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Originally published in 1990.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780691636108 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date: | 04/19/2016 |
| Series: | Princeton Legacy Library , #995 |
| Pages: | 268 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.90(w) x 10.10(h) x 1.10(d) |
Read an Excerpt
A Fragile Power
Scientists and the State
By Chandra Mukerji
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1989 Princeton University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-08538-8
CHAPTER 1
Scientists As an Elite Reserve Labor Force
In the summer and fall of 1986, a group of marine biologists and geologists were notified by the Department of Energy that their funding for studies related to deep ocean disposal of nuclear wastes had been cut out of the next year's budget. The DOE had decided on a policy of land-based disposal of wastes and no longer needed their services. This was a moment of victory for the citizen groups that had been fighting against using the ocean as a dump site; it was also a moment that revealed quite dramatically the political character of research funded by the government and the vulnerability of scientists to the political process. Suddenly, this group of researchers, who had been the voice of authority in deciding what should or should not be done in the ocean, were unable to buy more paper to write on or pay telephone bills. Not only did they face no prospect for renewed funding in the next year, but because the program had been penciled out of the next budget without any provision for closing the administrative offices, some of the money from the current year was being recalled for use in boxing papers and moving furniture.
It is easy to dismiss these events as not particularly worthy of attention. After all, these scientists were supporting a government policy that could have had disastrous consequences; so perhaps their loss of funds was something to be applauded and not intellectually questioned and dissected. It is equally easy to think that these scientists were low-level consultants for the government, not "real" scientists, so their careers (or failures) could not really be worthy of serious consideration. But many of these researchers were respected scientists in their fields, and they were consultants on important policy issues, affecting the ocean and the future of the nuclear industry in the United States. What they were doing with DOE money to promote science and the state ought not to be dismissed summarily. It ought instead to be of interest not only to those concerned with the careers of scientists, but also to those concerned with the uses of science by the government in the formation and legitimation of policy.
The budget cuts in this small corner of the scientific community were not detrimental to the scientific community as a whole; nor was this kind of treatment of scientists an unusual occurrence. Many similar episodes had dotted the relationship between scientists and government funders. Many more researchers had lost their jobs during the cutbacks of the 1970s. What makes this case interesting is the way it illuminates both the power of science and the limits of that power.
In the modern industrial societies of the West since the nineteenth century and particularly in the twentieth century, scientists have increased their intellectual and social power. Today science is perhaps the dominant cultural institution in these societies, providing models of correct thinking for members of other social worlds. Scientists also constitute a powerful social force by affecting the economic and military strength of nations. They can and do tip the balance of power among states, and they even may determine the security of the world population through participation in the nuclear arms race.
Yet for all its power, the institution of science is built on a fragile social base. Science gains much of its financing and most of its social power because of its usefulness to government, but science cannot easily prosper as an intellectual endeavor simply by serving the powerful on issues of their choosing. Scientists may be best able to shape policy this way, but, as a consequence, they also trade away their ability to determine the direction of scientific research. Scientists can maintain intellectual and social autonomy for themselves and for science only by addressing other scientists, not members of other institutions. This is a problem, since most researchers cannot afford to keep their labs going without outside funding. Conducting research necessarily ties scientists to nonscientists who provide funds. For research that has no commercial significance, this means dependence on government money.
Conflicting needs to find funds (hence dependence) and to do scientific research that serves science (hence autonomy) have shaped the character of research in the United States since the Second World War. The state has provided much of the funding for science (reducing the autonomy of scientists), but it has also given researchers some autonomy by decentralizing the research programs that they fund. A large part of the scientific work done with "soft money" from the government is conducted in private labs or at universities, and attempts have been made to spread research around the country. This has certainly freed many scientists from centralized government control of research through a national laboratory, but it has not really diminished their dependence on the soft-money funding system.
The puzzle underlying the soft-money funding system is not why government supports scientific research at all. There are obvious reasons why the state wants to know, for example, what kinds of containers to use to house high-level nuclear wastes, or why they get odd sonar pictures that confuse military personnel in some parts of the ocean. The puzzle is why the U.S. government also supports in universities and private laboratories basic research done with no immediate or even obvious long-term benefit to the state.
To understand a bit better the government program of funding basic research and of using scientists as advisors on policy, I interviewed and observed scientists at a number of labs who were engaged in one or both of the following: research on deep sea disposal of nuclear wastes and research on hot springs on the seafloor. The vent or hot springs research was a prototypical piece of "pure" or basic research, one affecting basic ideas in marine biology and chemistry while also raising some questions in marine geology. The waste disposal work was a classic bit of applied research.
I found in both cases that government interest in research was not well explained by government need for the information generated by scientific projects. I was led to the conclusion that when government agencies dispense money to scientists for research, they do it not so much because the state is interested in maximizing its store of scientific information relevant to policy issues, but more because the government has interests in maintaining a labor force of skilled scientists available for consultation on policy issues. The communication between science and the government is less a text-based system for conveying facts and more a form of oral discourse for conveying opinions. Funding makes the expertise of scientists (the skills and knowledge they embody) more consistently relevant to state interests and visible to government agencies. That is why the state funds scientists to begin with, and pays them enormous sums to do technologically complex feats of intellectual labor.
Take the example of the scientists working on seabed disposal of nuclear wastes. At first blush, the experience of these researchers might seem to contradict the thesis that scientists are supported for their expertise rather than their information. These scientists were asked to collect data on particular areas of the seafloor that were being considered as dump sites, trying to anticipate problems of dumping there. So the government clearly hired them to collect information. Right? Not exactly.
To evaluate the possibility of dumping, the government needed more than results of experiments. The DOE did not just ask the scientists participating in this program to send reports that described what they learned from their research; they asked them to go periodically to Sandia Laboratories (a government laboratory in New Mexico) to evaluate the results of the combined research efforts and to speak directly to the policy issues. The government, of course, wanted the information from the research, but it was more interested in the expertise of the scientists in evaluating the results of research projects. Scientists could draw on their broader education on, for example, sedimentation process, food chains, or the mobility of animals to weigh the policy implications of a dumping program or to suggest a new one. These scientists could also anticipate how their colleagues would criticize their research findings, if they were to question the dumping program and join with political groups trying to stop ocean disposal of wastes. The evaluative skills of the researchers were essential to making policy recommendations, and they were part of their expertise, not just the information generated from their research.
To some extent the research was designed to yield information, but the scientists did more than provide information. They trained themselves in a set of skills for setting up and monitoring a dump site, if such a site were established. They developed techniques and machines for gathering and analyzing samples relevant to radiation leaks at the potential sites. They trained themselves to think about potential problems, which they could then use to guide monitoring procedures. Both technically and conceptually, they made themselves skillful helpers of government policymakers, and announced themselves available for consultation on seabed disposal of waste in return for funds to continue their own research at DOE sites.
Scientists like these and their counterparts funded by the government constitute what I call an elite reserve labor force. Soft-money scientists constitute a reserve labor force in the sense that they are supported by governments and industries so their honed skills will be available when they are needed (by, for instance, the military in case of war, by industry in case there are major changes in the direction of the economy, or by the medical community if there is an outbreak of some new and threatening illness). A pool of scientists actively engaged in research will have, at least in theory, highly developed investigative and problem-solving skills that can be called upon to address immediately pressing problems.
What about scientists doing basic research for the National Science Foundation (NSF) or the National Institutes of Health (NIH)? Do they fit this model? They are, after all, paid by the government to pursue their own ideas, not address policy issues. They are certainly training themselves to develop the most refined research skills possible, but who in government is that training supposed to serve? Actually, these researchers have quite an important role: to define quality in scientific research. People in government need to know which scientific ideas and research technologies are respected by the scientific community because the advice given politicians based on research is only authoritative when it is ratified by this group. Agencies such as the NSF help to define for scientists and politicians alike what constitutes quality research. NSF researchers outline the cutting edge in their fields and thereby also identify techniques or theories that are passé. They help to spread their work practices within the scientific community through their publications, and the government underscores the importance of their tastes through ongoing funding.
Agencies that support basic research also improve the labor force of scientists in another way: they insure that a minimum of researchers in different scientific disciplines and subdisciplines will be allowed to develop and exercise the highest level of research skills they know how to achieve, Thus in substantive as well as evaluative areas, NSF and NIH help train a skilled labor force of scientists.
It may seem counterintuitive to think of scientists as a reserve labor force. When social scientists speak of reserve labor forces, they usually mean the pool of unskilled labor kept on welfare during slow periods in the economy and employed when the economy needs them. It creates some cognitive dissonance at first to put scientists in this category. They are clearly so busy with research and writing, so well paid, highly honored, and seemingly invulnerable to the political tenor of the times that they seem anything but counterparts to the welfare poor. But like the unemployed on welfare, scientists on research grants are kept off the streets and in good health because of the interests and investments by elites. Scientists have long joked about the similarities of their position to that of Aid to Families with Dependent Children mothers, in a kind of uneasy recognition of their structural dependency on the state (and perhaps also to underscore the social inequities that make them so well paid by the government while the poor are being criticized for their dependency even while they get relatively little money). This analysis only elaborates these ideas more systematically and seriously.
Perhaps one can think even more usefully of scientists as a reserve force like the Army or Navy reserves, as a group of people kept in training by the government to sustain the skills the military would need in case of war. Scientists have been cognizant since World War II of their usefulness as a military reserve but have not examined carefully how basic research done for purely scientific purposes could fit government needs. What seems sociologically significant is that they are paid money to keep their research skills sharp on the agreement (for scientists, implicit) that they are "on call" to be mobilized when their services are needed. Members of government can ask them to apply their scientific expertise to practical problems, and the norm of reciprocity requires that they agree to do so.
Researchers who have teaching positions and who do their research as only part of their work lives come closest to a reserve force in the military mold. Their teaching and university service is equivalent to their civilian jobs. Their research, any development and use of equipment that interests the state, and their active consultation with funding agencies or other agencies of the state constitute their training and periodic mobilization by the state. They may not be mobilized in the same way as members of the military reserves because scientists are rarely asked to abandon their research labs entirely to do applied work for the government or even to act as consultants for government on a full-time basis, but they often feel some obligation to pay back their benefactors by consulting on a more limited basis. (They will attend conferences set up by agencies to discuss government policies, weapons systems, or other engineering projects; they will observe and evaluate existing applied programs; they will review proposals for NSF, NIH, or other agencies; or they will join commissions to study problems).
Equating scientists to a military reserve makes more sense when you realize that the United States began the soft-money funding system at the end of the Second World War. The government in Washington developed a new science policy for America that was shaped by two factors: the importance of scientists to the war effort, and the inability of the military to keep them on their payrolls in peacetime. Military leaders were loathe to give up their trained counselors and weapons developers who had had such strategic value, but there was also a strong distaste in other parts of government for the establishment of a system of national laboratories either inside or outside of the military. Scientists would have to be demobilized, but they did not have to abandon their pursuit of strategically valuable skills acquired during the war, if the government was willing to subsidize their research laboratories. They could continue their research on grants or contracts, while working in the university or private research institutions.
Scientists supported in this fashion were no longer active members of the armed forces but were still paid to keep working on the kinds of projects that would make them useful advisors, if needed. The point of the system was not just to reward science for its wartime value but to make its power available as a resource for the state, minimally as essential preparation for any future war. The Cold War managed to extend immediate postwar anxiety over military readiness, and helped to extend government support for science after World War II.
Scientists were valued by the military in part because in wartime their work could constitute strategic assets or threats, depending on which government they served. Immigrant physicists had been at the heart of the Manhatten project and continued in the atomic research program after the war. If they had done their research elsewhere, American power would have been diminished. The same was true of other less visible scientists as well.
Just as Piven and Cloward argue that members of the underclass are kept on welfare as a reserve labor force, sustained because they are potentially politically volatile, one can argue that scientists are kept in funds in part to keep them from upsetting the balance of power. An unhappy scientist (particularly one whose work has military significance) may not be likely to start a revolution but may emigrate and affect political life by doing so. Most are not deemed important enough to carry much of a threat to the state, but scientists as a group and the most elite members of these fields have enough strategic importance (at least in the minds of the military) to be worthy of some special treatment and are kept on good terms with the government. That is why the scientific reserve force became so highly paid and many of its elite members became temporarily politically influential, particularly right after the war.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A Fragile Power by Chandra Mukerji. Copyright © 1989 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents
- FrontMatter, pg. i
- Contents, pg. vii
- List of Illustrations, pg. viii
- Preface, pg. ix
- Acknowledgments, pg. xii
- CHAPTER ONE. Scientists As an Elite Reserve Labor Force, pg. 1
- CHAPTER TWO. The Development of State Interest in Science in the Nineteenth Century, pg. 22
- CHAPTER THREE. War and State Funding in the Twentieth Century, pg. 39
- CHAPTER FOUR. Managing the Scientific Labor Force, pg. 62
- CHAPTER FIVE. Limits on the Autonomy of Soft-Money Scientists, pg. 85
- CHAPTER SIX. Technological Dependence of Scientific Researchers, pg. 105
- CHAPTER SEVEN. Techniques and Status in Scientific Laboratories, pg. 125
- CHAPTER EIGHT. Expanding the Domain of Science, pg. 146
- CHAPTER NINE. Directing Scientific Discourse, pg. 166
- CHAPTER TEN. The Voice of Science, pg. 190
- Notes, pg. 205
- Bibliography, pg. 235
- Index, pg. 245