Politics and Science as a Vocation: Can Academics Save us from Post-Truth Politics?

Abstract

In an apparently post-truth era, the social science scholar, by disposition and training committed to rational argumentation and the pursuit of truth, appeals as the ideal bulwark against excessive politicization of facts and expertise. In this article, we look to the experience of four prominent social scientists who have recently left the academy to enter politics with the aim of using their academic expertise to reshape policy. We use these cases to explore fundamental dilemmas derived from a close reading of Max Weber’s seminal vocation essays of a century ago. Weber observed that politicians were driven by a will to power, whereas academics were driven by a will to truth. We argue that these two competing dispositions create four tensions for the academic turned politician: (1) between calling and commitment, (2) between means and ends, (3) between rationalization and professionalization and (4) between facts and values. Analysing memoirs written by four of the most prominent academics-turned-politicians in recent times, we explore how Weber’s tensions manifest in contemporary practice. Our account reveals that these actors face a daunting, but not impossible, task. Their success depends on wedding the relentless pursuit of ends with the prudent application of political means.