Social Scientists in the Poicy Process

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Abstract
Concern with how social scientists can participate more fully in the policy process has led to the development of a number of normative models of participation. These models differ significantly in prescribing the types, range, and timing of inputs by social scientists into the formulation of policy. Three such models described in this paper are viewed as inadequate prescriptions because they fail to account fully for the political nature of the policy process and the conditions under which social science knowledge may be needed but not demanded within a political environment. The authors argue that social scientists must pay increasing attention to the conditions under which a demand for their inputs may be generated. Demand for information is discussed in terms of some of the factors that may stimulate it, including various combinations of means-ends consensusldissensus. It is suggested that each of the normative models of social science inputs is appropriate only under different conditions of consensus.

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