社会工程与政策实施的理论探析

Social Engineering and Policy Implementation

社会工程是为了实现政策目标而对科学知识、技术、工艺的运用。它在个体行为和系统实践的双重层面上试图理性地规划与管理社会变迁。区分了社会工程的两个主要分支,并且简要的探讨了每一种方法的内在矛盾。第一种方法基于行为主义和行动理论的生物/行为主义方法,这种方法的核心矛盾围绕行为主义的先验宿命论和行动理论的先验自由意志论而生。第二种方法则指向社会系统和组织的科学设计与管理。这种方法的核心矛盾与结构主义理论的先验可控性和复杂性理论的不可控性相关。认为政策制订者、社会科学家应当摒弃对社会行为和过程工程化控制的追求,在复杂的社会系统背景下,以努力强化和系统化调节社会行动的能力取而代之。

Social Engineering is the use of scientific knowledge, techniques, and technologies to achieve policy objectives. It is an attempt to rationally plan and manage social change at the level of both individual behaviour and institutional practice. In this paper I ＂identify two main branches of Social Engineering and briefly discuss intemal contradictions of each approach. The first approach is a biological/behaviourist approach rooted in both behaviourist and action theory. The central contradiction of this approach revolves around the assumed determinism of behaviourist theory and the assumed free will of action theory. The second approach is oriented towards the scientific design and management of social systems and organizations. The core contradiction in this approach is related to the assumed controllability of social systems posited by structuralist theories and the uncontrollability presumed by complexity theories. I argue policy makers and social scientists should abandon the quest for engineering-like control of social behavior and processes and replace it with efforts to enhance and institutionalize increased capacity to communicatively coordinate social action in the context of complex social systems.