Vexed Again: Social Scientists and the Revision of the Common Rule, 2011-2018.

In revising the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects (Common Rule) between 2009 and 2018, regulators devoted the vast bulk of their attention to debates over biomedical research. They lacked both expertise in and concern about the social sciences and humanities, yet they imposed their will on experts in those fields. The revision process was secretive, spasmodic, and unrepresentative, especially compared to rulemaking in Canada, where social scientists participate in the process, and revisions take place every few years. The result was a final rule that offers some wins for social science and the humanities, but that fails to solve the problems identified by Ezekiel Emanuel and in the 2011 advance notice of proposed rulemaking.

For socially engaged science: The dynamics of knowledge production in the Fiocruz graduate program in the framework of the "Brazil Without Extreme Poverty Plan".

Public policy planning associated with the management of the Science, Technology, and Innovation is decisive to improve public health. It is important to develop novel strategies to plan, supervise, manage, use and evaluate research using indicators that extrapolates metrics in current use. In 2011, the Brazilian government introduced the Brazil Without Extreme Poverty plan (BWEP) that aimed to integrate several conditional cash transfer programs (CCT). The original that aimed to integrate of the CCTs were expanded in order to integrate social justice and dignity that induced several actions towards the promotion of social development of the beneficiaries. An induced action involved a partnership between BWEP (From the Ministry of Social Development), CAPES (Brazilian Higher Education Agency) and The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ, a Public Health Institution), that dedicated scholarships for PhD and postdoc students committed to the BWEP to promote health research in its multiple approaches and the vulnerable associated population. Using the Social Studies of Science and Technology (SSST) framework, this paper analyzes the dynamics of knowledge production in the context of program implementation. Herein, we report on the follow-up activities performed in BWEP Health Action, directing research projects to align with the goals of the program, evaluating the progress of these research, and defining strategies for improved their management. We analyze the advances and difficulties encountered in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of this innovative program in the academic training level, and we emphasize the critical need to expand and improve similar initiatives aimed at guiding the scientific and technological production in health to meet the social demands.

Are randomised controlled trials positivist? Reviewing the social science and philosophy literature to assess positivist tendencies of trials of social interventions in public health and health services.

BACKGROUND: We have previously proposed that trials of social interventions can be done within a "realist" research paradigm. Critics have countered that such trials are irredeemably positivist and asked us to explain our philosophical position. METHODS: We set out to explore what is meant by positivism and whether trials adhere to its tenets (of necessity or in practice) via a narrative literature review of social science and philosophical discussions of positivism, and of the trials literature and three case studies of trials. RESULTS: The philosophical literature described positivism as asserting: (1) the epistemic primacy of sensory information; (2) the requirement that theoretical terms equate with empirical terms; (3) the aim of developing universal laws; and (4) the unity of method between natural and social sciences. Regarding (1), it seems that rather than embodying the epistemic primacy of sensory data, randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of social interventions in health embrace an anti-positivist approach aiming to test hypotheses derived deductively from prior theory. Considering (2), while some RCTs of social interventions appear to limit theorisation to concepts with empirical analogues, others examine interventions underpinned by theories engaging with mechanisms and contextual contingencies not all of which can be measured. Regarding (3), while some trialists and reviewers in the health field do limit their role to estimating statistical trends as a mechanistic form of generalisation, this is not an inevitable feature of RCT-based research. Trials of social interventions can instead aim to generalise at the level of theory which specifies how mechanisms are contingent on context. In terms of (4), while RCTs are used to examine biomedical as well as social interventions in health, RCTs of social interventions are often distinctive in using qualitative analyses of data on participant accounts to examine questions of meaning and agency not pursued in the natural sciences. CONCLUSION: We conclude that the most appropriate paradigm for RCTs of social interventions is realism not positivism.

Ciencias sociales, movimientos sociales y políticas públicas / Social sciences, social movements and public policies

Las ciencias sociales contextualizan el estudio de los movimientos sociales, considerando que aportan y fundamentan teorías y métodos sociales que permiten observar los procesosde configuración política, histórica y territorial de estos movimientos. En este contexto es apropiado recorrer el ámbito de las disciplinas, de la teoría social y del método para explicarlos elementos de contacto teórico y disciplinar de las ciencias sociales con los movimientos sociales, entendidos como objetos de estudio.

The social sciences contextualize the study of the social movements, considering that they provide and underlie theories and social methods that allow to observe the political,historical, and territorial configuration processes of such movements. In this context, it is appropriate to explore the scope of disciplines, the social theory, and the method in order to explain the theoretical contact elements and discipline of the social sciences along with the social movements, which are understood as objects of study.

Economic advice as a vocation: symbioses of scientific and political authority.

Academic economists perform an important function in advising politicians and state bureaucrats, lending them epistemological authority. This creates a challenge of institutional design and of professional vocation, of how these experts can combine their commitment to scientific analysis with their commitment towards their governmental patrons. This article examines the case of anti-trust economics, in which government economists are encouraged to remain as academically engaged as possible, so that their advice will be - or appear to be - unpolluted by political or bureaucratic pressures. Yet this ideal is constantly compromised by the fact that the economists are nevertheless government employees, working beneath lawyers. Max Weber's concept of a 'vocation' is adopted to explore this tension, and his two lectures, 'Science as a Vocation' and 'Politics as a Vocation' are read side by side, to consider this core dilemma of academic policy advisors.

Twenty-five years of Social Science in Law.

In this essay, we take the publication of the seventh edition of the casebook Social Science in Law (2010) as an opportunity to reflect on continuities and changes that have occurred in the application of social science research to American law over the past quarter-century. We structure these reflections by comparing and contrasting the original edition of the book with the current one. When the first edition appeared, courts' reliance on social science was often confused and always contested. Now, courts' reliance on social science is so common as to be unremarkable. What has changed--sometimes radically--are the substantive legal questions on which social science has been brought to bear.

Measuring law for evaluation research.

Evaluations that combine social science and law have tremendous potential to illuminate the effects of governmental policies and yield insights into how effectively policy makers' efforts achieve their aims. This potential is infrequently achieved, however, because such interdisciplinary research contains often overlooked substantive and methodological challenges. This article offers detailed guidance for conducting successful multidisciplinary evaluations that use legal data. It addresses major issues that commonly arise and offers practical solutions based both on the authors' extensive experience and recommended best practices developed in concert with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Public Health Law Research Program.

Collecting biomeasures in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics: ethical and legal concerns.

As social surveys like the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) consider adding biomeasures to their data collections, they will face complicated ethical, legal, and practical issues. Both fairly and not, research participants are likely to be more concerned about their biomeasures than about their social data. This heightened concern will force investigators to pay more attention to difficult issues such as the research participant's control over subsequent uses of the samples or data, the participant's right to withdraw from the project, protection of the research participant's privacy, return to the participant of important risk information gained through the research, some special issues involving children and families, and the process of informed consent. Investigators can navigate these issues successfully, but the effort will demand time, careful thought, and attention.

Social science research and experimentation in Australian criminal proceedings: prejudicial pre-trial publicity and psychological research.

Using the decision of Barr J in Attorney-General (NSW) v John Fairfax Publications [1999] NSWSC 318, the authors analyse the need for external validity and relevance in social science evidence adduced in the courts. They argue in favour of the rigour employed within Barr J's judgment and contend that a constructive legacy of the decision should be a greater sensitisation on the part of researchers to the kinds of factors that can distance experimental scenarios from curial contexts to a point where generalisations from the former become strained and even spurious. A number of these considerations have the potential to be addressed to a significant extent by improved methodologies. However, the authors warn against an excess of purist fervour in demanding complete comparability of scenarios, lest the fruits of social science be denied to the courts and decision-making be adversely affected by the absence of expert insights falling short of complete replication of conditions between experiments and forensic reality.

Using social science to inform the law of intestacy: the case of unmarried committed partners.

Laws of intestate succession determine how the estate of a person who dies without a will is distributed. Researchers have struggled with the question of how to infer the donative intent of persons who die intestate. Based on an empirical study of unmarried committed partners, we compare the usefulness of two methods of social research for informing intestacy law: will studies and interviews with living persons about their preferences for estate distribution. The results indicate that for some groups of unmarried committed partners, will studies may not adequately reflect the extent to which intestate decedents wish their partner to share in their estate. In addition, the results demonstrate a close correspondence between respondents' actual wills, when they had them, and their distributive preferences on hypothetical scenarios. These findings are discussed as they relate to an examination of which sources of social scientific evidence are most useful in informing the law of intestacy.

Communities, collectivities, and the ethics of research.

Ethical concerns have always placed limits on research, but the spirit of the times has led to an expansion of the territory covered by ethics. This new approach is found in the code of ethics presently in final revision by the three major granting agencies. This code will give unprecedented power to "collectivities" in the research process. Some see this as a long overdue corrective to hit-and-run research, while others see it as a threat to unfettered inquiry. This paper argues a different point: Involvement of collectivities is essential for ethical research relationships, but it ought not to limit the sorts of questions we study or publication of the answers we find. The difference will be illustrated by two examples in which aboriginal communities asserted their collective rights against researchers. The difference between the examples will lead to an examination of the debate between those who believe community work is "all politics," and those who try to underpin it with ethical principles. Finally, I argue that ethical practice requires a knowledge base created by valid research. We should support an improved relationship with host communities, but not let the political agendas of contending community groups constrain the questions we can ask about social problems or our assessment of measures designed to solve them.