comparative approaches to solving social problems

I just bought this book Solutions to Social Problems: Lessons from Other Societies by D. Stanley Eitzen and Craig S. Leedham (both at Colorado State University at the time of publication - 1998). What I find interesting about this is that including "Lessons from Other Societies" as a subtitle would mark the book as distinctive when it comes to books about how to solve social problems. One would think that a book on social problems even remotely worth its salt would pay careful attention to the relevant empirical evidence, which includes the results of various attempts to solve various kinds of social problems from other societies. But, as a matter of fact, that is not the case. (So this is a dig not at this book and their authors, but rather at the approach taken by others to social problems such that it made sense for them to include this is a subtitle.) Sadly, there seems to be a terrible dearth of attention to empirical evidence and those with actual empirical and issue-specific expertise when it comes to social policies aimed at alleviating social problems, including (perhaps especially) presidential candidates. This was the main reason I was a fan of John Hagelin (Natural Law Party presidential candidate 1992, 1996 and 2000); he wanted to approach social problems very scientifically by paying attention to the best available empirical evidence and issue-specific expertise out there (and, further, he also had an extremely sharp intellect to offer by way of choosing in light of such - Hagelin is an extremely accomplished theoretical physicist and, to a lesser extent, practical engineer). As a presidential candidate, I intend to continue this theme of Hagelin's.