What Do Policymakers Want From Us? Results of a Survey of Current and Former Senior National Security Decision Makers

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6274591
AutoresPaul C Avey (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Michael C Desch (University of Notre Dame)
Año2014
Volumen58
Número2
Páginas227-246
Fecha de publicación2014-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Studies Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0020-8833 • E-ISSN: 1468-2478
EditorialOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/isqu.12111
OpenAlexW2036091908
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas67
Referencias citadas47

What do the most senior national security policymakers want from international relations scholars? To answer that question, we administered a unique survey to current and former policymakers to gauge when and how they use academic social science to inform national security decision making. We find that policymakers do regularly follow academic social science research and scholarship on national security affairs, hoping to draw upon its substantive expertise. But our results call into question the direct relevance to policymakers of the most scientific approaches to international relations. And they at best seriously qualify the "trickle down" theory that basic social science research eventually influences policymakers. To be clear, we are not arguing that policymakers never find scholarship based upon the cutting-edge research techniques of social science useful. But policymakers often find contemporary scholarship less-than-helpful when it employs such methods across the board, for their own sake, and without a clear sense of how such scholarship will contribute to policymaking

Foreign policy · International relations · National security · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Relevance (law · Scholarship · Social science · Social security · Sociology · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Peacebuilding and International Security · Political Conflict and Governance · Public Administration