Can scholars influence foreign policymaking?

• Position: Worldview

Does the academic study of international relations matter in the real world of foreign policymaking? Many scholars have made the leap by using their intellectual training to work on gritty real-life issues.

"As an academic, you basically do retrospective analysis with more or less full information and lots of time. When you're making foreign policy, you have no time and limited information," says Stanford (Calif.) University political science professor Steve Krasner, who witnessed firsthand the often chaotic world of foreign policymaking as a member of the policy planning staff at the State Department and as director for governance and development at the National Security Council.

Krasner suggests that international relations scholarship can be relevant to policymakers because it can offer potentially important new insights into issues. Yet, he cautions academics to avoid policy-directed research and instead concentrate on doing "serious" work that might one day make a contribution--although perhaps not in a predictable manner. "Making foreign policy is extremely difficult--it's a lot harder than rocket science. Having a...