Does Social Science Inform Foreign Policy? Evidence from a Survey of US National Security, Trade, and Development Officials.
Scholars continue to debate the relationship of academic international relations to policy. One of the most straightforward ways to discern whether policymakers find IR scholarship relevant to their work is to ask them. We analyzed an elite survey of US policy practitioners to better understand the...
| Published in: | International Studies Quarterly Vol. 66; no. 1; pp. 1 - 20 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
| Format: | Article |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press / USA
Mar2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=155812653&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 155812653 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00208833 ISQ jtl: International Studies Quarterly issn: 00208833 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Mar2022 vid: 66 iid: 1 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 155812653 10.1093/isq/sqab057 ppf: 1 ppct: 19 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T db: hlh ui: 155812653 – @attributes: type: P db: hlh ui: 155812653 tig: atl: Does Social Science Inform Foreign Policy? Evidence from a Survey of US National Security, Trade, and Development Officials. aug: au: Avey, Paul C Desch, Michael C Parajon, Eric Peterson, Susan Powers, Ryan Tierney, Michael J affil: Virginia Tech , USA University of Notre Dame , USA University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , USA William & Mary , USA University of Georgia , USA su: United States. National Security Agency Social sciences International relations Elite (Social sciences) Public officers National security Commerce sug: subj: Social sciences International relations Elite (Social sciences) Public officers National security Commerce United States. National Security Agency Foreign affairs International Affairs National Security Research and Development in the Social Sciences and Humanities ab: Scholars continue to debate the relationship of academic international relations to policy. One of the most straightforward ways to discern whether policymakers find IR scholarship relevant to their work is to ask them. We analyzed an elite survey of US policy practitioners to better understand the conditions under which practitioners use academic knowledge in their work. We surveyed officials across three different policy areas: international development, national security, and trade. We also employed multiple survey experiments in an effort to causally identify the impact of academic consensus on the views of policy officials and to estimate the relative utility of different kinds of research outputs. We found that policymakers frequently engage with academic ideas, find an array of research outputs and approaches useful, and that scholarly findings can shift their views. Key obstacles to using academic knowledge include practitioners' lack of time as well as academic work being too abstract and not timely, but not that it is overly quantitative. Additionally, we documented important differences between national security officials and their counterparts who work in the areas of development and trade. We suggest that this variation is rooted in the nature of the different policy areas. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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