2.5.1 INTELLIGENCE AND REIFICATION
Stephen Jay Gould (1996) identified intelligence as a reified concept. In The Mismeasure of Man, touted as the definitive refutation to The Bell Curve(a book that ascribed social inequality to bio- logical factors), Gould pronounced reification to be the major theme of his book:‘‘in this case, the notion that such a nebulous, socially defined concept as intelligence might be identified as a‘thing’with a locus in the brain and a definite degree of heritability—and that it might be measured as a single number, thus permitting a unilinear ranking of people according to the amount of it they possess’’(p. 269).
To make his case, Gould recalled the historical origins of mental tests. Charles Spearman in 1904 noticed that if two mental tests are given to a large number of people, there is almost always a positive correlation coefficient between them. Spearman theorized that the underlying structure was a two-factor dynamic. The common intelligence that correlated between two different mental tests was called general intelligence (g) and the residual variance peculiar to each test was called specific intelligence (s) that registered an intelligence specific to the test. As Gould notes, ‘‘Charles Spearman developed factor analysis—still the most important technique in modern multivariate statistics—as a procedure for deciding between the two- versus the many-factor theory by deter- mining whether the common variance in a matrix of correlation coefficients could be reduced to a single ‘general’ factor, or only to several independent‘group’ factors.’’(p. 287) He opted for the two-factor theory (Spearman, 1904, cited in Gould, 1996).
Although Spearman thought he had discovered the innate essence of intelligence in its funda- mental and quantifiable thingness, Gould points out that general intelligence is nothing more than a series of correlations, an artifact of the measurement instruments (i.e., mental tests) and statistical procedures deployed. ‘‘We have known since the early days of mental testing—and it should surprise no one—that most of these correlation coefficients are positive: that is people who score highly on one kind of test tend, on average, to score highly on others as well. Most correlation matrices for mental tests contain a preponderance of positive entries. This basic observation served as the starting point for factor analysis. Charles Spearman virtually invented the technique in 1904 as a device for inferring causes from correlation matrices of mental tests’’(p. 281).
Intelligence, in its scientific construction, is an artifact of a measurement protocol whose values are then correlated using factor analysis. Principal components of factor analysis are mathematical abstractions, not empirical realities. Hence intelligence is not an actual thing. Or as Gould puts it,
‘‘Spearman’sg is not an ineluctable entity; it represents one mathematical solution among many equivalent alternatives’’(p. 350).
The upshot is that research methods produce their own facts, in this case via factor analysis. The reification takes place when intelligence is identified as a thing, has a singular number ascribed to it, and is then used to rank people. General intelligence (g), as a series of correlations, contains no additional independent evidence beyond the fact of the correlation itself. Even though it is intoxicating to think that we mightfind the underlying essence of some phenomenon, it might be wiser to abandon thefixed idea of intelligence along with some of its crude corollaries (for example, innate stupidity as the cause of poverty).
Discussion: To reify is to treat an abstraction as if it were a concrete reality. What are some reified concepts in use in public administration? (Hint: Have you ever seen an organization?)
2.5.2 PRECESSION OFSIMULACRA
When Jean Baudrillard (1994) wrote about ‘‘the successive phases of the image’’ he provided a model for mind-expanding theorizing. The first phase of the image is that it is a reflection of a profound reality. That is, the image is taken to be reality itself, to represent a physical presence. The fable about the king’s cartographers drawing up a map of the king’s territory—in such detail that when it isfinished it covers exactly the entire territory—is a humorous example of thefirst phase of the image (the map being the image). Mirrors and photographs are other representations that capture the aspirations of thefirst phase of the image to profoundly reflect the reality that is.
The second phase of the image is to denature a profound reality. Here Baudrillard refers to the early Christian iconoclasts who took strong exception to the excess of iconic representations of God, which had the effect of not merely obfuscating and masking God, but of effacing God and certainly not representing God. The second phase of the image begins the negation of a sign (an image, a symbol, an icon, a word or phrase) as a taken-for-granted representation of reality.
In the third phase of the succession, the image masks the absence of a profound reality. The image plays at being a representation of presence, but it is more like the sorcerer who summons the spirits at a séance. Despite the setting, the incense, the mood, the noises, and the symbols, there is no ghostly Being present.
In the fourth phase, the image no longer asserts its relation to reality. The simulation of reality has displaced the representation of it.
This framework has been used in the public administration literature to deconstruct the debate over privatization (Miller and Simmons, 1998).
1. Correspondence: In the first phase of the image, privatization is what it says it is, a movement to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government.
2. Skepticism: In the second phase, privatization does not make things better; it makes things worse because of increased costs of contract oversight, increased incidences of corruption, and profiteering by corporate contractors.
3. Radical absence: In the third phase, privatization masks the absence of anything different taking place.‘‘Private’’ practices transpire in much the same way as‘‘public’’ practices.
The way the work gets done changes not at all, although public expenditures continue to increase or decrease at the same rate as before.
4. Self-referential epiphenomenon: Finally, privatization is a simulation. Not representative of anything, privatization is a symbol that celebrates itself, its free market associations, and its businesslike imagery.
Exercise: Choose a public administration concept and try to describe it from the vantage point of each of the four phases of the image. Examples: Performance measurement; the budget; civil service reform; best practices; citizen participation.
2.5.3 THOUGHTEXPERIMENTS
1. Imagine a researcher entering an organizational culture to observe a subject with the intent of discerning the subject’s understanding of appropriate conduct in this particular organ- izational setting. The researcher takes copious field notes to describe the subject’s behaviors and utterances, including interview responses. Then, during the ongoing research project the subject decides to reflect to himself about his own sense of appropri- ate conduct in this particular organizational setting. The subject of the research is now studying the researcher for helpful clues about what the researcher’s sense of appropriate conduct is.
Discussion question: Which inquiry is subjective and which is objective?
2. Thomas Hobbes’social contract theory imagines a state of nature in which we all have unlimited freedom. Among other freedoms, we can harm anyone we please. The result, says Hobbes, would be a war of all against all in which life is mean, brutish, and short. To avoid this calamitous scenario we agree with others to form a social contract whereby we all accept an obligation to respect one another’s rights, give up some freedoms, and hand over power to a sovereign state.
Discussion question: Hobbes’Leviathan was published in 1651. Despite being inspired by a warring English civil society, the main tenants of this theory (especially the social contract itself) were not based on empirical reality. Speculate on the role that social contract theory might have had on subsequent social reality.
3. Suppose that wireless technology was perfected to the point that your brain could be placed for safe keeping in a large pickle jar in your house, while your body went out and experienced the real world, communicating with your brain via wireless technology everything that went on.
Discussion question: Assuming perfect signal strength, should your brain in the pickle jar trust your body for correct sensory inputs?
4. Bertrand Russell (1952), a famous atheist who nonetheless referred to himself as an agnostic, once wrote, ‘‘If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes.’’In other words, Russell would agree that just because one cannotfind a needle in the haystack (orfind God) does not mean there is nota needle in the haystack (or a God). His logic would not permit absolute disbelief.
Karl Popper (1959) would recognize this as a problem of falsifiability. For a statement to be scientifically meaningful, it should be empirically testable. The empirical test should be such that the statement could be disproved were it a false statement. Statements that are not potentially falsifiable through an empirical test do not contribute to science, according to Popper.
Conspiracy theories, which usually posit the existence of some behind-the-scene alliance of powerful people as the causal determinant of some social bad, often contain non-verifiable elements such as secret meetings, coded messages, or killings disguised as accidental deaths.
Discussion: There may exist a range of phenomena that is outside the reach of empirical verifica- tion. Speculate on what kinds of things may be in that range and whether they should count as knowledge.
REFERENCES
Argyris, C. and Schön, D.A. 1974.Theory in Practice: Increasing Professional Effectiveness. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Baudrillard, J. 1994.Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Davidson, D. 1984.Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Gould, S.J. 1996.The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Isbell, L.A. 2006. Snakes on the brain.New York Times. September 3, Section 4, p. 10.
Kuhn, T. 1970.The Structure of Scientific Revolutions(2nd. ed.) Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Miller, H.T. and Fox, J.F. 2007. Postmodern Public Administration: Revised Edition. Armonk, New York:
M.E. Sharpe.
Miller, H.T. and Simmons, J.R. 1998. The irony of privatization.Administration & Society. 30 (5): 513–532.
Popper, K.R. 1959.The Logic of Scientific Discovery. New York: Basic Books.
Rein, M. 1976.Social Science & Public Policy. New York: Penguin Books.
Roethlisberger, F.J. 1967.Management and the Worker; An account of a Research Program Conducted by Western Electric Company, Hawthorne Works, Chicago. New York: Wiley.
Rorty, R. 1991.Essays on Heidegger and Others, Philosophical Papers Volume 2. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Russell, B. 1952. Is There a God? commissioned by, but never published in, Illustrated Magazine (1968 Reprinted inThe Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Volume 11: Last Philosophical Testament, 1943–1968, ed. John G. Slater and Peter Köllner (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 543–548, quoted from S.T. Joshi,Atheism: A Reader. Downloaded August 30, 2006 from http:==www.positiveatheism.
org=hist=quotes=russell.htm.)
Spearman, C. 1904. General intelligence objectively determined and measured. American Journal of Psychology. 15: 201–293.
3 Dealing with Multiple Paradigms in Public
Administration Research
Kaifeng Yang, Yahong Zhang, and Marc Holzer
CONTENTS
3.1 Paradigms in Public Administration ... 26 3.2 Dealing with Multiple Paradigms ... 30 3.3 Taking Advantage of Multiple Paradigms in Public Administration Research ... 34 3.3.1 Research Question ... 35 3.3.2 Literature Review ... 36 3.3.3 Hypotheses... 37 3.3.4 Methodology ... 38 3.3.5 Results... 39 3.4 Conclusion ... 40 End-of-Chapter Questions... 40 References ... 41 Many scholars agree that public administration lacks a governing paradigmatic base (Rainey, 1994; Riccucci, chapter 1 of this volume). Many would also agree that seeking and imposing a narrowly conceived paradigm may do more harm than good to the field by excluding viable, emerging alternatives (Frederickson and Smith, 2003; Rainey, 1994). In particular, public admini- stration is both interdisciplinary and applied, so‘‘no theory standing alone is capable of accounting for the complexity of thefield’’(Frederickson and Smith, 2003, p. 4).
The term‘‘paradigm’’is frequently used as a view of reality and an intellectual framework that specifies a discipline’s proper domain, basic assumptions, appropriate research questions, and rules of inference (Arndt, 1985; Morgan, 1980). Paradigms are broadly equated with perspectives and theoret- ical lenses through which people perceive different pictures of the same world. In this sense, public administration does have a number of‘‘great ideas,’’ ‘‘clusters,’’or paradigms (Holzer, Gabrielian and Yang, 2006; Lan and Anders, 2000; Rainey, 1994). A paradigm mentality that strives for a dominant framework is unhealthy for a practicalfield such as public administration, but‘‘letting a hundredflowers bloom’’without knowing the family lineage of theflowers is equally problematic. If one is unaware of the differences and similarities among theflowers, he or she cannot fully appreciate the variety, nor could he or she treat everyflower appropriately and make all of them bloom. The development of a scholarly discipline will benefit only ‘‘if clusters of researchers work together on similar research questions in similar ways, in constructive competition and communication with other such clusters’’
(Rainey, 1994). Theory development will be facilitated if public administration researchers are conscious about and readily reveal the theoretical lenses they use in their studies, as well as the assump- tions, advantages, and disadvantages of the lenses. Although public administration theories are cumula- tive, useful, and increasingly sophisticated and reliable (Frederickson and Smith, 2003), their scientific 25
rigor, theoretical or methodological, has long been lamented by scholars (Kettl, 2000; March, 1997;
Whicker, Strickland and Olshfski, 1993). A better understanding of paradigms can help us design stronger studies and develop more practical and relevant solutions to the problems faced by society.
In this chapter, we treat the term‘‘paradigm’’in a broad sense to represent research clusters or theoretical lenses that share similar philosophies, focused problems, and approaches of inquiry. As Babbie (2005) states,‘‘social science paradigms represent a variety of views, each of which offers insights the others lack while ignoring aspects of social life that the others reveal’’ (p. 34). We attempt to show how public administration students can benefit from the existence of multiple, conflicting paradigms in their own research. We begin with a brief introduction of the major categorizations of public administration paradigms, and continue with discussions as to how multiple paradigms can be bridged or connected in a research project. To better illustrate how our approach to paradigm dynamics helps improve public administration research, we use examples to demonstrate how to link the existence of multiple paradigms with the typical research process.