Policy Sci (2008) 41:3–19 DOI 10.1007/s11077-007-9042-y

The policy scientist of democracy revisited Ronald D. Brunner

Published online: 3 August 2007
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

Abstract A recent appraisal by Farr et al. (Am Polit Sci Rev 100:579–587 2006) credited Lasswell with raising important questions of professional responsibility for political science. However, the appraisal rejected working answers to those questions offered by Lasswell and his colleagues without considering them substantively or comprehensively. In doing so, the appraisal misleads those academics in political science and other disciplines who may be interested in a genuinely professional role for themselves, a role that takes into account the social consequences of the exercise of their knowledge and skills. This article provides a more authentic introduction to Lasswell’s life and work and vision of the policy scientist of democracy, and suggests some alternatives for would-be professionals. Keywords Professional responsibility
Knowledge integration and application
Contextuality
Disciplinary reasoning
Career choices

As part of its November 2006 centennial issue, the American Political Science Review included an appraisal of Harold D. Lasswell’s life and vision of ‘The Policy Scientist of Democracy.’ In the appraisal, Farr et al. (2006) took Lasswell’s presidential address to the American Political Science Association in 1956 as a point of departure. The authors sought to explore Lasswell and his vision in that context, to reconstruct the discipline’s reaction to them, and to evaluate them. I agree on this characterization of Lasswell’s vision: ‘the policy scientist was (to be) a practitioner of a kind of science that took the lawyer’s or doctor’s practice as its model, putting the methods and findings of a general science to work in solving real-world problems’ (p. 582). I also agree that ‘For a discipline bent on establishing itself as a legitimate science of politics in action, [Lasswell’s] case for value-laden research concerned with substantive policy

R. D. Brunner (&) 883 13th Street, Boulder, CO 80302, USA e-mail: [email protected]

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choices fell largely on deaf ears’ (p. 585). However, the appraisal mistakenly concludes that ‘Lasswell’s vision in many ways faltered [in the discipline] because of its own contradictions—contradictions that were themselves represented in Lasswell’s own work, life and legacy’ (p. 585). Like others before them, Farr et al. (2006) selected from Lasswell’s rich biography and voluminous published works the pieces relevant to their own specialized purpose and perspectives. In doing so, they overlooked or misconstrued the main points of Lasswell’s interdisciplinary career which spanned more than 50 years and produced approximately 50 books, 1,000 published articles, and countless consultations on problems in public affairs with private citizens and public officials (Muth et al. 1990). From the selected material the authors of the appraisal constructed their own caricature of Lasswell and an ideal of the policy scientist of democracy, and emphatically rejected both. The reasoning employed can be used to discredit any approach to the integration of morals, science, and policy by practitioners, not just the policy sciences that Lasswell and his colleagues developed and have sustained outside political science. Far more than anything Lasswell wrote or did, the disciplinary practices applied in the appraisal account for the discipline’s deaf ears, the alleged contradictions in Lasswell’s life and work, and the failure to perceive the integration achieved by Lasswell and his colleagues. Troubling as this may be, the primary problem is that the Farr et al. (2006) appraisal misleads those academics in political science and other disciplines who may be interested in a genuinely professional role for themselves. ‘A profession,’ Lasswell and McDougal (1992: p. xxiii) insisted, ‘is best regarded as a group with both a special skill and a sense of responsibility for the consequences upon the community of the exercise of that skill.’1 Farr et al. (2006) acknowledge some professional responsibility in this sense by accepting the relevance of questions about the role of political science in society. Any answers to such questions depend on the integration of morals, science, and policy. Academics who might be skeptical on this point are invited to examine their own expectations about the professionals on whom they depend. For example, most of us expect our doctors to be both skilled in the applicable medical science and technology and responsible for the consequences for patients of the exercise of that skill. We believe professional practice is more than just an opportunity to collect fees. By the same token, it is reasonable to expect academics to be responsible for the consequences of their teaching and research for members of the society that pays our bills. The purpose of this article is to provide a more reliable guide to the work of Lasswell and his collaborators in the policy sciences as working answers to questions of professional responsibility for those academics who may be interested. The first section draws attention to the main points that are overlooked or ignored by Farr et al. (2006) and contradict both certain claims and their overall conclusion. The second section considers disciplinary practices that account for the authors’ omissions and misconstructions. The third section suggests some professional alternatives open to members of academic disciplines.

1

Beware of the tyranny of words in this connection. What one member of the discipline recently described as the ‘professional’ turn in political science is better called ‘careerism,’ which one might define (following Lasswell 1971: p. 128) as ‘the fragmented cultivation of skill for opportunistic purposes….’ That is not enough for a genuine professional. See also Lasswell (1971: pp. 11–13).

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Lasswell’s vision: integration After a brief summary of Lasswell’s vision of the policy scientist of democracy, Farr et al. (p. 582) allege that ‘Lasswell showed little apprehension that there might be tensions in all this—between generalization and context, social and natural science, or objectivity and values.’ On the contrary, Lasswell recognized these and related tensions as the problem to be addressed, both personally and institutionally, early in the development of the policy sciences. In his statement of personal policy objectives in 1943, Lasswell (2003: p. 73, my emphasis) wrote that, ‘In general terms I desire to contribute to the integration of morals, science and policy. My moral value is that of the individualistic society in which I have been reared, and to which I am loyal: The dignity of the human personality.’2 In the same year, in a proposal for a policy sciences institute, Lasswell (2003: p. 76, my emphasis) wrote that, ‘The moral aim is the central value of a free society—the dignity of man. Science and policy are necessary means to this moral end.’ Consider, in turn, morals, science, and policy in the work of Lasswell and his collaborators, with an emphasis on connections among them.

Morals With Myres S. McDougal and others in the Law, Science, and Policy seminar and program at Yale Law School, Lasswell developed and recommended criteria of content and procedure for the clarification of goal values, and applied them in his own scientific and practical work. Drawing on working papers from the seminar, Lasswell (1971: pp. 40–48) pre-viewed this approach for a broad audience. The working papers were later edited and published, providing a fuller account (Lasswell and McDougal 1992: pp. 725–758). The approach begins with a version of the blunt question, ‘What ought I to prefer?’ The first step recommended is to formulate a general statement of preference that refers to the whole social process. This includes democracy as equal opportunity for participation in the most important decisions, but is not limited to democracy. A fundamental issue is whether the overriding aim of policy should be the realization of the human dignity of the many, or dignity of the few (and the indignity of the many). If the goal is the former, decision outcomes should aim at achieving equal opportunity for participation in power, wealth, well-being, and all other valued outcomes.... In contrast, the goal of dignity for the few, rather than the many, calls for the permanent ascendancy of some men. Among the more conspicuous ideologists of this kind have been the apologists for imperialisms of religion, class, or race. (Lasswell 1971: pp. 41–42; his emphasis). A general statement of preference is not a matter of ‘finding’ one’s values, as if anyone could live without them; values are implicit in every choice and decision. It is a matter of making explicit for conscious, systematic evaluation and possible revision the values that already exist in each personality. ‘By the time anyone is old enough to raise the problem of value goal as a theoretical question, he is in the grip of value orientations imbedded by years of experience’ (Lasswell and McDougal 1992: p. 726). 2

Farr et al. (2006: p. 580) ignored this paragraph but cited the previous paragraph in the original of this memorandum. Lasswell (2003) publishes this and two other memoranda from 1943 that illuminate the early development of the policy sciences and are still relevant to guiding its continuing evolution.

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As the next step, Lasswell (1971: p. 42, his emphasis) recommended that, ‘General statements must be specified in sufficient detail to enable them to be considered contextually.’ He suggested the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations as a partial aid in specifying the implications of human dignity, and used the eight value categories in the conceptual framework of the policy sciences to classify its major provisions. (For aid in specifying the goal of human indignity he suggested generalizing the Nazi program for non-Aryans.) Using a conceptual model of the whole social process but focusing on democracy, he went on to specify several dozen criteria that function as heuristics for identifying where and to what extent authoritative and controlling power is shared or not shared in particular contexts (Lasswell 1971: pp. 44–48; see also Lasswell and McDougal 1992: pp. 741–758). The further specification of goal values including but not limited to democracy ultimately depends also on what is feasible in the particular context of decision.3 It is consistent with a commitment to human dignity to clarify and help secure the common interest, comprised of the valid and appropriate interests of community members (Lasswell and McDougal 1992: p. 23). An example is Lasswell’s appraisal of the decision to introduce atomic weapons at the end World War II, in the first section of his presidential address to the APSA (Lasswell 1956: pp. 961–969). General statements of preference are empirically grounded as well as specified. Lasswell and his collaborators set aside metaphysical or theological grounding, showing how goals of human dignity and indignity could be derived from each of a half dozen metaphysical or theological systems—Confucianism, Buddhism, Roman Catholicism, Calvinism, German Idealism and Marxist Determinism (Lasswell and McDougal 1992: pp. 759– 786). Instead, they recommended and applied empirical grounding, indicating how factual information and projections were incorporated into clarification of their goal. Lasswell and McDougal (1992: p. 730, their emphasis) concluded that ‘The goal of human dignity, then, is emphatically not presented as a derivative of an ‘‘is,’’ even though it is affected by, and takes into account, a rich configuration of factual knowledge and estimates.’4 For more on moral considerations in the policy sciences and their integration with science and policy, see Lasswell (1962) on ‘The Public Interest’ and Abraham Kaplan (1963) on American Ethics and Public Policy including the ‘Methodology of Morals.’ Instead of a substantive and scholarly critique of this approach to morals in the policy sciences, Farr et al. (2006: p. 582) in effect deny that it exists. The authors assert that, ‘The policy scientist of democracy just ‘‘decided’’ on democracy and its ‘‘ultimate goal’’ of human dignity.’ They also affirm deLeon’s complaint that ‘the ‘‘policy sciences of democracy’’ are disturbingly vague as to precisely what is meant by democracy’ (p. 584). In doing so, they ignore dozens of democratic criteria and even more specifications for particular contexts, and fail to justify precision as a criterion or to clarify what is ‘precisely’ enough for scientific or policy purposes.5

3

Another important Lasswell collaborator and early contributor to the policy sciences, Abraham Kaplan (1963: p. 94), concurs that a contextual approach ‘implies not only that values can be appraised only in a concrete setting, but also that there is always an appraisal to be made.’

4

Kaplan (1963: p. 93) concurs that general statements of preferences are justified empirically by realists, as distinguished from idealists. ‘The realist bases judgments of values on what experience discloses to be good. But the disclosure requires assessments in the light of ideals that point beyond any given experience, though not beyond experience as a whole.’

5

Levi (1949) as quoted below (note 22) suggests the need to justify and clarify precision as a criterion.

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Science Farr et al. (2006: p. 584) cite disciplinary critics who reduced Lasswell’s science to an ‘unresolved positivism.’ Lasswell himself was supposedly ‘Torn between positivist canons of ‘‘pure science’’ and faith in the discipline to inform democratic decision making’ (p. 584). ‘As for science,’ the authors allege, ‘policy scientists embraced the ideals of generalization and objectivity—as would any positivist’ (p. 582). Lasswell accepted positivist methods as part of his multi-method approach, but rejected exclusive reliance on them. On quantification, for example, Lerner and Lasswell (1951: p. 8) acknowledged that ‘while use is made of careful observation, measurement, and record making, quantification is relegated to a relatively secondary role. The richness of the context in the study of interpersonal relations is such that it can be expressed only in part in quantitative terms.’ Lasswell (1971: p. 59) emphasized additional methods, explaining that ‘In a science saturated society it is unnecessary to recapitulate the generally accepted methods of theory construction, experimental design, and the like.’ He called attention instead to ‘some technical approaches that have already appeared in partial answer to the requirements of contextuality and problem orientation.’ The five tasks in the problem orientation go beyond those closely but not exclusively associated with positivism: the description of trends, the analysis of factors conditioning those trends, and the projection of future possibilities or probabilities. The first task, goals clarification, makes explicit the non-scientific values entailed in the selection of certain trends, conditions, and projections over others for scientific inquiry. The fifth task, the invention, evaluation, and selection of policy alternatives, relies on the results of scientific inquiry for more realistic recommendations to achieve policy goals. But neither the selection of topics for scientific inquiry nor the social consequences (including opportunity costs) of scientific inquiry are value neutral as positivists in the discipline assume. Every statement of fact affects some interest in society for better or worse. Hence the social consequences of scientific inquiry cannot be avoided, even if they are ignored. Lasswell also challenged the emphasis positivists place on predictions derived from generalizations. In the conclusion to his monograph on Democratic Character he observed that, ‘It is insufficiently acknowledged that the role of scientific work in human affairs is freedom rather than prediction.’ This means bringing into conscious awareness internal compulsions and non-personal factors in the environment that once determined choices, freeing the individual to take them into account in making future choices. This enlargement of the scope of freedom is the most direct contribution of the study of interpersonal relations to democracy. If more individuals can be made aware of the distorting effect of anxiety upon their judgments of personnel and of public and private issues, the continuing reconstruction of civilization toward the more perfect realization of democratic values will be expedited. Hence it is the growth of insight, not simply of the capacity of the observer to predict the future operation of an automatic compulsion, or of a non-personal factor, that represents the major contribution of the scientific study of interpersonal relations to policy. (Lasswell 1951: p. 524; his emphasis) But as freedom through insight exposes behavioral relationships that have held in the past, it may also alter or destroy them. Hence ‘all scientific propositions about character or

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society must always be read ‘‘subject to insight’’’(Lasswell 1951: p. 524). Their validity is contingent on the context, in other words.6 Lasswell and Kaplan (1950) included many scientific propositions in Power and Society which is subtitled A Framework for Political Inquiry. They were explicit that ‘there is nothing here of the quest for ‘‘universal laws’’ in the grand style. Such quests…serve in the present state of political science chiefly to distract attention and energies from partial inquiries that can illuminate situationally localized problems in empirical ways. The conceptual framework and theoretical structure is elaborated in the following chapters to fructify such inquiries, and not for its own sake.’ Such quests are rendered futile not only by new insights among participants in social process but also by index instability. The indices of anger, for example, vary across time and cultures. Moreover, the propositions ‘are not hypotheses but hypotheses-schema: statements which formulate hypotheses when specific indices relate them to the conditions of a given problem.’ They ‘are intended to serve the functions of directing the search for significant data, not of predicting what the data will be found to disclose.’ Like Max Weber’s ideal types, they are as ‘useful in calling attention to deviations from the type as in characterizing the few cases that exactly conform to it’ (Lasswell and Kaplan 1950: pp. xxii-xxiii; their emphasis). The heuristic functions of scientific propositions and the conceptual framework underlying them are adaptations to the requirements of contextuality. Consider Lasswell et al. (1952: p. 11, their emphasis) on the principle of contextuality: ‘If modern historical and social scientific inquiry has underlined any lesson, it is that the significance of any detail depends upon its linkages to the context of which it is a part. Hence the evaluation of the role of any institutional practice calls for a vast labor of data gathering and theoretical analysis.’ The context and linkages are constructed through inquiry, not assumed or taken as given. Contextuality is conventionally recognized in efforts to relax the ceteris paribus assumption protecting closed theories or models, to minimize the unintended consequences of proposed courses of action, or to internalize what were once dismissed as externalities.7 The principle of contextuality is dramatized in the drunkard’s search. In Kaplan’s (1964: p. 11) telling it is ‘the story of the drunkard searching under a street lamp for his house key, which he had dropped some distance away. Asked why he didn’t look where he had dropped it, he replied, ‘It’s lighter here!’’ The concepts we acquire from socialization in an academic discipline and other experiences function like the street lamp: they prepare us to see part of the context, but not necessarily the part where the solution to the present problem will be found. The conceptual framework developed by Lasswell and his collaborators is designed to open up the search for solutions in particular contexts. The authors’ complaint that ‘The language…was tough going whatever its ultimate rewards’ (p. 583) discounts this critical function of the conceptual framework in the policy sciences. It also discounts the necessity of specialized concepts and terms to represent them in all practicing professions. Such terms can be translated for others as needed. The terms in the policy sciences framework 6

Hence, ‘it is a mistake to prejudge empirical inquiry and to entertain dogmatic convictions that [for example] a specific institutional pattern necessarily produces similar results, or is always conditioned by the same constellation of factors.’ Compare the early Lasswell (1930: p. 260): ‘If events appear to be predictable, this is so because our knowledge of contingencies is limited, and our sequences of similar configurations may still be treated as special instances of ‘‘no sequence.’’ The stable is a special case of the unstable, to put the ultimate paradox.’

7

Contextuality is also recognized in those sciences that focus on the explanation of singular events, which are no less scientific than those that focus on invariant laws of nature. For an introduction to these two kinds of science see Gould (1989). On connections between contextuality and policy practice see Brunner (2006).

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also support its function: Just as Arabic numerals are more useful for arithmetic operations than Roman numerals, the terms in the framework are more useful for contextual and problem-oriented inquiry than piece-meal alternatives. As part of a comprehensive conceptual framework, each term is partially defined in relation to the others. Thus at any point in mapping a particular context, or in orienting oneself for action in the context mapped, the terms point to additional considerations worth taking into account. For example, the conceptual model of decision process suggests that the significance of a prescribed policy is unnecessarily ambiguous until the policy as planned, promoted, invoked, applied, appraised, and possibly terminated are also considered.8 Similarly, the moral and policy implications of a scientific proposition are unnecessarily ambiguous until it is related to the clarification of policy goals and alternatives and the other tasks in the problem-orientation.9

Policy practice Farr et al. (2006) side with disciplinary critics who claimed that Lasswell was an elitist and ‘never came to terms with democracy himself’ (p. 585). In the authors’ caricature, the policy scientist of democracy ‘put his knowledge into practice by advising those in power’ (p. 579) exclusively; ‘obligations to citizens’ were met if policy scientists ‘served leaders only when leaders served democracy’ (p. 582). Lasswell advised those in power who shared his aims, and did so extensively but not exclusively. For example, he was personally involved in both the design and field-testing of prototypes for the advancement of groups deprived of power and other values. With Alan Holmberg and other anthropologists from Cornell University, he helped initiate a selfsustaining process of democratic empowerment and development for nearly two thousand malnourished serfs in Vicos, a typical Peruvian hacienda in the high Andes. After a decade of assistance from the Cornell-Peru Project, the Vicosinos in 1962 were able to purchase the hacienda and their freedom with the proceeds of their own labor (Dobyns et al. 1971). Decades later Doughty (2002) reported that the Vicosinos continue to make progress with respect to power and other value outcomes. Lasswell (1965) considered Vicos a prototype for the policy sciences of development. With Robert Rubenstein and others on the staff of the Yale Psychiatric Institute, Lasswell participated in a prototype to share power with resident patients in the operation of the Institute as part of their therapy in the 1960s (Lasswell and Rubenstein 1966). Farr et al. (2006: p. 586) contend that ‘To be democratic, the policy scientist would have insisted on the equality of dignity displayed, citizen to citizen, in the actual sharing of power.’ This is what Lasswell and his colleagues did in face-to-face interactions with the Vicosinos, the Institute’s patients and other disadvantaged citizens on other occasions, but the sharing of values was not limited to respect and power alone. As a policy scientist of democracy, Lasswell also applied the policy sciences to important issues of the day and reported results in a series of short books written in lay terms for the guidance of both private citizens and public officials. Democracy through Public Opinion (1941) responded to public concerns about the viability of democracy 8

See Auer (2007) for a review of the decision process model that corrects certain misconstructions prevalent in political science and public administration.

9

While Lasswell made the framework available to others, he avoided any attempt to impose it in conventional academic struggles for hegemonic status. He understood that it is futile to insist on a standard framework or uniform usage of key terms amidst many academic and practical specializations. It is also unnecessary because translations among frames of reference are always possible (Lasswell 1971: p. 85; see also Lasswell and Kaplan 1950: p. x).

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arising from fascist manipulation of public opinion in Europe between the world wars. World Politics Faces Economics (1945a) anticipated postwar economic problems and elements of the Marshall Plan for European reconstruction. As early as 1943 carbon copies of the manuscript were distributed for comments to decision makers in Washington involved in postwar economic planning. National Security and Individual Freedom (1950), written under the shadow of McCarthyism, advised the public on protecting civil liberties and providing for national security early in the Cold War. Quoting this book, the authors acknowledge the problem addressed in it as a question of ‘enormous’ contemporary relevance: ‘how to keep sacrifices [to freedom and free choice] at the lowest point consistent with national security, since an unnecessary loss of freedom is an unnecessary blow to security’ (Farr et al. 2006: p. 586, quoting Lasswell 1950: p. 49). But the authors ignore Lasswell’s answers to the question, in the last four chapters that are titled, respectively, ‘Action by the President and the Executive,’ ‘What the Congress Can Do,’ ‘What the Courts Can Do,’ and ‘What the Public Can Do.’ In these chapters Lasswell recognized the formal and effective roles of both the public and public officials in democratic governance. More generally, with McDougal and others in the Law, Science and Policy program at Yale Law School, Lasswell helped educate generations of lawyers as active agents of a more democratic, just, and secure world order. He also helped educate others through a series of instructional films distributed by Encyclopedia Britannica Films Inc. For his film on Democracy Lasswell collaborated with Cillie and Vincent (n.d.) in a 24-page teacher’s handbook. These deeds are corroborated by Lasswell’s words in an unpublished 1945 proposal to strengthen democracy at home and abroad through the more effective use of scientists and moralists. ‘This means that we do not turn to scientists and moralists for decisions, but for guidance.’ Lasswell (1945b: p. 1, his emphasis) continued by way of explanation: Let me say that I am familiar with the variability of public opinion, knowing that it is often wise and foolish, farsighted and shortsighted, impetuous and sluggish, stiff necked and plastic. Of this I am sure: The public can come to moral and rational judgments. This depends in large part upon the materials of judgment, the stream of fact and interpretation on the basis of which decisions are made. It is the province of the ‘intelligence function’ in society to supply the materials of rational and moral judgment. Lasswell explicitly dissociated himself from ‘those who are contemptuous of the public, hoping to gain their ends by addressing themselves exclusively to ‘‘key men’’ or ‘‘philosopher kings’’, and from ‘those who conceal their contempt for the public by handling it like a beast of burden cheaper to seduce with carrots than to goad with whips’ (Lasswell 1945b: p. 1, his emphasis). Thus in Lasswell’s vision, the policy scientist of democracy uses a comprehensive conceptual framework, and moral and scientific propositions based on it, as heuristics for specifying the goal values at stake in the particular policy context and for clarifying action alternatives to improve value outcomes in that context. The recommendation is to help the community advance its common interest and thereby contribute to the fuller realization of human dignity for all. This is what Lasswell did and other policy scientists still strive to do, with various degrees of success. Thus the integration of science, morals, and policy ultimately occurs in the particular context, regardless of its temporal, spatial, and cultural scale. If a better action alternative exists, it will be found in that context and not in general concepts or theories. The latter are tools that may or may not help in finding a better alternative. But in either case finding a better alternative depends not only upon the quality

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of the conceptual and theoretical tools but also on the skill of the user and the materials available.10 It is a mistake to reduce effective responsibility for results to conceptual and theoretical tools alone, as if they were magic bullets. In this frame of reference, the pursuit of additional moral or scientific generalizations as prerequisites for professional responsibility is diversionary. Central theory in the policy sciences, while always improvable, has long been adequate for professional practice. Moreover, the pursuit of generalizations is guided by multiple values in addition to justice or science—personal status, income, and security, for example—and the results serve some values and some people at the expense of others. This is value-laden. The value-neutral pretense of some scientists is a rationalization for ignoring the value consequences for society of their work.

Disciplinary practices Based on the evidence summarized above, Lasswell and his collaborators to a remarkable extent integrated morals, science, and policy in both theory and practice. Viewed in this light, the Farr et al. (2006) appraisal appears to be another replay of the drunkard’s search—one that evidently sought to place Lasswell in the history of the discipline for the centennial issue of its flagship journal, not to consider Lasswell’s life and work substantively or comprehensively in its own frame of reference. If the authors were searching for answers to questions of professional responsibility, they did not find them. Instead, their appraisal corroborated Lasswell’s reputation in a discipline largely unprepared to perceive his approach to the integration of morals, science, and policy, let alone accept it. As described by Farr et al. (2006), the disciplinary frame of reference included the defense of borders between specializations. ‘Despite much lip service paid to the virtues of interdisciplinary collaboration, Lasswell’s call for a political science without internal or external borders fit uneasily with the discipline’s growing specialization.’ In the authors’ perspective, ‘Lasswell’s disregard for disciplinary and subfield borders’ was ‘The proximate cause of the falloff’ in citations to Lasswell’s work by specialists within the discipline (p. 584). In my perspective, Lasswell sought to relax these borders as a necessary part of his efforts to integrate morals, science, and politics, but not to abolish the borders. 11 However, like the blind men handling the elephant, subfield specialists prepared to deal with only one part of Lasswell’s life and work misperceived both the respective parts and their integration as a whole. Positive science was the dominant specialization in the disciplinary frame of reference. As the authors describe it, around the time of Lasswell’s presidential address in 1956, ‘most of the debate took for granted that the profession’s highest goal was ‘‘pure science,’’ by whatever route that goal was reached’ (p. 584). During the next few decades, ‘the mainstream of the discipline embraced with even greater enthusiasm the notion of a rigorous, value-free science with neither the capacity nor the obligation to speak on contested issues of democratic debate’ (p. 584). Moreover, policy specialists within the discipline were ‘a bit of a nuisance, issuing perennial calls for greater attention to the 10 By analogy, no one would blame Michelangelo for the failure of a lesser artist to achieve equivalent results given tools and materials equivalent to Michelangelo’s. For more on general concepts and theories in practical problem solving see Brunner (2006). 11 ‘There is no valid objection to be raised against the development of professional specialization. There are, however, valid objections against poorly integrated professional training’ (Lasswell 1971: p. 139).

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details of particular policies while at the same time (in many of their colleagues’ eyes) failing to offer the kind of generalizations on which the field’s development depends’ (p. 585). Thus it is not surprising, as noted above, that some disciplinary critics focused selectively on Lasswell’s science, framing it as an ‘unresolved positivism’—unresolved, apparently, because as positivists they could not fathom how ‘neutral science’ could serve ‘the parochial values of democracy’ (p. 584). From this positivist framing it was logical to infer that Lasswell’s life and work was contradictory: a positivist should assume a valueneutral position above politics, but Lasswell did not.12 Perhaps inferences from this positivist framing served as a substitute for examining evidence to the contrary. What survived the drunkard’s search were the authors’ caricature of Lasswell as an elitist who ‘never came to terms with democracy itself’ (p. 586) and an ideal of the policy scientist of democracy as ‘heroic’ in the sense of ‘unrealistic and unrealizable’ (p. 585). The authors’ emphatically rejected these straw men of their own construction by methods of reasoning that do not stand up to critical thinking or common sense. Like the disciplinary framing, these methods have a bearing on current issues of professional responsibility taken up at the end of this section. Farr et al. (2006: pp. 585–586) allege that Lasswell was an elitist and ‘not obviously democratic in a doctrinally clear way’ because he drew attention to pessimistic possibilities of permanent oligarchy and the garrison state, he emphasized propaganda ‘by which ‘‘elites’’ informed the ‘‘masses,’’’ and he supported government planning and expert leadership with enthusiasm. By the authors’ reasoning one also would be obliged to caricature and reject President Eisenhower as an elitist on the basis of his warning that ‘we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist’ (Eisenhower 1961: p. 1038).13 By the authors’ reasoning one also would be obliged to caricature and reject Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders as elitists because they relied almost exclusively on propaganda. They had few other instruments of policy available for their efforts to secure civil rights systematically denied to African Americans.14 Similarly, by the authors’ reasoning one also would be obliged to dismiss as elitists the Framers who exercised expert leadership in drafting the American Constitution, or used propaganda to promote it through The Federalist. The point is that warnings, propaganda, and leadership by elites or experts, are not inherently undemocratic or democratic. The goal values served by these or other instruments of politics, or by any elite, can only be evaluated in the particular context. The authors’ appraisal also invoked democratic ideals to criticize Lasswell’s commitment to human dignity as ‘not evidently or necessarily democratic…. Dignity alone did not 12

The authors acknowledged ‘contradictions in the discipline he powerfully shaped’ but claimed Lasswell was responsible for the alleged contradictions in his life and work (p. 585). 13 Perhaps this is an echo of Lasswell’s garrison-state construct. Eisenhower’s farewell address includes other substantive and stylistic signs that Lasswell may have influenced it either directly or indirectly. 14 Consider the context. Major civil rights leaders disavowed instruments of violence as a matter of principle and practical prudence. Their economic resources were far from sufficient to buy enough political support. And at the outset they had far more opponents than allies in seats of power. A major political asset was the conscience of Americans socialized to believe that all people are created equal in terms of rights, or that these rights are prescribed in the Constitution, in the Bill of Rights and Amendments XIII (1865), XIV (1868), XV (1870). Civil rights leaders and their followers skillfully capitalized on this asset though sit-ins, marches, and related actions that drew attention to systematic violations of the civil rights of African Americans, intensifying the guilt of many Americans and transforming it eventually into effective political support.

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and does not convey a democratic message, or at least a very clear one’ (p. 586). By this reasoning one also would be obliged to criticize the democratic commitments of the Framers. As set forth in the Preamble, on behalf of ‘We the people’ they sought to establish a Constitution that would ‘form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity….’’ These multiple ideals alone are enough to obscure any doctrinally clear democratic commitment in the American context. Moreover, in the articles of the Constitution the Framers condoned slavery, restricted suffrage, and avoided direct election of the president and senators, among other undemocratic adaptations to practical realities in the Constitutional convention in Philadelphia (Dahl 2002).15 No single ideal or provision in the Constitution is clear or complete; when applied to an issue they must be specified in some detail and integrated if possible or balanced when necessary. In security crises for example, including the current war on terror, demands for the common defense typically must be reconciled with demands for liberty, justice, and other basic values.16 The point is that any ideal, including democracy, can be used to discredit progress in its direction as insufficient.17 Applied in practice, each value must be reconciled for better or worse with the other values at stake and the alternatives available in the particular context (Kaplan 1963). By constructing their own ideal of the policy scientist of democracy, the authors ensured that the ideal would be ‘heroic’ in the sense of ‘unrealistic and unrealizable’ (p. 585), and that neither Lasswell nor any other real policy scientist could live up to it. By the same token, no real doctor heals every patient, and no real lawyer serves justice exclusively in every case. A defensible evaluation of real professionals requires a contextual appraisal to ascertain whether or to what extent their specific efforts advanced the common interest of the community. Most educated Americans can supply enough knowledge and information about the context to recognize and respect the Framers’ draft of the Constitution as a contribution toward the fuller realization of the nation’s common interest—compared to the Articles of Confederation in place as they convened in Philadelphia, and even though the draft fell short of any democratic ideal. Similarly, most Americans appreciate how much was accomplished by leaders and their followers in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s—compared to the segregation in place at the outset of the movement, and even though violations of civil rights still occur. President Eisenhower (1961: p. 1037) advised Americans on the importance of progress: ‘Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.’ The point is that progress may be possible in the particular context, but perfection is not. Consider in this light the sweeping overall conclusion to the authors’ appraisal: ‘The policy scientist of democracy, in short, was—and is—too demanding and contradictory a 15 Similarly, Dahl (2002: p. 136) summarized his multiple criteria for a fully democratic state in one paragraph, then observed that ‘the democratic ideal that I have just described is too demanding to be achieved in the actual world of human society.’ 16

Lasswell (1950: p. 230) recalled ‘what James Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson during another tense period in our history (May 13, 1798): ‘‘Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.’’‘ Compare Eisenhower (1961: p. 1037) on the ‘recurring temptation [in crises] to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties…. But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs ….’ 17 Compare Dahl (1970: p. 4): ‘because democracy has never been fully achieved, it has always been and is now a potentially revolutionary doctrine. For every system purporting to be democratic is vulnerable to the charge that it is not democratic enough, or not ‘‘really’’ fully democratic.’

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hero, aspiring to possess too much power and expertise and to sit too closely and comfortably with those in power’ (p. 586). The authors fail to support this conclusion with defensible criteria and pertinent observations. The five or six criteria implied in ‘too’ are left unspecified and unjustified. Instead it is simply assumed that warning of threats to democracy, the use of propaganda, and elite expertise and leadership are ipso facto suspect on democratic grounds; that a democratic commitment must remain doctrinally clear, an ideal; and that progress in the direction of a democratic ideal is not enough. This is ‘academic’ in the worst sense of that venerable word. Moreover, specific observations on at least one particular context, and efforts by Lasswell and his collaborators to advance the common interest in that context, would be required merely to illustrate the authors’ conclusion. But Farr et al. (2006) do not provide any contextual appraisal sufficient to illustrate their conclusion, much less to support it as generally valid and appropriate.18 Let me anticipate an obvious objection that might go something like this: ‘So what? The authors are entitled to their purpose, context, and methods of reasoning, just as policy scientists are entitled to theirs. Anything goes if nobody knows for sure.’ One objection to the objection is that the authors are not entitled to ignore the evidence that contradicts their specific claims and overall conclusion about Lasswell and the policy scientist of democracy. This is an apparent violation of generally accepted norms of good scholarship and democratic discourse, although it is customary in partisan politics. One statement of the applicable norms has been attributed to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who earned credentials in both good scholarship and democratic discourse: ‘‘People are entitled to their own opinions but not to their own facts.’’ Another objection to the objection is an apparent contradiction: Farr et al. (2006) avoid existing answers to questions of professional responsibility that they themselves affirmed as relevant to contemporary political science: ‘What is the role of the political scientist in a democratic society? Do political scientists have any obligation to inform or shape policy? Are there democratic values that political scientists should serve, and if so, what are they?’ (p. 585). The authors credited Lasswell with raising such questions, but avoided substantive answers offered by Lasswell and other policy scientists by methods of reasoning that would discredit any approach to integrating morals, science, and policy—and integration is necessary for genuinely professional purposes. The formula in brief: • Impose disciplinary and subfield borders to separate the parts of an integrative approach, relying in particular on positivists to conclude that applied science is inherently contradictory and detracts from their quest for value-free generalizations above politics. • From what survives defense of these borders, construct a normative ideal that cannot be fully realized in practice and dismiss it for that reason—while avoiding contextual appraisals that might turn up progress with respect to multiple values. This formula is a license for the authors and the discipline to pile up generalizations indefinitely without regard to the social consequences, including the opportunity costs to society.19 In effect it is a license for professional irresponsibility. 18 Compare Machiavelli as quoted in Lasswell and Kaplan (1950: p. 106n): ‘Men are apt to deceive themselves upon general matters, but not so much when they come to particulars. The quickest way of opening the eyes of the people is to find the means of making them descend to particulars, seeing that to look at things only in a general way deceives them.’ 19 As Etheredge (1976) demonstrated in the case of the unreturned cafeteria trays, the piling up of theoretical generalizations is not equivalent to solving a practical policy problem in a particular context.

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One interpretation of the apparent contradiction is that the authors wittingly or unwittingly sought to defend the discipline against all professional challenges by accepting questions of professional responsibility as a substitute for considering existing answers to them.20 Another interpretation is that they considered policy scientists’ answers to questions of professional responsibility irrelevant to supporting and rationalizing Lasswell’s reputation in the discipline. Perhaps the authors were intimidated by the career challenges that would follow from critical thinking about Lasswell’s reputation in the discipline, or by the professional challenges that would follow from an attempt to integrate morals, science, and policy.21 Finally, perhaps the authors do take questions of professional responsibility more seriously than that, but have yet to recognize existing answers as points of departure for developing, applying, and publishing more satisfactory answers of their own. Time will tell on this one.

Professional alternatives Meanwhile, those political scientists and other academics interested in a professional role for themselves, but otherwise unfamiliar with the policy sciences, are likely to conclude from the Farr et al. (2006) appraisal that Lasswell’s life and work and the policy sciences are dead ends. That is misleading, and that is the primary problem. It raises an important question: What alternatives are available for would-be professionals to consider? The alternative implied in Farr et al. (2006) is to start from scratch. They rejected their own construction of the policy scientist of democracy as ‘too demanding and contradictory a hero,’ but also rejected ‘the inverse portrait [as] equally alarming: complacent, powerless academics working alone or in small groups on highly specialized topics of interest to other specialists, afraid to speak up or out on important matters of politics or policy.’ They go on to speculate that ‘Perhaps there is a happy medium between these two images of the political scientist, the heroic and the quietist’ (p. 586). Indeed there is a vast territory that lies between the quietist and heroic extremes. The authors might find common ground with other academics who have already discovered that territory (e.g., Bernstein 1983), and with professionals who have no practical alternative to working that territory (e.g., Levi 1949). (Practicing professionals also understand and manage inherent ambiguities that frustrate academic demands for precision and clarity.22) Policy scientists in particular reject the quietist extreme as unprofessional and the heroic extreme as impractical, although Lasswell’s authentic vision and example continue to provide inspiration and directions for aspiration. An alternative to starting from scratch is an exploration of Lasswell’s life and work that might begin with a reading or re-reading of his presidential address to the APSA (Lasswell 20

On the mechanism of defense through partial incorporation see Lasswell et al. (1952: p. 5–6).

21

On the generation of professional insecurities see Brunner and Willard (2003).

22

Consider Levi’s (1949: p. 1) opening paragraph: ‘It is important that the mechanism of legal reasoning should not be concealed by its pretense. The pretense is that the law is a system of known rules applied by a judge; the pretense has long been under attack. In an important sense legal rules are never clear, and, if a rule had to be clear before it could be imposed, society would be impossible. The mechanism … provides for the participation of the community in resolving the ambiguity by providing a forum for the discussion of policy in the gap of ambiguity…. The mechanism is indispensable to peace in a community.’ The parallel pretense, also long under attack, is that positive social science can be a system of known laws applied by a scientist. Bernstein (1983) identifies the vast territory as lying Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, but his ‘relativism’ is a radical relativism, not the disciplined relativism of genuine professionals.

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1956), which exemplified applications of the policy sciences in particular contexts a half century ago and became the focus of the Farr et al. (2006) appraisal. The exploration might continue with other authentic sources cited in the first section above but overlooked or ignored in that appraisal. In Lasswell’s authentic vision of the policy scientist of democracy, would-be professionals might find some useful ideas on which to construct their own answers to questions of professional responsibility and more rewarding careers for themselves. For the sake of concreteness Lasswell began the presidential address with a contextual appraisal of political science and armaments. He introduced ‘a proposition that may at first evoke some incredulous exclamations. The proposition is that our intellectual tools have been sufficiently sharp to enable political scientists to make a largely correct appraisal of the consequences of unconventional weapons for world politics’ (Lasswell 1956: p. 966). He indicated how these tools could have been used, and to some extent were used, in advance of the decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But he concluded that the adequacy of intellectual tools was no reason to be complacent about the discipline’s role: ‘There is always a gap between fundamental theory and the data required to see how theoretical models explain or fail to explain specific configurations.’ Lasswell credited ‘our traditional body of theory as giving full recognition to the contextual character of politics’ (p. 964), and rejected ‘the discovery of a small number of new fundamental categories’ as the intellectual task. (From a logical standpoint, all comprehensive systems of categories are formally equivalent and therefore interchangeable.) ‘The inference is that within a rich intellectual tradition the most significant task is to construct a continuing institutional activity by which central theory is related continuously to events as they unfold’ (p. 965). The fundamental categories are used to delineate observational fields, not as a substitute for observation and inquiry in the particular context. Lasswell observed that the discipline’s lack of an adequate institutional process ‘had adverse consequences for our role in regard to nuclear weapons.’ He took world security as the principal goal value unnecessarily compromised in this context. ‘In the light of hindsight (that should have been foresight) I want to underline the probability that the new weapon was introduced in a manner that contributed unnecessarily to world insecurity.’ Then he considered missed opportunities to enhance world security. Perhaps the critics are right who say that the bomb should have been demonstrated on an uninhabited island before the live drops were made on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. More important is the question of how formal and effective control might have been extended beyond the decision makers of a single power. At least some members of the winning coalition might wisely have been brought into a system that operated through a common agency of inspection and direction. (pp. 965–966) Of course such conclusions are not above politics; they are always subject to debate in a democracy. The latter part of that section turned from appraisal to possibilities for research that might help prepare the minds of decision makers for future armament decisions. Lasswell’s appraisal was quite explicit about the professional role and responsibility of the discipline, both in the context of atomic bomb decisions and more generally.23 As political scientists we should have anticipated fully both the bomb and the significant problems of policy that came with it. I do not want to create the impression 23 Farr et al. (2006: p. 582) ignore this. They claim instead that ‘the limits and obligations of that service (to citizens and leaders) were, in Lasswell’s formulation, left almost wholly unclear.’

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that all would have been well if we had been better political scientists, and that we must bear upon our puny shoulders the burden of culpability for the situation of the world today. We are not so grandiose as to magnify our role or our responsibility beyond all proportion. Yet I cannot refrain from acknowledging, as I look back, that we left the minds of our decision makers unprepared to meet the crisis precipitated by the bomb. (p. 965) Limitations of access to officials and official secrets ‘go beyond our responsibility as a profession. We must however assume responsibility for any limitations of theory or procedure that prevented us from making full use of every opportunity open to us’ (p. 965). More generally, Lasswell (1956: p. 966) observed that ‘As a profession we are concerned with aggregate consequences. It is not our job to supply the working politician with what he knows already, namely, a bag of electoral and other manipulative tricks…. Nor is our role limited to reiterating and celebrating the ideal aspirations of the body politic, and exhibiting how value goals can be derived from fundamental postulates and principles.’ He went on to affirm the integration of all five intellectual tasks in the problem orientation, concluding that ‘It is our responsibility to flagellate our minds toward creativity, toward bringing into the stream of emerging events conceptions of future strategy that, if adopted, will increase the probability that ideal aspirations will be more approximately realized.’ Academics sometimes resist initiatives toward genuine professionalization in their disciplines on the expectation that it is unnecessary: merely engaging in science or scholarship is equivalent to serving the common interest of the community.24 Such skeptics might consider Lasswell’s 1970 address to the American Psychological Association in the light of their own values and cumulative experience up to the present. Lasswell (1970: p. 117, his emphases) observed that ‘Despite the remarkable, even explosive, expansion of knowledge, and its global diffusion, it must be conceded that, up to the present, the aggregate impact of the scientific revolution has failed to revolutionize the basic structure of world politics…. This divided and militant structure … preceded the era of science, and has succeeded thus far in subordinating the institutions of knowledge to its perpetuation.’ Moreover, ‘knowledge is more commonly used for the relative benefit of the few than for the benefit of all. This is most obvious in the contrast between the suburban ghettos of the prosperous and the poverty-stricken ghettos of rural and urban slums.’ Science had served militancy and oligarchy despite ‘hortatory rhetoric…celebrating the latent universality of the fruits of knowledge for all mankind, or the fraternal unity of all who contribute to a verifiable map of nature, man, and society.’ This has a bearing on the future of science in society, ‘for science has grown strong enough to acquire visibility, and therefore to become eligible as a scapegoat for whatever disenchantment there may be with earlier promises of a science-based technology.’ Among other value outcomes, consider power, the primary focus of political scientists: ‘If the earlier promise was that knowledge would make men free, the contemporary reality seems to be that more men are manipulated without their consent for more purposes by more techniques by fewer men than at any time in history’ (p. 119). Lasswell concluded that science need not serve political power in the future as it had in the past. He placed some hope in relatively small numbers of elite scientists ‘oriented toward knowledge as an end in itself, or as an end that ought to be employed for the benefit of the whole nation of man rather than its parochial subdivisions’ (p. 118). Lasswell suggested some modest proposals 24 As an example of this expectation, the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Lederman 1992: p. 1123) once claimed that ‘what’s good for American science, American scholarship, and education is good for America.’

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by which self-selected members of the scientific and scholarly elite might begin to organize themselves to help advance common interests and the fuller realization of human dignity for all. Elsewhere Lasswell suggested that ‘the antidote to bureaucratism and oligarchy lies with the motivational and informative potential of communication’ that could be provided by the scientific and scholarly elite. ‘The essential principle is that a picture of the self-incontext can be made available to participants at every level of formal authority from top to bottom of every hierarchical arrangement’ (Lasswell 1971: pp. 119–120, his emphasis). Here is an authentic vision of freedom through insight, one that is clearly consistent with democratic values and the fuller realization of human dignity for all.

Conclusion Perhaps the more authentic vision of the policy scientist of democracy revisited here will help inform the choices of academics who might be interested in a genuinely professional role for themselves. If so, that fulfills my present purpose and responsibility as a policy scientist in an advisory role. Of course the career choices that have been made by political scientists and will be made by academics in the various disciplines are their own responsibility. For the future Lasswell (1971: pp. 133–134) projected that ‘specialized groups will continue to include at least a few individuals, who with even small increments of encouragement, will keep alive an active concern for the whole.’ The extent to which that projection turns out to be true and false depends upon the career choices of others. Meanwhile, it is clear that Lasswell himself did more than his part as a professional and a policy scientist to help make it true. References Auer, M. R. (2007). The policy sciences in critical perspective. In J. Rabin, G. J. Miller, & W. B. Hildreth (Eds.), Handbook of public administration. London: Taylor and Francis. Bernstein, R. J. (1983). Beyond objectivism and relativism: Science, hermeneutics, and praxis. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Brunner, R. D. (2006). A paradigm for practice. Policy Sciences, 39, 135–167. Brunner, R. D., & Willard, A. R. (2003). Professional insecurities: A guide to understanding and career management. Policy Sciences, 36, 3–36. Cillie, F. S., & W. S. Vincent. N. D. Teacher’s handbook for use with the instructional film democracy. Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica Films Inc. Dahl, R. A. (1970). After the revolution? New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Dahl, R. A. (2002). How democratic is the American constitution? New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Dobyns, H. F., Doughty, P. L., & Lasswell, H. D. (1971). Peasants, power and applied social change: Vicos as a model. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Doughty, P. L. (2002). Ending serfdom in Peru: The struggle for land, freedom in Vicos. In D. B. Heath (Ed.), Contemporary cultures and society of latin America. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Eisenhower, D. W. (1961). Farewell radio and television address to the American people, January 17, in Public papers of the Presidents, 1961 (pp. 1035–1100). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Etheredge, L. S. (1976). The case of the unreturned cafeteria trays. Washington, DC: American Political Science Association. Farr, J., Hacker, J. S., & Kazee, N. (2006). The policy scientist of democracy: The discipline of Harold D. Lasswell. American Political Science Review, 100, 579–587.

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Gould, S. J. (1989). The Burgess Shale and the nature of history. In Wonderful life: The Burgess Shale and the nature of history (pp. 277–291). New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Kaplan, A. (1963). American ethics and public policy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Kaplan, A. (1964). The conduct of inquiry: Methodology for behavioral science. San Francisco, CA: Chandler Publishing Company. Lasswell, H. D. (1930). Psychopathology and politics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lasswell, H. D. (1941). Democracy through public opinion. Menasha, WI: George Banta Publishing. Lasswell, H. D. (1945a). World politics faces economics. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Lasswell, H. D. (1945b). Proposal: The institute of policy sciences: For research and training in selected basic problems in the integration of theory, method, and policy. Archived at Sterling Library, Yale University. Lasswell, H. D. (1950). National security and individual freedom. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Lasswell, H. D. (1951). Democratic character. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Lasswell, H. D. (1956). The political science of science: An inquiry into the possible reconciliation of mastery and freedom. American Political Science Review, 50, 961–979. Lasswell, H. D. (1962). The public interest: Clarifying principles of content and procedure. In C. J. Friedrich (Ed.), The Public Interest: Nomos V. New York, NY: Atherton. Lasswell, H. D. (1965). The emerging policy sciences of development: The Vicos case. American Behavioral Scientist, 8, 28–33. Lasswell, H. D. (1970). Must science serve political power? American Psychologist, 25, 117–123. Lasswell, H. D. (1971). A pre-view of policy sciences. New York, NY: Elsevier. Lasswell, H. D. (2003). On the policy sciences in 1943. Policy Sciences, 36, 71–98. Lasswell, H. D., & Kaplan, A. (1950). Power and society: A framework for political inquiry. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lasswell, H. D., Lerner, D., & Pool, I. D. (1952). The comparative study of symbols: An introduction. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Lasswell, H. D., & McDougal, M. S. (1992). Jurisprudence for a free society: Studies in law, science and policy. New Haven, CT and Dordrecht: New Haven Press and Martinus Nijhoff. Lasswell, H. D., & Rubenstein, R. (1966). The sharing of power in a psychiatric hospital. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lederman, L. M. (1992). The advancement of science. Science, 256, 1119–1124. Lerner, D., & Lasswell, H. D. (1951). The policy sciences. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Levi, E. H. (1949). An introduction to legal reasoning. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Muth, R., Finley, M. M., & Muth, M. F. (1990). Harold D. Lasswell: An annotated biography. New Haven, CT and Dordrecht: New Haven Press and Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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