Legal-Administrative Reforms and the Role of Social Research

Abstract

Reforms emerging from the political authorities are generally expressed in a hierarchy of rules specifying how society is to be structured. When research is asked to support such reforms, it has to be naturalistic re search. Consequently, social research has come to play a very limited role in relation to reform efforts on the level of society. As the shortcomings of the traditional reform model are becoming increasingly more apparent, new ideas about reform, based on developing active participation from those concerned, are emerging. This alternative generates a new and more fruitful basis for social research, and places this type of research in the centre of efforts at social reform.