3. Rethinking the role of the social sciences
In this article the author has tried to cope with a problem unusual for Latvians: to put together pieces of European studies, looking into the knowledge society against Latvian realities and challenges, and particularly emphasising social dimension, and in such a way to enlighten a bit of the European sky for interdisciplinary research on complex topics. If the contribution results in providing added value then it would lead us some steps nearer to the foresight community of tens of hundreds of stakeholders who have been involved in projects launched by national exercises platforms as well as the EU Fifth and Sixth Framework Programmes.
Here we should point to an outstanding forum of conceptual innovations - the scientific research conference "Unity and diversity: the contribution of the social sciences and the humanities to the European Research Area" organised by the Belgian EU Presidency and DG Research of the European Commission in October 2001. (41) Up to now, a response to the Bruges conference issues and conclusions has been weak in our country. In any reason, an appropriate time is now in Latvia - after the referendum of 20 September 2003 - to be involved in a challenging discussion: "Where are we standing for tomorrow?" Are we living in the "middle cave age" or within the system of flux and rapid change which is reflected also in social sciences?
Among the main reports at the Bruges sessions in 2001, Professor Luk van
Langenhove presented a short overview of recent OECD work on the rethinking
the social sciences. (42) Everyone
can e-learn and reflect the proceedings of this conference in the same
way as many other issues of the European Research Area in 2000-2003. It is worth
gaining insight into some conclusions given by international experts that are particularly
important for a rising a dialogue on the shores of the Baltic Sea:
"...we need a double paradigm shift in the social sciences: a paradigm shift
from publication-driven research towards change-driven research and a paradigm
shift from disciplinary-driven research agenda's towards research-driven by
problems and their driving forces. Such a double paradigm shift, which should
not loose out of sight the strictest quality control, can in turn only be
realised if there is a shift in science policy."(43)
Research and science policy in a European democracy depends primarily on scientists as policy makers. One can exclaim in academic sessions that we are living like in an underdeveloped country, but if we do not take appropriate measures against the ruling style of elite and poor conditions of culture development, then the public legitimisation of the social sciences will hardly be reinvented. Latvians should turn again to a general social theory (the area in which they were known beyond Europe at the dawn of the 20th century) in order to gain victories in the social sciences. Unfortunately, due to reasons that society and researchers yet have to discover, practical interest in theory aimed at societal change, even in fields of philosophy and sociology, has been almost lost in the last years.(44)
How can we investigate, using the previous instruments, the issues of governance, citizenship, and civil society within the frames of separate disciplines? It is known that the answer to the challenge "Who governs?" is no longer easy. Both in Latvia and Europe governance is not only a matter for governments. Also, an answer to the question, "To whom governance is accountable" is not obvious but complicated by essence: new values and forms of civil society's participation are emerging as well as such supranational form of citizenship, unknown before, as European citizenship.(45)
How to learn, teach, and search for answers in these priority fields both in higher education and research institutions? The development of the ERA implies sharing knowledge about the possible trajectories of science and technology in the long-term future.(46) Answering to the growing need for stakeholder involvement in research policies, "foresight is becoming a major issue at national and European level. It reflects the move towards new governance models in this field of policy as in others where collective participative processes are designed, used and appropriated."(47)It can be anticipated that we will respond to calls to create a new open culture of social
science located within an epistemologically reunified world of knowledge.(48)
Such theoretically based initiatives have been messaged to the
structures encompassing scientists from different countries. Since 2000,
European opinions more and more shift to the new approaches rethinking dividing
knowledge. Those are clearly stated and developed in the EU Sixth Framework
Programme and its activities.
(49)
In the next years, we need to gain a much better understanding of what a
"knowledge based society" is to determine in what way it
actually differs from other types of society, to assess the extent to which
changes in knowledge are producing significant changes in society.(50)
We have to consider the society in its various aspects to provide a
comparative, historical, and/or future perspective. It may also involve the
construction of indicators and data-sets with appropriate measurements,
improving understanding across different academic disciplines. The
knowledge-based entrepreneurship as a source of growth, employment, and
development potential in Europe is to be assessed. Research should address
ways in which the generation and transmission of
new knowledge could promote the integration of the social sciences and humanities in
Europe, analyse the forms of national, disciplinary, and paradigmatic
fragmentation of the social sciences and humanities in Europe, and propose
practicable means to overcome this fragmentation.(51)
As it was argued by Immanuel Wallerstein at the 14th World Sociology Congress, we divide and bound knowledge in three different ways: (1) intellectually as disciplines, (2) organisationally as corporate structures, and (3)culturally as communities of scholars sharing certain elementary premises. In view of changes in the world-system in the last decades, the information society have conspired to undermine the logic of previous cleavages. "The various disciplines of the social sciences have ceased to be disciplines, because they no longer represent obviously different fields of study with different methods, and therefore, with firm, distinctive boundaries." (52) Soon these conclusions are to become the subject for critical discussions in Latvia - the member of the EU.
Conclusions.
The outcomes of the Bruges conference (2001) and the
Seville foresight conference (2002), the innovative approach to the EU 6th Framework
Programme, social foresight activities, etc. have shown paradigm shift in the social sciences
meeting challenges of the knowledge-based society.
To
date, the way of the advanced American and European thinkers provides one
general trend of the social sciences, but the post-communist practices
result as another one in Latvia.
It
can be explained, to some extent, as the cross-cultural contest reflecting a
conflict between the aspirants pursuing to achieve the assimilation of the message of freedom placed since the Creation and
the aspirants trying to avoid change in the name of stability (e.g. stability
for preserving the existing disciplinary and bureaucratic structures). However,
the community of
the latter has little chances to gain a victory in an intellectual discourse
addressing people's needs that are growing up in the united Europe.
_______________________________
41. Unity and diversity: the
contribution of the social sciences and the humanities to the European Research
Area. Proceedings of the 2001 Belgian EU Presidency research conference
Bruges, October 29-30, 2001. EUR 20484.
ftp://ftp.cordis.lu/pub/belgium/docs/02022en.pdf
44. See: Maija Kūle. Filosofijas un socioloģijas zinātņu attīstība Latvijā un mūsdienu problēmas. Zinātnes Vēstnesis. 2003, 24.febr.(Nr.4). http://www.lza.lv/zv/zv030400.htm#4
46. See about it: Foresight for the development of higher education/research relations in the perspective of the European Research Area (ERA). By Prof. Etienne Bourgeois, Rapporteur. European Commission, DG Research, Unit RTD-K.2. October 2002. Available from: http://www.cordis.lu/foresight/reports.htm
47. Verlaeckt, K., Vitorino, V. Op.cit., p.13.
48. See: Wallerstein, I. The Heritage of Sociology, The Promise of Social Science.http://fbc.binghamton.edu/iwpradfp.htm
49. See: FP6 Specific Programme "Integrating and
Strenghening European Research Area." Priority 7: "Citizens and Governance in a
Knowledge-based society". Work Programme 2002-2003. Available from http://www.cordis.lu/citizens/home.html
.
See also: Fisch, P. FP 6 Priority 7 Citizens and Governance in a
Knowledge-based Society. http://www2.vlaanderen.be/ned/sites/weten/6kp/downloads/event_downloads/event_280103/presentation_priority_7_fp6.pdf
52. See: Wallerstein, I. Op.cit.http://fbc.binghamton.edu/iwpradfp.htm