An epistemic approach to research assessment in the social sciences

The international debate on research assessment in social sciences is usually based on technical issues of methodology and indicators, on the one hand, or on broad arguments taken from political and philosophical conversations, such as the role of universities in the neoliberal governance or the limits of meritocracy. While these perspectives are extremely valuable in this chapter I argue that a different perspective is offered by looking at the internal epistemic dynamics of social sciences. I examine the epistemological and methodological debates in various social sciences in the XX century, with particular attention to the turning points of neopositivism and post-structuralism. By examining the ways in which social sciences have been originated as autonomous academic disciplines, the criteria of distinction and validity of arguments elaborated in the history of the discipline, and the main theoretical and technical controversies, we get a window on the interpretation of the widely different attitudes towards research assessment. A number of normative implications are discussed.