Engineering Society : The Role of the Human and Social Sciences in Modern Societies, 1880-1980

Explaining crime by reference to abnormalities of the brain is just one example of how the human and social sciences have influenced the approach to social problems in Western societies since 1880. Focusing on applications such as penal policy, therapy, and marketing, this volume examines how these sciences have become embedded in society. Since the late nineteenth century the human and the social sciences have had a profound impact on how Western societies have defined and attempted to solve social problems. Explaining crime by reference to abnormalities of the brain, using market-research techniques to modify political strategies, or employing therapeutic institutions to promote democratic citizenship - these are just three examples of how the human and social sciences have been applied since 1880. Experts from many disciplines have occupied key positions in state and society, guided political decisions, and helped to establish new social institutions and practices. Their expertise has had to compete with other forms of knowledge and has been used by politicians and social actors for their own ends. Providing a transdisciplinary and comparative perspective, the essays in this volume address the tension between the claims to objectivity and the politicization of expert knowledge, examine the relationship between knowledge and power, and discuss long-term historical developments, thus transcending the political caesuras of twentieth-century history Front Matter....Pages i-xii Introduction: The Scientization of the Social in Comparative Perspective....Pages 1-40 Embedding the Human and Social Sciences in Western Societies, 1880–1980: Reflections on Trends and Methods of Current Research....Pages 41-56 Front Matter....Pages 57-57 Contesting Risk: Specialist Knowledge and Workplace Accidents in Britain, Germany, and Italy, 1870–1920....Pages 59-78 Politics Through the Back Door: Expert Knowledge in International Welfare Organizations....Pages 79-96 Rationalizing the Individual – Engineering Society: The Case of Sweden....Pages 97-118 The Neurosciences and Criminology: How New Experts Have Moved into Public Policy and Debate....Pages 119-138 Front Matter....Pages 139-139 The Psychological Sciences and the ‘Scientization’ and ‘Engineering’ of Society in Twentieth-Century Britain....Pages 141-158 Mental Health as Civic Virtue: Psychological Definitions of Citizenship in the Netherlands, 1900–1985....Pages 159-178 Human Sciences, Child Reform, and Politics in Spain, 1890–1936....Pages 179-197 Narcissism: Social Critique in Me-Decade America....Pages 198-212 Front Matter....Pages 213-213 Hearing the Masses: The Modern Science of Opinion in the United States....Pages 215-233 Observing the Sovereign: Opinion Polls and the Restructuring of the Body Politic in West Germany, 1945–1990....Pages 234-251 Consumers, Markets, and Research: The Role of Political Rhetoric and the Social Sciences in the Engineering of British and American Consumer Society, 1920–1960....Pages 252-272 Business Organizations, Foundations, and the State as Promoters of Applied Social Sciences in the United States and Switzerland, 1890–1960....Pages 273-292 Catholic Church Reform and Organizations Research in the Netherlands and Germany, 1945–1980....Pages 293-312 Back Matter....Pages 313-318