Paul C. Avey is currently a 2013-2014 Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Security Studies Program, MIT
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Original Article
What Do Policymakers Want From Us? Results of a Survey of Current and Former Senior National Security Decision Makers†
Article first published online: 5 DEC 2013
DOI: 10.1111/isqu.12111
© 2013 International Studies Association
Additional Information
How to Cite
, . (2014) What Do Policymakers Want From Us? Results of a Survey of Current and Former Senior National Security Decision Makers. International Studies Quarterly, doi: 10.1111/isqu.12111
Michael C. Desch is professor and chair, Department of Political Science, the University of Notre Dame. He is author, most recently, of Power and Military Effectiveness: The Fallacy of Democratic Triumphalism (Johns Hopkins, 2008).
- †
This survey was made possible through the generous financial support of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. LTG Brent Scowcroft graciously agreed to sign the survey solicitation, which we believe was indispensable in achieving the high response rate to the survey. We are grateful to the Teaching and Research in International Politics (TRIP) project at the College of William and Mary, especially Susan Peterson and Michael Tierney, both for their assistance with the survey design and also for their help with implementing the survey itself. Finally, we thank participants at seminars at Northern Illinois University, Indiana University, and the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this essay interpreting the results.
Publication History
- Issue published online: 11 JUN 2014
- Article first published online: 5 DEC 2013
- Abstract
- Article
- References
- Cited By
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.
