Getting stuff done... Academia versus policy-making

I watched a bloggingheads video yesterday that featured two academics discussing how there are not too many academic political scientists within the Obama administration. Daniel Drezner, Professor of Political Science at Tufts University’s Fletcher school and Joseph Nye, University Distinguished Service Professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University discuss extensively how academia and policy sometimes do not match. For instance, academia usually focuses on the more theoretical concepts and applications.

In international relations and political science, if you want to publish something that is policy related, it may have some utility value in government but is not widely embrace in the academy. The academy will always prefer highly abstract statistical and mathematical models that require a lot of rigor and analysis. There is a lot more to this discussion and if you are interested I encourage you to watch this 45 minute clip of Drezner and Nye.

When thinking of the environment in academia I think of the theories that have been constructed over the years. When I do research for my environment classes, I always read the scholarly journals published on things like green neo-liberalism or green theory. I use these journals for my research papers but I also look at the publications of think-tanks and institutes that have done some work on public transit initiatives and climate change policy tools, and everything in between. Overall, I find both the theoretical (academia) and more policy-based work (think-tanks, government agencies) to be useful for my understanding and for actually writing the research paper. What is more applicable to society and government?

Nye will tell you that within academia and within his very own department at Harvard, there are profs who are more theoretical and some who are more practical. In fact, he uses the illustration of a bell curve where one side has the really theoretical thinkers who publish extensively within the academy, and other profs who are more policy-oriented and produce a lot of good work for government and foreign affairs.

You may be wondering why such a topic is even worth exploring. Well the Obama administration for instance has academic scientists and economists but is lacking these scholars in international relations and politics. But think about this: the administration still has many bright individuals that are advising national security and foreign affairs, albeit not all academics. However, an anomaly exists with Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Samantha Power and Professor of Law Cass Sunstein (Harvard as well). Both will be highly influential people on the environment. But oh no, policy professor and lawyer? What are we thinking? Both come from academia and are generally more practical, but how theoretical are they?

This question also applies to Canada and who we should turn to for climate change policy advice, or renewable energy. Should we turn to the person who has their PhD in physics, or the person who has their Masters in Public Policy and works for a think tank?

Key message: We are only going to make progress once academia and government work exceptionally well together.