Joe Nye (about to leave the academy for the diplomatic world) inveighs against the bad rap that policy relevance gets in social science (read political science, and perhaps international relations in particular).
bq. The 2008 Teaching, Research and International Policy (TRIP) poll, by the Institute for Theory and Practice in International Relations, showed that of the 25 scholars rated as producing the most interesting scholarship during the past five years, only three had ever held policy positions … Scholars are paying less attention to questions about how their work relates to the policy world, and in many departments a focus on policy can hurt one’s career. …Editor Lee Sigelman observed in the journal’s centennial issue that “if ‘speaking truth to power’ and contributing directly to public dialogue about the merits and demerits of various courses of action were still numbered among the functions of the profession, one would not have known it from leafing through its leading journal.”
bq. Even when academics supplement their usual trickle-down approach to policy by writing in journals, newspapers or blogs, or by consulting for candidates or public officials, they face many competitors for attention. … The solutions must come via a reappraisal within the academy itself. Departments should give greater weight to real-world relevance and impact in hiring and promoting young scholars. Journals could place greater weight on relevance in evaluating submissions. Studies of specific regions deserve more attention. Universities could facilitate interest in the world by giving junior faculty members greater incentives to participate in it. That should include greater toleration of unpopular policy positions. One could multiply such useful suggestions, but young people should not hold their breath waiting for them to be implemented. If anything, the trends in academic life seem to be headed in the opposite direction.
For reactions, see “Dan Drezner”:http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/14/what_if_scholars_cant_play_the_game and Peter at “Duck of Minerva”:http://duckofminerva.blogspot.com/2009/04/theory-and-policy.html. I don’t have much to add beyond the obvious, except to say that the fact that this comes from Joe Nye reflects the fact that this is a live debate in international relations in a way that it isn’t in other fields of political science. In top ranked departments in American political science, political theory, and to a great extent in comparative, there is no disciplinary incentive whatsoever for junior scholars to get engaged in policy debates. Policy focused work is viewed as a distraction from getting peer reviewed publications. In IR, it’s a little different. Too much policy focus is viewed as a bad thing, but a couple of articles in, say, _Foreign Affairs_ or _Foreign Policy_ may (depending on department) be viewed positively, as long as they are accompanied by work in good academic journals. There is also a well-regarded journal, _International Security_, that straddles the divide between academia and practice (NB, however, that this is only true in the sub-subfield of security; there is no cognate journal in international political economy, as “Marty Finnemore and I complain”:http://www.henryfarrell.net/RIPE.pdf ). If Nye were quoting from a survey of Americanists, my best guess is that there would be zero scholars in the top 25 with substantial policy experience. So is this a good or bad thing?