IDEOLOGY AND POLICY RESEARCH: THE CASE OF MURRAY'S LOSING GROUND

Kenneth M. Dolbeare and Russell M. Lidman

Review of Policy Research, 1985, vol. 4, issue 4, 587-594

Abstract: Ideology and policy research are intertwined in many ways; an example is Murray's Losing Ground which uses “science” to justify racial, sexual, and class discrimination. Murray is utterly faithful to the neoconservative version of how liberalism went wrong in the 1960s. He says an intellectual elite shifted the blame for poverty, crime and low achievement to “the system” destroying individual responsibility. But his argument is not supported by evidence. Data are bent tofit foregone conclusions. He argues that more people are becoming dependent on government support, but his method of counting who receives assistance is a fiction. Nevertheless his argument has wide appeal among Americans. Why? His argument touches the self‐interested Social Darwinist in almost all of us.

Date: 1985
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-1338.1985.tb00306.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:revpol:v:4:y:1985:i:4:p:587-594

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.wiley.com/bw/subs.asp?ref=1541-132x

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Policy Research is currently edited by Christopher Gore

More articles in Review of Policy Research from Policy Studies Organization Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().