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On Academic Journals
Let me wade into the debate over whether academic journals are relevant to policy professionals in international relations. Dan Nexon kicked things off with an angry lament on the state of his field. James Joyner then weighed in with respect to what he saw as the irrelevance of scholarly journals. And finally Dan Drezner voiced a full-throated defense of academic political science journals.
I work at a think tank that produces policy papers for both a general audience as well as professionals in the national security community -- to include policy-makers in both the executive and legislative branches. Part of my job, as I see it, is to bridge the gap between theory and praxis. I have to be familiar with and understand the relevant literature in my areas of study -- principally, Middle East Studies and Strategic Studies -- and translate the ideas and observations in that literature into language that policy professionals will understand.
I do not expect most policy professionals -- especially those working in time-intensive positions in the National Security Staff, the Pentagon, or the Congress -- to read the latest academic literature. If those people find the time in their busy schedules to read just one article from Foreign Affairs or Survival each week, that is great, frankly, because most of them barely have time enough to get through the Early Bird each morning.
I do think many of the articles that are in political science journals would elude the policy professionals who are actually running the government but whose education probably ended with a master's degree from a public policy school or, more likely, a law degree. I am skeptical of a lot of the statistical work being done in Middle East Studies for substantive reasons*, but in addition, the math-heavy work featured in a lot of journals raises the bar of admission for potential readers. So academics hoping to be policy relevant should consider publishing their work in various media. Try boiling down the main concepts in your latest APSR article, for example, into an op-ed or blog post. Or, better yet, an article in Foreign Affairs.
I know great young scholars who largely shy away from blogging or publishing more "popular" work because they believe their academic colleagues will take them less seriously. That may be true, but you have to decide whether or not you value climbing the rungs of the academic ladder or affecting policy in Washington. I've clearly made my own choice but certainly don't begrudge anyone who chooses another path. (Just don't complain how no one in the policy world ever listens to your great ideas.**)
Nonetheless, in case anyone is interested, these are the journals I dutifully scan for articles, listed in the order I typically read them. I realize these are not all the journals I could be reading, but these are the ones I make time for in a schedule that features a lot of stuff begging to be read.
Peer-Reviewed
- International Security
- The International Journal of Middle East Studies
- The American Political Science Review
- Perspectives on Politics
Non-Peer-Reviewed
- Foreign Affairs
- Survival
- The National Interest
*The Arabic-speaking world is a particularly data-poor environment, generally speaking, and the iron law of quantitative analysis (or any analysis, for that matter) is that garbage in = garbage out.
**One more thing that annoys me: when academic scholars bust on us policy scholars for getting predictions wrong. Look, I would love to work in a data-perfect environment or pick and choose my research questions based on where the data was richest. Scholars working in academia have the luxury of doing that. Bully for them. But do you know who doesn't have that luxury? Policy makers. Policy makers have to make very difficult decisions in an environment in which the data is often very poor and where the options available are not terribly clear in terms of their costs or benefits. That's also the environment in which most think tank policy scholars work. When I do my analysis, I try to do it with some degree of rigor and to make my assumptions explicit. But I'm going to get some things wrong. To pick but one example, I argued, based on an order of battle analysis and reporting on the Free Libyan forces, that an assault on Tripoli would take months. I was wrong -- probably because I did not have very good reporting on the morale or performance of the Qadhdhafi forces. As long as I stay in this line of work, I'm going to continue to get stuff wrong, too. It's a hazard of the profession. My only goal is to do work that makes sense methodologically and reflects a bona fide attempt to grapple with the key issues. Now pick your TI-84 back up off the floor and get out of my office.
Spot on. We need people
Spot on. We need people bridging research and policy. We need to value both theory and analysis that gets it wrong for the right reasons over poor reasoning that blindly reaches the right outcome.
I'd go a step further in terms of the dilemma facing academics choosing between scholarship and policy effect, though. Flagship journals chase quantitative analysis that reaches definitive, shocking conclusions over work that describes complex, interrelated mechanisms. Chasing tenure often means you have to portray the world as simple and binary. Among the problems on the academy side of policy/research relationship I think this is the most pernicious and embedded.
This is a valuable
This is a valuable perspective on the issue. For all that it is and isn't in Washington the analyst's work has another important role, which is public opinion. Online content by policy researchers advances public knowledge among voters on issues that the media can no longer afford to cover or will not cover because of political undercurrents. Judging by the comments that appear on sites similar to this, the work is entirely relevant and in many cases is the choice of readers over media sites.
shukran ya dactor
Abu M: Only the APSR but not
Abu M:
Only the APSR but not the AJPS?
Only IS but not Security Studies or the Journal of Strategic Studies?
You can't be bothered to set up electronic Table of Contents alerting for AJPS or Security Studies or Journal of Strategic Studies? C'mon, it only takes five minutes max...
Best
ADTS
Exum you're always lamenting
Exum you're always lamenting about math. For some folks if they don't have a TI-84 they can not find their way to the bathroom. Place I worked at combined the two concepts and put a flip chart next to the head so folks could be more productive. That turned into power pissing, a Blackberry in one hand and doing your other business with the other. Technology has a strange impact on people. The flip chart was useful if the maintenance people did not make their rounds. Never found a dual use for a Rim product maybe that is why they did not succeed.
1) You are always going to have deal with stereotyping to get a job. I am not talking about Federal equal employment.
2) Academic hiring has more do with getting rid of candidates than it is about selecting them. Too many six-figure-full-pension-with-tenture wannabees out there. Selection has everything to do with who is paying the power bill of the University and how you contact the faculty.
3) Getting the best answer is about weighting your data correctly.
4) Being successful is about weighting your audience correctly to sell your results. Network is everything (One University position that I know of was filled because the candidate was screwing the boss! True story.).
5) Being associated with the people that pay the power bill makes you 80% right before you start.
Exum, you have some stereotypes in your * and ** guidance. If Google can collect data to figure out how the US public makes purchasing decisions they are also bright enough to figure out the ME. For the ME there are some challenges (language and presence) but ever since the Arab Spring we have found out that they are just as wired as the West is. Wires tell stories if you are listening. Barriers drop exceeding fast with the right motivation and the N*A is both a vacuum and research sugar daddy. I am not sure your assumption about academics being able to pick and choose their subjects based on data rich sets is totally well founded. We are still trying to figure out if Einstein's set of theories are correct. Professions are defined by how they communicate that is intrinsic to the subject. You have to understand how people get their tickets punched which is a highly weight factor in any data system.
It is about realizing continuous improvement. Being stereotyped is unavoidable just be careful not to encourage it by trying to take too strong a stance on something that could change in the future by advancements that we can not comprehend today. Like that has never happened in the history of earth.
BTW...Think tanks and army? Not an issue. Worth taking a closer look at the double-dippers retiring and going into industry. There is a reason why so many defense companies are in Washington and put double-dippers on the payroll (like #4 above network is everything, helps to be inside the system which is a legal thing to do and gives an edge over competition....unless of course you are screwing the boss that use to be legal too once upon a time).
Abu M By the way, does anyone
Abu M
By the way, does anyone use a TI-84? I'm not cool or anything, but I use a TI-85 myself. I'd hate for you to try and diss somebody and tell him/her to get out of your office and, instead, come up short; I want your disses to be snarky, glib and cutting.
Best
ADTS
ADTS that's a hoot
ADTS that's a hoot Ti-84.
Just shows that you have to sell your policy based on the experience set of the people you sell to. That is a universal concept in a human system.
How do you sell if you do not know the market? One way is to convince with technology using power point ( sort of like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyCCJ6B2WE )
It is amazing that in a connected world we really are not connected at all. The job is not done until people buy your idea. Buying an idea gets into religion, culture, and your life experience.
Look at what it costs just to walk into a class room to start teaching ( I am talking about the technology template over laid on higher education ). Local University just completed a ground up rebuild of the Ethernet backbone complete with wireless Internet in all places that students meet. The University spans more than 10 square miles, has 30,000 employees, and 40,000 undergrads. The new system does not support 802.11 (n), the new MIMO standard used in the tablet computers. That technology gets replaced every three years all the wireless access points will have to be replaced. Universities are the center of the "green" revolution ????
There is a pile of electronics somewhere, TI-84s included. Due the accounting system related to state government and federal grants all the used electronics gets scrapped out and some crushed to give it zero value. Not one transistor gets reused in lower level education.
Meanwhile: There is a massive Federal Grant that is connecting fiber optic to every school and government building in America. Chicago is pushing a $7B "not paid by the taxpayer" rewiring.
Bill Gates, Rich Templeton, and their marketing departments thank you. The code will be written in India and China will assemble your electronic systems.
Hope you Poli-Sci guys can pay off your PhD loans flipping burgers.
TI-84? A graphic calculator
TI-84?
A graphic calculator is useful for high school students, I grant that, but a serious scientist uses either computer software or makes the calculations by hand. I don't see what would be the niche for the serious, professional use of graphic calculators.
Lurker, that is
Lurker, that is interesting.
What software would "Professionals" use?
Even this http://www.sas.com/technologies/analytics/datamining/index.html has a TI-84 version (meaning that there is old software and new software replacements).
In the day, all your flippy-floppo-edgy electronics were designed using a hand held calculator (the first one was done with a slide rule) that was far less than a TI-84 complete with a sheet of paper no less. Now we have advanced CAD software to do our thinking for us. Intel's Ivy Bridge processors will use 22nm geometries (something that is 1000x thinner than a human hair, 22nm is on the scale of human DNA) to pattern their active devices (transistors). At the 22nm level it is something that is too hard to see with a good metallurgical microscope ( http://store.amscope.com/me300tz-2l-5m.html). The picture in this article ( http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/05/intel-3d-transistor/ ) midway down and shifted right was done with a Scanning-Electron-Microscope (http://photometrics.net/analytical-techniques/scanning-electron-microsco...). The new Ivy Bridge processors will have billions of active devices on chip, it would be too time consuming to do "the work by hand." Paul Otellini pays his people too much to have them jerking-off all day.
The reality is there are a lot of "professionals" that can use complex software applications ( software licenses that cost in the 10's of thousands each year) but have no F*ing clue as to what the software is really doing. Where the rubber hits the road is in the modeling done to predict reality and timing, the assumed methods used in the CAD software to create solutions. Software revisions have something to do with getting better modeling as a generational improvements, those improvements do not necessarily happen year-to-year. Year-to-year improvements are mostly about creature features, you get a prettier GUI (interface to the human) or more colorful printed picture out of your software license investment (think of the years of Microsoft OS changes and the money in Gate's pockets. Software is a marketing game).
It is the connection of the real world (modeling) at second and third order experience and beyond that is hard to fit into any computer software. This is what EXUM is lamenting about, especially in the Arab world where the "modeling" is not accurate. It is the stuff inside the software that people do not have a F*ing clue about nor is there a label on the "outside of the box" to tell the user how the software was written, that is proprietary (go ask Billy Gates for his source code and see what response you get).
Above all the magic of this man's technology is the person paying the bill. The end customer really has no connection to the methods used they just want an answer or another version of the "TI-85 type" symbol to wear as a badge of authenticity (so they can compare their dick lengths on the golf course).
It is the communication of how you get results and the assumptions of how you got those results that is lacking.
That is where continuous improvement lives.
It ain't the F*ing software or calculator.
Lurker: I think you're right
Lurker:
I think you're right and you're wrong. I certainly am not a serious scientist, but perhaps suffer the pretension of at least knowing some (however casually) who may be termed such. Certainly, proficiency in R is often to be expected, as well as knowledge of SPSS or Stata, possibly. And indeed, one can probably use Excel for quite a bit if one is so inclined. That said, why turn on your computer and/or utilize esoteric programming languages, when one can simply forget multiplication tables painfully memorized in grammar school, by using tools devised by those kind, good-hearted folks at TI?
Best
ADTS
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