Here is a question: what does it take to be an “expert” on such issues? Does the fact that I read widely in more or less relevant scholarly and journalistic literatures count? That makes me considerably more expert than the general run of folks who get develop their views based on media reports or perhpas on less than that. But it does not make me competent to write scholarly articles.

Here is another question: Should “realism” be a prescription for the intervention of scholars into political debates? Or is such activism meant to be at least partially a challenge to what passes for debate on topics such as the Iraq invasion which had virtually nothing to be said for it prior to the event (i.e., the proffered “justifications” were, and were known to be, largely bunk even if large portions of the public were prepared to buy the bunk).

Here is a third question: How should we think about the general matter of interacitons between “activist” interventions like the initial letter, scholarly journals like Persepctives on Politics and other media like this blog. I find this discussion to be fruitful as a model for breaking out of the academic ghetto.

“Distinguished academics sign letter criticizing administration policies” or “Distinguished academics call for debate on alternative foreign policy” is the journalisitc equivalent of “Dog bites man” not “Man bites dog.” In short, I think the editors made a valid journalistic judgment, though I am surprised that none of the national print (NYT, WSJ, WaPo, USA Today) picked up the AP wire in back pages. Even CT did not post, best I can tell, about it until Shea attacked it.

I think J&S elide (in effect) Henry’s point that the “strategy of pure Weberian activism is doomed to irrelevance” because in “Wilhelmine Germany… academics [didn’t] have to defend their interventions as academics, because they’re perceived (whether correctly or incorrectly) as being partially removed from the political fray. Bluntly speaking, this isn’t the world of modern US politics.”

J&S write that the media’s inference “was that the SSSFP effort was not Weberian activism at all, but a partisan attack—and a tacit call for votes against George Bush—thinly disguised as an educational effort” (p.99) I think that is a reasonable inference even though it is not true. The letter did not criticize overall alternatives (though it does not have to be Weberian objective activism [WOA]), but if you want people who do not understand WOA to think it is WOA you cannot:

focus only on the seated president
weeks before potential re-election
using services of Move-on.org’s PR firm
repeating points that partisan opponenents have already made

J&S argue that the media does not understand WOA and has been rhetorically coerced by the Bush GOP to not believe in WOA. I disagree. Many but not most academics are in the political fray, and do so on a partian basis. Henry thinks this is necessary; I would like more academics to try for WOA. But take just as an instance, the union card-check issue. Academic intervention has not been WOA —there is no discussion of the value of public deliberation and the need to protect that space from employer intimidation. Instead, the argument is that employers have power advantages and therefore card-check—the organized labor and Democratic proposal—is the way to go. A WOA-style critique can say: the current system is flawed and unless real deliberative space is created, card-check is the better alternative. But I think it is partisan and non-WOA to say: if you don’t support the labor/Dem bill you are anti-union, and discussing deliberation is naive and only serves anti-labor interests.

Also, just because academics are heard even as WOAs, does not mean they will be listened to or that they present useful advice. The current Iraq policy sucks, but would it suck more or less than re-doubling efforts or withdrawing? That’s what I was pondering in late 2003, and that’s what was tying Kerry in knots. The future US policy was being debated in 2004 but not in an imaginative way, and sadly, the SSSFP statement did not substantially push that debate forward because it did not address the substance of alternatives.

Also, the “it’s the media, stupid” line misses the academic failings. Where are the special issues of IS, SS, JoSS or other declared military-security journals titled: “Victory, Defeat, or What? Alternatives to US Iraq Policy”. This space is ceded to Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, etc. which are loathe to engage the W-O analysis that is needed. I think Krevick (#15) makes this point quite well.

I got through the first half of the IS ed board and less than half (excluding Feaver) signed the letter. I’ll compile a IS, SS, JoSS list later this weekend.

Good point, Henry.

I don’t think you’re an expert in the guns’n’bombs parts of discussions of security (correct me if I’m wrong), but I do think you’re an expert in the frameworks within which states and leaders make decisions about security.

But even there, Henry, just as an example, is not a security expert; I respect his judgment on military security issues in his capacity as a well-informed citizen, but not as scholar per se. … Turning it around, if a similar effort was launched to criticize Bush over-estimates of the costs of CO2 emission reductions, I would see Henry as an expert signatory but would not want to see John Mearsheimer or Stephen Walt’s (or my) names as signatories, even though I would respect their views as well-informed citizens.

Funnily enough I have more security credentials (a jointly authored article on the OSCE and security transformation in IO ) than I do in re: CO2 emissions etc. Not that I would describe myself as an expert in security tout court (but I do have a fair amount of knowledge in re: the more specific area of security transformations in Europe). My real areas of expertise, such as they are, are in IPE, governance of e-commerce, and the hot topic of cooperation between mechanical engineering firms in Germany and Italy.

Did it? That would be interesting to verify, but I don’t think that Patrick and Stewart report any evidence of this from the interviews they conducted with media contacts. Did the majority of those journals not sign? There a ton of signatories, but I haven’t cross-checked it with those editorial boards. I suspect a fair number did sign.

No doubt a huge percentage of IR type’s were
violently against the US involvement in Viet Nam.
And their opinion was also that if the US left
Viet Nam, and the North took over, nothing too
bad would happen.

Well, since there were no IR type’s among the
tens of thousands of murdered former South
Vietnamese, I guess nothing too much bad happened.

Perhaps we Americans have memory of that academic
fiasco and are not quite as convinced that you
folks, beyond being ever-so-smart, really have
a clue about the “real world”.

Couple that with a Educational System with
costs rising significantly higher than the
inflation rate each year, and we hoi poloi
could not care less about your opinions.

Clean up your act first.

And then, maybe, you will be taken seriously.