Abstract
Democracy can be examined in a variety of ways in the social sciences. First, it can be examined objectively, so that the social scientist seeks to explain the operation and impact of various features of democracy, such as the different ways in which political life can be organized, the effects of political parties on legislation, the voting behavior of various groups, and so on. One outcome of such inquiry may be various generalizations about democracy, concerning parliamentary systems, voting schemes, or the tendencies of a democracy to go to war or to prevent famines. Social scientists can also take a practical orientation and seek not just to explain or interpret what democracy is, but to change it. In his essay “Ideal Understanding,” Martin Hollis, a social scientific defender of the Enlightenment, links this sort of social science to the analysis of the agency of knowledgeable social actors. “Actors,[“ he remarks, “have natural, social and rational powers” (Hollis 1977, p. 180). Hollis goes on linking reason and freedom to specifically social and normative powers and capabilities that make it possible for an actor to become an agent who shapes the social world. This idea of freedom and powers might also be the basis of a kind of social science that aims at understanding the conditions for the proper exercise of freedom and agency. Understood in this way, the social sciences are indeed “moral sciences” in the Millian sense, and pragmatism and Critical Theory offer some of the most developed philosophical justifications and analyses of such a practical approach.
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© 2009 James Bohman
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Bohman, J. (2009). Improving Democratic Practice: Practical Social Science and Normative Ideals. In: Van Bouwel, J. (eds) The Social Sciences and Democracy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230246867_5
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