nye joseph bridging the gap between theory and policy

Bridging the Gap between Theory and PolicyAuthor(s): Joseph S. Nye, Jr.Source: Political Psychology, Vol. 29, No. 4, The Enduring Legacy of Alexander L. George: ASymposium (Aug., 2008), pp. 593-603Published by: International Society of Political PsychologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20447146 .

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Political Psychology, Vol. 29, No. 4, 2008

Bridging the Gap between Theory and Policy

Joseph S. Nye, Jr. Harvard University

Two decades ago, Alexander George observed a growing gap between academic theorists and practitioners in the formulation offoreign policy. The significance of the gap has been debated, but trends in the academy, society, and government suggest it is likely to grow.

KEY WORDS: theory, practice, foreign policy, power, in and outers, universities, think tanks, research

In Bridging the Gap: Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy, Alex George outlined various dimensions of wisdom in policymaking. He himself was the embodiment of such wisdom. When I served in government, I often remembered his cautionary words against premature closure of minds, uncertain evidence, and multiple advocacy. And in my scholarly work, I had frequent cause to refer to his writing. He was a major participant and influence on the Harvard Project on Avoiding Nuclear War that produced several volumes in the 1980s. I learned greatly from him. Alex exemplified the thoughtful and careful scholar who was nonetheless concerned that his work help produce better policy.

Alex was also realistic about the relationship between theory and practice. As he said about why his title referred to "bridging" rather than "eliminating" the gap, "the choice of words is deliberate and of considerable importance." He often referred to "generic" knowledge rather than theory. As he wrote, "scholars may not be in a good position to advise policymakers how best to deal with a specific instance of a general problem that requires urgent and timely action," but "they can often provide a useful, broader discussion of how to think about and understand that general problem.. ." (George, 1993, pp. xix, xxiv). Alex was realistic in his aspirations, but also optimistic that scholars could make a difference. In the decade and a half since he wrote, however, there has been concern that the gap between academic theory and foreign policy practice has been growing.

593 0162-895X C 2008 International Society of Political Psychology

Published by Blackwell Publishing. Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, and PO Box 378 Carlton South, 3053 Victoria Australia



594 Nye

Of course, the gap is not new. As Alex noted, mentioning theory has long

been a sure way to make policy makers' eyes glaze over. Paul Nitze, a relatively

intellectual policy maker, once observed that "most of what has been written and

taught under the heading of 'political science' by Americans since World War II has

been contrary to experience and to common sense. It has also been of limited value,

if not counterproductive, as a guide to the actual conduct of policy" (1993, p. 3). And

the situation is no better in other countries, where the gap is often greater. A number

of observers have noted a growing gulf between theorists and practitioners. Joseph

Lepgold and Miroslav Nincic argue that "the professional gap between academics

and practitioners has widened in recent years. Many scholars no longer try to reach

beyond the Ivory Tower, and officials seem increasingly content to ignore it" (2001,

p. 3). Or as Bruce Jentleson reports, "the problem is not just the gap between theory

and policy but its chasmlike widening in recent years" (2002, p. 169). The United States has a tradition of political appointments that is amenable to

"in and out" circulation between government and academia. While a number of

important American scholars such as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski have entered high-level foreign policy positions in the past, that path has tended to

become a one-way street. Not many top-ranked scholars are currently going into

government, and even fewer return to contribute to academic theory. Of the 25

most influential scholars listed by Foreign Policy, only four have held top-level

policy positions, two in the U.S. government and two in the United Nations

(Peterson, Tierney, & Maliniak, 2005, p. 62). Another two held staff jobs in government, but the vast majority did not have direct policy experience.

At the same time, as Alex pointed out, the problem may be better at lower levels. "Since so many individuals who serve as policy specialists and in staff roles in government have previously studied international relations in academic centers, they can and do serve as informal intellectual brokers between the two cultures"

(George, 1993, p. 17). But there is still a concern about how they and other students are taught in the universities. As a recent survey of course syllabi on American foreign policy concluded, "the courses under review reveal a quite

surprising degree of distance between the subfield of American foreign policy and

the theoretical debates and issues that have dominated recent research and teaching

within international relations" (Hurrell, 2004, p. 101).

Is the Gap Good?

Some academics celebrate the appropriateness of the gap. After all, academic theorists and policy makers fill different roles in society. A British scholar, Chris

topher Hill, has argued that if scholars seek "policy relevance, even if only to

justify our existence in the eyes of society at large, the more difficult it becomes to

maintain intellectual integrity" (Hill, 1994, p. 16). Alex George acknowledged and

respected "the reluctance of some scholars, particularly when they disagree with

the government's foreign policies, to serve as 'technicians' for the state by



Bridging the Gap 595

providing specialized knowledge that may be 'misused.' Such scholars prefer the roles of critic and 'unattached' intellectual" (George, 1993, p. 4). The tensions between description and prescription are dealt with in an interesting companion essay in this volume by Robert Jervis.

As Machiavelli discovered four centuries ago, it is risky to try to speak truth to power when you are in the midst of the struggle for power. Not only is there a danger of analysts trimming their political sails to accommodate prevailing political winds, but there is a more subtle risk that the search for short-term relevance will lead theorists to forgo levels of abstraction and elegance that may sometimes be essential to academic progress. From this perspective, the isolation of the ivory tower serves as a buffer against these temptations and encourages a useful division of labor. Academic theorists should not confuse their roles with those of political activists or even employees of think tanks who have a more direct relationship to power. Thus many academic departments pride themselves on eschewing an interest in policy and promote young people by narrow profes sional standards.

Some academics criticize this narrow professional orientation and engage in politics or policy advocacy, but they argue that the role of academics and univer sities is to use their independence to criticize the power structure, not support it.

Whether through political activism or through the development of "post-positivist" critical theory, they believe that theorists should criticize the powerful, no matter how little relevance their theory appears to have in the eyes of policy makers or how little it conforms to the central professional standards of the discipline.

There is much to be said for the view that universities are unique institutions, but the imagined trade-off between corruption and relevance need not be so acute. An intermediate position on the appropriateness issue is what I call the "balanced portfolio" approach. When I served as dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, I tried to maintain a faculty on which some members had govern ment experience while others were purely academic. The latter ensured rigor and the former brought relevance, and the combination meant that the institution filled a different role on the research spectrum than either a Washington think tank or a typical academic department. But the portfolio analogy works best when there are a number of people who have occupied both positions in the division of labor at different times and are able to act as bridges. As the above cited evidence suggests, however, "in and outers" who contribute to both practice and theory are increas ingly rare.

The key to the success of such a faculty mix is the ability and willingness of members to interact and communicate with each other. This is easier in a profes sional school than in a purely academic department. But even in the latter case, theorists and practice-oriented scholars can communicate if they are interested in policy problems. The communication gap does not belong solely to international relations or foreign policy. A survey of articles published over the lifetime of the

American Political Science Review found that about one in five dealt with policy



596 Nye

prescription or criticism in the first half of the century, while only a handful did so

after 1967. As journal editor Lee Sigelman observed, "if 'speaking truth to power' and contributing directly to public dialogue about the merits and demerits of various courses of action were still numbered among the functions of the profes sion, one would not have know it from leafing through its leading journal" (2006, pp. 463-478). Bruce Jentleson has summarized this middle position, "it is not that all intellectuals must do stints in government, or even make policy relevance a priority for their research and scholarship. But the reverse is too true: as a disci pline we place too little value on these kinds of hands-on experiences and this kind of scholarship, to our own detriment as scholars and teachers-and as a discipline" (2002, p. 130). If the gap becomes too large, something is lost for both sides.

In the past, academics have made useful contributions to policy, either directly or at arms length. A few decades ago, academics like Arnold Wolfers, Carl

Friedrich, McGeorge Bundy, Thomas Schelling, and others felt it proper to be engaged with the policy process. Some academic ideas have been quite significant in framing policy. Through a combination of writing and consulting, Schelling, Bernard Brodie, Albert Wohlstetter, William Kaufmann, and others developed and refined theories of nuclear strategy and arms control that were widely used by practitioners in the Cold War. (In Bridging the Gap, Alex cites the impact of Brodie, Kauffmann, and Herman Kahn.) More recently, Michael Doyle, Rudolph Rummel, Bruce Russett, and others helped to update Kant's theory of the demo cratic peace ("liberal democracies tend not to fight each other"), and it has entered into popular political discourse and policy (Siverson, 2000, pp. 59-64).

In addition to such large ideas, academics have provided many middle-level theories and generalizations that are based upon specific functional or regional knowledge and have proved useful to policy makers (Lieberthal, 2006, pp. 7-15). Theories about deterrence, balance of terror, interdependence, and bipolarity have helped shape the vocabulary that policy makers depend upon. As Alex put it, "scholars also perform a useful, indeed a necessary, task by developing better concepts and conceptual frameworks, which should assist policymakers in orienting themselves to the phenomena and the problems with which they must deal" (George, 1993, p. xxiv). Historical analogies are a frequent form of ideas used by policy makers, often in a crude and misleading way. Academics can help to discipline the use and misuse of such analogies (Neustadt & May, 1986, pp. 34-58).

Academics can also help the public and policy makers by framing, mapping, and raising questions even when they do not provide answers. As Ernest J. Wilson III argues, "by mapping I mean the identification and explication of the defining dimensions of a new problem, its constituent elements, and its general contours and boundaries" (Wilson, 2000, p. 122). Framing a question is often as important to policy as providing answers. At the end of the Cold War, two of the most influential "mapping" ideas-Francis Fukuyama's idea that class based ideologi cally driven history had come to an end, and Samuel Huntington's idea of clashes based on cultures and civilizations-were examples of influential academic ideas.




From a normative perspective, this record can be used to bolster the argument that academics, as citizens, have an obligation to help to improve policy ideas

when they can. Moreover, such engagement in the policy debates can enhance and enrich academic work, and thus the ability of academics to teach the next genera tion. As Ambassador David D. Newsom has written, "the growing withdrawal of university scholars behind curtains of theory and modeling would not have wider significance if this trend did not raise questions regarding the preparation of new generations and the future influence of the academic community on public and official perceptions of international issues and events. Teachers plant seeds that shape the thinking of each new generation; this is probably the academic world's

most lasting contribution" (1995-96, p. 52). Alternatively, one can argue that while the gap between theory and policy has

grown in recent decades and may have costs for policy, the growing gap has produced better political theory, and that is more important than whether it is relevant. To some extent the gap is an inevitable result of the growth and special ization of knowledge. Few people can keep up with their subfields, much less all

of social science. But there are costs as well as benefits. Lepgold and Nincic summarize the trade-offs, "the Ivory Tower exists for a good reason: we expect university-based intellectuals to reflect on the world at some distance, and not

simply to do the work of policy commentators or journalists at a slower pace. But.... it is odd to think that no practical implications should follow from a better understanding of the world. If scholars address important, real-world issues, they will more often than not improve their own work and have more to share with those who must act" (2002, p. 185). Or as Robert Putnam has put it, "simple questions about major real-world events have driven great research. Worrying about the same 'big' issues as our fellow citizens is not a distraction from our best professional

work, but often a goad to it" (2003, pp. 313-314). Regardless of one's normative views about the correct relationship of aca

demia to policy, the fields of international relations and foreign policy are not nearly so distant from the influences of the practical world as some scholars like to think. The gap is bridged all too easily in that direction. To paraphrase Keynes, academic theorists, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any practical influence, are usually slaves of unseen larger world events. At times, academic trends and fads have proven to be too influenced by events. Theoretical trends in the field have always been strongly influenced by the outside world. Naturally, if our purpose is to understand the world, current change will drive changes in theory building, but often the swings in academic fashion are excessive and lack balance.

Why the Gap Grows

That a gap exists between academia and the policy world is both natural and a good thing up to a point, assuming that some efforts are made to bridge it. The



598 Nye

academic ethic is to offer elegant theoretical answers to general questions while the policy maker seeks definite answers to particular questions. But in recent years, the gap has been widening and bridging efforts have become more difficult. The growing specialization of knowledge, the increasing scientific methodological orientation of academic disciplines, and development of new institutional trans mission belts helps to account for the change.

Some aspects of the gap, however, are not new. The world of the academic theorist and the world of the policy practitioner have always involved very differ ent cultures. As an academic going into a policy position at the State Department three decades ago, I was struck by the fact that bureaucracy is a huge machine for turning out reams of paper, but the top policy world is really an oral culture. As I

wrote of that experience, "the pace did not permit wide reading or detailed contemplation. I was often bemused by colleagues who sent me thirty or forty page articles they thought would be helpful. It was all I could do to get through the parts of the intelligence briefings and government papers that my various special assistants underlined for the hour of two of reading possible on a good day" (Nye, 1989, p. 206). As a result, effective policy memos are often one or two pages long, and concise oral briefings are often more influential than memos. As Ezra Vogel reports from his experience as an academic in government in the 1990s, "generally speaking ... academic books and articles are useless for policymakers. Even if they were not filled with what policymakers consider arcane theories and esoteric details written solely for other academics, these publications are simply too lengthy for policymakers to go through the haystack looking for the needle they

might use" (2006, p. 33). A premium on time is a major difference between the two cultures. For the

academic, time is a secondary consideration, while accuracy and elegance are primary. As Alex George noted, "Academics aim at increasing general knowledge and wisdom about international relations; practitioners are more interested in the type of knowledge that increases their ability to influence and control the course of events." They want short quick answers while for many academics such short answers are not answers (1993, p. 9).

For practitioners, timing is everything. A "B" quality memo written to brief the president for his meeting with a foreign dignitary at 3 pm is a success, while an "A" memo that arrives at 4 pm is a total failure. In the university, the pri orities are (properly) reversed. Another difference is the importance of group work as opposed to individual creativity. In the university, plagiarism is a car dinal sin. In government policy work, ideas are a public good and it is often most effective not to attribute credit. Finally, in the academy, the highest value is to ignore politics and speak truth to power, while in the policy world some political trimming and appreciation of "applied truth" may be essential for effec tiveness. It is not always easy to straddle these two cultures. I used fiction to dramatize some of the moral dilemmas that arise in The Power Game: A Wash ington Novel.




But the inherent culture gap has grown wider in recent years largely because

of trends in academic disciplines and in the institutions of foreign policy. As

Stephen Walt explains, the incentive structures -and professional ethos of the

academic world have changed, and the trickle-down model linking theory and

policy has weakened as a transmission belt. In his view, "the prevailing norms of

academic life have increasingly discouraged scholars from doing work that

would be directly relevant to policy makers" (2005, pp. 26-38). General theories

such as structural realism and liberal institutionalism have become more

abstract, and some rational choice models, while stimulating to theorists,

often reflect what Stanley Hoffmann has called "economics envy" (2006, p. 4).

Middle-range generalizations, historical cases, and regional expertise-the

types of theory most accessible and most useful to practice-are accorded

less prestige in the disciplinary pecking order. Methodology reinforces the

trend. As Bruce Jentleson argues, "dominant approaches to methodology

give short shrift to policy analysis, to the analytic skills for addressing

questions of strategy and for assessing policy options. It is one thing to train Ph.D.s primarily for academic careers; it is another to have this be virtually the

only purpose of most major international relations/political science Ph.D. pro

grams. The job market for new Ph.D.s operationalizes this incentive structure"

(2002, p. 178). Professors spend most of their energies reproducing little

professors. The problem is further compounded by the use of academic jargon and the

lack of interest in communicating in plain language to a policy public. As Alex

George put it, "not a few policy specialists exposed to the scholarly literature have

concluded that most university professors seem to write largely for one another and have little inclination or ability to communicate their knowledge in terms comprehensible to policy makers" (1993, p. 7). Young scholars are rated and

promoted by their contributions to refereed academic journals and citations by other scholars in those same journals where there is little premium on writing in clear and accessible English. They get little credit for contributions to policy

journals edited for a broader audience. In institutional terms, the transmission belts between academia and govern

ment have also changed. Universities are less dominant sources of policy ideas

than in the past. In the traditional model, professors produced theories that would

trickle down (or out) to the policy world through the articles they wrote and the

students they taught. As Walt describes it, "the trickle-down model assumes that

new ideas emerge from academic 'ivory towers' (i.e., as abstract theory), gradually filter down into the work of applied analysts (and especially people working in

public policy 'think tanks'), and finally reach the perceptions and actions of policy makers. In practice, however, the process by which ideas come to shape policy is

far more idiosyncratic and haphazard" (2005, p. 40). Or as Jentleson writes, "whereas thirty or forty years ago academics were the main if not sole cohort

of experts on international affairs outside of government and international



600 Nye

institutions, today' s world is a more competitive marketplace of ideas and expertise" (2002, p. 181).

Even when academics supplement the trickle down approach with articles in policy journals, op-eds in newspapers, blogs, consulting for candidates or officials, and appearance in the media, they find many more competitors for attention. Some of these transmission belts serve as translators and additional outlets for academic ideas, but many add a bias provided by their founders and funders. There are more than 1,200 think tanks in the United States alone, and they are very heterogeneous in scope, funding, ideology, and location, but universities generally offer a more neutral viewpoint. The think tanks provide not only ideas but also experts ready to comment or consult at a moments notice (Haass, 2002, pp. 5-8). In addition, journalists, public intellectuals, nongovernmental organizations, trade associa tions, private contractors, and others are involved in providing policy ideas. As Ernest Wilson points out, while the pluralism of institutional pathways may be good for democracy, many of the nonuniversity institutions have narrow interests and tailor their policy advice to fit particular agendas (2007, pp. 147-151). The policy process in democracies is diminished by the withdrawal of an academic

community which has broader agendas and more rigorous intellectual standards. One of the most effective transmission belts for ideas to travel from the

academy to government might be called "embedded capital" in the minds of "in and outers" (a mechanism that Walt largely ignores). As Henry Kissinger once pointed out, the pressure on time that bears upon policy makers means that they rely on ideas and intellectual capital created before they entered the maelstrom. I found this to be true in my own experience. Theoretical ideas produced and stored up in a university setting were useful in making policy changes in Washington. Political science theory was crucial to the way in which I framed and crafted solutions to practical policy issues. It came less from outside articles and consultants (though they played some role) than in the form of embedded intellectual capital.

In terms of the earlier discussion, some critics may say this mechanism is too costly, and that I and others would have been better off staying in the university and developing more academic ideas. Perhaps. Choice involves trade-offs, and there are always opportunity costs. Nonetheless, I am glad I paid them. Not only was I able to contribute to policy on important issues I cared about, but I believe that my writing and teaching were enriched rather than diminished when I returned to the university. I had a better sense of the relationship between theory and the real world than some others. For example, John Mearsheimer, a highly respected realist theorist, has written that "American academics are especially good at

promoting liberal thinking in the marketplace of ideas. Behind closed doors, however, the elites who make national security policy speak mostly in the lan guage of power, not of principle" (2001, p. 25). In my experience in the State and

Defense Departments in two Democratic administrations, power and principle were often much more closely and subtly intertwined than his academic theoretical account implies.




Government practice is a deepening but narrowing experience. There is little

time or license for the free-wheeling exploration that is possible in a university. For

example, when dealing with nuclear nonproliferation in the Carter Administration, I had no time to explore the broad ethical issues when foreign officials would ask

why it was all right for the United States to have nuclear weapons while trying to

prevent them from obtaining the bomb. When I returned to the university, I used

the lack of pressure on time and politics to teach a course and then write a book on

Nuclear Ethics. And after I returned from the Pentagon and my work on East Asia in the Clinton Administration, I turned my attention to a book about the future

distribution of power in The Paradox ofAmerican Power. For better or worse, both works were heavily influenced by my experience in government.

My experience of a fruitful interaction between theory and practice may

be subjective, but it is not unique. As Ezra Vogel has written: "when I went to

Washington and first had to write one-page briefs, I despaired of substituting sound bites for real thinking. I came to appreciate, however, that one pagers can

force intellectual discipline. Such space limits impel us to think about what is the

absolutely most important idea or two that we want to communicate, and to decide how to communicate those ideas in the most effective way. As a result, I returned to the university and began to encourage students to spend more time compressing their thinking and to work harder to express ideas in a precise and concise way"

(2006, p. 34). If such experiences serve as an existence theorem that academic theory and

policy practice can interact fruitfully in both directions, what could be done to

increase it and bridge the widening gap? On the official side, former ambassador

David Newsom advised his colleagues to broaden State Department research grants, to increase scholar-diplomat programs, and to encourage senior officials to participate in scholarly association meetings. The Intelligence community, par ticularly the National Intelligence Council, holds regular unclassified seminars and conferences with academics. Internships and exchanges such as the Foreign Affairs fellowships sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations (that Alex George extolled in his book) have also helped to introduce young American academics to a policy environment, though of the dozen or so annual fellowships, the percentage from universities has declined over time. Increased lateral entry at

middle levels would be good both for the civil service and for the academy, but this is particularly difficult in countries with a strong civil service tradition. The

internet and blogs also provide new opportunities for scholars to become involved in policy debates on a global basis.

On the university side, Stephen Walt argues for "a conscious effort to alter the

prevailing norms of the discipline."' Departments should give greater weight to

real-world relevance and impact in hiring and promotion decisions, and journals could place greater weight on relevance in evaluating submissions. Universities could facilitate interest in the real world by giving junior faculty greater incentives for participating in it (Walt, 2005, p. 41). Scholars could avoid choosing research



602 Nye

topics that are so manageable that they wind up saying more and more about less and less (which is a current academic affliction). They would do better to heed the advice of Robert Putnam: "Better an approximate answer to an important question than an exact answer to a trivial question" (2003, p. 251). They would also do well to follow the example of Alex George with his long-term concern about the importance of bridging the gap between theory and practice, between scholar and citizen. "In 1966, while still a member of the RAND Corporation, I saw the need to supplement efforts to formulate general theories of international relations with theories that are more relevant for the conduct of foreign policy" (1993, p. xxi). We are all in his debt that he did.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Bruce Jentleson, Peter Katzenstein, Robert 0. Keohane, John Owen, and Stephen Walt for helpful comments. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Joseph S. Nye, Jr., John F. Kennedy School of

Government, Harvard University, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge MA, 01238. Email: joseph_nye @ harvard.edu

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Hoffmann, S. (2006). Chaos and violence: What globalization, failed states, and terrorism mean for U.S. foreign policy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

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