Milestones and Millstones by Otto N. Larsen

Author:Otto N. Larsen [Larsen, Otto N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, Finance, Financial Engineering, Marketing, General, Social Science, Ethnic Studies, Research, Sociology, Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 9781351316385
Google: 0TiDDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-01-22T04:51:20+00:00

Heralds of Threat, Tribunes of Defense

A day in political Washington begins with a scan of the newspapers, particularly the influential Washington Post and the New York Times. Government officials peruse the press to see whether their agencies or programs, for better or worse, appear on the agenda of concern. In the past, social science, if mentioned at all, was usually an item of ridicule or scorn. But in the early months of the Reagan administration, with the prospect of severe budget cuts evoking pronouncements of alarm, social science discovered unsuspected allies and significant support as its relationship to government became a focal point in the press.

Credible warnings of probable trouble appeared early in January 1981, before President-elect Reagan took office.43 The New York Times speculated on budget moves contemplated by the Reagan team. Billions of dollars could be saved by restricting benefits from social security, and by imposing ceilings on Medicare, limits on unemployment insurance, and restraints on eligibility for food stamps. The incoming administration was also said to be considering “eliminating legal services for the poor ($250 million), terminating the National Endowment for the Arts and for the Humanities ($330 million), cutting subsidies for Amtrak trains ($700 million), and cutting social science and behavioral research sponsored by the National Science Foundation.”44

No estimate of savings was attached to social science, perhaps because the maximum possible from NSF would yield less than any proposed reductions, aside from $22 million from ending the highway beautification program. Nonetheless, the appearance of social science on the hit list in the fabled “black book” of the incoming OMB ignited strong perceptions of threat.45 It was also the beginning of a considerable effort to discover just exactly how the new administration could find the needle of social science in the giant haystack of government expenditures and conclude that it, too, must be blunted.46

The investigation of that puzzle was stimulated by extended media coverage. Headlines and editorial content reflected and shaped an image of the plight of social science. There was novelty in positive attention and sustained exposure, but significance came from beyond that. A theater of cause was created. Dramatic scripts brightened normally mundane memos, letters, testimony, and reports. The morale of actors inside NSF was bolstered, and a collective political response from both the social and the larger science community was reinforced.

The interplay of press, politics, and science policy made 1981 the most significant year of the decade for social science. The sequence of events is instructive.

The Division of Social and Economic Science was operating on the basis of a $33.6 million budget for fiscal year 1981 and an estimate of $40.1 million for fiscal year 1982 when President Reagan came to power in January 1981. The new administration was to submit its proposed budget for 1982 in March to be implemented, after congressional action, in October. But winter blasts hit early. OMB ordered an immediate cut of $10 million from social science at NSF. This was twilight time; the real darkness loomed as rumors about the forthcoming 1982 budget began to circulate.

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