Bridging the Beltway-Ivory Tower Gap

Abstract

While some gap between the academic and policy worlds is inherent, it is neither necessary nor beneficial for the “Beltway-Ivory Tower” to be as wide as it is. Three principal factors explain the extent of the gap: academia's dominant organizational culture, which devalues policy relevance; increased role of think tanks as research transmission belts to the policy world; and limited interest of the policy community in academic research. The case for the value of greater policy relevance for the international relations scholarly community is based on the intellectual pluralism of bringing policy relevance in while not driving theory out, intellectual complementarity in the different relative strengths of scholars and policy professionals, and self-interest both in what individual scholars can learn and in being true to the mission of universities. We make three principal bridging the gap recommendations: increase disciplinary incentives for policy relevant scholarship, more programmatic and project-based connectivity, and more policy world experiential opportunities.

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