Nepal, and from Italian architecture in North Africa to labor market refonn in Gennany and the Nether­land . Intere tingly, fewer projects featured the word "identity" (or "identitie ") in their title in 1998-three-than wa the case in 1997, when the number wa more than three time a high (11). A number of the projects are concerned with theme that are of broad intellectual intere t that cut acro area line . The e include the politic of economic refonn; intel-

Ret!:ioa. Number of Fellow .. % Latin America/Caribbean IS 31% Western E\U01)C 9 18% Africa S 10010 East Asia 4 8% South Asia 4 8% Cross-ReJtional 3 6% Former USSRJRussia 3 6% Southeast Asia 3 6% PolvnesialOc:eania 2 4% Eastern E\U01)C 1 2% AustraliaINZ 0 0% Near and Middle East 0 0% North America 0 0% TOTAL 49 100%

NOlts: eros -regional refers to projects in which field work will occur in more than one region. East la=China. Japan, Mongolia. North Korea. South Korea, Taiwan South ia=Banglade h, India, Nepal, Paki tan, Sri Lanka Southeast A ia=Cambodia, lndone ia, Lao , Myanmar (Bunna), Philippine , Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998

lectual and the tate; reforming educational y tern ; and the tatu of women within particular ocietie and/or cultural framework . A wa the ca e in 1997, the project u e a variety of methodological approache , including di cour e analy i , quantitative analy i ethnographic participation and emi- truc­tured interview .

Finally, the po t-field re earch work hop are an integral component of the IDRF program. They are intended to provide a lively intellectual environment in which fellow can pre ent and di cu their own and each other ' re earch project ; compare re earch trategie and method ; con ider the problem a oci­

ated with linking field knowledge with di cipline-ba ed fonn of knowledge; identify the broader implication of pecific re earch projects and build and repleni h cholarly network that pan di cipli­nary and geographical boundarie .

The fir t 1997 fellow ' work hop will be held at the In titute for International Re earch and Exchange in Am terdam on October 2-6, 1998; the econd will be held at the Univer ity of San Franci co on January 8-12, 1999. The three- to four-day work hop will be organized around fellow ' pre entation and truc­tured di cu ion e ion . Each work hop will al 0

feature gue t peaker , local tour and a group dinner. Work hop participant will receive a packet of read­ing on i ue connected to international field re earch to fo ter cro -di ciplinary exchange.

The deadline for the 1999 competition i November 18, 1998. For further infonnation or application mate-rial , plea e contact the IDRF program. •

ITEMs/55

International Dissertation Field R earch Fellow hip Program 1998 Fellow

Je ica Allina-Pi ano, political ci­en e, Yale University. Local Power, In titutional Capa ity and Informal Con train : Land

Reform in the Ru ian and Ukrainian Chernozem, 1990-97

David Atti , hi tory of cience, Princeton Univer ity. The A endancy of Mathematic : Mathematic ,Politic and Education at Trinity College,

Dublin Andrew Baker, political cience,

University of Wi con in, Madi on. Economic Reform and Voting Behavior in Latin America

Narqui Barak, anthropology, Harvard Unive ity. Ethnography of Trauma, Shock and Stre in Vietnam

Caroline Beer, political cience, Unive ity of ew Mexico, Albuquerque. Democratization

of the Mexican State : Political Recruitment, In titutional Change and Public Policy

Catherine Bogo ian, hi tory, University of Penn ylvania. The Deuxi~me Portion: Forced Labor, Re i tance and Memory in the French Sudan, 1926-1946

Sarah Brook, political cience,

Duke University. Social Protection and the Market: Pen ion Reform in the Era of Neoliberali m

Andrew Buck, ociology, Cornell University. Local Renewal or Provincial Relap e? Network of Informal Governance in Po t­

Sociali t Ru ia Daniel Buck, geography, University

of California, Berkeley. Con truct­ing China' CapitaJi m, Connect­

ing Shanghai' Urban and Rural

Indu trie

56\IlCM

Shefali Chandra, hi tory, University of Penn ylvania. The Social Life of Engli h Women and Language in Briti h India

Matt Child , hi tory, University of

Texas, Au tin. The Aponte Con piracy in Cuba, 1812

Erniliano Corral, hi tory, University of Chicago. Labor Control, Race

and Politic : Mexico and the US South, 1865-1930

Raymond Craib, hi tory, Yale University. All the Documen in Their Power: State Cartographie

and Vernacular Land cape in the Formation of Po tcolonial Mexico

Kathleen Dill, anthropology,

University of California, Davi . Silent Negotiation : Women, Human Rights and Citizen hip in Po t-War Guatemala

Ellen Foley, anthropology, Michigan State University. In Sickne and in Health: Re ponding to Di e and

Promoting Health in Senegal Eli a Forgey, hi tory, University of

Penn ylvania. Confronting

Germandom: Colonial Law, African Experience and Identity in Germany, 1884-1945

Caroline Fox, hi tory, Harvard University. Detention Camp and the Rehabilitation Proce during

the Mau Mau Emergency Kathleen GaJJagher, anthropology,

Harvard University. Th Politic of

Survival: Squatting, Democracy and the Nepale eState

Jennifer Gaynor, anthropology and hi tory, Univer ity of Michigan. Liquid Territory and the Place of "Sea People": Storied P ts and Con tructed Space in the Straits of Tiworo, Indone ia

Landon Greene, anthropology,

University of Chicago. Medicine

as GloballLocal Politic in the Peruvian Selva

Melinda Herrold, political ien e,

University of California, Berkeley. Economic Reform, NGO and Crane in Ru ia

and China Maimuna Huq, anthropology,

Columbia University. Women in I lamic Activi m in Banglade h

Jo ph Jupille, political cience, University of Washington,

Seattle. In titution , Intere

and Procedural Politic in the European Union

Richard Kernaghan, anthropology,

Columbia University. Reforming the State, Educating the Frontier: School and the Moral Etho of "Retum" in Peru' Upper Huallaga Valley

Yong-Sook Lee, urban planning and policy, Rutgers University,

New Brun wick. Doe Geo­graphical Proximity Matter?

The Spatial Dynamic of the Japane and South Korean Automobile Indu try

Marc Lerner, hi tory, Columbia University. Liberali m During the Tran formation of the Swi

State, 1789-1848 Su an Levine, anthropology,

Temple University. Children' Work in the Wineland of the

Cape, South Africa Rick L6pez, hi tory, Yale

University. Art, Politic and Culture in the Formation of Mexican Po trevolutionary Nationali m, 1920-1947

David Lurie, literature, Columbia

University. A Genealogy of Japanese In cription: Man£yo hu

VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 213

Writing Sy tern and their Scholarly Reception

Debra McDougall, anthropology, University of Chicago. The Land Goe through Women: Political Agency, Social Value and the Authority of Kastom in the We t Solomon I land

Brian McLaren, art and architec­tural hi tory, Ma achu en In titute of Technology. Meditteraneita and Modernita: Architecture and Culture During the Period of Italian Colon­ization of North Africa

Keith McNeal, anthropology, Emory University. Tran forming Race in Two Trinidadian Po e ion Religion

Donna Murdock, anthropology, Emory University. Ethnographic Inve tigation of State-Supported "Women' Empowerment" in MedellIn, Colombia

Paula Pickering, political science, University of Michigan. Minority Strategie in Po t-War Bo nia­Herzegovina

Matthew Reed, hi tory, Claremont Graduate School. Making the Case: The Evolution of the P ychiatric Case Study and the Formation of Modem Identitie

Su an Schomburg, religiou Studie , Harvard University.

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998

The Kilakkarai Qadiri Sufi CenterlMadrasah and its Role in Mu lim Women' Religiou Education in TamiJ Nadu, South India, 1800-1999

Mark Setzler, political cience, University of Texas, Au tin. Local Political Elite and A ociational Activity: Accounting for Variable Form of Political Repre entation and Policy

Su an Snyder, hi tory, University of California, Santa Barbara. Lay Religio ity and Family Structure in Late Medieval Bologna and Toulouse

Jennifer Sowerwine, ociology, University of California, Berkeley. Property, Gender and Power: Ideological and Ecological Tran formation of Highland Vietnam

Rolf Strlllm-Ol en, hi tory, North-we tern University. Court Without King : Cri i and Con en u in Early Modem Spain and Burgundy

Yuka Suzuki, anthropology, Yale University. State Imagining and the Di course of Wildlife Management in Zimbabwe

Matthew Tomlin on, anthropology, University of Penn ylvania. Religiou Language and Modernity in Kadavu, Fiji

Bruce Tyler, ociology, Cornell

Univer ity. Communitie and In titution in Movements of Change

Chri tina Van Wijnbergen, political cience, Northwe tern Uni­

versity. The Political Dynamic of Labor Market Reform: Effort at Change in Germany and the Netherland , 1982-1995

Richard Wei ,religiou tudie, Univer ity of Chicago. Chari rna and Science in Tamil Nadu: A Hi tory of Authority in Siddha Healing Practice

Erica Wortham, anthropology, New York University. Indigenou Media in Mexico: New Tool of Self-Determination

Yiching Wu, anthropology, Univer ity of Chicago. Taking the Plunge: The Market and Recon truction of Intellectual Identitie in Contemporary China

Ariel Yablon, hi tory, Univer ity of Illinoi , Urbana-Champaign. Patronage, Corruption and Political Culture in Argentina, 1880-1916

Mei Zhan, anthropology, Stanford University. Reconfiguring Traditional Chine e Medicine: A Comparative Tran national Study in China and the United State

ITEMs/57

Current Activities at the Council

New Directors and Officers

At it meeting on January 23, 1998, the Council' board of director elected Arjun Appadurai of the Univer ity of Chicago and Elizabeth Jelin of the Univer ity of Bueno Aire a director -at­large. They began erving three­year term in June, a did Sidney Verba of Harvard Univer ity, who wa elected a the repre entative of the American Political Science A ociation.

The SSRC' officer for 1998-99 were elected or re-elected at the board of director ' meeting on June 12. They are: Paul Balte , Max Planck In titute for Human Development and Education (Berlin), chair of the board; Michelle White of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, trea urer; Kenneth Prewitt, SSRC, pre ident; Kri tine Dahlberg, SSRC, chief financial officer. Iri Berger, State Univer ity of New York, Albany, was elected ecretary.

New StafT Appointments

Beverlee Bruce was named program director for the Mellon Minority Fellow hip Program effective June I. Mo t recently M . Bruce, an educator, ocial anthropologi t and international development peciaJi t, directed the Mellon Migration Seminar Project hou ed at Clark Atlanta University, School of Inter­national Affair and Develop­ment. De igned to provide African-American tudent with

58\lTEM

information about careers in refugee and immigrant ervice, the project bring a panel of experts to talk to tudents at elected hi torically black col­

lege and universitie . M . Bruce has taught at

Marymount Manhattan College, The City University of New York, Columbia, Temple, Harvard, Northea tern and Howard Uni er itie ,a well a at the Univer itie of Liberia, Mas achu ett (Bo ton) and California (Lo Angele) and at Welle ley College.

Her re earch center on the AME Church and Liberia, We t Africa, where a a graduate tu­dent at Harvard Univer ity he conducted the re earch for a di -ertation entitled, ''Tran cending

Boundarie : An Anthropological Study of the African Methodi t Epi copal Church in Liberia." Sub equent to her fieldwork, M . Bruce erved in Liberia as Country Director of the Peace Corp and a Chief Technical Advi er to the UN Self-Help Village Development Project in Sou thea tern Liberia.

Her publication include arti­cle about tudent of color and higher education as well as re­ports on the ituation of refugee women and children around the world. Mo t recently, M . Bruce wa the writer for the Expert Working Group re pon ible for the theme paper on Peace and Security for the National Summit on Africa.

M . Bruce erve on a number of board including the Africa

Panel of the American Friend Service Committee; Adventure in Health, Education and Development (AHEAD); the Women' Commi ion for Refugee Women and Children (which he chairs) and the Women' Foreign Policy Group.

El a Dixler joined the profe -ional taff a SSRC editor on

March 23. M . Dixler, mo t recently enior editor at The Nation magazine, wa al 0 man­aging editor of The Femini t Pre and managing editor of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. She received a Ph.D. in American Studie from Yale Univer ity and taught U.S. hi tory and women' tudie at Va ar College. M . Dixler has written about women and the left (her di ertation examined the role of women in the Communi t Party of the USA during the 1930 ) a well a about American ocial and cultural politic .

Centroamerica en restruc­turaci6n

From July 7-10 more than two hundred people from universitie , government agencie and NGO as well as intere ted member of the public attended pre entation in Guatemala City, San Salvador and Tegucigalpa, Honduras, of the recently-publi hed collection of e ay on Centroamerica en restructuracion [ ee p. 64]. The three event provided an occa ion to di tribute tudie that focu ed on i ue of fundamental impor-

VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 213

tance for the future of the region. In addition to the editors of the three volume ,participant in the panel included leading intellec­tual from Guatemala, El Sal­vador and Hondura . The event in Guatemala City was co- pon-ored by FLACSO-Guatemala

and the Secretarfa de Integraci6n Centroamericana (SIECA) and included commentarie by lead­er of tho e in titution and by Gert Ro enthal (former Secretary­General, UN Economic Com-mi ion on Latin America). In San Salvador, commentary was provided by Hector Dada and Roberto Rubio, Director of FLACSO-EI Salvador and FUNDE, re pectively. In Tegucigalpa, the event featured remark by Honduran Finance Mini ter Gabriela Nunez de Reye and by Alcide Hernandez, pre ident of the Colegio Hondureno de Economi ta , which co- pon ored the event along with the local office of the Pan-American Health Organ­ization. The book are a product of an initiative de igned by the SSRC Joint Committee on Latin American Studie and funded by the Ford Foundation.

Abe Fellows' Retreat

On January 15-18, 1998, the Abe Fellow hip Program held it econd annual retreat at the

Silverado Ranch in Napa, California. The retreat is de igned to bring active fellow together in an informal etting to exchange idea about their re earch and facilitate network­ing. Seventeen fellow were joined in thi effort by Abe Fellow hip Program Committee

Ju ElSEPTEMBER 1998

member Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney and former committee member Charle Hir chmann of the Univer ity of Washington and James White of the Univer ity of North Carolina .•

Much of the two-and-a half­day meeting was taken up by lively di cu ion of individual re earch projects by mall group of fellows. Thi portion of the retreat allow fellow to expo e their work to reaction from indi­viduals with different di cipli­nary, theoretical, methodological and national background , a well a differing amount of international re earch experience.

Afternoon were devoted to Ie tructured group di cu ion. Methodological problem and proce se in comparative re earch were the ubject of a e ion led by Charle Hir chmann. Jame White moderated a e ion focu -ing on the current Ea t A ian ec0-

nomic cri i , and Emiko Ohnuki­Tierney led one on the que tion "I There a Global Culture?'

• Panicipan included: Muthiah Alagappa, East-We t Center; William Alford, Harvard University; Mary Yoko Brannen, University of Michigan; John C. Campbell, University of Michigan; Jay Choi, Columbia University; Mark Fruin, University of Briti h Columbia; Mich I Gerlach, University of California, Berkeley; Kimberly Gould A hizawa, Center for Global Partnership; Andrew Gordon, Harvard Univen;ity; Heidi Gottfried, Purdue University; Theresa Greaney, Syracu University; Akiko Ha himoto, University of Pittsburgh; T utomo Kono, the Ralph Bunche In titute, City University of New York; Satu Limaye, US In titute of Peace; Mark Medi h, US Treasury Department; Patricia Robinson, New York University; Mark Tilton, Purdue University; Kenneth We t, University of Wi on in. Staff: Frank Baldwin, Mary Byrne McDonnell, Sheri Rani and Suzy Kim.

CGP-SSRC Seminar Series

In collaboration with the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partner hip, the SSRC and ACLS have organized a erie of work-hop to bring together Abe fel­

low who are re earching a common theme or et of theme with Abe Fellow hip Program Committee member and outside expert from academia and policy circle .

The fir t cycle of the e theme­ba ed event ha taken place over a two-year period. Following up meeting held in 1997 in the United State, the two 1998 work hop were entitled "Care and Meaning in Late Life: Culture, Policy and Practice in Japan and the United State " and "Multilaterali m and Trade in Service " re pectively. The intel­lectualleader hip of the work-hop wa provided by both

active member of the Abe Fellow hip Program Committee and the fellow them elve . In an effort to fo ter new connec­tion of cholar and vary loca­tion , both 1998 work hop were held at the Shonan International Village, an international confer­ence facility in Hayama, Japan.

Care and Meaning in Late Life: Culture, Policy and Practice in Japan and the United States

The ta k of a embling a research volume ba ed on paper produced by the fir t work hop on health and aging held in Ann Arbor, Michigan in April 1997 made ignificant progre at the February 26-March 1, 1998 work hop in Hayama. Guided by

ITEMs/59

Abe Fellow Su an O. Long of John Carroll Univer ity, who i erving a editor for the mul~i~

author book, the twenty partICI­pant con idered the com.mon conceptual and comparatIve theme driving their re earch on the health and care of the elderly in the United State and Japan .. They re ponded to critique ~f draft chapter from other project member and from out ide expert .

The volume it elf will focu on national difference in policy concerning elder care and the different cultural meaning of aging. It will al 0 examine care­giving in the context of ~e . patient them elve , the In tltu­tion ,farnilie and individual caregiver. Currently titled Who Cares: People. Practices and Policy for Late Life in Japan and the United States, the book i being prepared for publication ometime in 1999.

t Organizers: Susan Long, John Carroll University and Fronk Baldwin, SSRC. Panicipants: Kiy hi Adachi, University of Kyu hu; David Barnard, Milton S. Hershey Medical Center; Dougl Bradham, Human Service Research and Developmental Center; John C. Campbell. Unive ity of Michigan; Ruth Campbell. Thmer Geri tri Clinic;.

t hi Chi ham. Seirei Mikatabara H pltal; Mi h el Fetters. niversity of Mi higan Medical Center; Yuko Anheny. Frieden H u ; Phylli Braudy Hacri • Joh~ ~II Univ rsity; Akiko H himoto. University o.f Pittsburgh; hinya H hino. Japan Wo.men . University; Keiko Ikeda. Do hi ha University; Yukiko Kurokawa; University of Tokyo; Daisaku M eda. Ri ho University; David Plath nive ity of lIIinoi ; Glenda Raben . Univ' ity of Tokyo; Masahiko aito. University of Tokyo; Takako odei. Ochanomizu University; Peter Whitehou Unive ity Alzheimer Center. tafT: Frank Baldwin and Takuya Tod .

6O\ITEM

Multilateralism and Trade in Services

A persi tent theme of the May 1997 workshop on US-Japan trade di pute was the trengthening of multilateral trade regime uch as the World Trade Organization (WTO), and que tion about how they would handle trade in ser­vice as opposed to manufactured good . Co-convenors Takato hi Ito of Hitotsub hi University and Gary Saxonhou e of the Univer-ity of Michigan organized a

second wor hop around these que tion , which drew cholars of economic , law, bu ine and political ience a well as mem­bers of the banking and finance communitie .2

Driven by the new about the Ea t A ian economic cri i , which cau ed orne not unex­pected attrition among pru:u~i- . pant on call to variou mtOl tne and global organization , the May 15-17, 1998 work hop ~as organized as panel pre entatton on key i ue followed by exten-ive free di cu ion. The first

panel on multilateral trade dis­pute re olution focu ed on the variou di pute ettlement mech-

2 Organizers: 11 t hi Ito, Hit u hi University; and Gary Saxonhouse. University of Michigan. Panicipan : Geza Fekete~uty •. Monterey Institute; Tony Freye~. UnI~rsl~y of AI bama; Mi uhiro Fukao. KeIO Unl~erslty; Yi hihi H yakawn. Rikkyo University; Raben Hudec; University f Minne ; Kaz~masa . Iwata University of Tokyo; Akira KOJima, Nlhon Keizai himbun; Toru Kusukawa. Fuji Re arch Institute· Kazuo Ogawa. a University; Leonard' hop • Unive ity of Virginia; Yi hihiko Walrumoto. J pan Foundation Center ~ Global Pannership; Masaru Yi hitomi. LTCB ::search In tilUte. tafT: Frank Baldwin. heri Rani and Takuya Toda.

ani m available to aggrieved nation and the progre of multi­lateral agreement and di pute re olution protocol in ervice areas uch a telecommunication and financial ervice. The econd panel looked at the man­

agement of the international . financial regulatory y tern, WIth exten ive di cu ion about the appropriate forum for multina­tion di cu ion of financial market acce and the adoption of international or nationally-ba ed tandard of regulation.

The third panel looked at multinational organization and their role in in tigating or pre -uring for change in dome tic

economic policie of A ian nation . With particular attention to recent action by the Inter­national Monetary Fund in Thailand and Indone ia, the par­ticipant con idered variou model of international and national capital control and their implication for global trade an~ finance. A ummary report of dl -cu ion held during the work-hop will be produced by

Leonard Schoppa of the University of Virginia with a ten­tative publication date of late 1998.

Spanish-American-Cuban War of 1898 Research Workshop

The ACLS/SSRC Working Group on Cuba pon ored a two­week re earch work hop for young hi torian in the Wa h­ington, DC area from July 27-Augu t 7, 1998. It enabled five hi torian from Cuba and

VOLUME 52. NUMBER 7J3

five from the United States to conduct research in collection at three archive in Washington that are critical to the tudy of the Spanish-American-Cuban War of 1898. The work hop wa coordi­nated by Dr. Loui P6rez, a member of the Working Group and profe or of hi tory at the Univer ity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and Dr. Carmen Almod6var, profe or of hi tory at the University of Havana. Thi activity repre ent one of the ways the working group i link­ing the scholarly and intellectual communities in Cuba and North America and promoting enduring networks among Cuban cholar and their counterparts in North America.

SSRC-MeUon Minority FeUowship Summer Conference

A a means of addre ing the underrepresentation of American racial minoritie in the rank of Ph.D.'s in the arts and sciences in in titution of higher learning around the country, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation ha funded, since 1988, the Mellon Minority Undergraduate Fellow hip Program. Identified in the sophomore year, Mellon fel­lows are encouraged to pursue Ph.D.' in the humanitie, ocial sciences and the physical ci­ence in preparation for joining the academy. Each year a ummer conference i held to

which Mellon fellows who have entered doctoral program in one of the Mellon field are invited. The purpo e of the conference i to provide opportunitie for fel-

JUNElSEP'J'a18ER 1998

low to network, to present their current research, to benefit from pre entation by other fellow a well a by senior cholars and to learn the intricacie of the gradu­ate experience.

This year, from June 11-14, 1998, the eventh annual ummer conference wa held at Bryn Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.' Funded by the Mellon Foundation and adminis­tered by the Social Science Research Council, the conference featured presentation by three enior cholar, ix workshop

that addre ed the practicalitie of graduate chool ("Preparing for Qualifying Exams in the Social Science and Humanitie ," "Pedagogy for the Teaching As i tant"), a panel on publi hing and another by recent Ph.D.' who di cu sed the tran ition from graduate tudent to profe ional. In addition, 14 fellow who pre-ented their current re earch were

ranked excellent by 67% of the respondents to the conference evaluation [there was a 74% re pon e rate].

Of the 125 fellow who at­tended the conference, 85 are graduate students, 37 are entering graduate chool and 3 are recent Ph.D.' . Joining the Mellon fel­low were 16 members of the Bryn Mawr faculty who erved as moderators, paneli ts and work-hop leader , in addition to

Mellon Foundation and SSRC

• Presenters: John St wan, University of California. Davi ; Ru II Thornton, University of California, Los Angele ; Arthur B.C. Walker D, Stanford University. Staff: Beverlee Bruce and Sara Robledo.

staff and Ford Foundation fellow . In evaluating the conference,

61 % of the re pondents reported that it met their expectation , as in the case of two fellow ju t entering graduate chool who now find the next six years more imaginable and Ie ab tract. On the other hand, a continuing graduate tudent ee the confer­ence a "a great way to exchange ideas, ask question and hear some exciting work."

SSRC Higher Education Program

The Program on U.S. Higher Education held its second work-hop on April 3-4, 1998 at the

SSRC offices in New York City.2 The workshop explored two cen­tral themes: the hifting bound­arie of higher education in titu­tion and the increa ing inter­activity of the public and private ectors in the U.S. system of

higher education. Se ion devoted to the fir t theme con id­ered the detenninant of the size and cope of college and univer-

2 Organizers: Charle Goldman, Rand Corporation and David F. Weiman, SSRC. Presenters: Irwin Feller, Penn ylvania State University; Susan G te , Rand Corporati n; Coole Goldman; Henry Han mann, Yale University; Geraint Johne ,Lane ter University; Scott E. M ten, University of Michigan; Richard Nel n, Columbia University; Andre Ortmann, Bowdoin College; Sharon Oster, Yale University; and Robert Zemsky, University of Penn ylvania. Other participants: Je H. Au ubel, the Sloan Foundation and Rockefeller University; 'Thomas Bailey, Columbia University; Norman Bradburn, NORC; Clare M. Burnett, TlAA­CREF; Paul DiMaggio, Princelon University; Patrici 1. Gumport; Stanford University; and Perry Mehrling, Barnard Coli ge. Staff: David Weiman, Sheri Rani and George Samuel .

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itie and the extent of their competitive and complementary interaction . Tho e focu ing on the econd theme examined dif­ference and imilaritie in the corporate form and governance tructure of higher education

in titution and private, for­profit firm a well a the increa ing competition between public (including private, non­profit) and private, for-profit higher education in titution . Recognizing the convergence of di cu ion on the public-pri­vate theme during the fir t two work hop , the Steering Committee decided to continue the conver ation through ub e­quent workshop on the chang­ing role of community college in the higher education y tern and on the growth of bu ine education-both under- and po tgraduate.

Japan tudies D· ertation Workshop

The SSRC Japan Studie Di ertation Workshop i con­vened annually to nurture the development of a multidi cipli­nary network of advanced grad­uate tudent and enior fac­ulty.1 It i de igned to addre the need of tudent in creating innovative and in ightful re-earch, in planning, executing

and analyzing fieldwork. The

I Faculty: Hugh Patri k, Columbia Unive ity chool of Bu ine ; Mariko Tamanoi. University of California, Los Angel ; tephen VI to. Unive ity of Iowa; Janet Walker, Rutgers Unive ity.

taff: Mary Byrn McDonnell, Frank Baldwin and Jennifer Winther.

62\1TEM

work hop target tho e tudents who e work i e pecially promi -ing or ambitiou , who seem par­ticularly in need of critical feed­back or who do not attend universitie with major Japan Studie center.

The twelve tudent elected from a highly competitive pool of nearly forty applicant for the 1998 work hop repre ented both traditional and interdi ciplinary field , and ten in titution . During the four-day work hop, held from January 8-12 at the A ilomar Conference Center in Monterey, California, the e tu­dent , in varying tage of the di ertation proce ,engaged each other and four faculty mem­ber in critiquing and debating ub tantive i ue and method­

ologie . Each year time i allo­cated to allow for concentrated di cu ion of each di ertation, mall-group e ion for tho e in

clo ely related field and large­group, multidi ciplinary di cu -ion on both intellectual i ue

and practical fieldwork, writing and job earch technique .

International Peace and Security Program Fellows' Conference and Summer In titute

On May 17-23, 1998, the International Peace and Security Program pon ored it 12th annual SSRC-MacArthur Fellow 'Conference in San Salvador, EI Salvador. The con­ference featured everal plenary pre entation and highlighted a number of ecurity i ue facing EI Salvador and the region uch a military demobilization;

poverty, development and democracy; civil ociety and human right ; and po tconflict reeon truction and international intervention.

Fellow had the opportunity to participate in di cu ion on the program' new NGO Fellow hip and a work hop panel on Research Method and Approache to Security as well as to deliver seminar presenta­tion about their own re earch and training activitie . More than 50 people attended the conference, including 1996 and 1998 SSRC-MacArthur Foundation Fellow hip recipi­ent ,local peakers and pan-eli t ,member of the Com­mittee on International Peace and Security, MacArthur Foundation officer and SSRC taff.2

Immediately following the Fellow ' Conference in EI Salvador, on May 24-27, the International Peace and Security Program pon ored a Summer In titute on Failing State in Antigua, Guatemala. The in ti­tute wa co-organized by Tom Callaghy from the Univer ityof Penn ylvania and co- pon ored

2 peakers, pan Ii IS, and local p nicl­p nt : Andn! Fontan ,Und . retary f

tate for trategic Policie ,Argentina; Raul Benitez, Centro de Inve tigaci ne Inter-di Iplinari en i nci y Humanidad .• UNAM, Mexi 0; lvador may • Robeno Rubio, FUN DE; Carl Brione, FLA 0; Mario Lungo, OPAM ; Carolina AI de Franco, FU DES; Alberto Enriquez, FUND ; H~tor Dad , FLA 0 ; BenJ min Guellar, UCA; H nnan Ro Ch vez, PRiSMA; <>..car Campos Anaya, CAEE; Alfredo Iy Parker, FUNDACAEE.

taIT: Roben Lath m. Amy F t and Mark h ITner.

VOLU 1E 52, NUMBERS 213

by CIRMA in Antigua. Parti­cipants gathered to di cu the increasing number of flailing and failing tate in the world, addre ing in particular the fol­lowing topic: tate in cri i and flux; political form of cri i and flux; ecurity and violence in failing and reconfiguring tate; the political economy of failure and reconfiguration; new and alternative form of governance and ocial reality; external and dome tic a pect of conflict et­tlement and recon truction; and normative, policy and di cipli­nary implication . Participant included current and former SSRC-MacArthur Foundation fellow ,member of the Committee on Peace and Security; and leading local and international re earcher .3

Transformations in Immi­gration and Immigration Research: A Research Fellows Conference

Focu ing on new re earch and the changing background of cholar in the field of immigra­

tion tudie, the International

3 Outside participants: Tom Callaghy, University of Penn ylvani ; Jeffery Herb t, Princeton University; Carolyn Nordstrom, University of Notre Dame; William Reno, Florida Intern tiona! University; and William St nley, University of New Mexi o. Local p rticipants: Tani Adams, CIRMA, Guatemala; Licdo. Bernardo Arevalo; Demetrio Cojti Cuxil; Victor Galvez; Juan Mendez; Edelberto Tom: -Ri ; and Helen Mack. RC-MacArthur Fellow : Abiodun Alao; Kanchan Ch ndra; Helen Kin lIa; Darini Raja ingham; Amy R ; Shannon Speed; D n We ner; and Vadim Volkov. Committee: Jack Snyder; Charlie Hale; Kathryn Sikkink; and teve mith. taff: Robert Latham and Mark hoffn r.

J ElSEPTEMBER 199

Migration Program' fir t fellow conference, titled "Tran form­ation : Immigration and Immi­gration Re earch in the United State ," took place on June 11-14, 1998 at Columbia Univer ity. The conference wa coordinated by Nancy Foner (anthropology, State Univer ity of New York at Purcha e) and Ruben G. Rumbaut ( ociology, Michigan State Univer ity) and organized by Jo h DeWind and Chri tian M. Fuer ich of the SSRC.

Attended by 24 of the pro­gram' predoctoral and po tdoc­toral fellow who e re earch ha been up ported between 1996 and 1998, the conference' focu on "tran formation " covered not only the contribution of the fel­low 're earch to immigration tudie but al 0 the evolving

background and per pective of the newe t generation of immi­gration cholar. The re earch finding were pre ented within thematic e ion that looked at economic incorporation and mar­ket ; tran national network ; political incorporation and tate policie ; and ethnicity, race, cul­ture and community.

A concluding addre by Herbert J. Gan (ociology, Columbia Univer ity) pre ented an overview of topic for future re earch including: people who do and do not migrate; how immigrant and their children are faring; the role of macro factor in haping immigrant adaptation and the role of funder in haping re earch. He al 0 ugge ted that re earcher 'own ocial identitie and value as immigrant group "in ider " or "out ider" hape their election of topic and the

conclu ion they draw from their re earch.

The extent to which immigra­tion i tran forming the ocial background of immigration re earcher wa explored by committee member Ruben G. Rumbaut in a pre entation of the finding of a urvey conducted by the program of over 700 immigration cholar who are member of the American Anthropological A ociation, American Sociological A ociation and the Immigration Hi tory Society, or who have applied to the SSRC for re earch fellow hip. The urvey found that nearly half of the e cholar (48 percent) are either fir t- or econd-generation immigrant .

The impact of thi phenomenon on the nature of the field will be further explored in future analy-e of the urvey and e ay

being prepared by committee member on the relation of immi­gration tudie to ocial cience di cipline .

The conference organizer will edit a pecial i ue of the American Behavioral Scientist and a book, which will include election revi ed from pre enta­

tion at the conference.

The Aral Sea Basin

On May 19-21, the Eura ia Program pon ored on three­day work hop in Ta hkent, Uzbeki tan on the Aral Sea Ba in. Heavy water divergence during the Soviet era ha drained the Aral Sea to only 30~ of it original ize. The re ulting health and policy i ue po e a chal­lenge for the new independent Central A ian tate. The SSRC

ITEM 163

work hop was de igned to bring participants in the Council' former Committee on Global Environmental Change and other cholar together with Central

A ian water expert and activi ts. 1

The work hop wa organized around even formal paper . Participants first reviewed ''The Hi torical and Cultural Per-pective on Water Regime in

I USA: H !her Carli Ie. Netherlands Organization for International Development Cooperation; William Davoren. AraI Sea International Committee; William Fierman. Indiana University; Greg Gleason. Unive ity of New Mexico; Dale Henry. '[ hltent In tilUle of Engineers of Irrigation & Agri­cultural Mechanization (TIElAM). '[ hltent; R er person. Ciaric University; Jeff Kl uclte. Re rce Exchange Intern tion I. '[ hkent; Daene McKinney. University of Tex ; John McNeill. Georgetown niversity; Philip Micklin. We tern Michigan University; lan mall. Doctors Without Borders; Ad m Smith Albion. In titute of Current World Affairs; Roben Soren n. Environmental

64\1TEM

Central Asia" followed by a pre en­tation of the "Competing Water Need " of the different tates, "Water, Health and the Quality of Life," "How Principal Institutions Govern Water Allocation" and "Water I ue in Comparative Per pective." There was a lively di cu ion of "Strategic Choice and Socio-econ mic Prerequisites," centered on a con trover ial pro-po al to create a new type of inter-

Affairs. U.S. Emb y. Tashkent; Jennifer UtraIa, Development Alternative. Inc .• '[ ent; Erika Weinthal. Stanford Uni\ersity; Jim Wescoat, University of Colorado.

EUROPEIRU SIA: Eli Chait, London School of Economi ; Tho Dorenwendt, OSCE Liaison Office in Central ia, '[ hkent; Lui Viega da Cunh , Scientific and Environ­mental Affairs Divi ion. NATO, Belgium; Andre Ptichniltov. Ru i n Ac demy of Science. In titute of Geography, Moscow; Jochen Renger, Roben Bosch Foundation, Germany; Rainer Rei I, Aerospace Center, Germany.

CENTRAL AlA: Aru tan Jold 0, Center for Social and Marlceting Re arch. 11 hkent; Yu up Kamalov, Union for Defen of the AraI

national private corporation to help the various tate manage their carce water re ource ,

The workshop concluded with a brain torming se ion which generated new direction for future ocial cience re earch in four main areas that were deemed critical: water economic and pricing, in titution building, hi -toricaVcomparative case and human health and ecology.

Sea and Amu Darya, Nukus; Akhmal Karimov, Irrig tion In titute. lashkent; Ju Ipbek Kazabekov. TlEIAM. lashkent; Abdurakhim Khasanov, Tadjik State Uni­versity; Igor Du hanbe Khodjanuberdoev. Ecologi t Club. Bi hkelc, Kyrgyzstan; Said Minaev, TlEIAM. 11 bltent; Sapar Ospanov. Academy of Science • Almaty. Kazakh tan; Abdulkhakim SaJoIthiddinov. TIElAM. 11 hltent; Eltsender Tru ben, Macroeconomic and Social Research In titute. Mini try of Macroeconomics and Stati lie of Uzbeki tan,l1 hkent; Oleg T aruk, Law and Environment Eurasia Partnership.l1 hkent. Staff: Judith Sedaili and Hazel Boyd.

VOLUME 52, N 1BER. 213

Recent Council Publications

Centroamerica en restruc­turaci6n. San Jose: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO)-Co ta Rica. Sponsored by the Joint Com­mittee on Latin American Studies (1959-96). Vol. 1, Mercado lab­oral y pobreza en Centroa­merica, edited by Edward Funkhou er and Juan Pablo perez-Srunz. ix + 373 pp. Vol. 2, Integraci6n Regional en Centroamerica, edited by Victor Bulmer Thomas. viii + 349 pp. Vol. 3, Ciudadanfa y Polltica Social, edited by Bryan Roberts. viii + 380 pp.

As the 20th century draw to a clo e, Central American ocietie are undergoing change unprece­dented both in their cope and in the peed with which they are taking place. Many of these developments are po itive, and indeed, advance in the region during the 1990 exceed even the mo t optirni tic prediction . The achievement of hi toric peace accord in Nicaragua, EI Sal­vador and Guatemala ha put an end to protracted and de tructive ho tilitie in tho e countrie , and throughout the i thmu there ha been a dramatic decline in human right violation . Freely elected leader now govern throughout the region, oppo ition partie exert influence through legi la­tive bodie and ubnational admini tration , and legitimate authoritie face few explicit con-traint from military or civilian

elite . Thank in part to the re toration of political tability, Central American government have taken tentative tep toward

JUNEI EPTEMBER 1998

reviving regional effort to pro­mote economic integration and other form of cooperation. A majority of the population con­tinue to live in poverty and lacks acce s to adequate health care, education and ocial protection, but for the fIr t time there appears to be a consen u , at least rhetorically, that the bene­fit of economic development hould accrue to all.

These impre ive ign of progres are all the more remark­able con idering the economic circum tance that have con­fronted Central America over the past decade. Structural adju t­ment program in each of the five principal countrie of the region have coincided with an overall decline in living tandard. Mag­nifying these program , impact, economic aid to the region declined in the 1990 and re­main too low to have a ignifi­cant impact on development. All of thi take place in the context of proce se of economic global­ization that undermine many productive sectors, in Central America as elsewhere, that tradi­tionally provided opportunitie for teady employment.

The de ire to contribute to deeper conceptualization of thi water hed moment in Central American hi tory, and to a i t in the formation of a cohort of highly trained junior re earcher dedicated to ba ic re earch, led the Social Science Re earch Council and FLACSO to orga­nize the re earch project that gave ri e to thi three-volume collection. The book contain

e ay by leading ocial cienti t from Central America as well as from elsewhere in the America and Europe.

De igned by the SSRC Joint Committee on Latin American Studies and funded by the Ford Foundation, the projects ad-dre sed three areas of fundamen­tal importance for the future of the region, each of which i the focu of a volume. Volume I, edited by Juan Pablo Perez Srunz and Edward Funkhouser and orga­nized jointly by the Council and FLACSO, analyze the impact of tructural adju tment program on

labor markets and, through employment, on di tribution.

The econd volume, edited by Victor Bulmer-Thomas, as e e the problem and pro peet of effort to advance Central American regional integration. The final volume, edited by Bryan Robert ,con ider the implication of trend in ocial policy in a region where ocial exclu ion formerly precluded meaningful debate about ocial citizen hip.

Community Conflicts and the State in India, edited by Amrita Basu and Atul Kohli. Spon ored by the Joint Committee for South A ia (1970-1996). Delhi: Oxford Univer ity Pre ,1998. xii + 287 page.

Political conflict around reli­gion, ca te and regional identities have multiplied in India. Thi volume bring together original e ay by eminent analy ts of Indian ociety and politic that focu on change in the expre -

ITEMs/65

ion of community identity in relation hip to change in the character of the tate. They addre uch que tion a: Why i there apparently more violent conflict around identity politic in India today than at any time ince independence? To what

extent do the character and inten-ity of recent conflict differ

from tho e of the p t? What are the implication of ca te, ethnic and religiou nationali t move­ment for democracy? What mea-ure might alleviate the wide­pread de truction of life and

property and create the en e of predictability on which all ocial order re t ?

Mo t of the e say originated as papers at a conference on "Political Violence in India: Th State and Community Conflicts" held at Amherst College on

eptember 23-24, 1995, and v­eral of them appeared a a pecial i ue of the JournaL of A ian Studie (vol. 56, no. 2, May 1997).

Amrita Ba u i profe or of political cience and women' and gender tudie at Amber t College. Atul Kohli i profe or at the Woodrow Wit on School and Department of Politic , Princeton Univer ity.

'Regional Integration in Central merica." Special ec­tion of WorLd DeveLopment. Vol. 26, no. 2, February 199 . Victor Bulmer Thoma , gue ted. Spon-ored by the project on Central

America, Latin American Pro­gram. The e four e ay focu on the economic dimen ion of the new Central American Common Market. They cover the tran for­mation of the old CACM in the 1990 into the "open regional-

66\ITEM

i m" favored by international agencie , trade creation and trade diver ion, intraindu try trade, and intraregional trade in agricultural product and the impact of trade liberalization in the agricultural ector.

ocial cientist, Volume 23, Number 1000l2,October­November 1995.

In December 1993 the Joint Committee on South A ia orga­nized a work hop, "New Litera­ture, New Power: Literary Hi tory, Region and Nation in South A ia" in Hyderabad, India. The work hop re ulted in a pe­cial i ue of SociaL Scientist (Delhi) on literary hi tory in South A ia. In hi introduction to the i ue, Sheld n Pollock explore the movement in hi to­rie of literature to recognize the fundamental ociality of litera­ture. In "Coconut and Honey: San krit and Telugu in Medieval Andhra," Velcheru arayana Rao how how the que tion of what

language to adopt for making lit­erature in the Vijayangar empire helped hape the con ciou ne of the ruling elite . Pollock' "Literary Hi tory, Indian Hi tory, World Hi t ry" explore the u e of San krit in we tern and north­ern India at the beginning of the common era and Kannada at the kingly center . The e ay by S. Nagaraju, "Emergence of Regional Identity and Beginning of Vernacular Literature," uncov­er the ocial hi tory in which to locate the fir t Iiterization of Telugu poetry. The e ay by Sham ur Rahman Faruqi on Muhammad Hu ain Azad explore the origin and influ­ence of what might be called

c mprador hi torici m and col­laborationi t ae thetic . Sitan hu Ya haschandra examine the hi -tory of modem Gujarati pro e and literary production under coloniali m. Maha weta Sengupta' contribution on Bengali literary hi toriography how how literary hi tory i the

critical arena within which the tory of the nation i narrated.

Jancy Jame demon trate the complex hi torie to be excavated through a reading of women' lit­erature in Malayam.

SeriaLs:

Abe ews, vol. 8, Spring 199 Produced by the Abe Fellow hip Program Tokyo office.

RC-MacArthur Foundation ew letter, vol. 10, February

1998. "Technology and the Future of Security." Produced by the SSRC-MacArthur Foundation Program on International Peace and Security.

Al 0 noted:

Our Babi ,Ourselv : How Biology and Culture hape the Way We Parent, by Meredith F. Small. ew York: Anchor Book, 199 ,336 pp. Our Babie , OurseLves bring the in ights of ethn pediatric to the general reader. The book wa in pired by everal activitie of the Ethno­

pediatric Working Gr up of the Committee on Culture, Health and Human Development. In di -cu ing "how biology and culture hape the way we parent," Small

acknowledge the idea of the working group' co-director, Carol Worthman and Ron Barr.

VOLUME 52, NUMBER 2/3

SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL

810 SEVENTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. NY 10019

(212) 3TI-2700 FAX (212) 3TI-2727 WEB http://www. n:.org

The Council was incorporated in the Stott of Illinois, December 27, 1924, for the purpo e of advancing rtsttJrrh in the social scitncts. Nongovemmtntal and interdisciplinary in notUrt, the Council appoints committees of scholiJn which seele to achitvt the Council 's purpose through the generation of new idtas and the training of scholan. The acti"ities of the Council art supported primarily by grants from private foundotions and govtmmtnt agencies.

DirtCton, 1998-99: A1uUN APPADlIRAI, University of Chicago; PAUL B. BALTES, Max Planck Institute for Human Development (Berlin); lJus B. BERGER, State University of New York. Albany; NANCY BIIlDSAU., Inter-American Development Bank; ALaEIn' flsHLOW, Council on Foreign Relation; SUSAN fisKE, University of M sachusetts, Amherst; EuzABE11i JEUN, University of Buenos Aires; SHIRLEY LiNDENBAUM, 1be Graduate Center, City University of New York; CoRA B. MARRElT, University of Massachusetts; KENNEnt PREwm, Social Science Research Council; BURTON H. SINGER, Princeton University; NED. SMELSER, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences; SIDNEY VERBA, Harvard University; KENNEnt W. WAOn'ER, University of California, Berkeley; MJCHW.E J. WHITE, University of Michigan, AM Arbor.

Officen and Staff: KENNEnt PREwm, Prtsidtnl; KIus'nNE DAHLBERG, Chief F'UlallCial Officer; MAlty BYRNE Mc:DoNNw., Executive Program Dirtctor; ELsA DIXLER, Editor; I1TY ABRAHAM, BEVIlIU£E BRUCE, JOSH DEWIND, DIANE DI MAUItO, fJuc HERsHBERG, RONALD KAssIMIR, FRANK KEssEl., ROBEIn' LAnIAM, ELLEN PER.EcMAN, SHERI H. RANIS, JUDI11t B. SEDMl'IS, DAVID WEIMAN, Kerro W. WORCESla.

1be Social Science Research Council upports the program of the Commi ion on Preservation and Acce and i represented on the National Advisory Council on Preservation. 1be paper used in thi publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences--Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material. ANSI Z39.48-1984. 1be infinity symbol placed in a circle indicates compliance with this tandard.

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