As the preceding work has made clear, its goal has been to make sense of a socialist society which has distinguished itself by certain contributions to the theory and practice of participatory democracy. This topic, and the methodology that it calls for, suit various concerns of social — and sociological — criticism that I share. As the reader may already have concluded from the empirical part of the study, my approach has tried to counter the imperialistic, quantitative social science which prevails in much comparative sociological and political research with a qualitative analysis of politics and society.

Studies in the mainstream of imperialistic social science share a common and interconnected orientation, methods, and content. Turning the classical priorities of sociological research on their heads, practitioners in this field appear to place most emphasis on what we have lapsed into calling quantitative methodology. To this end they export to other countries largescale projects based on hierarchically-organized team work, an awesome array of data-processing techniques, and quantitative rather than qualitative analysis. This sort of work has been compatible with policy formulation within the governments of certain wealthy countries and international organizations, which have become major sources of funding for both underdeveloped countries and social scientists. Just as certain problems tend to develop in these international relationships, so too do strains of condescension and exploitation appear in relations based on social science imperialism.