Suchergebnisse

PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLARS FREQUENTLY ARGUE THAT THE STUDY OF THE AMERICAN CHIEF EXECUTIVE COULD BE ADVANCED BY EXAMINING THE OFFICE IN A COMPARATIVE CONTEXT. CROSS-NATIONAL EXECUTIVE STUDIES HAVE NEVER GOTTEN OFF THE GROUND, HOWEVER, BECAUSE THE THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS FOR SUCH A VENTURE ARE SO ELUSIVE THAT THEY PREVENT TESTABLE RESEARCH QUESTIONS FROM BEING ASKED. THIS ARTICLE OFFERS A "PRE-THEORY" OF THE PRESIDENCY IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE. IT GLEANS FROM THE SCHOLARLY LITERATURE A SUMMARY SET OF DEPENDENT VARIABLES THAT CONSTITUTE THE SORTS OF QUESTIONS WE WOULD LIKE TO SEE ANSWERED ABOUT THE PRESIDENCY. THEN, IT LISTS A SET OF INDEPENDENT VARIABLES THAT DRAW WIDE ASSENT IN THE LITERATURE. FINALLY, IT PRESENTS A SERIES OF QUANTITATIVELY TESTABLE HYPOTHESES ABOUT CHIEF EXECUTIVES, THAT, ONCE ANSWERED, WILL GREATLY ADVANCE KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY.

In this paper we develop and apply a comparative framework for the epistemic regimes of scientific fields, which we hope may contribute to strengthening field-comparative research in the sociology of science. We start from the comparative framework developed by Richard Whitley (1984) but modified it radically in order to develop an approach that includes more characteristics of research practices and social structure, and uses characteristics that can be empirically operationalised for a fine-grained comparative analysis of epistemic regimes. We use data from several empirical studies for a comparative description of the epistemic regimes of experimental atomic and molecular optics (AMO physics), plant biology, early modern history, and automotive engineering. This comparison serves as proof of concept. The usefulness of our framework is demonstrated by applying it to an explanation of the emergence of individual research programmes in the four fields. Further possible applications that are briefly discussed include field-specific effects of evaluation regimes, field-specific career patterns, and field-specific practices of data sharing.

The article develops a transactional approach to studying science. Two concepts play a particularly important role: the institutional environment of science and scientific transaction. As an example, the North-American and Russian institutional environments of science are compared. It is shown that structures of scientific transactions (between peers, between the scholar and the academic administrator, between the professor and the student), transaction costs and the scope of academic freedom differ in these two cases. Transaction costs are non-zero in both cases, however. At the same time, it is hypothesized that a greater scope of academic freedom in the North American case may be a factor contributing to a higher scientific productivity.