Really knowledge which can legitimately be examined in univer- sities or merely pragmatic common sense which can be used b those who agree with its (conservative and liberal? assumptions? To meet such objections there has been a development of more methodo- logically aware 'new institutionalism' of which Peters (1999) disce no fewer than seven varieties. The sceptical will continue to argue that the operations of representative institutions are merely a deceptive mask for the real politics of exploitation below (see the section on Radical criticism, p. 19), whilst the ambitious see only scientifically established theories as the acceptable basis of knowledge in the twenty-first century SOCIAL SCIENCE AND POLITICS The proposition that our knowledge of politics should be scientifically derived seems, at first sight, undeniable. The application of scien tific method in many other spheres (e.g. physics, biochemistry, astronomy) has yielded not only a broad consensus on the truth of various scientific 'laws', but also practical results in the shape of space travel and 'miracle' drugs. If the application of systematic obser- vation, computerised analysis of data, the testing of hypotheses through experiment and the painstaking building of small bricks of fact into enormous edifices of knowledge can work in one sphere, why not in another? Since human beings are currently at such logger heads over the nature of politics, it might be thought, indeed, that the construction of a science of politics is the most urgent intellectual task of our time The problems of creating a valid science of politics seem, however to be so enormous as to place the whole project in some doubt. The include problems of value conflict, of complexity, of method and of philosophy It is tempting to dismiss conflicts of value as irrelevant to scientific investigation. The conventional argument is that science is morally neutral value-free'), but can be used for good or evil. Thus the struc- ture of the atom is the same everywhere, whether our knowledge of this structure is used to destroy civilisations, to fuel them or merely to understand their most basic constituents creating It is easier to apply a knowledge of biochemistry to create a individual health than it is to use a knowledge of politics to create a