Coming Full Circle Back to Weber

I couldn’t help but thinking back to Weber’s Vocational Lectures while reading Flyvbjerg, as I felt that a research practice that rigorously followed his guidelines would lead to a blurring of the boundaries between Weberian ideal-types of political and scientific vocations. I am not prepared to take a normative stance on whether this is “good” or “bad,” but think that it might be interesting to examine the contexts in which this might occur, and the power implications it might have.

The distinction between science and politics vocations began to blur for me once he started talking about phronetic research seeking to be dialogical “in the sense that it includes, and, if successful, is itself included in, a polyphony of voices, with no one voice, including that of the researcher, claiming final authority” (139). He urges researchers to “consciously expose themselves to reactions from their surroundings – both positive and negative” thus allowing them to “[become] a part of the phenomenon studied, without necessarily ‘going native’ or the project becoming simple action research” (132). (Side note: why the condescending tone towards ethnography or "simple" action research?)

Here’s what appeals to me about his phronetic and dialogical approach:

1. The idea that engaging with the phenomenon under study will avoid “so what” results that gather dust is obviously very appealing.

2. And I strongly agree that when we feel our work matters or will be read, “[our] senses are … sharpened” and our work becomes of higher quality and more experientially interesting (p.158-9).

3. His emphasis on choosing small questions (133) and focusing on deeds over discourse (134) seems critical to revitalizing social science and our understanding of the world. “A discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and … a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one” (87). (Even though I see a greater possibility for this feeding back into “theory” more broadly defined).

But under what contexts is engaging politically potentially beneficial, and when should it be questioned according to Foucault’s own maxim that “ ‘the political task’ is ‘to criticize the working of institutions which appear to be both neutral and independent’” (as quoted by Flyvbjerg, 102). Assuming Machiavellian worst-case scenario thinking, and recognizing that scholars are only as moral as the next political actor, what checks and balances can be established to avoid abuses of academic power (see Flyvbjerg’s discussion, bottom of p.95)?

As a discussion piece, I would propose seeking to answer this puzzle through his own research agenda:

1. Where are we going with a dialogical scholarly practice?

a. What is the perceived purpose of this engagement?

b. What is the future role of traditional “ivory-tower” domains like universities, or peer-review journals versus more “popular” venues of teaching, writing, and discussion?

2. Who gains and who loses, and by what mechanisms of power when scholars engage in dialogical scholarly practice?

a. In what ways could this be seen as asserting a privileged position in political discourse?

b. For example, scholars may have a more powerful voice in a political conversation than many more heavily-implicated but less-educated stakeholders.

3. Is it desirable?

a. (I think this question speaks for itself)

4. What should be done?

a. Under what contexts might this more active form of research be more or less justified?

I would like to reiterate that I don’t see his dialogical phronetic approach as a bad thing, and in fact I find it extremely exciting to potentially be more actively engaged with the issues that I study. I just think that it is important to hash out the implications.