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2.1.2 Heuristics / Systems &
Models special topics in this chapter: TOPICS
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Table of Content
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2.1.2 Heuristics / Systems &
Models |
special topics in this chapter: TOPICS |
2.5 Economics |
Definition Sociology [[Willke p 1.]]: "The accessibility of sociology as science of society is especially difficult for beginners. In introductory books and lectures he is confronted with a collection of methods, concepts and partial theories; each sector of life seems to have a special sociology, for each question special concepts, for each method differing results. If the beginner had the imagination, that the most important aim of sociology should be to collect valid knowledge about society and its sectors in a systematic way, to build up on this knowledge and the relevant stocks of knowledge of other sciences, to produce knew knowledge with cumulative effect, he will notice soon, that the main task of sociologists seems to consist in demonstrating to other sociologists that their concepts, methods and especially their results are untenable." "This picture is not overstreched and it is not accidentally a such. Sociology is (still) a young science that didn't find its identity forming programmatics!"
Willke does not see in the social sciences such a high "ameliorating potential" as social forestry. Sociology is still in the same phase as development research, in search for a paradigm! The main epistemological problem of sociology is most probably connected with its major objective: to find rules of social development - rules that are based on individual and common local preferences. Willke works out meaning as the main steering criteria for social systems. So here the definitions first:
Definition Meaning [ibid]: "The fundamental and so most difficult term of the theory of psychical and social systems. It signifies the systems-specific criteria for the differentiation between excluded and included. Meaning is always specific for systems. In the mean time just common contents of sense allow interaction and communication between systems. Meaning can be 'frozen' in "Weltanschauung", values, norms, roles and so on and can be produced or bargained in ongoing interactions. People orient themselves after meanings in this world: this makes symbols to an own level of action; and the question emerges about the relation of the world of objects (matter) and symbolism (spirit). The operative quality of meaning is, that it stays virtual, refers to objects but is not identical with them. Out of this result free spaces of action, conflicts and all the rest of the 'human condition'.
Definition Sense [Phil. Wörterbuch:]: "Biologically a stimulus receiving organ of the organisms; sense organ; philosophical the value and the meaning (the interest), that a thing or an experience has for me or for others. Different to - essence - the sense doesn't belong to the thing itself, but is attributed to it by humans, so that a thing can make sense for one person, the opposite for the other, can make sense for me today and none of the like a year later. Sense turns into an object of research under the assumption of a collective subject (people, culture, epoch and similars), that has undertaken the sense-attribution or is still undertaking it. In many cases the 'Sense-Research' is done as essence research, so in philos. anthropology, phenomenology ... existentialism. A method to study the sense of what somebody has attributed to a gesture, an action, is the understanding; - content of sense, ... - S. can mean as well the general temper of a person, his sensitivity or his understanding for something."
Definition Content of Sense: "... that a thing gets by attribution or the discovering of an immanent sense. S. requires a sense-attributing' act, through which the human being puts the thing into a relation with his own microcosm. Through the sense-attributing act the thing gets in the same time a (higher) value and the quality of the sense is so dependent on the individual world-rank-order (- ethics). The sense attributed to a thing, depends moreover from the - essence of the thing, it is on the other hand independent of the commercial value of the thing".
Sense (sense, in english with the meaning it has in: "to make sense") is the critical factor for forestry in Yemen, as everything that produces something (money, food, ...) makes sense, but shrubs and trees evidently don't: 'ma fish faidhe! As sense can be produced and bargained, it will be extension's main job to create sense.
Sense has an extraordinary importance in social systems, that can't be explained in a biological way [Willke p. 29:]: "On the level of individuals (psychical systems) political or religious martyrs prove that for human beings the maintenance of an idea (so of a certain form of meaning) can be more important than the maintenance of one's proper life. The same happens when believers don't touch animals or plants that are under religious taboo, even if dying of hunger. More examples might be found without much effort. On the level of social systems the "crusades" of all kind refer to it that groups or whole populations risk their existence, to preserve or impose certain contexts of sense as religion, political values or moral postulates. That individual and social levels are under all circumstances inextricably intermingled, is shown by one of the most foolish human inventions, the war. For bare ideas (as native country, freedom, communism) millions of people have themselves led to the battlefield. This is biologically not understandable. And even as they are extreme examples, the can make the question plausible, why sense gets to be a basic category for social systems."
Sense as guide of action is an agent that can obviously even contradict the existentialists credo: "L'existence precede l'essence!" - so why should meaningful action not be able to overcome the dominant orientation of economy, the constant strive for more profits?
Sense contains a selective relation between system and environment (Luhman). It describes as well the system of order in social acts. Intersubjectively shared sense delimits systems -what makes sense at what not, [Willke p. 30] what information an organisation or another social system perceives, how it processes, changes and evaluates that information. Those perceptive, motivational, operative and cognitive preferences are anchored in systems of symbols. [ibid p. 34:]
"The meaning of delimitations is in the delimitation of meaning. Not everything what happens in the world, not all events, informations and states can be considered and processed by social systems. In front of a complex environment the social systems have to limit their attention, their time and energy to the things that make sense in relation to the system." [ibid p. 37:]
"Psychical as well as social systems are sense-constituted systems - the difference can't be here. It is the way of processing sense, that makes the difference: psychical systems process meaning in the form of thoughts and imaginations; social systems process meaning in form of lingually-symbolically transmitted communication. (Luhmann ...). Social systems form on the base of communication. For their continuity continuing communication is indispensable."
That the occupation with environmental problems is relatively new, that no ready-to-use concepts of thinking exist, is even true for Europe. The social sciences do describe bunches of problems, but the solutions are so far not at hand - and they won't be simple, as reason has to be re-united with ethics.
In a technocratic society a mechanic-technical argument may have some power of conviction, in a society with different constituting principles arguments from the technical and biological level don't make much sense. The setoff for steering has to be the human level who is valuing its relation with the lower levels (the biological and physical ones).
Methods:
At the start of scientific work are observation and description. "One can only describe what can be observed, moreover, what can be put in a semantic form. It is not apparent which further restrictions are attached to that. The transfer into signals, codes, language, script, data carrier and so on ties up description much more forcefully with communication, so with the level of social systems. Description serves the communicative seizure of the described. With a description or diagnosis the observer moves his observations to the therm; and from there on the rules of the proper dynamics of semantics take over the command. (...)
This explains e.g. why descriptions are socially so much more efficient than observations, so e.g. the bible or the Quran or Karl May or Dallas, reproducing social reality that can't be stabilised by observations." [ibid p. 124:]
But any kind of communication, from international conventions down to the engineer's diagnosis, any "communication between (...) autonomous systems (parties, nations, unions, ministries ...) requires mutual "understanding" of the shared information - and precisely this understanding does not go without saying." [after ibid p. 49:] Especially revealing are distortions or even pathologies in communication that happen especially there, where the respective preferences and selection criteria of the communicators differ strongly." [ibid p. 50:] That is precisely the case we have to deal with in development, where communication transgresses cultural borders.
Def. understanding [Philos. Wörterbuch]: The spiritual activity that delivers information to the reason, insofar as it creates terms, judges, concludes - intellect. The u. is the "thinking soul", the capacity to think things and their relations through terms (Wundt). It is the capacity of terms, judgments and rules (Kant). However there is u. without terms as well as terms without understanding. The reliability of u., as a secure instrument for the recognition of the world, led, opposite to the often overstated validity of so-called irrational cognition - to the formation of the theory of the - common sense."
To understand [ibid] means to see something in its connections, an essence, its meaning, only to be grasped as interconnection. U. is only possible, if the objects to which understanding is directed, have been attributed a - content of sense. U. either interprets the "sense" of a corporal-material (- hermeneutics, physiognomics) or something already containing sense is determined through further sense-attribution (Gnomics). - U. has been used first by J.G. Droysen ... to denominate a special scientific method; later on - Dilthey opposed u. as basic method of psychology and the humanities to the natural science method of 'explaining'. Spranger differentiates the ideophysical u. (the explanation of essence) from physical signs, the personal, the factual and the historical u."
2.3.2 Ethnoscience
The three terms used in ethnoscience define as well three steps of cognition [after Stagl]:
a) First as many as possible tribal societies existing under specific conditions have to be described as comprehensive as possible ("Ethnography"),
b) then by typologysing comparison general (superculturally) valuable statements should be extracted (Ethnology),
c) finally it is hoped, to assemble those to a supertheory of the human ("Anthropology").
As we are mainly interested in the knowledge of the local society, culture and its relation to the natural environment, the term ethnography will be used from here on.
The scientific concept of ethnosciences is based on the difficulty, to observe objectively other cultures, what is much more difficult, than to observe e.g. physical processes, plants or flowers in an objective way. Manheim's paradox (1936): "The investigator of culture is himself cultured, and a person's cultural past colors everything that he or she perceives." Ethnoscience (as sociology) is a rather young science and rather wide-scale, as culture is about everything what humans have produced and are producing, so it still has some troubles with the establishment of a paradigm. Others use quite wide definitions for what ethnography is: "Description - anything an ethnographer decides to write about his or her field experience." [Launay, Werner & Schopfle I p. 57:]
Ethnographic description has to be based on:
- the reduction of ethnocentrism: autobiography, diary.
- The reduction of semantic accent: The comparison of the ethnographers view (observations, journal), and the local's view (transcriptions, interviews) should lead to an iteratively increasing understanding of the internal view that the human beings have of their own actions, values, and feelings.
- the reduction of complexity: Detect common structures!
Those are the preconditions. To render more objective man's cognitive instrument, the mind, ethnocentrisme and semantic accent have to be eliminated, or, at least, the scientist has to be aware of it.
The first step is so description and understanding. Willke's systems analytical approach works out meaning as the principal steering criteria of social systems [Willke p. 35:]: "Through the establishment of systems of symbols, understandable through sense, social systems as youth groups, political cliques, families, flat-sharing communities, sects, scientific schools, organisations up to societies achieve a pre-selection of environmental data. That starts with the language of a society, the idiom of an organisation, the technical terminology of a science, the slang of a youth-group. And it goes through normative frozen sense in the form of role definitions, norms, ideas on values and ideologies to meta-languages and symbolical steering languages as money, power, trust, or believe and knowledge. The meaning of those systems specific sense-context can easily be demonstrated: if a new member joins a group, an enterprise or by emigration a new society, he/she encounters everywhere meaningless, ununderstandable things. Only with the gradual learning of the insider-language, the meaning and use of the existing symbols, the grasping of the specific sense-contexts, the new member grows into the respective social system and gets accepted. Reports of anthropologists and ethnologists that found access to foreign cultures, give an impressive account on that."
Definition: Qualitative Research tells why, quantitative research tells how many. The qualitative research searches for and describes structures and categories of thinking. Quantitative sociology determines opinions inside given structures and categories. If one needs to understand why people do (or don't do) something, if areas of consensus (+/-) have to be delineated, then only the qualitative methods are appropriate. Unluckily disciplinary sciences are still reluctant to use qualitative data. Miles (1983) characterizes qualitative data very appropriately as "attractive nuisance". [after Girtler and Huber]
Qualitative studies have a long tradition [after Huber p. 13: ]. The Aristotelian epistemology based on the development of descriptive categories, on inductive reasoning and explanation of objects by intentions, aims and purposes. Vico (1668-1744) saw as the major object of science the unique, the individual and looks for socio-cultural explanations. The hermeneutic tradition, the "art of understanding", begins with the fact that reality is transmitted by language. But none of those intended to be exclusive. Aristotle put induction equal to deduction. Vico said that everything produced by man can be proofed as true. For Dilthey causal explanatory constructions can be developed as second step out of humanities as a base and can be controlled and explained by descriptive relations
The natural science on the other hand claimed to be legitimate alone. After Kepler all the universe follows uniform laws, and qualitative differences can be reduced to quantitative differences. Galilee was less interested in the question why, than in how. He claimed that everything has to be measurable or to be separated into analysable parts - what was done by Descartes' deductive universal mathematics.
The success of such reductionism led to the positivist programme where the exact sciences (physics) rank as ideal of all scientific procedures. Causal explanation as subsumption under universal laws are alone scientific and all special sciences work with the same natural-science-quantitative method (methodological monism). This programme has been extensively criticised by Feyerabend and others.
The central premise of qualitative science on the other and is, to develop the method at concrete object and in relation with that object - not overtaking prefabricated instruments.
The "search for meaning" is only possible in respect to context, to a context (systems environment) that has to be known! Meaning is often hidden. Qualitative research is often a kind of detective work (as formulated in the research proposal 1990 by the author), searching for latent structures of meaning, e.g. hidden ideological content. Often the unique cases are of much more importance than the frequent ones - what is precisely Vico's claim !
Qualitative research does not define the system of categories - it develops it in a stepwise approach out of the data. Only categories adapted to the observed system guarantee precise questioning. Qualitative analysis is as replicable and controllable as quantitative research.
| The main points of qualitative method are
[ibid p. 44-45:]: 1 The process of qualitative analysis is systematic and ordered, but not rigidly regular. 2 Data analysis is not the last phase of the research work, but goes parallel or cyclical. 3 The process is not "scientific" in the pure sense only, but asks for "intellectual craftsmanship", for artistic/sensitive knowing in the utilization of the intellectual capacities. 4 The scientist himself is the instrument of data analysis. 5 The intellectual tool most often uses are the different forms of comparison. (s. comparative politics!) 6 Working with the text the segments, relevant for the research are looked for, their limits determined, that means, the researcher decides how much text makes a relevant and comprehensive "meaning unit". The segments are sorted after in an ordering scheme that brings segments together, that thematically fit together. |
7 The so ordered raw date will be transformed or conceptualized. 8 During segmentation and categorisation the researcher stays in contact with the datatext as a whole. 9 The categories of the ordering scheme are preliminary and stay flexible up to the end of the analysis. 10 The process of analysis is accompanied by a process of reflection, written down in 'memorandas', that are treated as secondary data. 11 The results of the analysis are different types of synthesis on higher level. 12 There is no generally accepted "right" or "wrong" way in the process of qualitative data analysis; creativity is a needed tool in the work with the data. A "complicated" theoretical analysis gets scientifically demanding through the grade of generalisation it aims at. A methodological, comparably simple, hermeneutic/phenomenological analysis gets scientifically demanding by the depth and authenticity of the statement." |
Now in the case of forestry in Yemen, primarily we do neither need ecological or social theories. We need arguments that are helpful in preserving and managing the remaining forests.
The fact is, that only the locals can act locally! Action happens in the field. Action is human. Action is social action and, last not least, action is free.
Due to the lack of legal impact, of governmental steering, forestry is bound to "steering" by the traditional leadership.
The needed steps are the following:
1) Local awareness and understanding of the problems +/- understanding of the assisting (foreign) agency on how the system works. "Think globally - act locally" does only work if the locals "think globally" in their categories and terms. It does not work at all if global priorities are "taught" to locals in strongly differing categories of values and meaning. That renders communication absurd. There is a strong need for "cultural translation", already from headquarters to the field level, even more from technocratic projects to the communication and consensus oriented local social groups. The communication channels have to be selected and used with utmost care.
2) Aims of action and motives have to be found in participation with locals. They have to be relevant in their own logics, in their valuation. "Fitting projects to people - not fitting people to projects" means to convince, to create acceptance and consensus.
The best instrument for a non-disciplinary, qualitative approach under such circumstances is topics.
Definition [after Breuer:]: Topics deals with the "places of thought" (the "common-places" - "common-sense"), viewpoints, arguments, motives - of the patterns of thinking, common to (a specific, local) society. It does not demand absolute truth, but is satisfied with probability. It demands precision only as far as it is needed to solve the problem. For topics the complete access to the natural common-sense is more important than the scientific delimitation and unequivocalness. It is looking for truth in fields that are hidden to science or, at the best, at its outer limits, as the truth of religion, philosophy, art and history. It sees (as Buber) dialogue as the way to truth and searches the argumentative conditions of consensus. It is the art of empathy and consultation. It searches for the rules that are guiding action, what connects it strongly with ethics.
For Aristoteles topics was the method to form conclusions for any problem out of probable sentences, a "techne of problem solving". So from the scientific perspective topics is no science, but a pre-science, heuristics. It has its origin in the rhetoric phase of Greek and medieval science. It has its uncontestable importance where the explanation of text depends on the social Con-Text, as it is especially the case with legal texts as action-orientation.
The major differences between morphology and topics are:
a) The stronger emphasis of topics on arguments.
b) The formation of the topoi, the categories. Topics does not define themes and categories (as science or heuristics), but the topoi are developing out of the given text or the social context (- precisely as in qualitative social methodology).
c) Topoi are not scientific causes that have precise and predictable effects. The serve awareness through the cognition of patterns of development processes. But they are arguments decisive for the selection between different alternatives, depending on differing standards of values and decision making processes.
d) The changeability of opinions changes the topoi. Common sense is adaptable to changing conditions. Different, even contradictory systems of thought are present in the topoi.
Its more exploratory, heuristic approach makes it especially useful for investigations that have to be done in a hurry or where little is known, or where facts are less impotant than the understanding of the situation and of the horizon(s) of thinking. The scientifically developed topics would be hermeneutics, called by Gadamer the "Weltanschauung", or perspective, or wisdom of the old.
Because topics describes a structural model of social communication it is a pre-phase of ethnology as well, especially of structuralism.
Different strategies of topics:
Cognition
The daily, "normal" life is only possible if it can take place in a logically closed, holistic context. The lifeworld defines meaning, meaningful action, reasonability. Its "norms" can be questioned, but as a general guideline it is essential. Topics helps morphology in delimiting the fields that are important for problem solving. It sketches out the orientational knowledge as integration of historical and traditional experiences and norms, social and private utopias. It does not deliver scientific facts - but the ideas and ideals that are driving development.
Topoi are traditional patterns. The give hints on the ruling opinion of the time. They are a store of practically relevant lifeworld experience, concurring ideas and interests, but as well of dogmas and ideologies, dreams and aims of a society.
Critique of ideology
Where topics shows the limits of the thinkable and feasible, it serves as critique of ideology, showing the need for an enlarged awareness. As it shows us the whole, not only the scientific broadness of the thinkable and feasible, it enlarges our potential of cognition and action, gives social certainty, sovereignty, competence and power of conviction. Topics is situation-related intelligence, so it may, in cases, be slyness and cunning. Strong rules and laws create a need to deal with "exceptions", sometimes to turn around those rules if those are badly adapted to the situation. All religions (esp. Islam and Judaism) with strong rules directing personal behaviour are as strong in finding "excuses" and do admire people with such skills as "having brains" ("fi mukh"). Here an example:
The opinion of a counterpart on environmental protection was (he had obviously quite a precise concept on cultural differences in values!): "You in Europe understand better how much the forest is important. - Then you have to give us money to protect it."
Targeted effect
Action is strongly conntected with topics as heuristics in general. While science and philosophy deal with the interrelation of thoughts that may be true or false (at cases probable), rethorics deals with the conviction of others. Topics serves rethorics in the tactical choice of fields of arguments. Rethorics being the art to teach (docere), to motivate (movere) and to entertain (delectare), the art to convince and to reach consensus.
Development research is not descriptive, but trying to develop that was does not yet exist, that what should be (ethics), namely future oriented solutions. Topics is the major instrument for that purpose. Given the problem of forestry in Yemen, the problem to deal with the negative attitude towards forests and trees, topics is the ideal approach to determine patterns of thinking - and the potential for change!
This type of problem solving was the core of medieval sciences. Up to the renaissance scientific results had to be well integrated into the socio-cultural context, they were publicly discussed, on the market. But with the development of science, seclusion of the market of ideas led to exclusions. Cause-effect relations were studied and taken as totally independent from all individual and social values. With Bacon science cut free from idols, as there are:
- idola specus: the subjective idols
- idola tribus and fori: the tribal (social) ones and the idols of the market!!!
- idola theatri: the religious idols
The following 500 years showed, that the way was right under certain aspects and that sciences, no longer serving limiting idols, could progress much faster. The situation reached at the end of the second millennium shows on the other hand, that the rejection of sciences to deal with idols that are considered as illusions, leads to an irrational and uncontrolled dominance of other idols (consumerisme), other tribes (scientific disciplinarity e.g.) and other markets (the global one e.g.).
Given the shrinking space and resources on the globe, it might be the time to tackle the real, the life problems. If science is useless for that purpose then we have to use an other method.
Def. Politics (from the Greek 'ta politica', "the business of the state'), after Plato and Aristotle the whole science of community and town (polis). Nowadays we understand under politics, in the sense of state-science, the science of duties and aims of the state and of the means it has at his disposal, respectively that are required. Assisting sciences of p. are: history, political and economical geography, constitutional law, international law, sociology, economics, psychology, ethics. The practical p. is the active participation in public affairs as voter, deputy, minister aso. It is mainly party politics, what means it tries to get the power in the state, to be able to realise a certain ideal of state, contained in the party programme, whereby it always has to orient itself at the case of conflict with other states (primateship of foreign policy, p. as the 'art of the possible'). Statesmanship we call the p. of the statesman who is supported by his adherents in parliament, in spite the fact that he doesn't submit himself to their dogmas, but keeps his eye on the whole of the state in all his measures. Statesmen of this kind are so rare, that Bismarck could describe their p. as art; comp. state, state philosophy. The modern systematical investigation of the political in history and presence is done actually under the term politology, while it didn't succeed, to determine a delimited precise object of research with specific politological methods." [Philosophisches Wörterbuch:]
The philosophical dictionary is here not quite complete. Taking into account the origin of politics and the following theories we have to ad one major point - the normative one. The first "states", and especially their political organs, the kings, have been considered as instituted by God's will. So the function of religion and ethics can't be handled in a purely rational way. Especially for Islamic politics we have to ad point 4:
1 The whole science of community and town.
2 The science of duties and aims of the state and of the means it has at his disposal - respectively that are required.
3 Practical p. is the active participation in public affairs.
4 The science of (God) given norms (etics, theology).
Additional Definitions [after Berg-Schlosser; Müller-Rommel:]
polities: concrete political units and their institutions.
policies: single fields of politics and concrete politics.
politics: specific political processes inside a political system.
Three types of theories or schools can be differentiated:
1 The practical, moral approach [ontological-normative, idea-historical-essentialistic, science of the good and just life (Plato)]. This approach is looking for the generally binding norms and values - beyond all concrete historical conditions (what is the main difference towards the "Frankfurt School"). It searches for the obligatory aim of all political action, using the topical procedure: analysing and evaluating with the use of reasonable, ethically oriented intelligence, different opinions (topoi) concerning a matter. This approach is taking into account the historical development, the human objectives and values. [after Fetscher-Münkler p. 17:]
Problems arising from those "absolute" norms are the restriction of freedom and a certain lack of adaptability - but it is most probably the best way to deal with a theocratic society as the Islamic one. What is good for mankind is known, can be found in the Quran and is largely in the hands of God.
Husaini bases his educational concept for engineers on the duty of those, to work in an Islamic socio-cultural conext, not restricting knowledge to purely technical aspects [Hussaini p 116:]: "Cultural historians and sociologists have pointed out that decline of technology in many civilisations, for example, the water resources systems of the Tigris-Euphrates of the AD fifth, seventh and, following the Mongol destruction, in the seventh/thirteenth centuries; took place not for want of technicians and technology but due to socio-political disorganisation. Therefore, the first principle of Islamic political philosophy is that Islamic culture must assume control and direction of the entire socio-cultural system. The Muslim engineer and technologist must be an active participant in national and international political economy decision-making, particularly in matters related to environmental resources management and development planning in general. The Islamic 'integrated cultural mentality' demands 'integrated engineers', some of whom should be engineer-statesmen as implied by the principle of fard kifaya (Chapter 3). This was best exemplified by the scientist-philosophers and scientist-politicians in medieval Islamic civilisation. In the developed countries of the East and West, engineers in general and the generalist-specialist engineers in particular are trained to become engineer-managers, organisers, defenders, and leaders (Chapter 3)."
Different to those predetermined norms, the following models are based on the assumption that the future can be planned and modelled by humans!
2 The scientific, empirical approach [empirical-analytical / deductive empirical: [Mannheim], is strictly non-normative. It got strong impulses from sociology and uses largely its methods.
3 Dialectical-historical / dialectical critical: It is as well a sociological approach that tries to look at the totality of social relations out of the perspective of the ideals that legitimate those relations [Frankfurt School].
"... additional to the historicity of social and political formations, their variability is put into the center of theory formulation. The closeness to economy (Marxism) and psychoanalysis (freudianism)) marks best the difference towards the first type of theory. So e.g. are political ideas here not analysed in view of an unchangeable order, but as an expression of certain historical conditions, with which they stand in an affirmative or critical position. Hermeneutics and critique of ideology, as well as the emphasis on historizism and totality of structures are - in different mixtures - characteristics of this type of theory. Georg Lukàcs and Ernst Bloch, Jean-Paul Sartre and Herbert Marcuse; Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Jürgen Habermas - summarized by Perry Anderson (1978) under the heading of "western Marxism" - represent this third type of theory."[ ibid p. 19:]
They criticise e.g. the prevailing "scientism", the believe that the dynamics of the social development depends on scientific and technical progress, what makes science, including research and education, the most important productive factor! In their opinion a social science would be needed that is not producing technical knowledge, but action oriented knowledge, needed for the practical, rational steering (!) of the productive force science with its social impact. [Habermas p. 444:] "I suggested (emph. in text) ... that the paradigm of cognition of objects has to be replaced by the paradigm of understanding between subjects, able of speech and action." [Habermas p. 345:]
Methodologically there are five dominant approaches in political sciences:
1 historical
2 institutional
3 political sociological
4 comparative
5 behaviourist
6 systems oriented
6.1 The historical, topical approach is very important for policy development in a country as Yemen, where laws and individual life are ruled by traditions and religion (s. chapter 4.6).
6.2 The institutional approach has a good argument: "If politics is the generally valid distribution of rare resources (an other definition! The author), if policy analysis asks the question, who gets what, when and how, then the political institutions are of central importance: Through them the processes of distribution are being established and executed." [Schüttemeyer in Berg-Schlosser p. 179:] Results of the institutional analysis are presented in chapters 4.5.2 (rural) and 4.7.1 (central government).
6.3 Norms and values are the base of the state and of politics. An understanding of complex systems is needed, that includes values and norms. (s. as well comments on science-technology up, dialectical-historical method.) The dominant norms for any Islamic society, those of the Quran, are listed in chapter 4.6.2/3, the relevant tribal norms in 4.5.3.
But - All those three are much too restrictive to grasp the complexity of society and to give perspectives for development. Their restricted view leads to the fact that by choosing the method one determines already the result. Especially the institutional approach is easy and so often used in development. The result is, that institutions are lacking and have to be created - while the limits imposed by the natural and social environment, as well as by the historical development, are easily being neglected.
The following three approaches take complexity, more or less, into account:
6.4 The base for the comparative method as such was J.S.Mills "A System of Logic" (...) with the "method of difference" and the "method of agreement". The first approach consists in the identification of the decisive variable of difference through the systematic comparison of strongly related cases. Here the quasi-experimental character of the method is clear. the second approach tries to find out from the comparison of different cases the specific factors and a center of community. Both methods suffer from the same dilemma as mentioned up, that a large number of variables should be explained by only a small number of cases.
In empirical research three forms of presentation can be found [Müller-Rommel in Berg-Schlosser p. 52:]:
a) Description: The analysis of one observation taking into consideration all relevant and available factors to illuminate the specific characteristics of the case.
b) Classification: The consideration of all relevant and available cases, using variables selectively to differentiate standard observations from extremes and to design a more or less general classification scheme.
c) Descriptive Analysis: The systematic analysis of an optimal number of cases with a carefully limited row of variables. The number of cases and the limitation of variables are determined only by the theoretical starting point of the analysis. This form of presentation is the proper comparison." The problems encountered are the same as in natural sciences. As there are often a small number of cases (e.g. countries) and a large number of variables, the theoretically possible explanations (combinations) are much higher than the number of observed cases (statistically insufficient degrees of freedom) and no significant statement is possible. Ways out of this dilemma are:
1. Increase the number of cases (historical, differentiation of subsystems as regional or local units).
2. Decrease the number of variables using e.g. key-variables, selected on the base of grounded hypothesis, or through the combination of different variables (indices e.g.) [after do p. 54:]. The comparative description can produce more scientifically relevant results if they are extended over a certain time-span.
6.5 Behaviourism: The critique of the approach is again the same, that the method defines the problem and the result [Berg-Schlosser p. 282]: "Comparative projects have to get free from the research-pragmatical argument, only to do empirical research in countries for which comparable data are available. In this respect we have to agree with Flanagan: "The political scientists who are experimenting with quantitative techniques have limited their research to those problems that are most susceptible to quantification, and in a sense have allowed the data to define the problem."
Def. Behaviourism [Fetscher-Münkler p. 21:]"All have in common the systematical analysis, the restriction of research on exactly observable phenomenons, the demand on freedom from value-judgement and the complete conclusiveness of the statement as well as the quantifyability of the data. The behaviourist concept is in clear opposition to all normative theories, but as well in a certain distance to the institutional concept, insofar as after its basic methodological conviction institutions can't be grasped scientifically precise, but can only be analysed with regard to the factual behaviour of the individuals. This concept, whose stronghold is the polling-behavior- and the elite-research, is methodologically the furthest developed concept of political sciences. Through its methodological rigour though, the orientation at the quantifiable e.g., it excludes a series of problems from the research that belong to the core stock of the political."
6 Systems models in politics: On the level of formal organisations (hierarchical multilevel systems) there are three main theories [Mesarovic; Macko; Takahara p. 19]:
- classical, structural: observation of actual processes. The participant is regarded as an instrument, merely carrying out an assigned task."
- behavioural, motivational (discussed before).
- systems oriented: selection of a set of variables for overall
The systems-theoretical approach has been taken from social anthropology (Malinowski 1935, Radcliffe-Brown, 1952), from sociology (Talcott Parsons 1951, Robert Merton 1949, Marion Levi 1952, Lévi Strauss, David Easton 1965). Structural-functionalistic (putting more emphasis on structures), or functional-structuralistic (more emphasis on functions) analysis is based on the assumption that each political system needs a set of basic and generally valid structures and functions that have to be kept working for the survival of the system. In the same time the political system as central steering unit of the community was not longer being isolated from its larger social environment but integrated into a dynamic view as inspired from cybernetics. [after Fetscher, p. 18:]
The basic political functions [after do p. 36-37:] after Easton (1965) are:
A INPUT-FUNCTIONS
1. political socialisation and recruiting
2. articulation of interests
3. aggregation of interests
4. political communication
B OUTPUT-FUNCTIONS
1. setting of rules (regulations)
2. application of rules
3. interpretation of rules
Samuel P. Huntingdon's Model of a transforming society is simpler but related and consists of 5 parts that develop unequally:
1. Culture: socially dominant values
2. Structure; Institutions and procedures of political decision making
3. Groups: vocational or other social unions that transfer requests to the political process and influence the political decisions
4. Leaders: political functional elite
5. Decisions: material activities of the government in different policy domains
"Huntingdon names some criteria allowing a characterisation of political institutions:
1. Adaptability: The longer and more often an institution proofed itself in different challenges, the longer it survives the funding generation and the more flexibly it removes antiquated duties and assumes new ones, the more stability it gains.
2. Autonomy: The more social groups identify their interest with an institution, the bigger its autonomy. Institutions that are virtually or really instruments of single groups are unable to sustain on a long term base.
3. Coherence: The better institutions (bureaucracy, parliament, parties, unions, military) coordinate their duties among themselves, the more efficient they work in their specific field of duties and the faster they are accepted by their social group of relevance.
Def. Multilevel - Multigoal Systems [do p. 40]: "One important characteristic of multilevel, multigoal systems which sets them apart from conceptually simpler (although technically quite complex) multivariable decision systems should be emphasized. Namely, it is in the very nature of the multilevel, multigoal system that the higher level units condition but do not completely control the goal-seeking activities at the lower level units (uba). The lower level decision units have to be given some freedom of action to select their own decision variables; these decisions might be, but are not necessarily the ones which the higher level unit would select. Such a freedom of action is noticeable in any social or biological multilevel system. In the man-made systems, use of the resource available for decision making can be economized only if such a freedom of action is provided at the lower levels. It can be shown that it is essential for the effective usage of the multilevel structure that the decision units be given a freedom of action; a suitable division of decision-making effort among the units on different levels should be established. Only then can the existence of the hierarchy be justified."
Those principles are general for systems, but will be encountered especially in political systems, where nevertheless the advantage of 'shared responsibility' and the fact that local decision making is faster, short the advantages of a federal system is not generally accepted. The higher levels should more emphasize the general and long term decisions. The advantages of multilevel approaches in solving large scale complex problems is clearly a better use of total resources. [after ibid p. 65:]
Political systems have to deal with the steering of complex systems in two ways, first on the cognitive side, second on the side of communication and problem solving (decision making). After Willke the recognition of the "full power and dynamics of this social problem only appears with Etzioni: "that social systems on the scale of whole societies consider themselves as able of action and aim oriented, that they have to see themselves in such a way if they don't want to perish under the after-effects of an uncontrolled operative complexity." [Willke p. 85:] Willke means that it is the time to move from the steering of individual action to the steering of social systems, "as on that level (individual) rather too much steering takes place. While on the base of the increasing complexity the needs for steering of social systems is increasing, what did not make much impression on the social sciences. While it would be fitting for a science of the society to tackle just this increasingly urgent problem." [do p. 120:] Etzioni (1975, Kap 13) called the capitalist society "drifting society". It's capacity of forming consensus being less deficient than its control capacity. The developed capitalist society does not know, due to the lack of binding common aims, what to do with its potential. Integration is an eminently practical problem; in highly developed societies there is no subsystem that does not, following its restricted rational criteria, go ahead to produce in an uncontrolled way; goods, decisions, knowledge, ideologies, peak performances, graduates and so on. With an incredible input of personal and resources more elementary particles are discovered, genetical structures changed, people sent to the moon, neutronic bombs built, decrees released, world records in weight lifting established, social workers trained - and in fact nobody knows why. Those high bred technologies, skills, specialisations and knowledge in subsystems ad up to to an unparalleled collective ignorance; the uncontrolled rationality of the parts cements the irrationality of the whole." [do p. 131:]
Etzioni claims that not the subsystems are the problem, but the insufficient capacity of integration of the whole. [do p. 149/150:] "Overcontrolled" societies (on the other hand) lack the functional autonomy of its subsystems and decentralised consensus. They hamper decisionmaking, an optimal variability of subsystems and with it their adaptive and regenerative potential."
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