Reasons for Conducting Social Experiments
The motives for undertaking a social experiment invariably differ from one experiment to the next (for a detailed analysis, see Greenberg, Linksz, and Mandell 2003). We begin with the most cynical motive—that the social experiment is conducted to replace difficult political decisions with symbolic action. This charge, which was leveled against the income maintenance experiments, will always have surface appeal; for many, legislative and administrative actions have greater symbolism than content. Indeed, some groups often gain a political advantage by delaying a decision, and evaluations with any pretension to scientific standards do take time.
Despite the superficial attractiveness of this argument, we believe such a motive can be easily dismissed. A demonstration may serve as a symbol of a policymaker's sympathies, but no political logic requires a rigorous objective assessment of that demonstration. The usual purpose of delaying tactics is to make the issue go away. If that were the goal, an objective evaluation based on random assignment would act like a bomb with a very slow fuse, detonating years later, perhaps with embarrassing consequences for the policymaker's career.
Policymakers seem well aware of this. Egregiously pork barrel or purely symbolic "demonstrations," or transparently political "programs" often seem deliberately designed to make future evaluations of any sort impossible. To the cynics, we suggest that policymakers have many other useful pretexts for delay that present fewer risks.5
We turn now to less cynical explanations. First, an experiment may be intended for a specific policy decision. Feldman (1989, 80) has contended that if research were intended to influence a specific policy decision, both the timing of the decision and the alternatives to be considered would have to be known in advance. Otherwise, the research would probably not be available when the decision is made or would not be pertinent to the decision. Indeed, these conditions are seldom met in practice.
A less demanding explanation of why social experiments are initiated is that policymakers plan to use the information gained whenever it becomes available. Therefore, if a social experiment demonstrates convincingly that an idea really works, it will help to generate the political support required to place it on the policy agenda.
A final possibility is that the experiment is intended to create an inventory of information for future policymaking (Feldman 1989, 92-96). The implied intention is for the experiment to contribute to a stock of knowledge, reducing uncertainty should a relevant issue reach the policy agenda.
All but the cynical explanation for social experiments suggest that such demonstrations are intended to generate information relevant to the policy process. Almost without exception, social experiments test the power of particular policies to solve or mitigate serious social problems—long-term welfare receipt; rising health care costs; inadequate or unaffordable shelter for low-income families; long-term unemployment; the clouded future for former offenders, substance addicts, and at-risk youth. Experiments are funded when disagreement over appropriate policy interventions is caused, at least in part, by uncertainty over their potential consequences. If policymakers knew the outcomes, there would be little justification for sponsoring experiments. It is useful to keep this apparently banal idea in mind when considering whether social experiments are ethical and whether they are the best form of research for assessing policy choices.
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