He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune: A Critical Analysis of the Impact of Governmental Funding on the Construction and Deployment of Forms of Sociological Knowledge and Expertise

This article offers a contribution to the sociology of sociological knowledge by conducting a critical sociological analysis of the potential impact of increasing government funding on the construction and deployment of forms of sociological knowledge and expertise. It will be argued that not only is the dominant discourse told in the story of sociology and the work of sociologists an inaccurate account of the discipline and the role of sociologists, the reverse is a more accurate account of the role and function of sociology and sociologists when sociologists act as outsourced forms of governmental labor. Indeed, rather than serving to expose and confront abuses of power in society, government funded sociological research projects play a crucial role in the construction and deployment of the very discourses that position subjects of power as objects to be acted upon; for power to be exercised over. It is concluded that a more appropriate understanding of the relationship between power and knowledge in modern societies; between discourse and exercises of modern forms of bio-power, can assist sociology and sociologists in the better realization of the programmatic goals that they claim that they desire in the story of sociology that they project to society and tell themselves.