At first glance, the scientific community and the community of political decision-makers seem to be in general agreement: good scientific advice makes better policy (improves the quality of political decisions). At any rate, both communities talk to each other, interact with one another in numerous settings and liaise more than at any other point in history. In the scientific world, think tanks and policy research institutes are mushrooming, researchers actively market the results of their research to the general public and decision-makers, and scientific organizations, like the German Research Foundation, demand that research projects demonstrate their relevance for politics and the general public. The Leibniz Association and its 96 research institutes come together under the motto Theoria cum Praxi to signify the importance of making basic research relevant for society. The political world, too, is characterized by an ever-growing willingness to institutionalize scientific advice.
Is everything just as it should be, then? Are the ivory tower and the world of politics finally coming together? Not quite. In the following, I argue that the relationship between science and policy is still characterized by contradictions and misunderstandings. In fact, the recently observable blurring of the boundary between science and politics may have been a step too far. The following remarks pertain to the relationship between the scientific fields of Peace Research, International Relations and Foreign Policy Analysis and the field of foreign and security policy-making in Germany. Yet, these observations can probably be applied to neighboring disciplines and other European countries as well.
The rather optimistic view presented above contrasts starkly with the pessimistic view that dominated the first generation of academic debates on the possibilities and limits of the science-policy nexus. Heavily influenced by Niklas Luhmann’s paradigm that modern Western societies are made up of autopoietic systems, this research assumed that the social sub-systems of politics and of science operate according to their own functional logics and needs, linguistic codes and cultures. Couplings between both sub-systems were described as weak, and communication across the systems’ borders as fractured, if not impossible. Interaction between both subsystems would not lead to understanding but result at best in mutual irritation. Recent writings have softened (attenuated) this overly structuralistic approach by arguing that individual researchers and other boundary spanners, like policy institutes, operate in and speak the language of both systems and are able to translate the findings of basic research into understandable and consumable policy advice.
This turn has contributed to the above-mentioned expansion of interactions between science and politics in the fields of foreign and security policy. To mention just one indicator of this trend: During the old days of the Bonn Republic, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik (DGAP) was basically the only show in town. Other institutes, like the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), out of necessity or conviction, described their geographical distance from the capital as an advantage fostering scientific freedom and creativity. Today, the Berlin policy circuit includes approximately 20 foreign and security policy think tanks, and out-of-town institutes, like two institutions from Hamburg - the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH), as well as the Frankfurt-based Peace Research Institute (PRIF), have opened up offices in Berlin (Data on the growth of foreign policy think tanks may be found here).
The growing supply of expertise and advice has at least partly been created by growing demand. Ministries create scientific advisory councils, interact with think tanks, embed researchers in their departments, and fund research like never before. This generosity comes with strings attached. Political authorities structure and influence the academic field in various subtle and not so subtle ways.
First, the flourishing or decline of research topics, research fields, and academic institutes is not only determined by scientific logics but by political interventions. Political authorities set up new institutes, sometimes at will, and increase funding for specific fields and projects that they deem important.
Second, public authorities, like national ministries or the EU via its Horizon research program, not only influence the research landscape by setting thematic foci. They also prescribe how academic research is to be organized. Horizon projects are assessed according to three equally valued criteria of which academic excellence is just one. The other two are impact and quality of the research consortium. To achieve high scores in the category of impact, project proposals have to demonstrate inter alia that their research is immediately useful for decision-makers. To achieve high scores on the quality of the research consortium, proposals must de facto present a carefully balanced set of multinational partners. Unfortunately, participation in Horizon projects is regarded by funding authorities and in evaluation processes as an expression of scientific excellence. As a consequence, the EU is able to set the standard that research is excellent if it is done in multinational consortia and if it is geared towards easily consumable policy advice.
Third, political decision-makers are not necessarily interested in the findings of basic research. Their interest is broader. Foreign offices, for example, are increasingly engaged in public diplomacy and may use think tanks as communicative bridges to influence public debates at home and abroad. They may use scientists as communicative sparring partners to test the validity of new arguments and concepts. Most importantly, they are interested in specific bits of information that help them in their daily lives. A political practitioner cited by the above-mentioned study put this interest in a nutshell: ‘I have no interest in academic lecturing. We need practical advice that is immediately relevant’. Relevant for policy makers are answers to specific types of questions. They relate, for example, to crisis situations that are changing daily: What can we do to stop Belarus from bringing migrants to the Polish border? How should we respond to the break-down of order in Lebanon? What are the Iranians up to with their nuclear program? Other questions relate to country- or organization-specific issues: To whom could we talk in Afghanistan? How should we organize the next OSCE meeting to make it a success? Who should we propose as Secretary-General?
This increasing demand is both a boon and a bane. It is a boon insofar as good scientific advice may indeed enlighten the policy-making process. It is a bane insofar as it entails risks. The freedom of research is not directly at issue. More important is that the organization of science according to its own logic may be impaired by political interventions. Even greater risks loom if the boundaries between the worlds of politics and science dissolve and they become too entangled. Science progresses in a dialogue between scientific positions. It is not unidirectional but rather a trial-and-error process that proceeds in unforeseeable ways. Political actors cannot know how science evolves and should not try to steer this process. Scientific knowledge is characterized by specific properties. Science is preoccupied with developing precise terms, definitions, and concepts; with the collection, assessment, and measurement of data; with methods and, most importantly, with testing and refining theories. Science just can’t answer many of the questions that are of most importance for political practitioners. If researchers and think tankers focus on providing this kind of advice, they lose their distinctiveness as scientists and become like political practitioners. Their advice then loses the scientific qualities and the kind of information that think tanks provide resembles the information the political practitioners already possess.
Policy institutes and think tanks have already gone a long way along this path. If we take as an indicator the mushrooming of very short policy papers, deliberately devoid of footnotes and any references to conceptual and theoretical reasoning, we have already gone a few steps too far. In fact, many researchers and think tankers who claim to act as boundary spanners have in fact cut their relations with the field of academic research. It is time for our community to take a step back and reflect on how we should relate to the political world and how we should organize scientific advice.
Following a bad think tank tradition, here are a few dos and don’ts.
Don’t answer every question. It is perfectly appropriate and might even be our responsibility as social scientists to answer questions related to current and politically salient issues. However, if your advice is not based on scientific insights, make sure your opponent understands that your views are based on journalistic information, incomplete data, not adequately tested assumptions, or hunches that are informed e.g. by research in neighboring fields.
Researchers sometimes believe they know the solution to a given political problem and perceive themselves as the better decision-makers. Sometimes, they even turn into lobbyists. This attitude underrates the political dilemmas and constraints under which political decision-makers operate. Political advice should not replace political decisions. At best, it can outline the possible costs and likely consequences of alternative routes, but it should leave the decision to politically responsible decision-makers.
Defend the freedom of science. Be more self-confident when presenting the results of your research to political practitioners who are not interested in them. If you think your research is relevant, make them listen. Present your research in ways that are consumable by political decision-makers. Write short and easily understandable papers. But make sure that those papers summarize and translate your research. Don’t write short and easily consumable papers that are not based on academic research.
Don’t retreat to the Ivory tower. Don’t shy away from politically relevant topics. The constitution of the place where I work stipulates that „the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt contributes to making sure that the insights of peace research become relevant in public discourses”. This is not a bad guidance. However, it requires that research is cognizant of and responds to public concerns.