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Cult of the Irrelevant
Michael C. Desch
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Sozialwissenschaften, Recht, Wirtschaft / Politikwissenschaft
Beschreibung
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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United States Agency for International Development, Arms control, Office of Scientific Research and Development, Career, Peacetime, Policy, Social Science Research Council, Superiority (short story), Behavioural sciences, Conventional wisdom, International studies, Prediction, Scientific method, Political science, Vested interest (communication theory), Division of labour, Anthropologist, Area studies, Policy debate, Soviet Union, International relations, Policy analysis, Optimism, Strategist, Harold Lasswell, RAND Corporation, United States Department of State, Modernization theory, Economics, Psychology, Nuclear strategy, Foreign policy, Security studies, War effort, Carl Kaysen, Economist, Bernard Brodie (military strategist), Limited war, Nuclear warfare, Public policy, Dartmouth College, John F. Kennedy, International security, Sociology, Skepticism, Politics, Professionalization, International crisis, Marc Trachtenberg, World War II, Counter-insurgency, Vulnerability, World War I, Institution, Project Camelot, Nuclear weapon, Adviser, Insurgency, National security, Scientist, United States, Interwar period, War, World Politics, Social science, Funding, Thomas Schelling, McGeorge Bundy, Operations research, National Science Foundation