REV
IEW
Review
Mark Israel and Lain Hay Research ethics for social scientists: between ethical conduct and regulatory
compliance London: Sage, 2006, 193 pp.
Just as one half of the hourglass empties to fill
the other, so the quality of scientific research
decreases while the need for ethical evaluation
grows. Again, like the hourglass, the time to
ponder the ethics of scientific research is running
out as science becomes increasingly linked to
money, politics and other influences too com-
plex and numerous to mention here.
Ethics is becoming an increasingly impor-
tant issue for social scientists not only across the
western world, but also in the so-called global
South. Much, if not most, social science research
in Africa and Latin America is driven by a strong
moral social commitment: the interest being the
decolonisation of social science and the indigen-
isation of knowledge so as to promote demo-
cratic change and justice. That being said, this
interest is coming exclusively from the western
countries where the questions of regulations and
copyright are frequently raised. The articulation
of this kind of analysis in different contexts,
different academic cultures and modes of
regulations, remains, however, problematic
and few initiatives have been taken in inviting
researchers to debate this crucial issue. From
1995 to 2007 the only activity of this type
undertaken in North Africa was initiated by the
French Institut de recherche et d’e´tudes sur le
Maghreb contemporain (Camau 1995). At the
international level, however, the theoretical
production was more visible. During the last
decade two books have notably improved the
theoretical knowledge in this field, the Ethics of
science by David B. Resnik (1998) and Research
ethics for social scientists: between ethical
ISSJ 197–198 r UNESCO 2010. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DK, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
conduct and regulatory compliance (Israel and
Hay 2006). Although both books tackle the
same questions the latter is especially note-
worthy because of its sustained focus on the link
between social sciences and ethics.
Throughout their depiction of the relation-
ship between ethical conduct and regulatory
compliance in social sciences the authors set out
to achieve four goals. First, they demonstrate
the practical value of thinking seriously and
systematically about what constitutes ethical
conduct in social science research. Second, they
identify how and why current regulatory regimes
have emerged. Third, they seek to reveal those
practices that have contributed to the adversar-
ial relationships between researchers and reg-
ulators. Finally, they try to encourage both
parties to develop shared solutions to ethical and
regulatory problems.
In the first chapter, ‘‘Why care about
ethics’’, many concerns are highlighted, includ-
ing research integrity, trust and ethical beha-
viour. In research, ethical behaviour may help
ensure the climate of trust in which we continue
our socially useful labour. If we act honestly and
honourably people may rely on us to be mindful
of their own needs and sensitivities and, conse-
quently, may be more willing to contribute
openly and fully to the work. Furthermore, in
caring about ethics and acting in an ethical
manner we promote the integrity of research.
Since much of what we do occurs without
anyone else watching, there is ample opportu-
nity to conduct ourselves in improper ways. For
example, researchers can fabricate quotations or
468
data or gain information under false pretences.
Moreover, in some types of work involving
covert methods, for example, where the anon-
ymity of subjects and locations is protected, it is
difficult – if not impossible – for other social
scientists to validate the research. If we can
assure ourselves and our colleagues that we are
behaving ethically we can be more confident that
the results of the work we read and hear about
are accurate and original. Unfortunately, how-
ever, the pressure on academic integrity is
growing. Various trends such as the greater
dependence of universities and their researchers
on sponsorship, thus linking government grants
and salary increments to research performance,
have heightened the likelihood of unethical
behaviour by researchers.
As we are confronted with new challenges
like the Internet, which raise new issues of
personal privacy and public observation for
social scientists, traditional religious and other
sources of moral justification are, for many
people, decreasing in authority. The blame for
drifting moral anchors has been associated with
all types of social change, including the rise of
economic neoliberalism and a variety of events
such as sexual scandals affecting people in
authority. All of this has led to increasing social
fragmentation with a corresponding decline in
the quality of civic life and engagement.
More broadly, but perhaps as part of the
same cultural phenomena, the decline in moral
authority has been linked to postmodernism.
Some analysts have gone so far as to suggest
that, through its incredulity towards meta-
narratives, postmodernism has dashed notions
of universal, solidly grounded ethical regulation.
More simply put – as one of the most profound
influences on social scientific thought of the past
quarter of a century – postmodernism may have
encouraged debate over authoritative definitions
and singular narratives of events.
In the second chapter, ‘‘Ethical app-
roaches’’, the book offers a short and accessible
overview of ethical theory by and for non-
ethicists. Social scientists are concerned about
ethics. For the sake of those who put trust in us
and our work, for those who employ us, fund
our research and otherwise support our profes-
sional activities, and as a result of our desires to
do good, we behave in ways that are right and
virtuous. Unfortunately, some find that it is
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more difficult to act ethically than it should be.
Why? In part, because many of us do not possess
the philosophical training that allows us to
negotiate effectively with biomedical scientists
and ethicists about appropriate means of reg-
ulating social science research.
Chapter 3, ‘‘Codes and principles’’, focuses
on the development of the major codes and
principles that have underpinned institutional
approaches to ethical regulation since 1945.
Though all examples referred to by the authors
are on biomedical research, each has influenced
the regulatory trajectories for social science and
their impact has been felt across various
disciplines. From this perspective, the book
examines a range of theses in Chapter 4.
Chapters 5 to 8 investigate how social
scientists have developed and evaluated their
practices around the concepts of informed
consent, confidentiality, beneficence and non-
maleficence, and the problems relating to
research relationships. These chapters reveal
tensions within the research community as well
as in researchers’ beliefs about what is right as
opposed to those of research ethics committees.
These issues are further explored in an appendix
that consists of a series of complex ethical cases,
together with responses from colleagues, drawn
from a broad disciplinary mix.
Local solutions, global
concerns?
The current interdisciplinary focus of social
sciences on ecological issues reinforces the
international aspect of ethical concerns. In the
final chapter, ‘‘Between ethical conduct and
regulatory compliance’’, the authors argue that
as social scientists engage with non-social
scientists, ‘‘we need to increase both the per-
ceived and actual legitimacy of our research
investigations’’ (p.173). In this way, social
scientists have to present and cogently defend
the ethical nature of their activities, both
individually at the local level and collectively at
the local, national and international levels. At
the first level, however, local ethical conduct and
regulatory compliance are not obvious. In a
comparative perspective, several considerations
that are not mentioned by the authors, such as
Review
cultural and geographical variations in ethical
frameworks, should be considered and taken
into account. Ethical statements set the value of
good conduct for a researcher. Whoever they are
and wherever they work, social science research-
ers have to observe some general principles such
as: do no harm to people, organisations or
communities who participate in research pro-
jects; get permission or informed consent from
the people or organisations who are the subjects
of the research before conducting a study;
maintain the privacy or confidentiality of people
and organisations participating in the research
project. But in fact, outside western countries in
particular, where few scientific associations
impose codes of conduct, research practice
differs greatly from standard.
Another issue that is not clearly examined
in the book is the different comparative
approaches of ethics, raising the cultural defini-
tion of what is ethical and what is not. This issue
also emphasises the difference between the
cultural and the anthropological aspects of what
is moral and what is deontological. This is
particularly true for the academic environment
in the South where traditional, religious and
other sources of moral justification are, for
many people, declining in their importance and
where research deontology is rarely perceptible.
A priori there is undoubtedly a relationship
of inter-attraction and sometimes tension
between ethics in the large sense and deontology,
which approximates Max Weber’s (1974) con-
cepts about ethics of responsibility or scientific
vocation (Wissenschaft als Beruf) on one hand
and the morality of society on the other, as I
have previously argued (Hafaiedh 2000). In the
global South, however, current social and
scientific developments, such as the expansion
of research-related professions and the growth in
the number of PhD dissertations, have given rise
to an urgent need to re-examine this relation-
ship. Morality consists of general, common
sense criteria that apply to all individuals in
society, regardless of their role and the diversity
of social institutions and professions. Standards
of societal morality also pertain to rules that
individuals learn before entering educational or
research institutions and apply in their everyday
life, such as do not lie and do not steal. In
contrast, deontology or the ethics of professions
is a set of duties or behavioural norms of a
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469
particular profession or group, thus the term,
ethics used in, for example, the ethics of the
medical profession, of pharmacologists, of
journalism, and of social or psychological
research.
Dealing with scientific
resources and building
research projects
With the unprecedented growth in the number
of PhD and MA candidates, important ques-
tions have been raised concerning the ethical,
human and scientific components that should be
included in graduate training. The scant evalua-
tions of the outputs of higher education have
pointed to a noticeable decline in the value of
degrees and research studies that do not meet
standards of quality and whose findings are
often subject to clientelistic, personal, political
and religious considerations.
In the same context, putting together
research projects includes the appropriate selec-
tion of research studies, whether they are MA or
PhD dissertations. In many countries of the
South, however, the process of selecting topics is
an arbitrary one characterised by a lack of work
strategies in research teams, research units and
laboratories. The process of selecting research
topics is also influenced by the interference of the
various personal interests of the supervisor with
the interests of the student or researcher, which
are often still unclear at this point. The practice
of major graduate schools to unify the efforts of
research units or laboratories in different spe-
cialisations, to train PhD candidates and enable
them to present their findings, has not yet been
adopted in most academic institutions in many
countries, where personal and arbitrary con-
siderations tend to determine the choice of
topics. Thus, the development of research tools
presupposes the development of forms of work
within research teams.
Another issue is scientific resources.
Although it is usually not difficult for research-
ers to find reliable sources, several problems in
determining their reliability can arise. One
problem, especially in African and Arab coun-
tries, is the prevalence of confidential and non-
published sources. A great number of young
470
researchers daily run up against the difficulties
of gaining access to confidential documents,
reports and data.
Academic freedom and public
interest Plagiarism, piracy and
copyright
Academic freedom is also an important issue. In
non-democratic systems its impact on research
ethics is undeniable. More than anywhere else,
researchers in the global South frequently face
pressures from governments or religious institu-
tions. Sometimes these pressures are reinforced
by financial leverage from the sponsors in order
to influence the research agenda:
One is likely to learn very early that despite the way the
official codes of ethics say it is supposed to be, one would be
well advised to place the interests of the employer or
sponsor before the interests of people studied, their
communities, one’s own colleagues, students, host govern-
ments, own government, or the general public. (Frankel
and Trend 1991)
As an employee or consultant, researchers and
their institutions may be bound to secrecy and
find themselves increasingly vulnerable. From
this point of view, academic freedom is a non-
negotiable condition, even though the public
interest should determine the ethical quality of
research activities. How can one define the
position of researcher vis-à-vis the question of
social justice, environmental issues, discrimina-
tion or human rights? Where are the boundaries
between neutrality, impartiality and moral or
ethical commitment and how can we rethink
social science in light of such ethical postulates?
After all, the question now is: how can the
social sciences be neutral and impartial when
dealing with serious and crucial issues such as
global warming, unemployment, violence, pub-
lic health and education? In the current context
of global economic crisis, and according to the
rules of the market, the privatisation of public
services requires another type of knowledge that
is less and less about academia and more and
more about expertise. However, from the ethical
point of view this type of expert knowledge is in
itself problematic (knowledge for private inter-
est versus knowledge for public interest). The
relation between research in social sciences and
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the need to reconsider social rights and social
well-being is more than a simple ethical ques-
tion: it is a question of public choices and human
rights.
With the increase in the volume of transfer of
information and the diversification of electronic
sources, plagiarism and copyright violation have
also been on the rise, particularly in the absence
of clear legislation on authors’ rights. Plagiar-
ism, meaning copying texts and attributing them
to individuals other than the authors, or
integrating them into new text with minor
modifications that make it difficult to recognise
them at first sight, applies not only to university
dissertations but also to books, articles and
reports. Piracy is the outright copying of data,
scientific texts, articles and books. With the
noticeable increase in electronic publications
and the proliferation of scientific products, both
plagiarism and piracy are increasingly frequent.
Even the fact that some kind of knowledge
transfer may be a good thing from the point of
view of the open source movement it may still be
unethical if it facilitates and renders legitimate
the attribution of writings to individuals other
than the real authors or to sources other than the
original ones. Piracy also encourages researchers
not to bother exploring original sources. This in
turn deepens the crisis of reading among
researchers and the new generations of students,
all of which emphasises the need to rationalise
the role and function of electronic sources in
developing scientific research.
Evaluation and peer review
The system of peer-review appeared in the
nineteenth century but did not prevail until the
mid-twentieth century. It operates as a mechan-
ism for controlling scientific products by distin-
guishing between good and weak articles.
Although peer review is applied in scientific
forums and publications in countries in the
South, this review system is still below standard
and poor quality scientific products still prevail.
Poor quality scientific research is commensurate
Review
with low levels of evaluation along several fronts
which include the evaluation of dissertations and
research studies, books and papers suggested for
conferences and seminars.
The crisis of evaluating studies is primarily
attributed to the retraction of the tradition of
review of scientific products and the emphasis on
review as a principle or a condition for publica-
tion. Other factors also contributing to the
decline of the evaluation process include
& poor public academic dialogue despite the
large number of scientific meetings
& low levels of trust among researchers
& decline in the methodological distance that
separates the guiding framework or the
research director (the professor, team leader
or review committees) from the executors of
the research, whether they are professional
researchers, consultants or PhD candidates.
This lack of distance contributes to the
ambivalence of evaluation criteria and stan-
dards, giving prominence to personal con-
siderations over scientific and objective
considerations.
Key evaluation issues include the question of
how researchers or research institutions handle
collected data, the importance of asserting the
principle of scientific neutrality and the need to
refrain from the administrative, political, or
economic manipulation of data. It also raises for
discussion the relationship with consultant firms
and institutions, and the extent to which
researchers should provide safeguards against
the use by non-scientific and non-academic
organisations of their scientific knowledge. This
includes further themes such as statistical data
and which research should or should not be
included, for example in the area of statistics
related to crime (for example, the relationship
between crime and nationality, colour or race).
Missing from the book is a discussion of the
professional dimension of the researcher’s status
and roles. Scientific research progresses and
improves as long as it benefits from the diversity
of viewpoints and schools of thought. However,
the intensity of political conflicts and instability
sometimes contribute to direct violence against
universities (such as the assassination of uni-
versity staff in Iraq), the exacerbation of
psychological suppression or the decline of
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471
academic tolerance among researchers, which
in turn reduce the chance to develop innovative
scientific products among university staff.
Universities, research centres, laboratories,
research units and review entities constitute
microcosms with functional characteristics.
However, these entities can also operate as small
associations within a non-functional context by
assuming limited and passive roles. In the
struggle for academic dominance in the world
of science, they can form cliques in the general
intellectual, linguistic, sectarian or social con-
flicts. Students and young researchers are
usually the victims of such academic partiality.
Research and media
What is also missing in this book is the link
between social science research, ethics and the
media. Since both gather information, science
and the media (from the Internet to the daily
newspaper) are not strange bedfellows. The
public often benefits from interactions between
science and the media and these two institutions
often complement each other, even if it is not as
easy to have access to virtual knowledge every-
where as it is in western countries. The Internet
raises many questions about bibliographical
references and copyright. Despite the weak
efficiency of public databases and public
libraries in countries in the South, the Internet
has become an important tool of scientific
information exchange. The ease with which
cyberspace facilitates access to sources of
scientific information also raises issues about
the ethical and legal dimensions of such research
and the norms and policies that have tradition-
ally governed its conduct. It also raises questions
about the ability of both researchers and their
respondents to assume online anonymous iden-
tities, the complexities of obtaining approval
from the individuals concerned, the often
exaggerated expectations, if not the illusion, of
privacy in cyberspace (Schrum 1995).
Since they have different competencies and
financial support, science and the media can
sometimes act together in ways that produce
unintentional impacts on the public. Sometimes
the public may become misinformed as a result
of the media’s treatment of social, political or
international events. This is especially true in the
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case of pool surveys, interviews and roundtables.
In Television Bourdieu (1999) presented a strong
denunciation of the media’s impact on academic
and intellectual life. In Homo academicus Bour-
dieu (1990) analysed the academic tribe, a notion
that has an ethical dimension, although he
himself himself made little reference to ethics.
His concern was the media’s focus on spectacle,
disasters and human interest stories over more
substantive examinations of political and social
issues; the media’s attention to the game of
politics, as it is played by lobbyists, as opposed
to an exploration of the concrete, material
effects of these games; the invisible censorship
exercised on the news, both directly and
indirectly by the market; in short, all the various
ways in which media imposes limits on the
public’s vision of what constitutes reality or
concrete knowledge.
Most scientific meetings are open to the
public and scientists need to be aware that
journalists are also entitled to attend scientific
meetings. The question here is when and how
should researchers be allowed to present their
work. Should they be allowed to present it in
closed sessions or should they allow journalists
to report on their work without receiving
preliminary feedback from peers in the public?
In cases when the press gains access to research
that has not been methodically peer-reviewed
there can be some regrettable effects on science
and for society.
Abdelwahab Ben Hafaiedh
Department of Sociology
University of Tunis

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