Soviet Social Science The Challenge for the American Academic Community: Summary of a Meeting (1990) / Chapter Skim
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Social Science in the Soviet Union: Current Conditions and Trends
Social Science in the Soviet Union: Current Conditions and Trends
Pages 7-13
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From page 7... ...
Department of State Goble discussed a series of changes in Soviet ethnography that he regarded as highly significant, in particular the sense of epiphany that accompanied recent events in the Soviet Union. The appearance of new, young authors in Soviet journals and the publication of a series of conference reports in which younger Soviet scholars denounced the scholars and scholarship of the past appear especially important.
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From page 8... ...
INION, the ASUSSR's Institute of Scientific Information in the Social Sciences, produces as many as 20 bibliographies on ethnographic subjects a month, of which the Library of Congress receives only a quarter; few university libraries, with the exception of the University of Illinois, make any attempt to track these bibliographies. The result, he feared, will be that U.S.
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From page 9... ...
A number of fascinating policy debates are under way, for example, over the definition of socialist property. Hewett agreed with Goble's observation about the tendency of Soviet scholars to reject all past thinking, commenting that he worried about the current Soviet fascination with an image of the market as the answer to all economic problems.
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From page 10... ...
and European theory have ready answers to teach young Soviet economists, he does feel that learning how Western economists frame policy issues would be of great value. Second, on a practical level, Hewett cited the need for sheer raw computing power, which personal computers were helping to provide, and the more fundamental need for good statistics.
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From page 11... ...
Swafford regarded Zaslavskaya's new All-Union Center for Public Opinion Research on Social and Economic Problems as the most important single development; however, he pointed out the enormous challenges any attempt to develop truly national polls must face, such as the fact that 100 languages are spoken in the Soviet Union, for which Russian is not an appropriate lingua franca, and cultural problems, such as the difficulty of interviewing Moslem women. He also expressed concern that too often Western reports simply cite poll results without any comments or caveats about their probable quality.
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From page 12... ...
DISCUSSION A number of points surfaced in the discussion: • One participant commented that working with the Soviets lets us shape the quality of their data and gives us data to analyze, which will allow our graduate students to do genuine social science research with Soviet data. We also should try to strengthen the ability to do good research in the Soviet Union.
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From page 13... ...
• One participant suggested that Americans need to think about long-term Soviet needs and that a major goal should be to encourage a movement away from monopolism in Soviet social science. • One participant suggested that we should move from general lectures and symposia to joint research involving more junior people, including graduate students.
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