Trust in social science

Abstract

The article discusses a problem of trust to social science in the context of contemporary globalization of science and national transformations in Russia. It raises the issue of trust to the Russian Social Science among various social groups such as university professors and scholarly communities, representatives of public authorities and business, journalists and media executives, and student's community. The aim of this paper is the substantiation of methodological approach to the research of this problem, and the description of results of its testing on the group of experts, representatives of university science from various regions of Russia. The authors assume that the decline of trust to Social Science in Russia is caused by both universal factors and some specific for the country. The universal factors include the shift from academic science to "postacademic" one, which is oriented towards applied researches and commercial efficiency. Specific factors include the institutional instability which causes the weakening of the need in scientific results for the state and business; the transformations in science institute that cause the imitation of scientific activity and the decrease of conscientiousness of researchers; the "blind" copying of the Western concepts to analysis of Russian phenomena; the "brain drain". The article defines theoretical and empirical objects, subject field of empirical research and frames some methodological principles for study of trust. The trust to social science includes abstract trust and the trust to certain scientists, schools and results. A set of indicators for the measurement of the level of trust is given. Results of experts' poll are presented. They indicate the validity of the developed methodology; possible directions of further researches of the trust; some necessary ways of the increasing the level of the trust to social science in Russia. It is concluded that the trust research to social sciences based on the offered methodology will allow obtaining valid data for implementation of administrative decisions in scientific policy.