Scholars, Policymakers, and International Affairs

Finding Common Cause
Erscheinungsjahr 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4214-1508-6
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press

Buch, Englisch, 320 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 227 mm, Gewicht: 454 g

How to strengthen both academic research and international policies by improving the connections between scholars and policymakers.

Scholars, Policymakers, and International Affairs shows how to build mutually beneficial connections between the worlds of ideas and action, analysis and policy. Drawing on contributions from top international scholars with policy experience in the United States, Europe, Asia, Canada, and Latin America, as well as senior policymakers throughout the Americas, Abraham F. Lowenthal and Mariano E. Bertucci make the case that scholars can both strengthen their research and contribute to improved policies while protecting academia from the risks of active participation in the policy process.

Many scholars believe that policymakers are more interested in processes and outcomes than in understanding causality. Many policymakers believe that scholars are absorbed in abstract and self-referential debates and that they are primarily interested in crafting theories (and impressing other scholars) rather than developing solutions to pressing policy issues.

The contributors to this book confront this gap head-on. They do not deny the obstacles to fruitful interaction between scholars and policymakers, but, drawing on their own experience, discuss how these obstacles can be and have been overcome. They present case studies that illustrate how scholars have helped reduce income inequality, promote democratic governance, improve gender equity, target international financial sanctions, manage the Mexico–U.S. border, and enhance inter-American cooperation. These success stories are balanced by studies on why academic analysts have failed to achieve much positive impact on counternarcotics and citizen security policies. The editors’ astute conclusion identifies best practices and provides concrete recommendations to government agencies, international institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and funding sources, as well as to senior university officials, academic departments and centers, think tanks, established scholars, junior faculty, and graduate students.

Clearly written and thoughtfully organized, this innovative book provides analytic insights and practical wisdom for those who want to understand how to build more effective connections between the worlds of thought and action.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lowenthal, Abraham F.

Bertucci, Mariano E.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Regierungspolitik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments
Building Bridges Between Worlds of Thought and Action
Part I: Recognizing Opportunities

Chapter 1. What Do Scholars Bring to Government and Take Back Again?

Chapter 2. Connecting the "Idea" World with the "Real" One: Reflections on Academe and Policy

Part II: Setting Agendas and Framing Issues
Chapter 3. Scholars, Policymakers, and Agenda Creation: Women in Development

Chapter 4. Dialogue of the Deaf: Scholars, Policymakers, and the Drug War in US Foreign Relations

Part III: Developing Policy Options
Chapter 5. "Speaking Truth to Power" in Mexico: Gaps, Bridges, and Trampolines

Chapter 6. Scholars Who Became Practitioners: The Influence of Research on the Design, Evaluation, and Political Survival of Mexico's Antipoverty Program

Chapter 7. Missing Scholars and Hard-Nosed Cops: The Weak Research behind Citizen Security Policies

Part IV: Shaping, Implementing, Evaluating, and Revising Policy
Chapter 8. Scholarly Participation in Transnational Policy Networks: The Case of Targeted Sanctions

Chapter 9. Contributing to Policy through Evaluation: USAID and Democracy Promotion

Chapter 10. Transforming Argentine Foreign Policy: Politicians, Scholars, and Diplomats

Part V: Praxis and the Academy: Perspectives from Policymakers
Chapter 11. The Long Diplomacy: How a Changing World Creates New Opportunities for Partnership between Scholars and Practitioners

Chapter 12. How Scholars Can Contribute to Policymaking: Lessons from Mexico

Part VI: Understanding, Respecting, and Gaining from Differences
Chapter 13. Scholars and Policymakers: Canadian and Asia Pacific Experiences

Chapter 14. On the Scholar-Practitioner Interface: Separation and Synergy

Chapter 15. Scholars, Policymakers, and International Affairs: Toward More Fruitful Connections

Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Lowenthal, Abraham F.
Abraham F. Lowenthal is professor emeritus of the University of Southern California, president emeritus of the Pacific Council on International Policy, a nonresident senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, and an adjunct professor at Brown University. He was founding director of both the Inter-American Dialogue and the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Latin American Program.

Bertucci, Mariano E.
Mariano E. Bertucci is a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Inter-American Policy and Research, Tulane University.