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204 The American Political Science Review Vol. 73For Dworkin the
critical distinction leading tothis conclusion is that between
having a rightand having the right to do x, e.g., to break thelaw.
Those who deny the right to disobey thelaw, the author argues,
often confuse thesestrong and weak meanings of right. Breakinga
particular law may be a right in the first,strong sense even though
the community doesnot believe it to be right in the second,
weaksense.For the serious student of jurisprudenceTaking Rights
Seriously should be compulsoryreading. It is indeed important
reading foranyone interested in the defense of liberalvalues. In an
age when many have written thedeath certificate for liberalism,
Dworkin offersa thoughtful defense based upon the moralprinciples
of human dignity and of politicalequality. In an age of wire-tap
technology,demands for censorship and other potentialthreats to
individual rights, it is not untimelyfor someone with Dworkin's
analytical powersto remind us what it means to take
rightsseriously.
THOMAS R. CONRADMonmouth College, Illinois
Public Administration and Public Policy. Editedby H. George
Frederickson and Charles R.Wise. (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington
Books,D.C. Heath, 1977. Pp. viii+ 232. $14.00.)Frederickson's and
Wise's objective is toexamine the continually evolving
relationshipbetween public administration and public poli-cy (p.
vii). More specifically, their focus is onthe organizations tasked
with administrationof public programs and the formulation
andreformulation of public policy that takes place
in the administrative process (p. vii, emphasisadded). In
pursuit of this objective Frederick-son and Wise present 15 essays
written bystudents of public administration. The essaysare
arbitrarily grouped into four sections deal-ing with human
resources (implementation,organizational design, public personnel,
man-agement by objectives, and leadership), actors(role theory,
federal aid to states, citizenparticipation, and
legislative-bureaucratic rela-tions), decision processes
(zero-based budget-ing, planning, and management science)
andaccountability (managing subordinates, pro-ductivity, and
administrative responsibility).A book discussing the relationship
betweenpublic administration and public policy withstrong
theoretical or empirical analysis wouldbe a major contribution to
the study of public
policy. Despite the objectives noted in thepreface, however,
Frederickson and Wise haveedited a book with little emphasis on
publicpolicy. Instead they have presented a goodcollection of
literature reviews in various areasof public administration. James
A. Thurber'schapter on Legislative-Administrative Rela-tions is an
excellent bibliographic essay. Eu-gene B. McGregor's discussion of
FutureChallenges for Public Personnel Administra-tion is a concise
summary of current publicpersonnel issues. These and other
chaptersmake Public Administration and Public Policyessential
reading for those preparing for com-prehensive exams or for those
catching up onchanges in the public administration literature.
Despite its value as a reference, the book hassome serious
limitations that one does notexpect from such competent scholars.
Thebook's major weakness is its failure in mostchapters to tie the
literature being reviewed topublic policy. Many chapters present
ideas withprofound implications for policy studies, butthe reader
is forced to make these linkageswithout assistance from the
authors. Charles R.Wise's chapter on productivity, for
example,discusses effectiveness and efficiency but fo-cuses on the
management aspects of theseconcepts rather than their effect on
policymaking.The volume's brevity may be the cause ofthe authors'
failure to trace out the policyimplications of the literature they
review. Manychapters could easily have been twice as long.C. E.
Teasley's perceptive analysis of manage-ment by objectives suffers
from lack of detail.Charles Levine, who summarizes three
majortheories of executive leadership in six pages,needs more space
to relate these theories to thestudy of public policy.
Unlike many of the other volumes in thePolicy Studies
Organization series, this volumepresents little original research.
Except forDavid Walker, who analyzes the impact offederal
assistance on state and local govern-ments, most authors are
content to summarizethe findings of others.
A notable disappointment is the editors'failure to focus on the
conflicts betweenauthors. Charles Wise, for example, argues
thatpublic administration should emphasize pro-ductivity analysis
to formulate more effectiveand efficient policy, while Louis
Gawthrop inthe following chapter argues that increasinganalytic
capacities of government makes gov-ernment undemocratic and
unaccountable tothe public. This interesting question and
otherslanguish because neither the authors nor the
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1979 Book Reviews: Political Theory and Methodology 205editors
deal with arguments that others presentin the volume.The book is
also flawed by a series ofstylistic problems. The volume needs an
intro-ductory chapter to set the major issues andpreview the
authors' arguments. The final chap-ter, presented as a discussion,
would do nicelyas an introductory chapter with some revision.This
change would permit a final chapter notingconflicts, unresolved
issues, and future research.The volume also contains several
annoyingtechnical errors; references are cited but notincluded in
the bibliography, and the index isincomplete.The limitations of
Public Administration andPublic Policy do not render the volume
useless.As a review of the current state of the art inpublic
administration it is well worth thereader's time. Wkecan only hope,
however, thatthe Policy Studies Organization will present afuture
volume that relates public administrationto public policy.
KENNETH J. MEIERUniversity of OQlahoma
Methodology and Ideology: Theory and Meth-ods of Social
Research, Volume 1. By JohanGaltung. (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.:
Humani-ties Press, 1977. Pp. 271. $12.50, paper.)In this book,
Galtung links the organiza-tional structure of scientific knowledge
produc-tion both to the larger sociopolitical
structuresencompassing that activity and to the structuralform,
methodological basis and substantivecontent of the knowledge it
produces (pp. 13,40, 214, 244). Scientific methodology
episte-mologically argues what constitutes a validscientific
product (p. 13); similarly, ideologyis a critical analysis of
present society, a set ofvalues defining the good society, theories
aboutits viability, and a program for action for itsattainment (p.
70). It follows that to workwith any methodology . . . is a
political act ofconfirmation or negation of the structure inwhich
we, people in general and scientists inparticular, live. . .; one
may enact the norms ofthat methodological grammar ... correctly
orincorrectly. But ... the choice of a method-ology is implicitly
the choice of an ideology,
including the mystifying, [absolutist], mono-theistic ideology
that there is but one method-ology-the universal one (p. 40). Or,
in otherwords that a historically informed Chineseradical would
easily understand: [the] an-choring of [scientific] tenability in
unlimitedextension in time and space [is] a fundamental
aspect of the culture that also brought forthmodern science; the
science that dominatestoday because it is the science of the
dominat-ing [Christian] nations (p. 53). Have weforgotten the
imperialistic theism of Newton'sfamous poem: Praise the Lord for he
hathspoken/Worlds his mighty voice obeyed:/ Laws,which never shall
be broken / For their gui-dance he hath made (p. 249).
The greatest challenge in Galtung's book ishis transformative
methodological synthesis ofhis own earlier positivist work (e.g.,
his Theoryand Methods of Social Research, 1967) withthe dialectical
epistemology he extracts fromMarxist social thought, which produces
a glob-ally oriented research methodology based on,but
transcending, that thought. This pluralistic,egalitarian,
non-Western synthesis is possibleonly because he ends up advocating
a centered,multiparadigmatic, less deductively organizedapproach to
normatively indicative world mod-eling (chapter 9).
Let me exposit the main arguments in thebook, following largely
its own chapter 8 onPositivism and Dialectics. Chapter 1
richlyelaborates a typology of social structures andproducts
defined in terms of inequitable andvertical social interactions
versus their oppo-
sites; and uniform, collectivist, versus diversity,individualist
social thematics. Model I (Conser-vative), Model II (Liberal),
Model III (Com-munal) and Model IV (Pluralist) labels are givenfor
the top-bottom, left-right alternatives thusgenerated. Marxian
stages theory is re-formulated in I -* II -* III - IV terms, ending
ina pluralistic model emphasizing self-realizationin equality and
freedom. Corresponding modesof knowledge production exist: (I)
dogmatic,master-revealed, apodictic rationality; (II) posi-tivistic
logical empiricism with empirical realityreplacing God as the final
arbiter and data asking (p. 36 ff.); (III) nonaxiomatizable
knowl-edge and the replacement of theory construc-tion about
empirical reality by consensus for-mation about concrete and
mutable practicalexperience; (IV) nonunified, pluralistic
science,based on the dialectical rejection of the distinc-tion
between the objective science producerand the naive subject as
consumer. Kuhn'stheory of scientific revolutions is given a
mostconstructive sociological critique (pp. 249-50,n. 28) in terms
of his failure to distinguishparadigm shifts within and among these
fourtypes of social epistemologies.
In these terms, Galtung's preferred Model IVsocial science is
incompatible with its ownnegation, a Model I science characterized
byverticality and uniformity, centered in the West
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