Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice in Foreign and Security Policy”, in Alyson JK Bailes, René Dinesen, Hiski Haukkala,Pertti Joenniemi and Stephan De Spiegeleire.

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DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
The Academia and Foreign Policy Making:
Bridging the Gap
Alyson JK Bailes, René Dinesen, Hiski Haukkala,
Pertti Joenniemi and Stephan De Spiegeleire
DIIS Working Paper 2011:05
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CONTENTS
Foreword 4
Stephan De Spiegeleire and Pertti Joenniemi: The Theory-Policy
Nexus in the Sphere of Foreign and Security Policies 7
Abstract 7
Introduction 7
The Sphere of Defence 9
The Sphere of Foreign Affairs 11
Issues Pertaining to Demand 12
Issues Pertaining to Supply 14
Concluding Remarks 16
List of References 18
Hiski Haukkala: The Time, Space and Strategies for Scholarly
Analysis in Foreign Policy Making 21
Abstract 21
Introduction 21
Academic Scholarship vs. Policy Analysis 22
The Time and Space for Scholarly Analysis in Foreign Policy Making 24
The Roles and Strategies in Policy Analysis 27
Conclusion 29
List of References 32
Alyson JK Bailes: Thinkers and Doers in Foreign Policy:
A Distinction without a Difference? 35
Abstract 35
Introduction 35
Diplomats and Researchers as People 36
The Contrasts 37
The Similarities 38
Who Are the Policy Makers? 40
Interaction and Interpretation 42
Conventional Interactions 42
Blurring the Lines 44
René Dinesen: Bridging the Gap - a Practitioner’s Perspective 47
Abstract 47
A Considerable Gap 47
Changing Conditions 48
Concrete Proposals 49

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FOREWORD
The aim of the papers included here is to explore the relationship between
academic research in the field of International Relations (IR) and the making
of foreign policy. How do the two coincide and coexist? What are the require-
ments levelled upon research taking into account the shifting and complicated
nature of the conduct of foreign as well as security policies? What does the
relationship look like if seen from the perspective of practitioners and policy
planners?
It seems, as such, that the scholarly community is faced with increasing calls
for being useful and relevant, although the social and cultural distance between
analysis and policy making remains formidable. The differences often seem to
be larger than the commonalities and the two fields tend to approach world
politics from rather different angles. In exploring the scholarly community and
the field of policy-analysis as well as their particular approaches to the produc-
tion and use of knowledge, questions are posed about the nature of the rela-
tionship between policy making and academic analysis in order to illuminate
the nature of the nexus and the prospects for bridging the distance. Is the al-
leged ‘gap’ unbridgeable, as claimed by some, or can the two be brought closer
to each other by adding to the commonalities, thereby also reducing the current
rather dichotomous state of affairs?
The papers reflect interventions delivered at an afternoon seminar held at
the Danish Institute for International Studies in April 2010, except for Hiski
Haukkala who was invited and accepted to contribute to this working paper on
the basis of a presentation delivered at the International Studies Association
(ISA) convention held in New Orleans in February 2010. The backgrounds of
those contributing are as follows:
Alyson J K Bailes is Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Political Science, University
of Iceland. She served in the British foreign service from 1969-2002, including
a final spell as Ambassador to Finland, and acted for five years as Director of
the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (2002-2007). Her princi-
pal teaching and research fields include European integration, multi-functional
security policy, roles of non-state actors, Nordic cooperation and Arctic affairs.
She sits on advisory boards for a number of institutes and is carrying out evalu-
ations of two of them (UPI and DCAF).
René Dinesen has been Director of the Strategy and Planning Unit of the
Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a Unit established in 2009. He has previ-
ously served as Deputy Permanent Representative at the Permanent Mission
of Denmark to the UN, been a Private Secretary to the Foreign Minister of
Denmark, Dr. Per Stig Møller, and a Private Secretary to the Permanent Secre-
tary of State, Ambassador Friis Arne Petersen.

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Hiski Haukkala is Senior Lecturer at the School of Management, University
of Tampere. He served in 2008-2010 as a Special Adviser, Unit for Policy Plan-
ning and Research, The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and has also
been a researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. His areas of
expertise include the external relations of the EU, especially Russia, the North-
ern Dimension and Finnish foreign and security policies.
Pertti Joenniemi is Senior Research Fellow at the Danish Institute for Inter-
national Studies. He has participated in several international diplomatic confer-
ences, including three UN General Assemblies as a delegate, and served as a
Senior Official at the United Nations in New York. He has previously worked
as a senior researcher at Tampere Peace Research Institute and the Copenha-
gen Peace Research Institute. His areas of expertise include various Northern
European themes, the EU enlargement and neighbourhood policies, including
International Relations theory.
Stephan De Spiegeleire is Senior Scientist at the Hague Centre for Strategic
Studies. He has worked for think tanks on both sides of the Atlantic for over
20 years (10 years for the RAND Corporation; 3 years for the Belgian Defense
Study Centre, the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik and the WEU Institute for
Security Studies). His main research topic has always been new forms of de-
fence and security policy, with a special focus on foresight, capability planning,
strategic agility and security resilience.
Pertti Joenniemi, Editor

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Stephan de Spiegeleire and
Pertti Joenniemi:
THE THEORY-POLICY NEXUS
IN THE SPHERE OF FOREIGN
AND SECURITY POLICIES
Abstract
The paper aims at probing the way the social
distance between research and practice has
been unfolding in the spheres of foreign and
security policies. It is noted that the landscape
has been changing considerably during the last
two decades, and further changes seem to be
in train. While inevitably non-exhaustive and
idiosyncratic, the paper still attempts to cap-
ture some key features of a shifting and rather
complicated picture by looking at the demand
as well as supply of research. In conclusion,
the paper also comments on the frequently
used concept of a ‘gap’ by pointing out that
the two spheres relate extensively to each oth-
er despite their dissimilarity in regard to the
underlying principles and departures. The re-
lationship appears to have grown increasingly
tense and so close that rather than discussing
and pointing to an alleged gap, there are rea-
sons to focus on the very nature of the re-
lationship, discuss the terms to be applied in
devising it, but also to map and outline it far
better than has been the case so far.
Introduction
As in all policy areas, governments also re-
quire various forms of analysis in the area
of foreign and security policy. These can
be grouped, as indicated by Fischer (2007),
in four main categories: 1) foresight (“what
might happen”); 2) contextual analysis (“what
is happening”); 3) policy analysis (“what can
we do”), and 4) evaluation (“how are we do-
ing/did we do”).
Much of that analysis takes place within
government, although at least since World
War II, various governments have solicited
expertise from ‘outside’ of governments in a
more structured way. It was in the sphere of
foreign policy that the first ‘think tanks’ ap-
peared in the heady days after World War I.
Especially in the Anglo-Saxon world1, there
was a strong view that the new, more ‘demo-
cratic’ diplomacy would draw upon the best
available knowledge in the academic world
to create a more stable, less conflict-prone
world. This sentiment, as noted by Higgott
and Stone (1994), led to the creation of think
tanks in the United States like the Brookings
Institution in 1916 or the Council on Foreign
Relations in 1921 and Chatham House in the
United Kingdom in 1926.
The real breakthrough, however, came
after World War II, when a number of gov-
ernments started making an extra effort to
ensure access to the diverse knowledge and
skills of specialists who during the war had
joined governmental efforts (typically as con-
scripts) to deal with international security is-
sues and had started to return to their more
‘distant’ jobs in academia and the private sec-
tor. It is in the cauldron of the Cold War that
new interfaces were welded between knowl-
edge on the ‘outside’ and the ‘inside’. And
quickly, the balance of focus started shifting
from the sphere of more general ‘strategic’
studies (closely affiliated with the foreign
policy elites) of the interbellum, to the more
focused ‘defence’ research. As the then newly
created Ministries of Defence started gaining
more clout and resources whilst at the same
time moving to ever more rigorous, analysis-
based forms of decision making (in ways that
Ministries of Foreign Affairs never had – and
1 For an interesting treatment of the early French exception
in this area, see Williams (2008).

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in many ways to this day still do not), thinks
tanks like the RAND Corporation in the US
really started taking off.2
There are quite a few examples of applied
forms of fundamental research in this era that
have directly impacted the West’s foreign and
security policy and behaviour. Applications of
game theory proved of enormous importance
to issues ranging from nuclear deterrence to
containment policy towards the Soviet Union
through people like von Neumann, Ellsberg
and Schelling – who all worked at RAND; sys-
tems analysis had a big impact on many aspects
of US defence policy, especially after US De-
fence Secretary McNamara relied on RAND
analysis to reform the US Defence Depart-
ment; many areas of social science (in a remark-
ably integrated way – including even elements
of psychology and sociology) influenced the
US government’s view of the Soviet Union.
Another, albeit different and far more re-
cent, testimony to the links and co-constitu-
tive relationship between theory and practice
consists of the preparedness on the official
side to utilize, employ and implement various
ideas pertaining to “cooperative security” and
“common security” towards the end of the
Cold War period. Interestingly, the concept
of ‘security community’ was initially rejected
as far too idealistic in nature, albeit it has later
gained in standing impacting profoundly for
example the way NATO is being described
and legitimized. These ideas and conceptual
innovations, outlined in various think tanks as
well as by individual academics, offered an al-
ternative to the prevailing zero-sum thinking
and therefore contributed to the demise of
the Cold War more generally.3 More recently
the democratic peace argument has gained a
considerable standing also in the sphere of
foreign and security policy practice (Siverson,
2000: 59-64; Villumsen and Burger, 2010),
and constructivist research has in general
challenged the traditionally rather objectivist
and material understanding of security un-
dergirding the policies pursued (Burger and
Villumsen, 2007: 419). Intensive exchanges
between scholars and practitioners have taken
place in various forms with scholars having
made a difference on various levels of policy
making: Agenda-setting, formulation of the
policies to be pursued as well as the very im-
plementation.
Yet it is also to be noted that this landscape
has changed significantly over the past few
decades.4 Our aim here is therefore to present
a sketch of the current landscape, including
the narrowness or broadness of the distance
between the ‘thinkers’ and the ‘doers’, and to
do so in particular in the area of international
relations. This is warranted as there appears,
in general, to be little systematic information
about the more recent trends. There exists a
small(ish) – mostly anecdotal – literature on
the matter, which tends to be much heavier
on pathos and prescription than on data.
There exists, as such, a considerable number
of texts problematizing the role of analysts
but they have remained fairly light as to sys-
tematic empirics.5 The extant literature is also
subject to a clear US(/UK)-bias and there is
virtually no systematic data on the actual situ-
ation in some of the smaller European coun-
tries.
Given the paucity of actual information
on the current state of affairs, our account
2 See Smith, 1966.
3 See for example Evangelista, 1999, and Jones, 2004.
4 For a recent overview, see Rich, 2004.
5 Among the more recent contributions, see for example
Beecher and Gary, 1989; Del Rosso, 2009; Egeberg, 2003;
Eriksson and Giampiero, 2006; Eriksson and Sundelius, 2005;
Frieden, 2005; Haass, 2002; Ish-Shalom, 2006; Jentleson, 2002;
Jervis, 2008; Lepgold, 1998 and 2001; Levy, 2007; Lupia, 2000;
Maliniak et al., 2007; Nincic, 2000; Nye, 2008; Peterson et al.,
2005; Shapiro, 2005; Silverson, 2000; Wilson, 2007; Walt, 2005.

DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
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aspires to remedy at least some aspect of the
prevailing situation, although it is to a consid-
erable extent based on our personal experi-
ences in this sphere in a number of differ-
ent countries and in different think tanks in
this field on both sides of the Atlantic over
the past few decades. While thus inevitably
non-exhaustive and idiosyncratic, the contri-
bution is still intended as an attempt to cap-
ture at least some key features of a shifting
and rather complicated picture. In addition
to mapping and assessing relevant dynamics,
our aim is also to point out spheres warrant-
ing concern and possible reorientation as well
as further inquiry.
In probing what is frequently referred to as
a ‘gap’, we propose to look at the interaction
between ‘theory’ and ‘policy’ using the ‘mar-
ket’ metaphor. While imperfect, this meta-
phor does allow us to identify the key compo-
nents of the exchange of policy advice that
takes place in this area. It invites us to focus
on the demand of theoretically informed in-
sight generated for example by changes seen
as related to globalization and the unfolding
of an international liberal order (cf. Ikenber-
ry, 2009) or, for that matter, the broadening
and re-focussing of security as a concept and
a practice of relevant scholarship. Outlining
the dynamics part of the two distinct spheres
pertaining to production and consumption
of knowledge allows us then to look into
the exchange mechanisms conveying policy-
relevant insights from the academics and the
analytical community to policy makers. Our
emphasis is particularly on the relationship
between academic analysis and the practical
conduct of foreign policy.
The division is, in reality, of course less
steep or stable with policy relevant knowl-
edge and analysis produced in both spheres,
but handy for our purposes as the aim here is
to target on the transmission from academic
theorists to practitioners. In that context, we
will also devote some attention to the inter-
faces on both the demand side and the sup-
ply side, i.e. the question how both sides are
currently structured to deal with each other
under circumstances in which both fields –
that of theory as well as the one pertaining
to practice – are in a process of transforma-
tion.
The Sphere of Defence
In comparing the various branches of gov-
ernment, defence has a far more intense re-
lationship to scholarship than has the sphere
of foreign policy. It might also be that the di-
rect impact of ‘outside’ scholarship on policy
is the highest in the field of national defence,
although systematic comparisons appear to
be lacking.
In this area, a number of European coun-
tries have quite strong institutional interfaces
between research and policy. Many ministries
of defence have developed various mecha-
nisms to solicit knowledge from outside their
ranks. A few European countries maintain
defence analytical research capabilities (e.g.
FOI, the Swedish defence research agen-
cy with some 1,000 employees; or FFI, the
Norwegian Defence Research Establishment
with about 360 scientists) at the edges of or
outside of government but with a strategic
relationship of confidence (with for instance
Qinetiq in the UK with about 6,500 employ-
ees, or IABG in Germany with about 100
employees being entirely private, and TNO in
the Netherlands with about 4,000 scientists
of which about a quarter work in the defence
area being public-private, but outside of
government). In the period of privatization,
there has been a clear trend present to put
these institutions outside of government, as
exemplified by the United Kingdom, which

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split up its previous Defence Evaluation and
Research Agency (DERA, with about 9,000
scientist) into two parts: A (smaller) part re-
mained within the MoD as DSTL; and the
largest part was privatized into Qinetiq.
Notably, most of the scientists in these or-
ganizations have a ‘hard’ science background
(operations research, engineering, etc.), but
recently there has been a growing influx of
‘softer’ sciences as well (human factors, econ-
omists, sociologists and political scientists).
The close proximity to their customers can
also be gauged from the fact that employees
in these organizations typically have security
clearances (which is rarely the case in the area
of foreign policy research institutes).
Roughly speaking, we can differentiate here
between what we could call an Anglo-Saxon
model and a ‘continental’ one. The ‘Anglosax-
on’ model, which includes (parts of) Scandi-
navia and the Netherlands is typically – and
increasingly – contract-based with govern-
ments basically reluctant about institutional
funding and insisting on demonstrably better
value for money. In the ‘continental model’,
most research is still being done by the MoDs
themselves (often in various parts of the or-
ganization), but some countries still have a
few smaller research institutions that tend to
be less well-integrated in the policy making
than the ‘Anglosaxon’ ones. This ‘market’ for
defence research has traditionally been quite
‘liquid’, with significant amounts of funding
available. But the current budgetary problems
in all European countries are putting increas-
ing pressure on these funds.
Although they are typically less well known
than their foreign policy counterparts (pri-
marily because (too) much of their work is
not publicly available), all of these organiza-
tions can point to a large range of concrete
instances where their research has a direct im-
pact on decisions made at the governmental
level – whether they be in the area of acquisi-
tion, personnel or issues pertaining to doc-
trines. It is fair to say, however, that most of
the research in these organizations is at what
the military would call the ‘tactical’ and ‘op-
erational’ levels, and much less at the strate-
gic level. In this context there is, however, a
growing demand in many countries for stra-
tegic-level analytical support to be noted.
The interaction between the supply and
the demand side is also characterized by
many quite intense feedback loops (across
all levels) and much ‘open’ interaction with
actual policymakers and operators. In short,
the ‘defence’ market for research is a quite
fluid, established and mature one in which
(actionable) insights from various disciplines
in the academic world regularly find their way
to the ‘real world’ of practice. On the whole,
their work is project-based and executed
by multi-disciplinary research teams that
tend to be fairly rigorous, objective, meth-
odologically sophisticated, evidence-based
and focused on the concrete needs of the
end-users. On the down side, however, these
communities are only now (slowly) starting
to break out of their insular and ‘closed’
worlds and they have not always been very
adept at playing the ‘broader’ political and
policy games in their countries. We also
have to point out that the linkages between
these institutions across national boundaries
– while they exist in various (bilateral, ‘mini-
lateral’ and multilateral6) forms – still remain
6 Most of these institutions have signed MoUs for collabora-
tive work – some of which are intensely used, many not. Some
interaction also occurs within larger multinational structures
such as the NATO Research and Technology Organization,
in which countries pool research resources to tackle issues
of common interest; or professional organizations such as
the Military Operations Research Symposium. Through these
mechanisms, researchers working on similar topics do some-
times have the chance to interact with their counterparts
from other countries. But overall, there is certainly much
room for improvement in this area.

DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
11
fairly weak. Various initiatives by the Euro-
pean Union (through the Framework Pro-
grammes, and to some extent also through
research commissioned by the European
Defence Agency) are starting to make some
difference in this field, but the insularity of
these research communities remains a for-
midable stumbling block.
Notably since 9/11 and subsequent terror-
ist attacks, all European governments have
greatly increased their focus on homeland
security. They have consequently also started
to reach out to the research world and have
in many ways replicated the market model
that was built up during the Cold War. In fact,
most of this research has been subsumed by
the national defence analytical institutions
that were described above, although it has
also impacted and bolstered activities outside
these institutions in the academic sphere.
The intelligence communities of various
countries have proven much more ‘difficult’
customers than their defence or homeland
security counterparts.7 There clearly has
been an upswing in commissioned research
– mostly again from the same defence analyti-
cal research establishments described above
– but the tight feedback loops that developed
during the Cold War in the defence analytical
world still appear to prove elusive. Whereas
military customers or ‘research’ tend to be
very open and involved at many stages of a
research project (and often even afterwards in
the form of evaluation), intelligence custom-
ers are far more reluctant to reveal their prob-
lems, provide the broader context of various
issues, open up their methods to outside scru-
tiny, share their various hypotheses, provide
feedback on real-life experiences with ideas
or to inform about and discuss solutions that
research has generated.
Overall, these new ‘markets’ have certainly
strengthened and added to the demand of re-
search, but the increased financial means that
have been flowing in do not in the end make
up for decreases that have occurred in fund-
ing in the sphere of defence.
The Sphere of Foreign Affairs
Although better known by the broader pub-
lic (and politicians), the ‘market’ for (applied)
research in foreign affairs is nonetheless infi-
nitely much smaller and less developed than
the ones described so far. It is arguably also
experiencing more pressure in the sense of
being plagued by changes that also entail de-
clining budgets and reduced prestige. In fact,
the status of foreign services as primus inter
pares is no longer what it used to be owing
to increased competition from other minis-
tries and other actors such as enterprises and
civil society actors having increased compe-
tence of their own to engage in international
questions. Some of the power and influence
has been flowing upwards with prime min-
isters and their offices engaging themselves
increasingly into international and foreign
policy issues. In sum, the changes and pres-
sures have left the foreign ministries and
diplomats puzzled about their role and func-
tions in an increasingly post-sovereign world.
Their standing may have increased in some
spheres – perhaps most notably in the sphere
of consular services – whereas it has declined
in many others.
Changing circumstances have undoubtedly
added to the discussion concerning the exist-
ence of a ‘gap’ among other reasons because
such a state of affairs has been far more no-
table in the sphere of foreign affairs than in
the domain of defence. It also seems that the
7 Much depends here on how the interaction is structured.
As an example – the NIC in the US provides a very elegant
interface between the inside world of the intelligence com-
munity and the outside world.

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DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
‘demand’ for research in the ministries of for-
eign affairs tends to be less established and
mature, much more diffuse, less focused and
more poorly articulated than in the above-
mentioned cases. Whereas defence customers
(typically) come to the research world with
rather concrete questions that need workable
solutions (which capability should I invest in,
how can I do this better and how do I save
money here) , this is only rarely the case in
the foreign policy sphere. Here the research
questions are often much more contextual in
nature – what is happening in this part of
the world; with this policy issue. The more
concrete day-to-day problems (most) diplomats
struggle with are of a very different nature
– how do we get country x or person y to
agree on this formulation; how can we signal
this to country z; how are the dynamics in
the international community on such or such
an issue; etc. Crucially, these are rarely issues
on which outside support is requested – even
though there are many academic disciplines
that could usefully be brought to bear on
such questions.
It may further be noted that foreign servic-
es tend to be rather defensive in character due
to power and influence moving away both
upwards, horizontally to other state bodies
and downwards to civil society. The upwards
move also consists of the EU turning increas-
ingly into a foreign policy actor as indicated
in one of its aspects by the Union being on
its way to establishing a foreign service of its
own.
Obviously, the supply side looks quite dif-
ferent as well. On the plus side, foreign af-
fairs think tanks are – immeasurably more
than their defence counterparts – actively and
visibly involved in the public debate of their
countries and in meetings and conferences
between themselves (often also with poli-
cymakers). But on the other side, much less
time tends to be devoted to focused research
with actionable results or solutions that can
be used by the ‘customer’. This may prove an
increasing problem for the value proposition.
Their ‘academic’ anchoring also tends to be
weaker (most references come from policy
journals and not from the more fundamental
disciplines8) and narrower (mostly interna-
tional relations interspersed with a bit of in-
ternational economics and international law).
And finally, the typical skillset in such think
tanks tends to be fairly limited and focus on a
fairly narrow set of qualitative research tech-
niques and little or no expertise in quite ap-
plicable techniques such as modelling, game
theory, public choice, social network analysis,
textmining, visualization techniques, manage-
ment theory, complex systems engineering
or operations research. The methods applied
are, in other words, quite established with lit-
tle efforts of breaking beyond the prevailing
pattern.
Issues Pertaining to Demand
There are both signs of adaptation as well
as contestation with the foreign policy es-
tablishments closing in the latter case their
ranks in efforts of scoping and shielding
themselves from the pressures for change
that they are increasingly exposed to. How-
ever, over time adaptation will have to take
place and the increasing talk about ‘old’ and
‘new’ diplomacy seems to indicate that an
awareness concerning the importance of
8 This should not necessarily be seen as a critique on the pol-
icy community – but the gap between ‘fundamental research’
and ‘applied research’ seems quite large in the social sciences,
with ‘fundamental research’ being engaged in often arcane
(at least to outsiders) discussions with tenuous applicability
to real life problems and often dismissive of more ‘applied’
research ; and policy researchers in their careers typically be-
ing increasingly frustrated with their ‘home’ disciplines and
exploring (often atheoretical) research avenues.

DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
13
opening up and thinking along somewhat
different routes is taking root also in the
sphere of foreign policy making.
There is increased openness in the sense
of more emphasis being placed on analysis
as indicated by the establishment, expan-
sion and upgrading of entities for research,
analysis and policy-planning within several
foreign ministries. There is recognition, at
least to some degree, that success in formu-
lating and implementing policies increasingly
hinges on the capacities to coin fresh ideas
and obtain, utilize and manage information.
The entry of new issue areas requiring spe-
cial knowledge such as the challenge of glo-
balisation, environmental issues, pandemic
threats, terrorism, mediating in new type of
conflicts, various questions related to brand-
ing, and more generally the medialization of
politics caused by the information revolu-
tion seem to invite for closer interaction with
scholars. The challenges posed by a more
complex and fast-changing array of substan-
tive issues compel practitioners reaching out,
it appears, to scholarly expertise as indicated
for example by the reports on globalisation
prepared on the initiative of the Danish and
Norwegian foreign ministries (Lunde et al.,
2008; Udenrigsministeriet, 2008). Similarly,
issues pertaining to development assistance
have opened up channels of engagement and
provided a platform for scholarly analysis and
foreign policy practice to meet, thereby add-
ing to the links between scholars and policy
makers.
The relatively weak institutionalization of
research and the lack of loops within as well
as outside foreign policy establishments both
imply that the ability to respond to a demand
for precise, short and unambiguous answers
delivered even at a moment’s notice remains
modest. At large, the nature of foreign policy
practice tends to be haphazard as well as in-
cremental rather than systematic, reflective and
foreseeing (Eriksson and Sundelius, 2005: 52).
There is stress on collective and institutional
responsibility, with this then also reflected in
the incentive structures of the institutions of
foreign policy. The difference in cultures im-
ply among other things that ‘in-and-outers’
with a foot in both camps are not always wel-
come within the foreign policy establishments
(Eriksson and Sundelius, 2005: 63).
There appears, in fact, to exist a consider-
able social distance due to the fact that a great
amount of doubt lingers on concerning the
question whether scholarly works are of any
use to policy makers in the first place (Vogel,
2006: 33). The distance is well exemplified
by expressions of dissatisfaction as to the
contributions offered by the academic side,
such as those deeming the contributions be-
ing “of limited value”, “too abstract” or seen
as “either irrelevant or inaccessible to policy
makers”. “Impenetrable” is one of the many
expressions testifying to the existence of a
kind of paradigmatic gap (Walt, 2005: 38).
Research is not viewed as being sufficiently
geared towards “specific regional develop-
ment or applied issue-oriented puzzles” (Lep-
gold, 2001: 78). The low regard and aversion
of more theory-driven research is also reflect-
ed in commentaries purporting the scholarly
world as being too insular, inwards-oriented
and self-enclosed. Practitioners assert that
“much remains locked within the circle of
esoteric scholarly discussion” (Newsom,
1995-96: 66). In general, the literature views
academic theories on international relations
and the practical conduct of foreign policy as
being far apart and operating in rather differ-
ent conceptual worlds. Joseph Lepgold (1998:
44) for one, has found reasons to speak of
“two distinct cultures”.
The distance also has temporal aspects in
the sense that practitioners feel pressured to

14
DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
make complex decisions ever more quickly,
while research has a pace of its own and
remains less time-sensitive (George, 1993:
9). This cleavage may have been aggravated
due to such factors as globalization and me-
dia-driven policies. In addition to different
temporal dynamics, there also exist diverse
approaches as to the preferred length of
presentations, with foreign services having
a disdain for lengthy products with empha-
sis on theory rather the applicable and prac-
tise-oriented conclusions (Walt, 2005: 24). It
has also been noted that there is far more
emphasis on oral rather than written pres-
entations within foreign services than on
the scholarly side. As noted by Nye (2008:
595), this appears to be the case for the part
of the top policy world, these factors then
undoubtedly adding to the diversity between
theory and practice.
It may also be noted, as to the diversifica-
tion of relevant actors, that genuinely strategic
research issues typically transcend the compe-
tency of individual ministries and belong more
naturally at the highest levels of government
– either at the level of the heads of state and/
or government, or at the whole-of-govern-
ment level. Interestingly enough, the former
often have fairly small research budgets (the
bulk of the research money being apportioned
to and by the line ministries9). Moreover, ef-
fective inter-agency processes typically remain
quite complicated to set up – institutionally,
politically and substantively. Whole-of-govern-
ment efforts are structured differently in dif-
ferent countries, but are in most countries still
relatively thin, weak and often stovepiped. So
while there is little doubt that this ‘whole-of-
government’ level will increase in importance
and will require adequate analytical support
and new ideas, it currently remains a relatively
(and surprisingly) weak player in the market
for foreign and security policy research.
On the demand side, many official (inter-
departmental) analyses of the international
environment (FR Livre Blanc, UK SDSR, NL
Verkenningen) have started to acknowledge
the growing uncertainty surrounding them-
selves. They have recognized the ensuing
need to put more emphasis on the ‘analysis
and anticipation’ functions of governments.
A particularly interesting development here is
also the re-thinking of the capability devel-
opment processes, which to this date have
drawn primarily on the ‘hard sciences’ for ki-
netic solutions, but which are also starting to
look for ‘capability solutions’ based on social
science research.10 At the same time, there is
a growing recognition that this increasingly
uncertain environment requires ‘comprehen-
sive’ solutions that transcend the individual
stovepipes – whether we are talking about the
so-called ‘comprehensive approach’ in failed/
failing states or about things like ‘human ter-
rain mapping’ in the area of defence (the idea
that just like we need maps of the physical
terrain in conflict areas, we also need to map
the knowledge or the idea of ‘resilience’ in the
area of homeland security). Also the private
sector (the financial sector, (re)insurance, etc.)
is increasingly looking for (reliable) broader
analytical support on issues like political risk.
Issues Pertaining to Supply
The diversification of actors is also impact-
ed by the fact that the private sector has seen
9 Even in the US, for instance, where inter-agency respon-
sibility in the FSP-area clearly resides in the White House
through the National Security Council (and in recent years
also through the Homeland Security Council and the Eco-
nomic Council), research money is overwhelmingly concen-
trated in the departments.
10 For a recent and comprehensive example, see NATO,
2011.

DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
15
explosive demands for foreign and security
policy research recently, e.g. (geopolitical)
risk assessments for the big multinationals,
for the financial sector, for insurance com-
panies and foresight work for companies.
The growth of the private sector oriented
research implies that it is increasingly en-
croaching upon the traditional providers of
scholarly work and policy advice, although
the impact remains at the same time limit-
ed as also the output stays more often than
not private. It does not reach the sphere of
policy making, public discourse or that of
the academia, as the knowledge produced is
viewed as a commodity and exclusive prop-
erty of those financing research.
The traditional ‘supply’ side of the knowl-
edge-production in the sphere of foreign
policy has proved fairly unsuccessful in tap-
ping into this growing market and yet there
are a number of bodies that straddle the pri-
vate-public borderline. These ‘advocacy think
tanks’ and schools of public policy interested
and willing to engage in public issues have
proliferated to a considerable degree, and
their bridge-building is being complemented
by various advisory bodies, working groups
and commissions of enquiry.
The increasing diversity and difficulty in
drawing strict borderlines are exemplified on
the American side by the Heritage Founda-
tion, the American Enterprise Institute and
the CATO Institute as well as the Brookings
Institution. The Adenauer Stiftung, Friedrich
Ebert Stiftung, the Olof Palme Center, Club
de l’Horloge or the European Council on
Foreign Relations represent such a trend on
the European side, although the ties between
academia and policymakers seem somewhat
less developed in Europe than in America. In
general the field is quite proliferate; alone in
the United States there are more than 1,200
think tanks, being quite heterogeneous in
scope, funding, ideology and location (Nye,
2008: 599; Haass, 2002).
In some cases the support for foreign pol-
icy-related research is philanthropic rather
than private taking into account the back-
ground of the various entities. During the
Cold War, philanthropic organizations on
both sides of the Atlantic (Carnegie, Ford
Foundation, Volkswagen Foundation, etc.)
played a very active role in funding serious
foreign and security policy-related research.
They focused on a number of issues felt to be
of primary significance in view of their phil-
anthropic mission (e.g. Soviet studies, nuclear
issues, arms control and general international
security problems) and aspired to make sure
that this research also reached policymakers.
After the end of the Cold War, most of them
moved largely on to other and new interna-
tional policy areas themes such as health and
education. They are therefore nowadays fairly
small players in the sphere of FSP-related is-
sues, although some of them continue to fund
important ad hoc issues. Actually some signs
indicate that foundations might be on their
way back to sponsoring also foreign and secu-
rity policy research on a more grand scale (Del
Rosso, 2009). This is not much of a surprise
taking into account the rather unprecedented
surge in personal wealth and in philanthropy
(witness the efforts of Bill Gates and Warren
Buffet), but very little of that new money has
found its way into the FSP-field.
Still another sub-category of importance on
the private side consists of the media. Whereas
the press is a major consumer of FSP research,
its level of consumption is far from commen-
surate with its contribution to the financial
health of the sector. Researchers in the FSP
research community (especially in the think
tank world) spend quite a bit of time writing
opinion pieces and bigger articles in the more
popular press as well as doing interviews on

16
DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
radio and television – something they see par-
tially as a part of their raison d’être, whether paid
or not, and partially also as an opportunity to
attract paying customers to their work. We
note, though, that there is little or no research
into the empirical reality behind this calculus.
Concluding Remarks
It seems, in a broader perspective, that more
knowledge is being produced and made avail-
able by a far broader array of suppliers. Fur-
thermore, there are far more channels available
for distribution and reaching across and it also
seems that the recent institutions that supply,
and use, scholarly analysis have become more
differentiated (e.g. Wilson, 2007: 147). There
are a few clusters of suppliers of policy inputs,
they tend to be disconnected from each other,
remain predominantly national in character, and
there appears to be few if any efforts of build-
ing cumulative as well as transferable knowl-
edge. The borderline between policy making
and research seems relative strict particularly
in Europe in the sense that researchers rarely
have access to the field of policy whereas the
practices in the US are considerably different.
The interface is far stronger in the latter case
already because of the ‘revolving door’ with
people being recruited from research institutes
or returning to such establishments after serv-
ice in government.
The prime task of academic research is un-
doubtedly to produce ideas and insights into
relevant issues with the help of theory and
related concepts. Having in principle the re-
sponsibility to analyse and reflect rather than
act, the duty of scholars is in fact quite differ-
ent from concerns related to the applicability
of the ideas and insights coined, albeit the dif-
ference is also precisely what makes academic
research potentially valuable and a source of
enrichment for foreign policy practice.
It is to be noted, however, that there ex-
ist within academia rather different views
on whether one should remain detached,
engage in bridge-building or adopt a criti-
cal stance vis-à-vis foreign policy practice.
Among these views and approaches, the one
pertaining to bridge-building seems to be the
dominant one (Stern and Sundelius, 2002: 85)
and also the main bulk of literature on the
subject testifies to this. However, the issue is
contested and those defending an independ-
ent and detached position (Girard, 1994; Hill
and Beshoff, 1994) or a critical one (Booth,
1997; Smith, 1997; Wyn Jones, 1999) have a
considerable standing in the debate. The in-
dependent school of thought stresses that
policymakers seek power rather than knowl-
edge and that engaging in bridge-building
may thus endanger the intellectual integrity
of academic analysis. The critics, in turn,
argue that engagement with and loyalty to-
wards foreign policy practice kills ingenuity,
the predisposition of discovery of the hid-
den and neglected. Furthermore, it is claimed
that it associates research with endeavours to
predict in order to control and tends to lead
to a “technocratization” with a focus on a
rather narrow range of issues. In doing so it
arguably forms an obstacle to alternative and
thought-provoking views.
Interestingly, the academic voices advo-
cating bridge-building and coining various
proposals in order to narrow the distance be-
tween academic research and foreign policy
practice appear to have grown in strength.
Yet the argument has been that scholars have
to ensure that they are working with rather
than for practitioners. There has to be open
communication, and the basic prerequisite
is that the scholar engaging him- or herself
has the main responsibility and freedom to
see the research agenda, formulate the ques-
tions, design the methods, and develop the

DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
17
theories in order for a responsible constella-
tion to prevail (Eriksson and Sundelius, 2005:
67). Rather than being worried about a much-
debated gap, the scholarly community seems
more often than not to ponder on the conse-
quences of engagement and research being
applied in the sphere of practice (Villumsen
and Burger, 2010: 2).
There also appears to be increasing flexibil-
ity to be traced in the sense that the various
stovepipes that we have described have started
to show signs of breaking down. On the sup-
ply-side, a number of changes have become
apparent. The academic world is revisiting
some of the cleavages that have fissured it for
a long time, with more inter-disciplinary (and
international) efforts than ever before. The
development – and growing popularity – of
dedicated policy analysis programmes at uni-
versities in a number of countries is starting
to provide a more ‘natural’ interface between
theory and practice. Even in more traditional
political science programmes, the stigma at-
tached to doing policy-relevant research may
be somewhat more weak. Finally, the impact
of some new (again interdisciplinary) theo-
ries and paradigms such as complexity theory
or network analysis – and their applications
to policy issues – may also narrow the social
and cultural distance both within the research
community and between that community and
the policy world.
We set out here to explore the theory-prac-
tice relationship quite empirically and from a
variety of perspectives taking into account the
increasing plurality and diffuse nature of the
field. However, in doing so we did not want to
advance a kind of objectivist thesis premised
on theory and practice standing unavoidably
apart from each other in representing very dif-
ferent spheres of knowledge. Instead we en-
deavoured at depicting them, with research be-
ing part of a social world in the first place (cf.
Villumsen and Burger, 2010), as rather closely
related to each other and, importantly, co-con-
stitutive in character. The concept of the ‘gap’
is obviously a rather dramatic one and hence
also helpful in spurring debate on the relation-
ship and trends as to the research/practice
relationship, but it is at the same time ques-
tionable both on empirical as well as principal
grounds. As to the latter, the question to be
addressed is not what to do about the assumed
gap but rather how to relate and interact em-
pirically connecting the two spheres to each
other despite their dissimilarity as to the un-
derlying principles and departures. The various
issues pertaining to practice impact the schol-
arly world and vice versa and covering these
processes hence informs about how knowl-
edge works in society, how the science/policy
nexus seems to be unfolding over time in the
sphere of defence and foreign policy and how
it plays itself out.
It may be added that the imaginary of a
‘gap’ could in a number of ways be decreasing,
although it has not vanished and still frames
a considerable part of the discussion waged
on the theory-practice relationship. Research
and policy remain to some extent detached
from each other, although it also seems obvi-
ous that there is a considerable – and perhaps
increasing – amount of contacts, interaction
as well as cross-fertilization. The sphere of
defence appears to be far more established
and in some ways also more advanced then
the foreign policy one in being linked to the
scholarly world, but belts of transmission
clearly exist in both spheres, although clearly
weaker in the case of foreign policy. Knowl-
edge also travels between the spheres of re-
search and foreign policy and some improve-
ments may be noticed, albeit the diagnosis
carried out also points to deficiencies as well
as the need of further debate that goes be-
yond the existence of an assumed gap.

18
DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
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DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
21
Hiski Haukkala:
THE TIME, SPACE AND
STRATEGIES FOR SCHOLARLY
ANALYSIS IN FOREIGN POLICY
MAKING
Abstract
This paper examines the policy-making and -
analysis nexus from the vantage point of aca-
demic scholarly work. In the contemporary
world also the scholarly community is faced
with increasing calls for being useful and rel-
evant. This is obviously so in the think-tank
world but increasingly this is the case also in
academia. But what is the actual space for
academic expertise and policy analysis in the
making of policy? How do the two coincide
and co-exist temporally? The paper seeks to
analyze the spatial and temporal aspects of
providing scholarly analysis for the mak-
ing of policy. Drawing from this, the paper
concludes by sketching out two strategies, or
roles, a policy-analyst may apply in trying to
get her messages across to different audiences
and in different contingencies.
Introduction
The relationship between the academic study
of International Relations (IR) and the mak-
ing of foreign policy is full of tensions. At
first sight this is somewhat surprising as more
often than not the two share the same goals
and even normative agendas: The need for
accurate information and knowledge and
the drive to seek to improve the world in the
process (Hill, 1994: 19). Yet to be frank the
differences are often bigger than the commo-
nalities. Despite sharing an interest in world
politics and its events, the two approach them
from radically different angles. It is not en-
tirely far-fetched to claim that the two exist
in different spatial and temporal dimensions:
Quite often the academics reside in their
ivory towers at universities far removed from
the centres of political power. In addition,
the policy makers are living in the never-end-
ing present moment madly rushing after the
latest Macmillanian ‘event’, whereas scholars
usually have the benefit of time and even
hindsight on their side (Krasner, 2009a: 113).
But this has not always been the case. The
interdependence between academic study
and the actual practice was advocated by, for
example, the father of modern realism, E.H.
Carr (1974: 8).
Political science must be based on a recog-
nition of the interdependence of theory and
practice, which can be attained only through a
combination of utopia and reality. A concrete
expression of the antithesis of theory and
practice in politics is the opposition between
the intellectual and the bureaucrat, the former
trained to think mainly on a priori lines, the
latter empirically.
Also Hans Morgenthau considered speak-
ing truth to power as one of the tasks of
scholars (Myers, 1992). Perhaps the veritable
golden era for scholars was the late 1950s
and early 1960s when figures such Thomas
Schelling, Herman Kahn and Henry Kissing-
er and the RAND Corporation in particular
held sway in Washington D.C. Such was the
policy makers’ thirst for policy advice – and
their belief in the power of social scientific
theories – that practically all “leading civilian
strategists who were willing to be consulted
were drafted” leading to a situation where
their “intellectual dominance in the early
1960’s was nearly absolute” (Gray, 1971: 119).
But the results were far from unequivocally
positive. According to Gray, the scholars em-
ployed and overextended their welcome in
policy circles: The end result was a serious
of policy errors ranging from the Vietnam

22
DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
War to US nuclear policies towards the Soviet
Union that were largely due to the scholar-
cum-decision-makers’ erroneous conceptual
premises and their mind-sets that were stuck
in the rut of earlier strategic challenges (Gray
1971).
Since then, the level and quality of interac-
tion seem only to have declined and the two
worlds of academia and making of policy
are increasingly diverging. As Joseph Nye
(2009b) has noted, the walls surrounding the
ivory tower have never been as high as they
are today with very few scholars having an
impact or presence in the making of policy
(see also Nincic, 2000: 1).1 Stephen Krasner
– who has significant policy planning experi-
ence himself – has gone as far as to call the
gap between academia and policy world es-
sentially unbridgeable (Krasner, 2009a: 116).
As a result, specialized think tanks have taken
the place of academic scholars in the policy
debates resulting in the more neutral view-
point of the academia to be sidelined.2 That
said, the impact of think thanks should not
be exaggerated either. True, their visibility in
media is unrivalled but their actual impact on
the policy process remains elusive and prob-
ably smaller than they themselves claim and
seem to think (see Weidenbaum, 2009).
This paper seeks to analyze the difficult en-
counter between academia and policy making.
It draws from research literature as well as my
own experiences in three different roles as a
university researcher, policy analyst at differ-
ent European think tanks as well as a Special
Adviser at the Finnish Ministry for Foreign
Affairs. As such, the paper seeks to tease out
certain ways through which the encounters
between academia and the world of policy
making could be made easier to the benefit of
both. The paper seeks to flesh out the ways
how academia can be of use in the making of
policy as well as pointing at certain structural
characteristics that endow scholars with cer-
tain advantages and consequently also some
special responsibilities vis-à-vis policy makers
and indeed the general public. Finally, the pa-
per sketches out two different roles, or strate-
gies that scholars can play, as well as indicat-
ing the different fates and fortunes that await
at the end of pursuing either of these options
too consistently. But first, a few words about
the differences between academic scholarship
and policy analysis are required as the two
most definitely are not the same.
Academic Scholarship
vs. Policy Analysis
Often academic scholarship and policy rel-
evant policy analysis – let alone the actual
making of policy – are seen as two differ-
ent things (for a host of useful papers in
this respect, see Nincic and Lepgold, 2000).
Academic scholarship is seen to engage with
theories, whereas policy analysis is seen as
something more applied, at best a thick de-
scription and at worst a somewhat more so-
phisticated form of contemporary commen-
tary than ordinary journalism. But although
true to a certain extent, the issue is not as
clear cut as this. To a degree, the clear di-
chotomy between academic and policy ana-
lytical work is a false one: All human thought
is filtered through ‘theories’ if we take them
to be pre-existing ‘knowledge structures’ in
light of which to categorize and seek to un-
1 But see Young (1972: 199) who already noted how in the
debate the ‘gap’ between academic and intellectual communi-
ties and policy makers is often lamented.
2 In the Finnish scene the situation is somewhat different.
Not because purely academic scholars would be more active
towards policy makers – they don’t – but because Finland
largely lacks a pure American-type think tank scene to begin
with. Therefore even scholars with clear policy leanings tend
to keep at least a foot in academia, alleviating the divisions so
evident in the US debate at least to a certain degree.

DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
23
derstand the world and its events (see Jöns-
son, 1990: 33).
The real difference between academic and
policy-analytical work lies in the nature and
the way we use these ‘theories’. We may note
that usually in academic work we strive at a
conscious and open application of our theo-
ries: Our starting points and theoretical com-
mitments as well as the consequent concep-
tual moves are laid out openly for all to see
and criticize. By contrast, often in policy-ana-
lytical work the ‘knowledge structures’ that
inform the description and especially the pre-
scription often remain hidden from the view
– perhaps also from the authors themselves,
it often seems: In academic work starting
points are usually problematized where quite
often in policy-analytical work the grounding
assumptions are left unquestioned and the
onus is put on political engineering (for ex-
ample, premise: NATO enlargement is good
for stability in Europe → how to best facilitate
further enlargement?).
But there is in my view even more profound
difference between academic and policy-ana-
lytical work. It deals with the very nature of
the theories we employ. Academic research
is, or at least it should be, about the truth or
at least truthlikeness (see Niiniluoto, 1999) of
our theories. It is about how accurately they
describe and explain the world ‘out there’.
By contrast, in the last instance policy analy-
sis is about the relative merits of competing
worldviews: Is democracy and especially its
global promotion a good or a bad thing? Is
the EU’s normative power a force for good
or a force for evil? Is the rise of China a be-
nign or a malign phenomenon for ‘the West’?
To a degree, therefore, academic and policy-
analytical work are two different beasts and
they form largely incommensurable agendas:
The former is an epistemic game dealing with
the questions of truth and falsity of our the-
ories, the latter a normative game revolving
around the question of what is good or bad
for a certain group of people (or even uni-
versally): What is to be desired, what avoided,
what perhaps even shunned?3
Yet it would be wrong to imply that the
chasm between academic and policy-relevant
work is entirely unbridgeable. What connects
the two is the role of certain conventional-
ism in all human activities, science included
(Chernoff, 2009: 374-375). There are al-
ways received wisdoms and accepted truths
whether we are talking about a scientific or
a policy elite community or even the wider
society.4 The social mechanism that connects
academic scholarship and policy advice is that
of communicative action: The need to con-
vince others of the merits of the case one
is making (Risse, 2000). That said, the factor
that hinders effective cross-fertilization be-
tween academic and policy-analytical work is
that they largely argue towards different audi-
ences: Academic to the scientific community
and policy-analysis to the policy elite as well
as the wider public. Also the ways or arguing
the case differ radically – but more of this
will follow in a moment.
As a consequence, when engaging in seek-
ing to give policy advice, an academic must be
ready and willing to play simultaneous chess
on two different chess boards – epistemic and
normative – as well as keep the distinction be-
tween the two different games and respective
audiences in mind. In addition, she will find
3 I make this distinction for the sake of argument while being
fully cognizant of the tricky nature of the fact-value distinction
in social sciences.
4 This should not be taken to imply that the author of this
paper advocates relativism: Not all the claims we make about
the world are equally valid. In science we have epistemic cri-
teria along which we choose between competing theories; in
the world of policy we have moral criteria that should help
us to distinguish the good apples from the rotten ones. For a
forceful argument along these lines, see Lukes, 2008.

24
DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
out to her dissatisfaction that her trusted pri-
mary chess board of academic theories will
not help her to answer a policy question with
ease (although it might enable her to frame
the issue in more analytical terms which in it-
self can at times be helpful). Finally, the very
game of providing policy advice has its own
set of rules and conventions that differ very
much from academic standards and even de-
partmental politics. It is to these peculiarities
that we turn next.
The Time and Space for Scholarly
Analysis in Foreign Policy Making
My own experience of the policy-making
process has shown that there is a dire need
for accurate information and fresh ideas in
the making of policy. Important decisions
are often made in great haste and under large
uncertainty concerning the possible conse-
quences of the decisions taken (see also Bern-
stein et al., 2000: 52; Krasner, 2009a: 115). At
the same time, and somewhat paradoxically,
civil servants and diplomats tend to think that
they already ‘know’ pretty much everything
there is to know about the given subject. This
is especially the case when it comes to inter-
action with scholars who are usually seen as
not being ‘in the know’. To a degree this at-
titude is justified, as the flow of information
within foreign ministries and other govern-
mental departments often far exceeds that of
other public information in terms of speed
and the level of detail. In any case civil serv-
ants are often better informed about actual
contemporary facts on the ground compared
with scholars. But foreign ministries are tem-
porally fairly thin: In most ministries diplo-
mats are rotating from post to post and rarely
spend enough time on a single subject to be
able to track, master and remember changes,
even important ones, over time. Therefore
the scholarly competitive advantage stems
from their area expertise and the possibility
of cumulating knowledge over time: Putting
the contemporary events into a wider histori-
cal context (more about time will follow later
in this section).
My own country, Finland, like any country,
has also some historical and cultural charac-
teristics of its own that alter the picture some-
what. Finland is a small country with big egos.
Here I presume Finland is not that different
from other small countries where practically
everybody who is anybody knows each other,
meaning that disagreements over views and
policies easily turn into personal tussles over
turfs and prestige. What is more, the Cold
War period of Finlandization and self-censor-
ship, especially when it came to criticizing the
great eastern neighbour, resulted in a some-
what truncated public space and relatively
underdeveloped debating culture in foreign
affairs (this state of affairs is, however, slowly
changing). In addition, being an EU member
perhaps constrains the space even further:
The decision makers are engaged in constant
negotiation both domestically and with other
EU partners, meaning that most of the poli-
cies are in fact fixed and usually adopted in
great haste and in reaction to EU-wide initia-
tives, making it difficult for a scholar to influ-
ence the process. Taken together, these fac-
tors result in a rather constrained space for a
scholar to try to have an impact on policies to
begin with.5
In addition to space we also need to think
about time. As was already alluded to, schol-
ars and policy makers reside in two differ-
ent temporal dimensions. The practitioner is
rushing after the ever present now, the essence
5 The same would seem to apply also in the case of the United
States where cumbersome inter-departmental coordination
and fierce competition consume the best energies of officials.
See Rodman, 2009.

DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
25
of which has been well captured by Whiting
(1972: 236): “For a bureaucrat, a ‘tomorrow’s’
problem can be taken up next week but today
must still be devoted to yesterday’s [in foreign
policy the word should perhaps be ‘today’s’]
agenda. Unfortunately today is always with
us; next week never seems to come.”
By contrast, scholars have ample time
to contemplate on their hands. Usually the
deadlines in academic projects are measured
in months, even years, and not in hours. To a
large degree, the existence of these different
temporal planes is a factor hindering com-
munication and interaction between the two
worlds. For civil servants there is not enough
time to consult scholars amidst the tumultu-
ous events. Also the scholars might find that
the policy maker simply lacks the time to lis-
ten attentively to their pet theories or major
conceptual innovations. Instead, they want
the scholarly insights to be translated into
easily accessible and short slogans that en-
tail a clear political strategy and enable direct
political implementation (Wilson 2000: 117-
118). But from an academic scholar’s’ point
of view such an approach of course smacks
of not just popular, but borderline vulgar, sci-
ence (see Keohane, 2009).
This tendency to expect easily digestible
sound bites from the scholars in fact high-
lights a deeper cultural difference concern-
ing how to most effectively communicate
the main points and findings. Academia is
largely a game of written word where a full
monograph is the mark of a woman. By
contrast, the closer you get to the top of
policy making the more you will find that it
is based on an oral culture (Nye 2009a: 117).
The hectic pace of decision making does
not allow reading long papers or tractates
but a concise one- or, at best, two-pager and
its oral delivery in a few minutes is the rule.
This is a game that academics are often ill-
equipped to play and they even seem to be
somewhat intimated by it.6
In addition, not only time but timing is of
essence. Young and Mendizabal (2009) argue
that policy processes are complex and rarely
linear or logical: It is not enough for a scholar
to simply present the decision makers with
certain information and expect them to act
accordingly.7 Or, as Krasner (2009a, 2009b)
has noted, the policy window is fairly specific
and limited in time and requires the right in-
put to be available at the right moment to the
right person(s) in order to be effective (see
also Nye, 2009a: 117).
Perhaps the classic case of timing is
George F. Kennan’s Long Telegram from
February 1946 that managed to set the di-
rection for the US attempts at containing the
Soviet Union in the Cold War and launched
his career into policy planning and later schol-
arship. Yet despite its hard hitting style, the
mere analysis of the unfolding Cold War and
the sources of Soviet conduct together with
some policy recommendations in the memo
were not enough to ensure its success but its
eventual impact came essentially down to its
timing. According to Kennan (1969: 310), six
months earlier the telegram would have been
greeted with ‘raised eyebrows’ whereas half
a year later it would have probably ‘sounded
redundant, a sort of preaching to the con-
vinced.’ Interestingly, Kennan’s words seem
to indicate a certain inevitability in the even-
tual US policy of containment, regardless
6 This claim is based on an observation made by being present
in a room where the Minister for Foreign Affairs has been
briefed by outside academic experts who often seem to have
problems in getting to the point within the time allocated
for them before the Minister’s patience has already been ex-
hausted.
7 For fascinating case studies concerning the complexities and
outright paradoxes of foreign policy decision making in the
different US administrations during the last forty years, see
Rodman, 2009.

26
DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
of his actions and recommendations. If this
is the case, then we may ask what Kennan’s
actual role in the process was, after all? Was
he the original source and inventor or simply
just a catalyst or a facilitator for a policy that
would have come about in any case? If the
latter is the answer, then we may note that
Kennan felt intense remorse in vain for his
ostensible key role in launching the antago-
nistic logic of the Cold War on the US side
(see Leffler, 2006) – it well could be that it
would have happened anyway. But be that it
as may, Kennan’s example highlights the fact
that it is very hard for a complete outsider to
have a serious effect on the policy process,
or at least one would need to be exception-
ally well-informed and/or lucky to succeed
in the task.
The question of time has also other inter-
esting dimensions to it. The fact that schol-
ars have the benefit of time and even hind-
sight on their side, endows them with some
special opportunities and even responsibili-
ties. If the policy maker lives in the world of
never-ending present, then scholars should
make good use of all the temporal dimen-
sions: Past, present and future. In principle
these different temporal dimensions allow
three different functions that scholars could
and even should play vis-à-vis the policy
makers and general public:
1. The past or ‘Don’t lose your head’ function: Be-
cause scholars have the time on their side
they should act as the memory of soci-
ety. Politicians often change their minds
and decide to frame issues and policies in
novel ways. This is their undeniable right.
Yet there is no reason to think that they
should always be allowed to do so with
ease. For example, the way the Bush ad-
ministration sought to rebrand the War in
Iraq as being that of democracy-promo-
tion after the non-discovery of WMD in
the country is a classic example of this
tendency. Usually it is the task of journal-
ists to keep an eye on these developments
and expose them (Gans, 2010). Yet the in-
creasing commercialization of media to-
gether with the shortening attention span
of the general public (see Osnos, 2010)
means that this task increasingly falls on
the scholars. It is their – admittedly un-
thankful – role to remind politicians and
the general public how things used to be
argued and perceived and therefore insert
a certain (temporal) perspective into our
political debates.
2. The present or ‘Keep your head down’ function:
The fact that policy makers are so seriously
engaged with the present does not make
them omniscient. In fact, the reverse is the
case: Often bureaucracies are engaged in a
business-as-usual mode where groupthink
prevails (see ‘t Hart et al., 1997). Scholars,
for being more detached from these proc-
esses, have the possibility to think outside
the box also when it comes to contempo-
rary issues. In essence, this entails point-
ing out when decision makers are about to
engage in something problematic or even
outright stupid.
3. The future or ‘Heads up’ function: These days
public administrations and bureaucracies
all over the world are almost obsessed with
the future. Huge sums are being spent on
developing foresight capabilities and differ-
ent scenario exercises have become com-
monplace. Yet none of this actually guar-
antees that the policy makers get the future
and its biggest challenges right. Although
the unexpected is always anticipated this
does not mean that people will actually see
and realize it when it is coming their way.
In fact for reasons already mentioned in the
previous point, the reverse could easily be

DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
27
the case (see also Bernstein et al., 2000: 58).
Therefore scholars have a special respon-
sibility to try to see and tell/warn people
when something important, threatening or
even outright dangerous is coming their
way. It very well could be that the level of
specific knowledge combined with certain
detachment from the policy process en-
dows scholars with a certain competitive
advantage, also when it comes to thinking
about the future. Even if this should not
be the case (see the crushing critique of
policy experts in Tetlock, 2005) they should
at least be able to offer different takes con-
cerning the future thus widening the menu
available for decision makers.
Taken together, for a scholar time can be
seen as a strategic resource: Something that
can be played with and that can be used
to the scholar’s advantage if and when she
chooses to engage the policy makers in a
dialogue. At the same time, time is also a
constraint; something a scholar should also
be aware of. The policy window is likely to
be short-lived and require readiness on the
part of the scholar to make good use of it.
The role of chance should also be taken into
consideration: A scholar may ‘luck out’ and
win the attention of a policy maker. But the
reverse can also be the case: Even the best
advice given at the most opportune moment
may fall on deaf ears for various and most
probably quite whimsical and accidental
reasons. Therefore engaging in any of the
three functions discussed on this occasion
requires intentional agency on the part of
the scholars: They must endeavour to set the
agenda and seek to participate in the policy-
making process. The scholars’ agency brings
in the question of different roles and strate-
gies that can be employed by scholars that
we turn to next.
The Roles and Strategies in
Policy Analysis
If the temporal dimension is tricky, then the
actual roles available for a scholar are chal-
lenging as well. As was already noted, the
actual space for policy advice is constrained,
and especially radically dissenting voices are
hardly ever appreciated. Also if we accept and
keep in mind the fact that political debates are
not principally epistemic but normative, then
we need to ask the question whose world-
views we are in fact talking about when giv-
ing policy advice. Essentially, two roles can be
ascertained for a person interested in giving
policy advice: That of a critic and that of a
political technologist. These two roles come
in fact rather close to Habermasian techni-
cal and emancipatory interests of knowledge
(see Habermas, 2007).
Of the two, it is the critic’s role that is
more difficult. First, decision makers are hu-
man beings, and humans in general do not
particularly like being criticized. Usually, the
fate of a persistent critic is to be ignored,
at worst even ridiculed. In any case, a per-
sistent critic can expect to find oneself at
the outer fringes of policy developments
with scant opportunities for little else than
voicing her general dissatisfaction with the
present course of events. This is so because
we already know from empirical studies
that expert ideas usually influence only the
methods of governments but not the ulti-
mate goals they choose to pursue (Lindvall,
2009: 707). This was also acknowledged by
Morgenthau who after decades of trying in
vain to influence the US foreign policy was
forced to concede how “power positions do
not yield to arguments, however rationally
and morally valid, but only to superior pow-
er” (quoted in Myers, 1992: 68). Keeping
this in mind, a persistent critic risks at worst
becoming a permanent outsider or a hermit,

28
DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
or at best a tolerated court jester – harmless
but at times at least entertaining (see also
Neumann, 2008, who traces the genealogy
of the critical intellectual to “the positions
of the Holy Fool and the court jester”). A
case in point could perhaps be Noam Chom-
sky whose endless flow of critical books and
articles about the US role in the world are
likely to have a much bigger impact on the
European blogosphere than on US foreign
policy.
This hints to the other possible audience
for scholars, namely the general public. Es-
pecially in a democratic setting this should
not be underestimated. Scholars are, after
all, public intellectuals and they have the right
and even perhaps the duty to seek to affect
change in flawed policies through an open
debate. That said, my own experience of
the policy process nevertheless suggests that
the impact of op-eds, television and radio
appearances and intensive blogging is fairly
peripheral to the actual policy process: The
policy debate and decision making is not
conducted in the public sphere but usually
behind closed doors where the standard re-
sponse to any problematic inputs is simply
to ignore them.
Quite problematically, from a scholar’s
vantage point that is, all of this seems to
suggest that perhaps the most effective role
available for a scholar in the policy-making
process is the second one, that of a politi-
cal technologist: An engineer to help the
powers-that-be to execute their policies in a
more efficient and successful manner with
scant possibilities of making a difference
when it comes to their underlying political
agendas and objectives. This is indeed the
way state bureaucracies often seek to use
scholarly knowledge and outputs: As infor-
mation to devise and execute better policies
to achieve ends that have largely already
been decided in the political and bureau-
cratic processes.8
But how should we think about these two
functions – a political technologist or a critic
– in actual terms? We can see them either
as fixed roles firmly rooted in the individual
worldviews of scholars or more fluid strat-
egies a scholar may employ to suit different
needs and contexts. In this respect, Isaiah
Berlin’s classical metaphor of people being
essentially either hedgehogs or foxes is help-
ful. According to Berlin (1997: 436-437):
...there exists a great chasm between
those, on one side, who relate everything
to a single central vision, one system, less
or more coherent or articulate, in terms
of which they understand, think and feel
– a single, universal, organising principle
in terms of which alone all that they are
and say has significance – and, on the
other side, those who pursue many ends,
often unrelated and even contradictory,
connected, if at all, only in some de facto
way, for some psychological or physi-
ological cause, related to no moral or
aesthetic principle. These last lead lives,
perform acts and entertain ideas that are
centrifugal rather than centripetal; their
thought is scattered or diffused, moving
on many levels, seizing upon the essence
of a vast variety of experiences and ob-
jects for what they are in themselves,
without, consciously or unconsciously,
8 For example, in recent years the Finnish government has
devoted considerable political attention and resources to
re-organize its use of so-called sectoral research, the role
of which has been defined as policy-relevant “research that
deals with society’s policies and services through which the
Finnish state’s bureaucratic apparatus can enhance its knowl-
edge of and ability to develop the society further”. Source:
Valtion sektoritutkimusta uudistetaan, Press Release, 16 January
2007, translation from Finnish, available at http://vnk.fi/ajanko-
htaista/tiedotteet/tiedote/fi.jsp?oid=180245, last accessed 9
February 2010.

DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
29
seeking to fit them into, or exclude them
from, any one unchanging, all-embrac-
ing, sometimes self-contradictory and
incomplete, at times fanatical, unitary in-
ner vision. The first kind of intellectual
and artistic personality belongs to the
hedgehogs, the second to the foxes.
Following from this we may think of two
roles – that of a political technologist or
that of a critic – and two different mindsets
– that of a hedgehog or that of a fox: Giving
us in fact three different roles in which an
academic may engage herself with the world
of policy making: The first two are based on
a hedgehog mentality of being rigidly either
a political technologist or a critic with little
chance of changing her basic attitude.9 The
last and perhaps the preferred option is to
see the two as more fluid strategies that can
be applied depending on the context and
the issue at hand. Indeed, Neumann (2008)
sees the role of an adviser or a critic as a
dynamic process. For him it is possible to
be both-and and not simply either-or when
it comes to the choice of being an adviser
or a critic.
My own experience indicates that Neumann
is making an important point here. It is in-
deed foxes that have perhaps the best chance
of earning the trust and respect of the policy
makers themselves: At times a fierce critic, at
times a helpful adviser. This last strategy is
also the one that I have tried to pursue during
my own career – admittedly with varying re-
sults when it comes to actually making a dif-
ference in the content of the policy.
Conclusion
This paper has discussed the role of an aca-
demic as a policy adviser. To a large extent
implicit in its treatment has been the presup-
position of an academic that remains essen-
tially detached and independent from the ac-
tual policy process. Yet the first, and perhaps
the only strong conclusion stemming from
the previous narrative is that it is only by be-
coming part of the process that the scholar
can in any meaningful sense seek to effect the
policy process. In other words, a scholar must
turn into a civil servant, bureaucrat, or per-
haps even a politician to make a real differ-
ence – and even then the results are far from
assured. Obviously the need to go into the
policy process is stronger for political tech-
nologists, but interestingly Neumann (2008:
175) notes that at least in the US context a
critic, too, may need to be an insider.
The second conclusion stems from the
need for intellectual honesty. Regardless of
the decision we take – whether to engage
practitioners as an adviser or a critic – there
is a need, at some point, to be open and
frank about our motivations and underlying
presuppositions – even if the audience is just
ourselves. In our academic work we are of
course supposed to spell these things openly
in our reports (although a good deal of even
political factors latently affecting our scien-
tific thinking can still go unrecognized even
by ourselves, see Kurki, 2009). Being open
about these things in policy-analytic work is
much more difficult. The underlying belief
systems and worldviews that affect the way
we relate to the world around us are resist-
ant to change, and it cannot be taken as a
given that we are even necessarily aware of
all the things that inform our stances and
reactions (see Haukkala, 2010: Ch. 3). But
despite this it is all the more important that
we at least engage ourselves in the process:
9 One should, however, keep in mind the possibility that a
political change could actually reverse the roles of a scholar:
An eager and able political technologist could be turned into
a critic by the arrival of a new administration. This is a pro-
pensity that is perhaps more nuanced in a more partisan US
setting than in the more consensual Finnish scene.

30
DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
Externally, especially in works intended for
public consumption, this amounts to qual-
ity control, enabling the consumers of our
ideas to better decipher the agenda and mo-
tivations behind apparently ‘objective’ policy
advice. All in all, it should make for better
social science, more reliable and open policy
analysis and advice and it might make us bet-
ter human beings as well.
The third and final conclusion deals with
the need to be prepared to exit. To remain
too long in close proximity to power easily
corrupts. In this respect scholars are per-
haps particularly vulnerable. Sooner or later
a scholar in government must make some
stark choices: Risk losing intellectual integ-
rity by starting to shade what one speaks to
power in order to retain and perhaps even
enhance the access to the decision maker
that in a ministry is the equivalent of the
air one breathes (for fascinating discus-
sions of this theme, see Stein, 2009: 122-
123; and Biersteker, 2008: 172-174; see also
Keohane, 2009: 128, who warns scholars
against losing their core scientific integrity
in the process).
To a degree, Neumann seems to disagree
with this sentiment, suggesting that it is pos-
sible – and even desirable – to enhance one’s
critical faculties and room for manoeuvre
while remaining inside the policy process.
For him, the job of a policy adviser “can be
made even more interesting if the adviser
dabbles in criticism. There are clear limits to
how far a state may accommodate their ad-
visers’ criticisms, but it is equally clear that,
in a number of countries, the preconditions
are there for us to try and expand those lim-
its” (Neumann, 2008: 176). Even a semi-au-
thoritarian country like Russia is no excep-
tion to this rule. For example, the illustrious
career of Andrei Illarionov shows that it is
indeed possible to engage in hard-hitting do-
mestic criticism while being employed by the
Russian government.10
That said, it cannot be denied that a
scholar willing to enter government must
also be prepared to exit – if she wants to
remain a scholar, that is.11 This is so not
only in order to preserve our intellectual
honesty but also to preserve our very ca-
pacity to act as useful counsellors in the first
place. Already Gray (1971: 128) referred to
this when urging scholars “to consider the
consequences of a close relationship with
the executive branch of government, and
ask whether he has not been seduced by the
attractions of access into a position which
allowed scant time for fundamental reflec-
tion.” Stein (2009: 123) has summed up the
issue very nicely:
...when we engage formally or infor-
mally in the policy process, we lose the
time and the luxury to think as academ-
ics. The press of time is real, the pace
intense. The opportunities to step back,
reflect and learn shrink rapidly. At some
point – more quickly than we might
expect – we deplete the knowledge we
brought with us from the academy even
as we are learning about the world. We
need to leave, go back to reading and
listening, assimilate what we have learnt
and subject our work to the criticism
of our peers. Joseph Nye put it well in
a conversation a decade ago when he
emphasized the importance of ‘moving
10 But eventually Illarionov of course had to leave both his
post as well as Russia. Interestingly, and admittedly somewhat
beside the point, it seems as if recently President Medvedev
has assumed the role of Illarionov: An internal critic to the
system he is at the same time (ostensibly) heading.
11 Even Iver Neumann said when congratulating me on my
new job as a Special Adviser that he hoped that I ‘would be
back’ within two years. An e-mail exchange with Iver Neu-
mann, 8 January 2009.

DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
31
back and forth between thought and ac-
tion and letting each fertilize the other’
(Nye 1998).
The question of leaving has its local and
cultural particulars as well. For example,
in the United States the cycle between
various presidential administrations and
scholarship, although admittedly increas-
ingly mainly only from think tanks, is an
accepted feature of public life. By contrast,
the country I know best, Finland, is based
on a very different logic: The exchange of
blood between the two worlds is very rare
indeed – although things could be starting
to change in Finland in this respect as well.
In any case, a chance to serve in govern-
ment with the expectation that you can go
out and perhaps come back again someday
is still practically unheard of. The expec-
tation is that you must decide to become
either a scholar or a civil servant; no sitting
on the fence is encouraged. This particular
feature raises the bar of excitement, entail-
ing that you really have to mean it if you do
it: There is necessarily no going back if you
go. But also staying incurs its own costs on
the academic prospects as policy and ad-
ministrative experience counts for nothing
in the academic competition. Nor are these
features necessarily the particular feature
of Finland alone. I presume (but do not
know for certain) that the situation is very
much the same all over Europe. This rigid-
ity is a fact of life, but it is one that is to
be regretted as it can be expected to inhibit
and constrain interaction between scholars
and practitioners well into the future. The
bottom line is that the encounter between
the two is easiest when the two share the
same physical space. Therefore, scholars
should venture beyond the academia for
short stints in the government. And vice
versa, officials should be encouraged to
breathe the freer air of academia as well.
I think the remarkable career of Alyson
Bailes alone discussed elsewhere in this
publication proves that.

32
DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
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DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
35
Alyson JK Bailes:
THINKERS AND DOERS IN
FOREIGN POLICY:
A DISTINCTION WITHOUT
A DIFFERENCE?
Abstract
Those who make and execute foreign policy,
and those academics and analysts who study
it, have partially different skills, cultures and
career disciplines. They both work, however,
in a similar world of instant communications,
international cooperation and shifting global
power balances. Both need to recognize that
foreign policy is no longer a monopoly of for-
eign ministries but includes other ministries
and agencies, Prime Ministers and Presidents,
international organizations, and non-state ac-
tors including NGOs and business. Within
this framework, the ‘doers’ and ‘thinkers’ can
interact in two main sets of ways. In the more
traditional mode where their roles remain dis-
tinct, non-official experts can affect policy
through providing information and analysis,
risk assessment, ‘thought tools’ (new vocabu-
lary to capture new phenomena), policy ad-
vice and criticism including whistle-blowing
and committed campaigning, venues for de-
bate, and elite training. Roles easily become
blurred, however, in today’s society where in-
dividuals move in and out of office and the
controlling role in policy does not always lie
where it formally should. Academic and other
non-state experts can then find themselves
acting as proxies and mouthpieces for the
authorities; steering the actions of influential
non-state players like international business;
taking advantage of ‘open’ elements in mod-
ern policy making such as consultation and
response to public opinion; and – in corrupt
or weak states – perhaps directly usurping the
policy creation role. Overall, the interdepend-
ence between ‘doers’ and ‘thinkers’ in this
sphere now looks more significant than the
differences between them.
Introduction
In my own career I have migrated back and
forward between official and academic or
educational posts more often than would be
permitted to the average European diplomat.
The British Diplomatic Service, my primary
employer from 1969-2002, is generous in al-
lowing its employees to take career breaks,
including academic sabbaticals, without los-
ing official seniority. I myself worked five
substantial stints outside the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office, two of them being
at think-tanks – the Royal Institute for Inter-
national Affairs (Chatham House) in London
and the EastWest Institute in New York; and
the others involving attachments to the British
Ministry of Defence and the Brussels institu-
tions. When I resigned, amicably, from the
British service in 2002 it was to become Di-
rector of the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute, SIPRI; and from there I
moved in 2007 to the University of Iceland
to teach security studies, trying my hand at
purely educational work as well.
Perhaps it is because I have worked so
close to, and across, the fence from both
sides that the similarities and interconnec-
tions between policy and decision makers on
the one hand, and researchers and academics
on the other hand, strike me as so significant.
I am more impressed by the interdependence
between the two types of work than by their
theoretical or empirical distinctness, and this
is the theme I would like to explore – partly
as Devil’s Advocate – in this essay. In its fi-
nal sections I will offer a typology of ‘classic’
interactions between the two categories that
do depend on their separate qualities; but will

36
DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
then discuss ways in which these distinctions
may break down, and the lines be blurred be-
tween both actions and actors, in a modern
policy-making environment. First, however, I
will broach the subject by way of some anec-
dotal examples and a reflection on the more
personal qualities and challenges to be found
in both the professions under discussion.
Diplomats and Researchers as People
Among the consequences of my mixed ca-
reer has been the fact that I have been both
on the giving and the receiving end of offi-
cial grants for research. Some examples will
give the first hint of the interdependence
that exists in practice between the motives
and values of donor and recipient. In the
mid-1990s I was Head of the FCO’s Security
Policy Department and could dispose of a
modest fund for academic cooperation. One
grant was given to the International Institute
of Security Studies (IISS) to translate their
famous annual Strategic Survey1 into Rus-
sian for distribution in Moscow and other
Russian-speaking localities. The idea was to
make neutral and independent information
on security relationships available to Russian
officials and non-officials, from a source
that they might be less disposed to suspect
than they would the British Government as
such. Obviously, though, we would not have
selected IISS as partners if we did not re-
spect the quality of their analysis and did
not consider it pretty close to official assess-
ments. It may be added that the responsible
researcher at IISS at that time was a person
who had served before, and would serve
again later, in high government posts for an-
other NATO country.
In a second example, when I was working at
the EastWest Institute in New York a cou-
ple of years later, that self-styled ‘think and
action tank’2 set up a support and policy ad-
vice programme for the Baltic States, where
it channelled privately supplied funds into
seminars and other events focusing on those
states’ ambitions for NATO and EU mem-
bership. The advice it gave could be quite
tough, stressing how seriously the entry crite-
ria must be taken and urging the three states
to maintain solidarity with each other despite
their intrinsic differences if they wanted a se-
rious chance of acceptance. Both state and
non-state Baltic representatives respected
our advice and we had greater access at high
levels in those states –from Presidents down-
wards – than many professional diplomats
could claim. This was doubtless in part be-
cause Baltic leaders expected straight talking
from EWI, with no preconceived bias and
no motive except to promote sustainable re-
form. But it would hardly have happened if
the Baltics had not known that EWI was also
closely in touch with officials of the institu-
tions involved, with national policy makers
in the USA and elsewhere and indeed with
influential private sector investors. EWI’s
analytical input might have been its own, but
its policy-influencing function rested above
all on its nature as a bridge from one official
constituency to another.
In the third and final case, when I was Di-
rector at SIPRI the European Commission in
Brussels offered us a large grant – initially pro-
vided by the European Parliament – for a ‘pi-
lot project’ to explore how the EU’s Commu-
nity funds might be used to promote goals of
WMD security and non-proliferation among
Europe’s neighbours. The decision to turn to
SIPRI had something to do with our record
1 For the latest (2010) version of this reference work, see
http://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-survey/. 2 See http://www.ewi.info/.

DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
37
of accurate, well-informed research and poli-
cy analysis in the areas of export controls and
safe disposal of WMD materials, which were
the chief fields for potential EU action. Yet
we were not the only potential partners, and
to execute the project we ourselves brought in
literally dozens of other competent institutes
and experts. I suspect that we actually got the
mandate – and carried it out to widespread
satisfaction – because the key figures in our
institute were known to be familiar with the
EU’s own machinery and with the some-
times very delicate questions of competence
and leadership that bedeviled the domain of
WMD policy in Brussels at the time. Again,
if the substantial value of our work lay in its
independence, the ability to mobilize it for of-
ficial and practical purposes arose from con-
nection, familiarity, and the ability to commu-
nicate across the official/ academic divide.3
The other moral of this case – which will be
returned to later – is that the ‘official’ side of
the equation is no longer limited to nation-
states, but includes international institutions
as important donors and partners.
The Contrasts
While still at the level of personal experience,
I have reflected on how the work and work-
ing conditions of officials and independent
researchers differ in the field of international
diplomacy. Here are some suggested elements
of contrast:
• The average diplomat has to produce reams
of text every day in the form of notes and
reports (using various media), and usually at
great speed with little time to reflect. When
properly trained, he or she will focus on key
messages and give the recipients the option
of taking decisions on the basis of an ini-
tial summary, if time is lacking to read the
whole. The average academic produces far
fewer words much more slowly, with time
to polish, correct and deepen, and with a
training that drives him/her to focus more
on originality and accuracy than on brev-
ity or bull points. The diplomatic message
is 'published' and the reaction – or lack of
reaction – produced in real time, while an
academic book or article may not appear
for literally years from the time of writing.
In short, what the one regards as a good
product may make a less good impression
on the other and, in the worst case, can
stand in the way of mutual respect;
• The diplomat works in a formal and hier-
archical setting with politicians and/or par-
liaments at the top; he/she must bow to
the dictates of these political masters and
also to the force of events, which may at
any moment undermine all assumptions,
destroy the best-laid plans and demand
radical changes of course. Resilience, flexi-
bility and lack of fixed dogma – or as some
would put it, lack of any really firm per-
sonal convictions – become essential for
survival in these conditions. The academic
usually works in shorter and/or more ‘flat’
hierarchical chains and has more autono-
my, especially when teaching. Being one
remove away from real-world events, he or
she has some choice in how far to be driven
by them and more chance to maintain ana-
lytical and/or ethical positions unchanged
over the longer term. This can, of course,
result in a drift away from reality; while the
practices of educational hiring and firing
can also aggravate risks of group-think and
make true personal independence difficult
to maintain;
3 For access to the results of the pilot project study please
contact the Non-Proliferation and Export Controls project
of SIPRI, details at http://www.sipri.org

38
DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
• The diplomat has to provide argument and
evidence of a kind to justify the actions of
his/her state or institution. The academic
researcher is more focused on justifying
interpretations and theories, where different
types of proof will apply;
• The diplomat, if he/she wishes to remain
in employment, cannot simply 'give up' but
must persist in a given policy aim as long
as possible in face of multiple setbacks. It
is easier for an independent academic to
abandon or change a theory, or even move
from one area of work to a quite different
one, without life-and-death consequences
or even any damage to professional cred-
it. This is partly because the scientific ap-
proach rests in part on the ability to test
ideas to destruction and abandon non-vi-
able ones;
• The diplomat in the course of a career will
often be in the position of training younger
colleagues ‘on the job’ by direction and ex-
ample. If done well this also offers a rare
opportunity for self-examination and try-
ing to abstract some ideas on what good di-
plomacy is. The academic’s job is to educate
the young, a task that is often conducted at
a greater personal distance, and does not
necessarily address the whole personality
and motivation of the student (although
good teachers will also be aware of the
power of example and self-exposure).
The Similarities
For all this, there are also major commonali-
ties between the life and work of diplomats
and foreign policy makers, and independent
academics and researchers, in modern cir-
cumstances. The first is that both jobs are par
excellence about communication: Written and
spoken, direct and remote, person-to-person
and with larger audiences, including the me-
dia. They both combine the basic conveying
of information with a need to elicit a human
reaction to it: To influence and persuade, or at
least – in an educational setting – to stimulate
and illuminate the hearer. Secondly and main-
ly for the same reason, the manner of work
of both is strongly influenced by the avail-
ability of technical means. I would wager that
senior diplomats and senior academics have
moved roughly in parallel, albeit at a speed
some way behind the general public, in learn-
ing to do their own typing and word process-
ing, to use e-mail and to surf the Internet. By
now both will be well familiar with Google
and the guilty secret of Wikipedia, will have a
more or less informed concern about cyber-
security, and may be starting to wonder what
Facebook and Twitter mean for them (or at
least, for their clients and students).
Partly thanks to the availability of such
means but more because of the trend in real-
life international and transnational relations,
both the doers and the thinkers and observers
in foreign affairs today are likely to do a high
proportion of their work in communities and
frameworks spanning two or more nations.
Today’s research partnerships, academic mail-
ing lists, and publication advertising practices
are spreading ever further within and across
continental boundaries, just as the profes-
sional diplomat’s bilateral and regional alli-
ances, international organizations and ad hoc
coalitions are. Some large grant givers for re-
search, notably the European Union, require
academics to build a cross-boundary network
of a given minimum size before applying for
many of their funds. There is a parallel here
to the fact that many of today’s substantive,
external and internal, security challenges can
only be mastered by international coopera-
tion and regulation from a bilateral up to a
fully global scale. In both cases, successful
practitioners have to learn the skills of mul-

DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
39
tilateral communication, specialization, nego-
tiation and compromise on top of whatever
skills they need for the actual task in hand.
For policy makers and academics working in
the fields of finance and economics, defence
and security, and many other functional sec-
tors like aviation or disease, cross-sectoral
relationships are also becoming more impor-
tant as the power both of the private business
sector, and of social actors and ordinary indi-
viduals, to create challenges and also to help
solve them is increasingly recognized.4 One
corollary is that non-official ‘experts’ who fail
to look beyond national boundaries, and/or
who address only formal state actors in their
analysis of international relations, risk losing
the ear (and the money) of official players
who have to operate in the new more com-
plex frameworks whether they like it or not.
Conversely, academics and non-governmen-
tal organizations (NGOs) may enhance their
value precisely by being able to bring in infor-
mation, viewpoints and partners more freely,
from a wider range of nations and sectors,
than officials constrained by more formal alli-
ances are able to do for themselves.
Last but not least under this heading, the
political geometry of international policy
work is shifting and broadening all the time:
More rapidly for official players, but gradu-
ally for academics and educators as well. One
aspect of the new more multipolar and co-
dependent world system is that the dominant
state powers of the 20th century are having
to adapt their own diplomacy and the insti-
tutional frameworks they use (International
Financial Institutions, G8>G20, security
coalitions etc) to the importance of rising
powers like China, India and Brazil, plus
the better organized multilateral regions
(e.g. South-East Asia). Another is that most
leading Western educational institutions are
adapting their programmes for Chinese, In-
dian, and other ‘rising’ nations’ students – not
least because of the money they bring with
them; are getting used to both collaborating
and competing with professionals from such
nations in their own fields, and are starting
to explore the scope for official and private
funding deals from such novel directions. Ac-
tual think tanks vary in how far and fast they
have moved in this ‘multi-cultural’ direction,
but the leading ones5 will be found to have
an increasingly varied, sometimes fully global,
personnel mix. A different question is how
far the actual methods, language, content and
underlying values of international discourse
– official or academic – have adapted to
the habits and expectations of new national
and sectoral arrivals on the scene. Some no
doubt would not wish them to do so too far
or fast, if it means diluting values that have
been found important in the ‘West’ such as
democracy, freedom of speech, respect for
intellectual property or whatever. The reverse
argument is that those qualities can hardly be
tested for their true value, and more widely
shared, without some openness to new part-
ners and readiness for a two-way exchange
with them.
The bottom line in any case is that both
officials and academics must sooner or later
adapt to the changes and new features in their
global environment – widening their under-
standing not just of who does what to whom
(in Lenin’s classic formula), but of the motives
4 For a brief introduction to this topic see Alyson JK Bailes,
What role for the private sector in “societal security”?, Issue Paper
56, European Policy Centre, Brussels; at http://www.epc.eu/
en/pub.asp?TYP=TEWN&LV=187&see=y&t=&PG=TEWN/
EN/detailpub&l=12&AI=946
5 There is no official grading of the quality of think tanks, but
a widely respected independent survey is provided by the
University of Pennsylvania: 2009 version at http://www.sas.
upenn.edu/irp/documents/2009_GlobalGoToThinkTankRank-
ings_TTIndex_1.28.10.pdf.

40
DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
for which and logic upon which they do it – if
they are not to forfeit both efficiency and rel-
evance. This fundamental dependency on an
external context that is never static, never un-
ambiguous and perhaps never fully knowable
is one of the things that distinguishes social
sciences from other disciplines, and it puts
the foreign policy actor and analyst together
on the opposite side of the fence from some
other experts in for instance pure science,
pure philosophy or religion.
Who Are the Policy Makers?
Before turning to how the two sets of actors
relate in practice, it is worth pausing again to
define just who they are. In particular, the
range of ‘official’ makers and executors of
external policies, including foreign affairs,
security and defence, is far larger than tradi-
tional analyses would allow for and rapidly
expanding in modern conditions. First, within
the traditional framework of a nation-state’s
government, it is normal today – and not only
in the more ‘integrated’ regions of the world
– for many domestic ministries, agencies and
services (e.g. police and customs), as well as
foreign and defence ministries, to cooperate
with networks of colleagues in other nations
and the relevant international organs. Many
diplomatic services now include seconded of-
ficials from such specialized backgrounds in
their larger missions abroad. Since modern
definitions of security now embrace issues
like migration, transport, disease manage-
ment, energy supply and so forth, it seems
reasonable to view the overseas connections
of these experts as constituting not just do-
mestic affairs writ large, but a contribution
of substance to the shaping and success of
external strategies. To coordinate this wider
governmental engagement, there is a steady
trend towards the concentration of power
over external affairs at prime ministerial level:
Whether this is reflected simply in political
habits, or in the creation of formal commit-
tees and coordinating agencies attached to the
PM’s office, as seen par excellence in the UK.
Under different constitutions the same may
apply to the presidential office, though some
forces in the EU (like the way the Europe-
an Council works) tend to push the national
spokesman role down from the President to
the Prime Minister where both exist.6 It fol-
lows that academics analyzing or seeking to
influence official external policies need both
to observe, and communicate with, a much
wider range of governmental actors than ever
before.
Secondly and as already noted, the num-
bers, competences and scale of activities of
multi-state international institutions are in-
creasing in every field of international affairs
and – albeit at different rates – in every con-
tinent.7 The researcher who wishes to docu-
ment and understand international trans-
actions must at the very least consider how
these bodies affect the choices open to and
the decisions of individual states, and indeed
all the major IR theories including Realism
now give considerable attention to such ques-
tions. Fewer theories can help to explain how
the institutions themselves work, above all in
cases like the European Union where they
have begun to exercise truly supranational
powers. But researchers today can explore
the subject by engaging with the institutions
themselves: Through joining research bod-
ies belonging directly to them (EU Institute
of Security Studies, UNIDIR); by carrying
6 This has happened notably in Finland; the power of the
French President will be a harder nut to crack.
7 Alyson JK Bailes and Andrew Cottey, ‘Regional security co-
operation in the twenty-first century’ in SIPRI Yearbook 2006:
Armaments, Disarmament and International Security (OUP: Lon-
don, 2006).

DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
41
out funded research for them; or being given
ad hoc access as information providers and
advisers. Both the European Union in 2003
and 2008, and NATO in 2009-10, when pre-
paring their respective new official security
‘strategies’ and ‘concepts’, set up open semi-
nars where they sought out the views of non-
official experts from many backgrounds. If
this kind of openness is most developed in
the Euro-Atlantic context, it is fair to note
that the African Union, sub-regional African
bodies, and ASEAN all have non-official net-
works of experts attached to them8 and even
the Russia/China-led Shanghai Cooperation
Organization has a university institute dedi-
cated to it in Shanghai.
Finally under this heading, the rising pow-
er of non-state actors in global affairs also
has implications for what academics may
need to study, and where they should turn to
most effectively inject their findings and ad-
vice. Some non-governmental international
institutions, notably the Red Cross but also
the largest and best established reforming
charities, have an influence almost equal to
governmental groups not only on the han-
dling of ad hoc crises but also in the shaping
of international practice and legislation (vide
the ICRC role in promoting treaties on rules
of war and ‘humanitarian’ weapons issues).
A group of such NGOs provided the plat-
form on which the UN is now formally de-
bating a new global Arms Trade Treaty. But
it is the doings of less benign international
networks like terrorist movements and inter-
national crime consortia that have attracted
the really big numbers of academic watchers
lately – the explosion in research on terror-
ism and anti-terrorism after 9/11 being the
obvious, and now notorious example.9 Over
the longer term, the body of academic work
devoted to non-state actors in armed con-
flict, and their role in post-conflict processes,
may be judged even more significant. The
roles of international business have been
thrown into the forefront of concern by the
recent economic crash, but have long been a
subject for IR research in some more special-
ized contexts like ‘war commodities’ (conflict
diamonds, etc), the role of extractive busi-
nesses in conflict-prone areas, the arms in-
dustry and the activities of private military
and security companies. Anyone looking at
energy, environmental, food or transport se-
curity will have to take business activities as
an equally important or even primary field of
enquiry alongside the roles of states.
In developed and relatively peaceful coun-
tries, business organizations also play a certain
role as commissioners of research and provid-
ers of their own analytical models, a famous
example being the World Economic Forum
that organizes the Davos meetings and has an
active Global Risk Assessment Programme.10
Think tanks vary in their willingness to con-
template accepting funding directly from
business, but few would probably now refuse
to consider a private-sector co-sponsor for
a suitable conference, while many university
departments (for instance of regional stud-
ies) have relied on business sponsorships for
some time. Last but not least, it is perhaps
unnecessary to dwell on the huge power of
the private media over how world events are
not just reported, but understood and reacted
8 Indeed, in the ASEAN context the use of academics for
‘second-track’ discussions, which may address sensitive inter-
state issues more openly than officials can, is particularly well
developed. Such networks exist both among ASEAN coun-
tries and between them and interested Europeans.
9 Notorious because so much was published on the subject
by institutes and individuals with no expert background in it,
and because so much funding was diverted from other re-
search subjects to so little ultimate effect.
10 The 2008 report of this network has been published at
http://www.weforum.org/pdf/globalrisk/report2008pdf.

42
DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
to, and the various ways academics may get
drawn into working with them.
Interaction and Interpretation
We now come to the ways in which non-offi-
cial experts may interact with the makers and
executors of external policy, and will first look
at relatively traditional roles ranging from the
most distant to the closest.
Curiously, academic research and teaching
in the university discipline known as Interna-
tional Relations (IR) is one of the activities
least likely to involve interplay with those who
actually conduct such relations. It is built on
theoretical approaches that require generali-
zation, abstraction and (in principle) a stance
of neutrality; moreover it is very largely retro-
spective, studying patterns far back into his-
tory – thus Thucydides is taught to students
as a forefather of Realism. In my personal ob-
servation, selection processes for diplomatic
services and related official posts do not give
any automatic preference to students with
such training, and I must confess that I spent
the 33 years of my own, not unsuccessful dip-
lomatic career without having heard of any
of the leading IR theories at all.11 However, it
is right to note that academics engaged even
in the most theoretical approaches to world
affairs may be creating interactions of their
own when they communicate and cooperate
with their peers abroad or just have foreign
students in their classes. The importance of
this growing ‘multilateralization’ of academic
study has already been noted above.
Academics who teach, and/or who engage
in public ‘education’ through media and pop-
ularization work, are more likely to impact
upon the actual conduct of international af-
fairs even if they never engage directly with
official cadres. At least some of their students
will go on to be diplomats, other officials, in-
ternational businesspeople or whatever, and
some of the information and ideas they con-
vey may affect public views that are chan-
nelled back to decision makers. Overall, how-
ever, their impact is likely to come second to
that of media professionals reporting directly
on the relevant topics and, indeed, to official
actors’ own public pronouncements.
Conventional Interactions
More direct and measurable impacts will be
made by academics and researchers who do
enter into contact with some or all of the
range of potential actors listed above: Name-
ly national governments, national oversight
bodies (parliaments), defence and security
services, private sector entities, NGOs and
charities, social organizations, and state and
non-state international institutions. The fol-
lowing are the types of interaction that most
clearly preserve the distinctness of the aca-
demic partner’s status:
• Provision of expert information, reportage
and analysis tailored or selected to meet the
needs of active users, including the extreme
case of research that is fully funded by state
or non-state authorities and produced on
a classified or, at least, unpublished basis.
Since academics will rarely if ever possess
more hard data for such studies than of-
ficials with full classified access, the added
11 This is not to say that diplomats never engage in concep-
tualization and abstraction: their political masters demand it
when they introduce notions like ‘democracy promotion’ or
‘war on terrorism’, and many diplomatic services use goal-
setting and performance assessment methods that require
generalization about ‘national interests’. Risk assessment,
attempts at extrapolation and forecasting, and the work of
‘policy planning’ staffs in those ministries that have them are
further examples of official activities with a strong theoretical
bent. The point is that the frameworks and discourse used
here are not borrowed from academic IR but created by the
officials themselves, by politicians and sometimes the media,
or by those academics who are willing to trade in ad hoc
policy labels and slogans – as discussed below.

DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
43
value of the independent insights provided
should lie in their impartiality, awareness
of history and theory, longer-term view,
and ability to project forwards. For smaller
governments, help from academics famil-
iar with foreign languages, cultures and
histories that diplomats do not have time
to acquire can be precious. The giving of
evidence to enquiries (if unbiased) comes
under this same heading;
• Risk assessment, forecasting and 'early
warning' services, which could also include
the design and facilitation of scenario
games and exercises; this too has a fully
funded and classified variant;
• Provision of 'thought tools' of a more
generalized and abstract kind, such as new
concepts, distinctions and vocabularies to
help explain new trends and processes or
express new policy goals: These can be ex-
tremely powerful if adopted by influential
actors and/or carried widely into public
discourse, as is seen perhaps most often in
the United States. (Consider Fukuyama's
'end of history', Robert Kagan's analysis of
Europe moving 'beyond power', the use of
the 'asymmetrical threats' idea after 9/11
and the ideas on 'Arab democracy' pushed
by certain US think tanks; or in Europe, the
impact of the 'new wars' analysis and vari-
ous interpretations of 'human security');
• Critiques and commentaries that focus on
policies and solutions rather than the origi-
nal phenomena, including suggestions for
policy formation and improvement. The
effect of these inputs will depend on their
quality, on how united or dispersed the ex-
pert opinions are, but most of all on the
receptivity of the policy process itself
– which is of course driven and distorted
by many factors other than academic logic.
Groups carrying out less disinterested ‘lob-
bying’ often have more impact for obvious
reasons. However, as a minimum, such ex-
posure to outside questioning should make
politicians and officials more aware of the
strengths, weaknesses and peculiarities of
their own positions; and some policy shifts
may owe their origin to subsequent internal
debates.
A further set of functions performed by
non-official experts can carry them closer to,
or across, the line of active intervention in
foreign affairs without blurring their actual
identity. These include the provision of fo-
rums and meeting opportunities – including
secret, back-channel ones – for groups of ac-
tors within one country, or from the home
country and other countries, or between third
countries for purposes of mediation. Whether
the academics actively steer the proceedings
or not, results may come from these off-the-
record encounters that could not be achieved
by other means. Experts who are more willing
to serve the purposes of one ‘side’, whether
that be an official or business or NGO entity,
may go further to float ideas – e.g. new coop-
eration proposals – as ‘trial balloons’ towards
audiences where their status helps gain them
a hearing. When travelling abroad or working
with foreign experts, and interviewing foreign
actors for their research, they can pick up in-
teresting information and insights that they
are ready to share with their own officials as a
kind of ‘soft intelligence’.
With a further step towards commitment
(to a particular country, institution or cause),
academic experts can engage in whistle-blow-
ing (exposure of abuses), conscious policy
advocacy and campaigning both at home and
abroad. This happens most obviously in the
field of human rights and conflict studies and
on armament issues, but can be influential in
many other contexts, for instance environ-
mental or health security and infrastructure

44
DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
risk assessment. Experts considered reliable
and helpful by the authorities (of their own
or other countries) may be invited to join of-
ficial delegations to international meetings.
They may carry out proxy services by deliver-
ing messages or standing in place of officials
in various contexts. (We can all think of coun-
tries whose academics are pretty much forced
to promote the ‘party line’, especially if they
want to travel.) They may provide training
courses and lectures for their own country’s
diplomats, or in an institutional setting like
the EU’s virtual Security and Defence Col-
lege. They can be sent to deliver training and
instruction and other operational services
abroad, most notably during conflict reso-
lution and peace building but also for other
reforming purposes – including the renewal
of foreign ministries and international studies
centres themselves.
Blurring the Lines
So far, all the examples given posit a clearly
defined official ‘actor’ and a distinct, inde-
pendent, academic ‘knower’ or ‘adviser’. This
model, however, is too simple and narrow to
capture contemporary realities. Many other
interactions can and do occur – by no means
only in more ‘open’, westernized societies
– where the questions of ‘who is who’ and
‘who does what’ both become increasingly
blurred.
For a start, individuals can play different
roles within a single life, just as I myself have
done. It is common in some countries (US,
France), and possible in most others, for a
single person to move in and out of the ‘re-
volving door’ between governmental posts,
advisory posts, research and education, and
sometimes also parliamentary appointments
and business work. While rules and/or social
norms may exist that aim to avoid conflicts
of interest in such cases, it is a rare individual
who will give up all interest or partiality in
the official and political (or commercial) side
of things while filling a temporary academic
post, especially in mid-career. If the person’s
main anchor lies on the academic side, it is
likewise almost impossible to ask him/her
not to note the potential value of certain of-
ficial contacts and information for improving
his/her funding and standing after returning
to academe.
These examples of working on both sides
of the fence still imply that there is a fence
to be crossed. However, to close this ac-
count I will suggest that the distinction be-
tween official and non-official, or between
the doer and the thinker or observer, is also
being eroded in the new world environment
and within the new understanding of what
foreign policy or international relations ac-
tually consist of today.
Looking first from the non-official side:
Persons with academic and/or NGO status
may be employed directly and openly as agents
of a particular government (or business en-
tity) when their status and competence allows
them to reach places and be heard by ears that
diplomats or officials could not reach. An im-
portant line is crossed when and if, instead
of conveying views and knowledge that they
hold anyway but which happen to suit their
employers’ purposes, they aim to persuade on
the basis of a partisan position, to knowing-
ly purvey misinformation and propaganda,
or to deliver threats instead of warnings. A
further extension of this role would be for
academics to engage in ‘hard’ rather than soft
espionage, feeding back to their masters in-
formation that was entrusted to them on the
assumption it would not be so used.
A further trend that carries experts beyond
the traditional two-way interaction with offi-
cialdom is linked with the shifting cross-sec-

DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
45
toral balance of power, whereby many types
of non-state actors have themselves become
primary players in international transactions,
as well as gaining leverage over official choic-
es. To take an extreme example, a non-official
thinker who effectively disseminates – through
conventional or social media – an idea/ideol-
ogy affecting the way his/her hearers behave
in internal and external policy transactions
has had a direct impact on world affairs in
a way that makes the ‘fence’ metaphor irrel-
evant. If the message is one of hatred, he/
she may actually be open to prosecution by
the International Criminal Court.12 (On the
positive side, the impact of famous new-style
philanthropists, environmentalists, and life-
style gurus probably comes closest in impor-
tance.) Short of such personal exposure, an
expert may choose to direct his/her influence
and advice at any or all of the sources of
non-state power already identified – business,
NGOs, social movements, media – in order to
influence the moves they make within their own
spheres of power, as well as the roles they may
play in steering official policies one way or the
other. Experts who can use research results
to persuade private businesses directly of the
merits of energy saving, other climate-related
restraints, the need for responsible behaviour
in conflict zones, tight control of dangerous
technologies, or other strategic and humani-
tarian desiderata are likely to have at least a
faster and perhaps in the end a greater impact
than they could achieve by going first to gov-
ernments to persuade them to bring in new
regulations on these subjects. In the first case,
businesses’ financial self-interest may make
them hard to persuade; but in the second, the
same proposals are open to all the vagaries of
political process plus the risk that businesses
will apply their ingenuity to non-compliance.
Moreover, the whole point about business
multinationals is that they have the power to
change practice across national and regional
boundaries far more easily than today’s inter-
national-legal systems can achieve a similar
spread of enforceable regulation.
Finally, it is worth going back to the pass-
ing remark made above about the ‘receptiv-
ity’ of official-side policy processes to non-
official inputs. External policy is made today
in almost as many different ways as there are
nations (and institutions), but it seems safe
to detect a general trend towards the de-clas-
sification, de-professionalization and general
‘accessibility’ of the process as an effect of
the spread of democracy, increased infor-
mation flows and multi-lateralization. And
while it probably remains true in Europe that
external policies are more likely than internal
ones to draw bi-partisan or multi-party sup-
port within the political classes, this does not
mean that the broader public opinion will be
equally supportive, or passive, or incapable
of making itself felt. Recent examples could
include a number of national decisions on
troop withdrawals from Iraq that were driv-
en by popular opposition, and the effect of
German public opinion in slowing decisions
in Spring 2010 over emergency economic
aid to Greece. For countries in the West and
North of Europe, it is commonplace for the
government’s room for manoeuvre vis-à-vis
new EU initiatives to be largely shaped by
expected public reactions. Where policy be-
comes ‘democratized’ in this way, a number
of new and potentially influential roles arise
for non-official experts and think tanks: Not
only may their pronouncements guide the
popular (or business, or sectoral) attitudes
that eventually constrain the politicians, but
the political and official policy makers may
12 The damage done by individual cyber-criminals, especially
when taking part in politically motivated attacks, is another
parallel, although few such actors have their training in inter-
national relations.

46
DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
appeal to them from their side both to pre-
dict and help manipulate the course of the
wider debate. Further, with the march of
multi-lateralization and globalization, it is
becoming increasingly common for states to
import and adopt quite important features
of their strategy from the international or-
ganizations they belong to, or from other
states whose favour they seek or to whom
they are indebted or subjected against their
will.13 This means that a thinker can have an
influence on many states other than his/her
homeland, not only by direct diffusion of
ideas, but if he/she successfully influences
the organization or state whose positions
become thus replicated.
Even this is a rather conservative model
because it assumes an orderly democracy
where the eventual decision-making power
– and the best intelligence – remains with the
state and/or representative bodies theoreti-
cally holding it. In real life and perhaps even
in a majority of the world’s states, the true
policy-making dynamic (for external as much
as, or more than, for internal policy matters)
will reside elsewhere: With competing centres
of power including non-state contenders in a
chaotic ‘weak’ state; with sectoral interests and
lobbies of a commercial, dynastic, religious,
provincial or other kind; with autocratic lead-
ers or éminences grises; and in the few remaining
communist states, with a party political ap-
paratus parallel to the nominal government.
Even in apparently democratic systems it is
not uncommon for politicians to distrust of-
ficials and diplomats – shifting their reliance
to personally chosen advisers, sending ‘back
channel’ messages to counterparts abroad;
and for politicians and/or officials to con-
13 This idea is explored with examples in Alyson JK Bailes,
‘Does a Small State Need a Strategy?’, Occasional Paper of
the Centre for Small State Studies, University of Iceland (text
at http://stofnafir.hi.is/ams/sites/files/ams/Bailes_Final_0.pdf)
spire in bypassing representative institutions
and keeping the public in the dark. Many of
these variations tend to reduce the scope for
academics and other non-officials lacking a
power base of their own to access and influence
policy, just as they reduce the chance of true
public debate or proper democratic control.
It is however still possible, either that inde-
pendent thinkers may influence the individu-
als holding power (and sometimes it is easier
to catch the ear of a single autocrat!), or that
free intellectuals may play a part in challeng-
ing the abnormal nature of the policy process
and its results and thus helping inspire even-
tual reform.
Nothing in this depiction of complex and
sometimes murky models of interaction is
meant to imply that cooperation between
thinkers and doers in external policy is natu-
ral or easy. For most of the time it is not, or
is not even attempted because of the seeming
obstacles. What the two parties seek and how
they want to work can diverge both because
of the real systemic differences between their
worlds – as discussed near the start – and be-
cause of more adventitious conflicts of be-
lief and personality. What this account has set
out to show is simply that any single image of
their interplay will not suffice: Because of the
mixed nature of each side of the thinker/doer
antithesis, and because of the new style and
environment of much external policy mak-
ing today. The poet TS Eliot wrote ‘Between
the thought and the action/Falls the shadow’.
There is indeed much that is shadowy in the
interactions described here, but to my mind it
resembles the mystery of the intertwined Yin
and Yang more than the gulf between two ir-
reconcilable opposites.

DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
47
René Dinesen:
BRIDGING THE GAP -
A PRACTITIONER’s PERSPECTIVE
Introduction
My argument in this paper is the following:
Is the gap between foreign policy making and
academia unbridgeable as some would argue?
No it is not, but it will take bold and innovative
thinking on both sides of the gap to bridge it.
Later, I will present three concrete proposals
that I hope might help pave the way for great-
er mutual benefits from the cooperation be-
tween the Danish MFA and academic world.
But before I go that far – and risk being that
concrete – I want to touch upon some more
general issues and to highlight the trend that
policy makers seem currently more interested
in what academics have to say than earlier,
both in Denmark and around the world, and
to elaborate on some more general observa-
tions concerning the much-mentioned gap.
A Considerable Gap
I took up the task of establishing the Strategy
and Policy Planning unit in the Danish MFA
last summer with the mission to strengthen
Danish foreign policy by taking a longer-term,
strategic view of global trends and make poli-
cy recommendations to both the Minister for
Foreign Affairs and to the Minister for Devel-
opment Cooperation.
Among our priorities, is also to liaise with
the academic community. Not in any way to
monopolize contacts or centralize existing
contacts but to create platforms and facilitate
cooperation, and we consider the coopera-
tion with DIIS and the rest of the Danish and
international academic community crucial for
being able to provide better analytical frame-
works for strategic thinking and for being
able to propose new initiatives and projects
to the MFA and arrange brainstorming ses-
sions for ministers and senior officials of the
MFA etc.
Now, the gap between academia and for-
eign policy making obviously is neither a new
nor a specific Danish issue. However, it is my
view that the gap is greater in Denmark and
continental Europe than in the Anglo-Saxon
world due to among other factors the greater
circulation of policy makers and academics in
for instance the US. Although, in continental
Europe, Brussels seems to be an exception,
with an evolving community of think tanks
developing around the EU institutions.
Nevertheless, even in the US, there seems
to be a tendency among scholars to see the
gap as growing rather than narrowing. Prom-
inent academics such as Joseph Nye and
Stephen Krasner recently pointed to this. Ac-
cording to Krasner – who has experience as
both academic and practitioner as chief of
Policy Planning in the State Department un-
der Condoleezza Rice from 2005-2007 – the
gap is simply unbridgeable.
Well I disagree. Actually, to my mind policy
makers are currently more interested in what
academics have to say than earlier. Let me
elaborate a bit on this and give some exam-
ples. In the US, the Department of Defense
recently launched its Minerva program that
awards multimillion-dollar grants to political
scientists to better understand areas of “stra-
tegic importance to U.S. national security pol-
icy.” In Norway, the Minister of Foreign Af-
fairs launched an ambitious project – called
Refleks – in 2008 inviting to research and
public debate on Norwegian foreign policy
interests in a globalized world.
Simultaneously, specialized think thanks
are having a greater influence on policy mak-
ing. This happens in the US but the trend is
also evident in the EU where there has been

48
DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
an explosive growth in the number of think
thanks. Not only in Brussels because, we also
see think thanks with a European agenda
located in London, Paris, and Florence and
recently also in Copenhagen with the estab-
lishment of the Centre for European Poli-
tics research centre at Department of Politi-
cal Science at University of Copenhagen in
2007. Furthermore, since the establishment
in 2003 we have had a very policy-oriented
think thank at DIIS, while at the same time
Denmark has maintained a strong position in
the academic world, e.g. with the Copenhagen
School of Security Studies as a prominent ex-
ample.
Changing Conditions
Inside the Danish MFA, things have also
changed the last 5-6 years. While it used to
be pure luxury to consider partnerships with
thinks thanks and other parts of the academ-
ic community, this is no longer the case. Es-
pecially after the Globalization Analysis from
2006 – entitled “Diplomacy in a boundless
world” – and its specific recommendations,
more or less all units in the MFA have now
become more aware of the importance of es-
tablishing and participating in networks with
partners from the academia.
More recently, after the creation of the Strat-
egy and Policy Planning Unit in 2009, we have
started to have more frequent brainstorming
meetings with researchers, including with the
Heads of the DIIS research units, where they
brief on their latest research and ideas, and
experiences are exchanged. Furthermore, for
several years the MFA – through the Consult-
ative Research Committee for Development
Research – have supported larger strategic re-
search projects as well as individual Ph.D. and
postdoc. projects. Also, each year on the Dan-
ish State Budget resources are allocated for
commissioned research by universities and
think tanks on specific development issues.
In 2010, this amounts to more than DKK
10m – or more than USD 2m.
The Ministry also funds a number of inter-
national think thanks such as the Paris-based
European Union Institute for Strategic Stud-
ies, the British Overseas Development Insti-
tute (ODI), and Center for International Co-
operation at New York University.
And also from my time at the Danish UN
Mission in New York I have good experienc-
es with fruitful cooperation with think thanks
such as the Center on International Coopera-
tion (CIC) at NYU, the International Peace
Institute (IPI), Council of Foreign Relations,
Brookings and East-coast Universities. We
worked closely with them on arranging semi-
nars and doing studies on issues such as peace
keeping, global governance, the Responsibil-
ity to Protect and how to increase civilian ca-
pacity in peace building etc.
In more general terms, I would say that
the gap between foreign policy making and
academia is diminishing as a result of three
distinct developments. First, the increasing
institutional differentiation with new think
thanks – as already mentioned – playing a
larger role in policy making together with new
transnational networks, NGO’s etc. Second, I
experience that other government actors than
the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense
are having a growing need for policy guidance
and theoretical research, this applies to a wide
range of ministries and directorates involved
in the European policy making. Third, I see
the gap is diminishing as the result of a grow-
ing complexity of international relations, new
security threats and strategic challenges that
increase the relevance of theoretical research
and both a theoretical and practical under-
standing of these complex cultural, sociologi-
cal, economic and political issues.

DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:05
49
Concrete Proposals
Now, this is not to assert that the gap already
is gone or that it is about to disappear by itself.
Nothing emerges by itself, except fluff, and
the gap did not emerge by itself and will not
disappear by itself. We still have a challenge
in Danish policy making in bridging the gap,
and both the policy makers and the scholars
are to blame. However, bridging the gap is
not just a question of new funding from the
MFA, but of courage and innovative thinking
on both sides.
Before I present some concrete proposals
on how to bridge the gap, let me elaborate a bit
on some general reflections on the gap. First,
there is the question of time and of timing.
While timing is of extreme importance in the
policy world where important decisions are
often taken in a hurry and with great uncer-
tainty of the consequences, it is often of less
importance to academics. To quote Robert
Putnam: “better an approximate answer to an
important question than an exact answer to a
trivial question.” But there are of course sev-
eral examples of academics who have timed
their research with an open policy window
and shown willingness to communicate their
research to a broader audience. Take Robert
Kagan with his “Americans are from Mars
and Europeans from Venus” thesis on why
Americans and Europeans see the world dif-
ferently in 2002 or Francis Fukuyama – who
recently held a lecture for the staff at the
Danish MFA – and Samuel P. Huntington’s
debate on The End of History/The Clash of
Civilizations after the end of the Cold War.
A recent example of an academic idea be-
coming policy reality is the specific policy ini-
tiative “Partnership for Democratic Govern-
ance” of which Denmark is a member. The
inspiration came from a paper called “Sharing
Sovereignty” published by Stephen Krasner
in 2004 in the “International Security” jour-
nal. In 2007, the idea was turned into real-
ity and the partnership is now mandated to
help developing countries with capacity gaps
strengthen their institutions of political and
administrative governance and core policy
functions while simultaneously supporting
service delivery to people. The “Partnership
for Democratic Governance” is hosted by
the OECD, supported by the UNDP and a
number of countries such as Brazil, Canada,
Chile, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the US and Den-
mark.
So while time and timing is of great impor-
tance for bridging the gap, secondly there is
the question of understanding the different
cultures. You can call it different mind-sets,
different cultures, as Alexander George does,
the terminology used is not that important in
my opinion. However, the different use of
language in the academic and policy making
world is crucial. While an oral culture is of-
ten dominant in the top of the foreign policy
world, the vast majority of academic research
is in writing, and at the same time while aca-
demics strive towards linguistic clarity, in pol-
itics a deliberate use of linguistics ambiguities
is not uncommon, rather it is often (maybe
too often) a much-valued skill.
Adding to the gap is also the tricky ques-
tion of being – at the same time – a policy
advisor and a critic. On the one hand, there
is no doubt that practitioners should be bet-
ter at seeking knowledge from scholars and
making sure that working papers and reports
produced are not forgotten or lost inside the
MFA, but on the other hand researchers also
have to show a greater willingness to put
knowledge at the disposal of policy makers,
even though they do not always agree on the
substance of the policies.
Thirdly and finally, there is the issue of di-
rect applicability of research which, I think,
is a demand from policy makers that keeps

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frustrating academics. Just as practitioners
are frustrated when they are presented with
research that seems rather important, but do
not have a clue on what to do with it. Now
this mutual frustration is understandable, but
translation from theoretical to applied re-
search is possible and I am of course aware
that both practitioners and academics are
constantly trying.
Now enough of these broad (and almost
theoretical) considerations, how do we actu-
ally bridge the gap? Well, here are three rather
concrete proposals that I hope at least might
pave the way for greater mutual benefits from
the cooperation between the Danish MFA
and the academic world.
Number one is a more continuous involve-
ment of advisory panels consisting of Dan-
ish and international experts in the prepara-
tion of reports and strategies in the MFA:
We did this when preparing the Globaliza-
tion Analysis where international scholars
such as Joseph Nye, Anne Marie Slaugther,
Ngaire Woods and Danish experts such as
Georg Sørensen, Lykke Friis, Ida Nicolaisen
and Christian Friis Bach participated in the
advisory panel. A similar panel was involved
in the making of the report of the Danish
Defence Commission in 2008. And currently
in the MFA, we are working on a paper on the
strategic relations between Russia and the EU
in close cooperation with a panel of experts
from Brookings, Carnegie, the Institute for
Strategic Dialogue and the German “Stiftung
Wissenschaft und Politik” (SWP). Recently, in
my unit, we also produced a paper on new
trends and challenges in development policy,
focusing specifically on the emerging new
donors such as China, India and others. We
did this in an open process where we shared
the draft – and our recommendations to the
Minister for Development Cooperation – and
met with Danish researchers and incorporated
their very useful feedback. The contribution
of these panels has to my knowledge only
been fruitful and very constructive and there
is much to gain, I think, by a more consist-
ent and closer involvement of these advisory
panels in the work of the MFA.
Number two: I would like to see some kind
of co-funding of Ph.D. students between
the MFA and DIIS, where the Ph.D. student
would be placed for months or a year in the
relevant unit in the MFA to the shared ben-
efit of both the Ministry and the student. We
have already had a few very positive examples
(e.g. Catharina Sørensen on EU matters). A
way of realizing this would be to extend the
Business/Industrial Ph.D. programme an-
chored in the Danish Ministry of Science to
also include cooperation between the MFA
and relevant research institutions. I know that
several public institutions have staff mem-
bers employed as business Ph.D.’s conduct-
ing research in the relevant policy areas and
similarly I am sure that such an arrangement
would contribute also to the knowledge shar-
ing between the MFA and the Academia.
Number three: I could imagine a “summer
school” for Danish Ph.D. and postdoc. stu-
dents in the MFA – the Copenhagen Diplo-
matic Summer School – as another way of
helping bridging the gap in a Danish context.
Now, this is a quite new idea fostered only in
my unit, but in cooperation with the academic
community we will work to try to realize the
idea already this summer. The idea would be
for the MFA to host – on an annual basis – a
two-day “summer school” with the participa-
tion of 20-25 Ph.D. students researching in
foreign-policy-relevant areas and from a wide
range of institutions, relevant staff from the
MFA and, to the extent possible, also Dan-
ish ambassadors. The summer school should
consist of meetings, workshops and joint
brainstorming sessions on a number of perti-

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nent issues identified in dialogue between the
MFA and participating academic institutions.
This would give the Ph.D. students the op-
portunity of briefly presenting their research
and sharing their ideas and knowledge with
the MFA, put the knowledge of the MFA at
the disposal of the students and hopefully
result in profitable synergies between the re-
search community and the work of the Dan-
ish MFA.
Summing up, the gap between foreign poli-
cy making and academia is, in my opinion, not
unbridgeable, but it will take courage, crea-
tive thinking and new and innovative ideas to
bridge it. Our task as foreign policy makers
and researchers is to make it happen, and I
am convinced that we can.

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