Social Science Research Council

The SSRC expresses its concern for all Iranian scholars and researchers in what is clearly a difficult time. We support both the freedom of scholarship from political intervention and the right of scholars to participate openly in public discussions. We are disturbed that in the aftermath of the widely disputed election, media that should allow [...]

Jim Leach is an outstanding choice to lead the National Endowment for the Humanities. He’s smart, thoughtful, and brings a combination of openness and good judgment to the job—as well as political connections. Flourishing humanities fields (including scholarship in fields like cultural anthropology, historical sociology, and human geography) are important in themselves, but also as [...]

President Obama promises not just to stimulate the economy, but at the same time to remake America. He proposes to do this by making the government a more effective provider of public services and a more effective partner to private organizations that pursue the public good. His stimulus plan is an amalgam of dozens of [...]

More than one commentator has noted that there is a silver lining in the widespread belief that America urgently needs a major economic stimulus package. It is a gift to President Obama, many suggest, because it allows his administration to pursue a wide range of social policies as a package rather than one by one, [...]

The Bush administration earned justified opprobrium for neglecting many regions of the world, failing to ground its policies in serious knowledge of those regions it did address, and generally focusing on the world it wanted to create to the exclusion of the world as it really was. It’s not that it isn’t a good idea [...]

The Social Science Research Council congratulates Paul Krugman for winning the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. Krugman’s seminal papers on international trade and the economics of location are of pivotal importance. The SSRC is grateful for Paul Krugman’s leadership in its Applied Economics Program (1998–2005), his participation in summer workshops for PhD students, and [...]

I’d like to extend to Cora B. Marrett my enthusiastic congratulations, as well as the congratulations of everyone here at the Social Science Research Council, for the honor of the American Sociological Association’s (ASA) prestigious Cox-Johnson-Frazier Award.

Both democracy and social science depend on open public communication. Sadly, Egypt’s government–or at least factions in that government–have declared themselves hostile to such openness. By launching a new attack on Saad Eddin Ibrahim, one of Egypt’s most distinguished social scientists and a leading advocate for democracy, these leaders have sought to deprive Egyptian citizens of both democracy and scientific knowledge.

Charles Tilly passed away last week. He was among the most distinguished of contemporary social scientists. Indeed, the SSRC had just awarded Tilly its highest honor, the Albert O. Hirschman Prize. Like Hirschman, however, Tilly was not only distinguished but distinctive. He had a voice of his own….

Editor’s Note: This essay tribute originally appeared in the SSRC’s collection of “Tributes to Charles Tilly.”

Editor’s Note: You can also download a footnoted version of this essay of the original essay, “Social Science for Public Knowledge” (pdf, 31 pages, 132 KB).