Interview 

Social Sciences in Crisis: A Dialogue 

with Professor Neil Smelser 

on the Future of Social Sciences 

Professor Mahmoud Dhaouadi is a sociologist at the University 

of Tunis, Tunisia. As part of his Fulbright Research on "the State 

of American Sociology Today," he interviewed Professor 

Smelser on January 5, 200 I, director, Center for Advanced Study 

in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California. Here are some 

excerpts. 

DHAOUADI: Based on my own observations and impressions, one talks 

more about sociology as a discipline having a crisis, than about psychol­

ogy or political science. How do you respond to that? 

SMELSER: I heard this kind of talk among sociologists. Among the 

questions raised in their frequent conversations are: What is the field 
about? What are the boundaries about? Is it (sociology) fragmented? Is it 

practiced ... etc? 

In that disciplinary sense, every field in the social sciences has a 

problem to some degree. Economics, even has a problem about the con -
flict between neoclassical economics and the various branches of this dis­

cipline, which internally , has become even more complex. They don't 

beat their breast quite as much about this as sociologists, but if you talk 

to anybody in the field they will say: "Well, we have no unity, we have 
no consensus; it's splitting up into too many specializations." We find the 

same kind of talk in sociology. Realistically, I think that sociology can 

probably be best compared with political science, in the sense that it is 

solidly established in the university system, so its organization is solid 
and its professional association is solid. Despite the conflict I mentioned 

earlier, it is recognized in the agencies that give money to the field, it's 

recognized by publishers as being a field, and no one seems to be desert­
ing it.