The continuum of political science research

Posted By Daniel W. Drezner Friday, October 23, 2009 - 2:37 PM Share

Steve Walt weighs in with his take on the relative virtues of NSF funding of political science.  I agree with a fair amount of what he wrote (in particular the lNSF's listing of sponsored research outputs), but this part brought me up short: 

I can't say that I think Coburn is right, but I'm finding it hard to get too exercised about it. I say this in part because I think a lot of NSF-funded research has contributed to the "cult of irrelevance" that infects a lot of political science, and because the definition of "science" that has guided the grant-making process is excessively narrow.  But I also worry that trying to use federal dollars to encourage more policy-relevant research would end up politicizing academic life in some unfortunate ways.

Walt is conflating two different things here -- "policy-relevant research" and "publicly beneficial research."  Believe it or not, those two terms are not equivalent. 

The implicit assumption in Walt's post -- and a lot of discussions on this topic -- is that if political science research cannot produce policy-relevant advice, then it's not worthy of public funding.  But this gets the argument exactly backwards.  One would assume that, the greater the demand is for policy-relevant research, the more outsourcing and consultancies that would be pursued.  And, indeed, I think that's what you're seeing with the rise of political risk consultancies and the Defense Department's Minerva project. 

The key question to ask is whether that kind of policy-relevant research can be produced out of whole cloth or whether it rests on more basic research into political science and international relations -- the kind of basic research for which the free market would underprovide.  Much of Walt's own research, for example, rests on Kenneth Waltz's Theory of International Politics.  This is a book that proffers very little in the way of useful policy advice.  It is, nevertheless, a foundational text; an awful lot of realists build their policy prescriptions off of that book (and, if memory serves, Waltz received NSF funding to write that book).  Speaking for myself, a lot of what I wrote in All Politics Is Global is cribbed from rests on Albert Hirschman's more abstract work Exit, Voice and Loyalty. 

There is a continuum of research that exists in the socal sciences.  One could start with basic theoretical work and empirical data collection that seems far removed from policy relevance, and move to finely detailed policy memoranda.  I don't think the latter are terribly useful without resting on the former -- and one could argue that it's the former that would be underprovided without NSF funding. 

But I could very well be wrong -- perhaps policy analysis can be done independently of more abstract theories and models of political science.  That's a discussion worth having.  Requiring NSF-funded projects to have immediate policy relevance, however, cedes way too much terrain to critics of the discipline.  As Nobel-Prize-winning Elinor Ostrom pointed out, sometimes it's worth investigating the seemingly obvious -- because sometimes the obvious is wrong. 

EXPLORE:ACADEMIA, BAD POLITICAL SCIENCE BEHAVIOR, FOREIGN POLICY COMMUNITY, POLICY-RELEVANT RESEARCH, POLITICAL SCIENCE
 

CHARLI CARPENTER

5:52 PM ET

October 23, 2009

Hear hear

Dan, I'm with you completely. Basic research can be publicly beneficial. Not all is, of course. But my experience with the NSF is that it has always been good at finding that balance. Fundable NSF proposals must demonstrate both intellectual merit and "broader impacts" - which means the NSF is willing to fund basic research on its own merit, but PIs must make the case that the research if funded will conceivably have an impact in the world. To my mind, this is essentially the right approach.

 

SLG

9:08 PM ET

October 25, 2009

NSF research isn't the main reason to support it

Put aside opinions of any given NSF funded research project- and nobody will find everything interesting, no matter the agency. Put aside its investment in infrastructure- things like experimental internet surveys and the election studies that have produced seriously important policy as well as research. We are all ignoring its most important activity: funding PhD students, and funding dissertation improvement work. In a pinch, I'd trade all of its funding to established faculty for the help it gives to PhD students. Not that Tom Coburn is likely to care much.

 

MARTY

5:29 PM ET

October 26, 2009

NSF

You keep assuming that just because something might be worthwhile in the long run it is worthy of Federal funding.

I disagree. Unless it is highly likely to be directly applicable to a core government function or activity, there is insufficient justification for using tax dollars, coerced from the people at gunpoint (try not paying your taxes) for it.

To argue otherwise is to say there are no limits to what the govt can do or the extent to which it can go. Maybe you believe that; if so, please say it and we are at least clear as to the big question.

 

APARICIO

7:39 PM ET

October 29, 2009

Walt did consider this long ago

A answer using Walt´s very own words (in THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THEORY AND POLICY IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, 2004):

"This criticism does not mean that general theories are of no value, however. General theories provide a common vocabulary with which to describe global issues (such terms as globalization, unipolarity, credibility, preemption, and free-riding) and create a broad picture of the context in which statecraft occurs. Moreover, some general theories do offer strategic prescriptions that policy makers can use to make choices. Abstract models can also help us understand many familiar features of international life, including the role of information asymmetries, commitment problems, and dilemmas of collective action. Thus, even abstract basic theory can help policy makers understand the context in which they are operating and suggest solutions to some of the challenges they face.

Nonetheless, many prominent works of general theory are simply not very relevant for informing policy decisions (and to be fair, they are not intended to be). For example, critics of Waltz’s neo-realist theory of international politics have commonly complained that it is essentially a static theory that offers little policy guidance, a position reinforced by Waltz’s own insistence that he did not assay a “theory of foreign policy” (Waltz 1979, 1997; George 1993; Kurth 1998). Although other scholars have found considerable policy relevance inWaltz’s basic approach (e.g., Elman 1997), it is nonetheless true that Theory of International Politics offers only very broad guidelines for the conduct of statecraft. It provides a basic perspective on relations between states and sketches certain broad tendencies(such as the tendency for balances of power to form), but it does not offer specific or detailed policy advice"

 

Daniel W. Drezner is professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

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