How professionalization and scholarly “rigor” made social
scientists increasingly irrelevant to US national security policy
To mobilize America’s intellectual resources to meet the security
challenges of the post–9/11 world, US Secretary of Defense Robert
M. Gates observed that “we must again embrace eggheads and
ideas.” But the gap between national security policymakers and
international relations scholars has become a chasm. In Cult of the
Irrelevant, Michael Desch traces the history of the relationship
between the Beltway and the Ivory Tower from World War I to the
present day. Recounting key Golden Age academic strategists such as
Thomas Schelling and Walt Rostow, Desch’s narrative shows that
social science research became most oriented toward practical
problem-solving during times of war and that scholars returned to
less relevant work during peacetime. Social science disciplines
like political science rewarded work that was methodologically
sophisticated over scholarship that engaged with the messy
realities of national security policy, and academic culture
increasingly turned away from the job of solving real-world
problems. In the name of scientific objectivity, academics today
frequently engage only in basic research that they hope will
somehow trickle down to policymakers. Drawing on the lessons of
this history as well as a unique survey of current and former
national security policymakers, Desch offers concrete
recommendations for scholars who want to shape government work. The
result is a rich intellectual history and an essential wake-up call
to a field that has lost its way.
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