THE NATURE OF THE POLITICIZATION OF BASIC SCIENCE IN CANADA: NRC'S ROLE, 1945-1976

Scientists have always considered basic research to be an area of endeavour that should be immune from any kind of external interference. Until the late 1960s, its management was viewed as being governed primarily by the rules of the republic of science, which gravitate around the principles of excellence and free competiton.;The object of this dissertation is to show that the funding of basic research in the 20th century falls within the realm of political analysis. Basic science, to the same extent as other social, or even scientific, endeavours has not escaped politicization. The definition of its governing philosophy and the distribution of authority over its management as well as the allocation of values and resources within it or in relation with other areas of governmental intervention have, historically, been the object of bargaining (consocional or conflictual). Even the most advanced state of scientific self-government is a political achievement, conditional upon the mastery of a political rationale by the scientific community.;The politicization of basic science in Canada has evolved over the years, being conditioned by the nature of relationships between science and government, which were a function of the power structure within the basic science community.;For half a century, the authorities of the NRC developed a type of relations with governmental decision-makers that rested upon elite accomodation and an underlying total dominance of the basic community's power structure. This was due to their mastery of a political rhetoric which was powerful enough to impose upon the political and scientific communities a conception of the role and orientation of scientific activities that secured for the conduct of the basic science endeavour a state of self-government rarely equalled elsewhere and which lasted from the Second World War until the early 1960s.;In the 1960s, however, the growth of the scientific community, the increasing complexity of its structure, the clearly expressed will of politicians to impress upon scientific activities specificaly defined orientations, all combined to create profound disruptions in the traditional environment of basic science in Canada. These disruptions in the basic science environment resulted in the dislocation of a once monolithic power structure within the basic science community which evolved into one which was truly pluralistic.