151 



states. They are a conservative, humanistic institution, dominated by a foreign 

 service which is trained largely in the law, in history, in the humanistic 

 disciplines. They believe in making policy through some kind of intuitive and 

 antenna-like process, which enables them to estimate what the prospects of this 

 and that are in this or the other country. 



I believe they are a backward agency, as far as their relationship to science is 

 concerned. 



* * * I wish the Department of State was more familiar, more receptive to 

 some of the possibilities of social sciences than it now is. I think it has a real 

 handicap in bringing to bear one, which could only come out of some change, it 

 seems to me, in the fundamental culture of the Department of State.*' 



AOMINISTEA'nyE MECHANISMS 



Many suggestions were offered for the development of mechanisms 

 to improve the performance of the social sciences in Government 

 service. Dr. Inkeles offered several alternatives sunmiarized below : 



Establishment of a high-level and maximally independent national research 

 "institute" modeled after the National Institutes of Health or Brookings to 

 "* * * undertake research on foreign areas and international affairs." 



Significant expansion of the budget of the NSF for research on foreign affairs. 



Congressional appropriations of grants to universities to establish semi- 

 permanent centers for social science research. 



Establishment of a "* * * .separate and relatively independent fund grants 

 agency which would not itself do research, but would rather have prime re- 

 sponsibility for fostering the growth, within universities and research institutes, 

 of our national capability" for foreign areas research. 



Creation of a Federal Grants Commission on International Studies, modeled 

 after the University Grants Commission in Great Britain, to distribute block 

 grants to universities for foreign area research.^ 



Other recommendations for improvement of executive formulation 

 of a policy for the social sciences, some of which would later be issued 

 by the Advisory Committee on Government Programs in the Be- 

 havioral Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences were heard, 

 and are summarized below : 



Creation of a social science panel in PSAC, and expansion of PSAC to include 

 at least two social scientists. 



Creation of a Federal Council on the Social and Behavioral Sciences. 



Improvement of the relationship of social sciences and public policy by "* * * 

 increasing the staff for each Senator and Member of the House by hiring a full- 

 time social scientist assistant. 



* * * Expanding the Social Science Division of the National Science 

 Foundation.*' 



And solutions were proposed for solving some of the difficulties of 

 foreign area social science research : 



* * * Provide the top-level policy and decisionmakers in the Government de- 

 partments or agencies most heavily involved in international activities with di- 

 rect, immediate, and continuing access to behavioral scientists by establishing 

 staff positions for such scientists at an appropriate level of responsibility. 



* * ♦ Given the nature of the State Department's mission, given the increasing 

 interest in the .social and behavioral sciences * * * it would indeed not be amiss to 

 consider for appointment (to the oflBce of Scientific Adviser to the Secretary of 

 State), a well-known and distinguished behavioral scientist. 



* * * Have the review of [foreign] research proposals done by panels of con- 

 sultants — as is now done at the National Science Foundation and the National 

 Institutes of Health — who are capable of evaluating the capabilities and skills of 

 proposed personnel as well as the designs of the research. 



««Ibi(l., p. 114. 



80 Ibid., pp. 184-187. 



»' Ibid., pp. 213, 165, 247. and 59-60, respectively. 



