Project Camelot and the 1960s Epistemological Revolution Rethinking the Politics-patronage-social Science Nexus

SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE

Project Camelot and the 1960s Epistemological Revolution

Rethinking the Politics-patronage-social Science Nexus

1. Mark Solovey1

+ Author Affiliations

1. ¹25 Irving Terrace, #7, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA; fax (at Harvard): +1 617 495 3344; solovey@asu.edu

Abstract

Project Camelot, a military-sponsored, social science study of revolution, was cancelled in 1965 amidst international and national discussion about the study's political implications. Subsequently, Camelot became the focus of a wide-ranging controversy about the connections between Cold War politics, military patronage, and American social science. This paper argues that following Camelot's demise, efforts to rethink the politics-patronage-social science nexus became an important part of what historian Peter Novick has called `the epistemological revolution that began in the 1960s'. Novick claims that `strictly academic' considerations provided the categories of analysis that challenged the scholarly mainstream's commitment to objectivity and related ideals, like value-neutrality and professional autonomy. In contrast, my analysis - which discusses post-WWII military patronage for the social sciences, Camelot's origins and cancellation, the ensuing controversy, and some long-term implications of this controversy - underscores the centrality of political developments and political concerns in that epistemological revolution.

• counter-insurgency
• ideology
• objectivity
• SORO
• value-neutrality

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