Political Psychology, Vol. 29, No.

4, 2008

Bridging the Gap between Theory and Policy

Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
Harvard University

Two decades ago, Alexander George observed a growing gap between academic theorists
and practitioners in the formulation of foreign policy. The significance of the gap has been
debated, but trends in the academy, society, and government suggest it is likely to grow.
KEY WORDS: theory, practice, foreign policy, power, in and outers, universities, think tanks,
research

In Bridging the Gap: Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy, Alex George
outlined various dimensions of wisdom in policymaking. He himself was the
embodiment of such wisdom. When I served in government, I often remembered
his cautionary words against premature closure of minds, uncertain evidence, and
multiple advocacy. And in my scholarly work, I had frequent cause to refer to his
writing. He was a major participant and influence on the Harvard Project on
Avoiding Nuclear War that produced several volumes in the 1980s. I learned
greatly from him. Alex exemplified the thoughtful and careful scholar who was
nonetheless concerned that his work help produce better policy.
Alex was also realistic about the relationship between theory and practice.
As he said about why his title referred to “bridging” rather than “eliminating”
the gap, “the choice of words is deliberate and of considerable importance.” He
often referred to “generic” knowledge rather than theory. As he wrote, “scholars
may not be in a good position to advise policymakers how best to deal with a
specific instance of a general problem that requires urgent and timely action,”
but “they can often provide a useful, broader discussion of how to think about
and understand that general problem . . .” (George, 1993, pp. xix, xxiv). Alex
was realistic in his aspirations, but also optimistic that scholars could make a
difference. In the decade and a half since he wrote, however, there has been
concern that the gap between academic theory and foreign policy practice has
been growing.

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594 Nye

Of course, the gap is not new. As Alex noted, mentioning theory has long
been a sure way to make policy makers’ eyes glaze over. Paul Nitze, a relatively
intellectual policy maker, once observed that “most of what has been written and
taught under the heading of ‘political science’ by Americans since World War II has
been contrary to experience and to common sense. It has also been of limited value,
if not counterproductive, as a guide to the actual conduct of policy” (1993, p. 3). And
the situation is no better in other countries, where the gap is often greater. A number
of observers have noted a growing gulf between theorists and practitioners. Joseph
Lepgold and Miroslav Nincic argue that “the professional gap between academics
and practitioners has widened in recent years. Many scholars no longer try to reach
beyond the Ivory Tower, and officials seem increasingly content to ignore it” (2001,
p. 3). Or as Bruce Jentleson reports, “the problem is not just the gap between theory
and policy but its chasmlike widening in recent years” (2002, p. 169).
The United States has a tradition of political appointments that is amenable to
“in and out” circulation between government and academia. While a number of
important American scholars such as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski
have entered high-level foreign policy positions in the past, that path has tended to
become a one-way street. Not many top-ranked scholars are currently going into
government, and even fewer return to contribute to academic theory. Of the 25
most influential scholars listed by Foreign Policy, only four have held top-level
policy positions, two in the U.S. government and two in the United Nations
(Peterson, Tierney, & Maliniak, 2005, p. 62). Another two held staff jobs in
government, but the vast majority did not have direct policy experience.
At the same time, as Alex pointed out, the problem may be better at lower
levels. “Since so many individuals who serve as policy specialists and in staff roles
in government have previously studied international relations in academic centers,
they can and do serve as informal intellectual brokers between the two cultures”
(George, 1993, p. 17). But there is still a concern about how they and other
students are taught in the universities. As a recent survey of course syllabi on
American foreign policy concluded, “the courses under review reveal a quite
surprising degree of distance between the subfield of American foreign policy and
the theoretical debates and issues that have dominated recent research and teaching
within international relations” (Hurrell, 2004, p. 101).

Is the Gap Good?

Some academics celebrate the appropriateness of the gap. After all, academic
theorists and policy makers fill different roles in society. A British scholar, Chris-
topher Hill, has argued that if scholars seek “policy relevance, even if only to
justify our existence in the eyes of society at large, the more difficult it becomes to
maintain intellectual integrity” (Hill, 1994, p. 16). Alex George acknowledged and
respected “the reluctance of some scholars, particularly when they disagree with
the government’s foreign policies, to serve as ‘technicians’ for the state by
Bridging the Gap 595

providing specialized knowledge that may be ‘misused.’ Such scholars prefer the
roles of critic and ‘unattached’ intellectual” (George, 1993, p. 4). The tensions
between description and prescription are dealt with in an interesting companion
essay in this volume by Robert Jervis.
As Machiavelli discovered four centuries ago, it is risky to try to speak truth
to power when you are in the midst of the struggle for power. Not only is there
a danger of analysts trimming their political sails to accommodate prevailing
political winds, but there is a more subtle risk that the search for short-term
relevance will lead theorists to forgo levels of abstraction and elegance that may
sometimes be essential to academic progress. From this perspective, the isolation
of the ivory tower serves as a buffer against these temptations and encourages a
useful division of labor. Academic theorists should not confuse their roles with
those of political activists or even employees of think tanks who have a more
direct relationship to power. Thus many academic departments pride themselves
on eschewing an interest in policy and promote young people by narrow profes-
sional standards.
Some academics criticize this narrow professional orientation and engage in
politics or policy advocacy, but they argue that the role of academics and univer-
sities is to use their independence to criticize the power structure, not support it.
Whether through political activism or through the development of “post-positivist”
critical theory, they believe that theorists should criticize the powerful, no matter
how little relevance their theory appears to have in the eyes of policy makers or
how little it conforms to the central professional standards of the discipline.
There is much to be said for the view that universities are unique institutions,
but the imagined trade-off between corruption and relevance need not be so acute.
An intermediate position on the appropriateness issue is what I call the “balanced
portfolio” approach. When I served as dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of
Government, I tried to maintain a faculty on which some members had govern-
ment experience while others were purely academic. The latter ensured rigor and
the former brought relevance, and the combination meant that the institution filled
a different role on the research spectrum than either a Washington think tank or a
typical academic department. But the portfolio analogy works best when there are
a number of people who have occupied both positions in the division of labor at
different times and are able to act as bridges. As the above cited evidence suggests,
however, “in and outers” who contribute to both practice and theory are increas-
ingly rare.
The key to the success of such a faculty mix is the ability and willingness of
members to interact and communicate with each other. This is easier in a profes-
sional school than in a purely academic department. But even in the latter case,
theorists and practice-oriented scholars can communicate if they are interested in
policy problems. The communication gap does not belong solely to international
relations or foreign policy. A survey of articles published over the lifetime of the
American Political Science Review found that about one in five dealt with policy
596 Nye

prescription or criticism in the first half of the century, while only a handful did so
after 1967. As journal editor Lee Sigelman observed, “if ‘speaking truth to power’
and contributing directly to public dialogue about the merits and demerits of
various courses of action were still numbered among the functions of the profes-
sion, one would not have know it from leafing through its leading journal” (2006,
pp. 463–478). Bruce Jentleson has summarized this middle position, “it is not that
all intellectuals must do stints in government, or even make policy relevance a
priority for their research and scholarship. But the reverse is too true: as a disci-
pline we place too little value on these kinds of hands-on experiences and this kind
of scholarship, to our own detriment as scholars and teachers—and as a discipline”
(2002, p. 130). If the gap becomes too large, something is lost for both sides.
In the past, academics have made useful contributions to policy, either directly
or at arms length. A few decades ago, academics like Arnold Wolfers, Carl
Friedrich, McGeorge Bundy, Thomas Schelling, and others felt it proper to be
engaged with the policy process. Some academic ideas have been quite significant
in framing policy. Through a combination of writing and consulting, Schelling,
Bernard Brodie, Albert Wohlstetter, William Kaufmann, and others developed and
refined theories of nuclear strategy and arms control that were widely used by
practitioners in the Cold War. (In Bridging the Gap, Alex cites the impact of
Brodie, Kauffmann, and Herman Kahn.) More recently, Michael Doyle, Rudolph
Rummel, Bruce Russett, and others helped to update Kant’s theory of the demo-
cratic peace (“liberal democracies tend not to fight each other”), and it has entered
into popular political discourse and policy (Siverson, 2000, pp. 59–64).
In addition to such large ideas, academics have provided many middle-level
theories and generalizations that are based upon specific functional or regional
knowledge and have proved useful to policy makers (Lieberthal, 2006, pp. 7–15).
Theories about deterrence, balance of terror, interdependence, and bipolarity have
helped shape the vocabulary that policy makers depend upon. As Alex put it,
“scholars also perform a useful, indeed a necessary, task by developing better
concepts and conceptual frameworks, which should assist policymakers in orienting
themselves to the phenomena and the problems with which they must deal”
(George, 1993, p. xxiv). Historical analogies are a frequent form of ideas used by
policy makers, often in a crude and misleading way. Academics can help to
discipline the use and misuse of such analogies (Neustadt & May, 1986, pp. 34–58).
Academics can also help the public and policy makers by framing, mapping,
and raising questions even when they do not provide answers. As Ernest J. Wilson
III argues, “by mapping I mean the identification and explication of the defining
dimensions of a new problem, its constituent elements, and its general contours
and boundaries” (Wilson, 2000, p. 122). Framing a question is often as important
to policy as providing answers. At the end of the Cold War, two of the most
influential “mapping” ideas—Francis Fukuyama’s idea that class based ideologi-
cally driven history had come to an end, and Samuel Huntington’s idea of clashes
based on cultures and civilizations—were examples of influential academic ideas.
Bridging the Gap 597

From a normative perspective, this record can be used to bolster the argument
that academics, as citizens, have an obligation to help to improve policy ideas
when they can. Moreover, such engagement in the policy debates can enhance and
enrich academic work, and thus the ability of academics to teach the next genera-
tion. As Ambassador David D. Newsom has written, “the growing withdrawal of
university scholars behind curtains of theory and modeling would not have wider
significance if this trend did not raise questions regarding the preparation of new
generations and the future influence of the academic community on public and
official perceptions of international issues and events. Teachers plant seeds that
shape the thinking of each new generation; this is probably the academic world’s
most lasting contribution” (1995–96, p. 52).
Alternatively, one can argue that while the gap between theory and policy has
grown in recent decades and may have costs for policy, the growing gap has
produced better political theory, and that is more important than whether it is
relevant. To some extent the gap is an inevitable result of the growth and special-
ization of knowledge. Few people can keep up with their subfields, much less all
of social science. But there are costs as well as benefits. Lepgold and Nincic
summarize the trade-offs, “the Ivory Tower exists for a good reason: we expect
university-based intellectuals to reflect on the world at some distance, and not
simply to do the work of policy commentators or journalists at a slower pace.
But. . . . it is odd to think that no practical implications should follow from a better
understanding of the world. If scholars address important, real-world issues, they
will more often than not improve their own work and have more to share with those
who must act” (2002, p. 185). Or as Robert Putnam has put it, “simple questions
about major real-world events have driven great research. Worrying about the same
‘big’ issues as our fellow citizens is not a distraction from our best professional
work, but often a goad to it” (2003, pp. 313–314).
Regardless of one’s normative views about the correct relationship of aca-
demia to policy, the fields of international relations and foreign policy are not
nearly so distant from the influences of the practical world as some scholars like
to think. The gap is bridged all too easily in that direction. To paraphrase Keynes,
academic theorists, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any practical
influence, are usually slaves of unseen larger world events. At times, academic
trends and fads have proven to be too influenced by events. Theoretical trends in
the field have always been strongly influenced by the outside world. Naturally, if
our purpose is to understand the world, current change will drive changes in
theory building, but often the swings in academic fashion are excessive and lack
balance.

Why the Gap Grows

That a gap exists between academia and the policy world is both natural and
a good thing up to a point, assuming that some efforts are made to bridge it. The
598 Nye

academic ethic is to offer elegant theoretical answers to general questions while

the policy maker seeks definite answers to particular questions. But in recent years,
the gap has been widening and bridging efforts have become more difficult. The
growing specialization of knowledge, the increasing scientific methodological
orientation of academic disciplines, and development of new institutional trans-
mission belts helps to account for the change.
Some aspects of the gap, however, are not new. The world of the academic
theorist and the world of the policy practitioner have always involved very differ-
ent cultures. As an academic going into a policy position at the State Department
three decades ago, I was struck by the fact that bureaucracy is a huge machine for
turning out reams of paper, but the top policy world is really an oral culture. As I
wrote of that experience, “the pace did not permit wide reading or detailed
contemplation. I was often bemused by colleagues who sent me thirty or forty-
page articles they thought would be helpful. It was all I could do to get through the
parts of the intelligence briefings and government papers that my various special
assistants underlined for the hour of two of reading possible on a good day” (Nye,
1989, p. 206). As a result, effective policy memos are often one or two pages long,
and concise oral briefings are often more influential than memos. As Ezra Vogel
reports from his experience as an academic in government in the 1990s, “generally
speaking . . . academic books and articles are useless for policymakers. Even if
they were not filled with what policymakers consider arcane theories and esoteric
details written solely for other academics, these publications are simply too
lengthy for policymakers to go through the haystack looking for the needle they
might use” (2006, p. 33).
A premium on time is a major difference between the two cultures. For the
academic, time is a secondary consideration, while accuracy and elegance are
primary. As Alex George noted, “Academics aim at increasing general knowledge
and wisdom about international relations; practitioners are more interested in the
type of knowledge that increases their ability to influence and control the course of
events.” They want short quick answers while for many academics such short
answers are not answers (1993, p. 9).
For practitioners, timing is everything. A “B” quality memo written to brief
the president for his meeting with a foreign dignitary at 3 pm is a success, while
an “A” memo that arrives at 4 pm is a total failure. In the university, the pri-
orities are (properly) reversed. Another difference is the importance of group
work as opposed to individual creativity. In the university, plagiarism is a car-
dinal sin. In government policy work, ideas are a public good and it is often
most effective not to attribute credit. Finally, in the academy, the highest value
is to ignore politics and speak truth to power, while in the policy world some
political trimming and appreciation of “applied truth” may be essential for effec-
tiveness. It is not always easy to straddle these two cultures. I used fiction to
dramatize some of the moral dilemmas that arise in The Power Game: A Wash-
ington Novel.
Bridging the Gap 599

But the inherent culture gap has grown wider in recent years largely because
of trends in academic disciplines and in the institutions of foreign policy. As
Stephen Walt explains, the incentive structures and professional ethos of the
academic world have changed, and the trickle-down model linking theory and
policy has weakened as a transmission belt. In his view, “the prevailing norms of
academic life have increasingly discouraged scholars from doing work that
would be directly relevant to policy makers” (2005, pp. 26–38). General theories
such as structural realism and liberal institutionalism have become more
abstract, and some rational choice models, while stimulating to theorists,
often reflect what Stanley Hoffmann has called “economics envy” (2006, p. 4).
Middle-range generalizations, historical cases, and regional expertise—the
types of theory most accessible and most useful to practice—are accorded
less prestige in the disciplinary pecking order. Methodology reinforces the
trend. As Bruce Jentleson argues, “dominant approaches to methodology
give short shrift to policy analysis, to the analytic skills for addressing
questions of strategy and for assessing policy options. It is one thing to train
Ph.D.s primarily for academic careers; it is another to have this be virtually the
only purpose of most major international relations/political science Ph.D. pro-
grams. The job market for new Ph.D.s operationalizes this incentive structure”
(2002, p. 178). Professors spend most of their energies reproducing little
professors.
The problem is further compounded by the use of academic jargon and the
lack of interest in communicating in plain language to a policy public. As Alex
George put it, “not a few policy specialists exposed to the scholarly literature have
concluded that most university professors seem to write largely for one another
and have little inclination or ability to communicate their knowledge in terms
comprehensible to policy makers” (1993, p. 7). Young scholars are rated and
promoted by their contributions to refereed academic journals and citations by
other scholars in those same journals where there is little premium on writing in
clear and accessible English. They get little credit for contributions to policy
journals edited for a broader audience.
In institutional terms, the transmission belts between academia and govern-
ment have also changed. Universities are less dominant sources of policy ideas
than in the past. In the traditional model, professors produced theories that would
trickle down (or out) to the policy world through the articles they wrote and the
students they taught. As Walt describes it, “the trickle-down model assumes that
new ideas emerge from academic ‘ivory towers’ (i.e., as abstract theory), gradually
filter down into the work of applied analysts (and especially people working in
public policy ‘think tanks’), and finally reach the perceptions and actions of policy
makers. In practice, however, the process by which ideas come to shape policy is
far more idiosyncratic and haphazard” (2005, p. 40). Or as Jentleson writes,
“whereas thirty or forty years ago academics were the main if not sole cohort
of experts on international affairs outside of government and international
600 Nye

institutions, today’s world is a more competitive marketplace of ideas and

expertise” (2002, p. 181).
Even when academics supplement the trickle down approach with articles in
policy journals, op-eds in newspapers, blogs, consulting for candidates or officials,
and appearance in the media, they find many more competitors for attention. Some
of these transmission belts serve as translators and additional outlets for academic
ideas, but many add a bias provided by their founders and funders. There are more
than 1,200 think tanks in the United States alone, and they are very heterogeneous
in scope, funding, ideology, and location, but universities generally offer a more
neutral viewpoint. The think tanks provide not only ideas but also experts ready to
comment or consult at a moments notice (Haass, 2002, pp. 5–8). In addition,
journalists, public intellectuals, nongovernmental organizations, trade associa-
tions, private contractors, and others are involved in providing policy ideas. As
Ernest Wilson points out, while the pluralism of institutional pathways may be
good for democracy, many of the nonuniversity institutions have narrow interests
and tailor their policy advice to fit particular agendas (2007, pp. 147–151). The
policy process in democracies is diminished by the withdrawal of an academic
community which has broader agendas and more rigorous intellectual standards.
One of the most effective transmission belts for ideas to travel from the
academy to government might be called “embedded capital” in the minds of “in and
outers” (a mechanism that Walt largely ignores). As Henry Kissinger once pointed
out, the pressure on time that bears upon policy makers means that they rely on ideas
and intellectual capital created before they entered the maelstrom. I found this to be
true in my own experience. Theoretical ideas produced and stored up in a university
setting were useful in making policy changes in Washington. Political science
theory was crucial to the way in which I framed and crafted solutions to practical
policy issues. It came less from outside articles and consultants (though they played
some role) than in the form of embedded intellectual capital.
In terms of the earlier discussion, some critics may say this mechanism is too
costly, and that I and others would have been better off staying in the university
and developing more academic ideas. Perhaps. Choice involves trade-offs, and
there are always opportunity costs. Nonetheless, I am glad I paid them. Not only
was I able to contribute to policy on important issues I cared about, but I believe
that my writing and teaching were enriched rather than diminished when I returned
to the university. I had a better sense of the relationship between theory and the real
world than some others. For example, John Mearsheimer, a highly respected
realist theorist, has written that “American academics are especially good at
promoting liberal thinking in the marketplace of ideas. Behind closed doors,
however, the elites who make national security policy speak mostly in the lan-
guage of power, not of principle” (2001, p. 25). In my experience in the State and
Defense Departments in two Democratic administrations, power and principle
were often much more closely and subtly intertwined than his academic theoretical
account implies.
Bridging the Gap 601

Government practice is a deepening but narrowing experience. There is little

time or license for the free-wheeling exploration that is possible in a university. For
example, when dealing with nuclear nonproliferation in the Carter Administration,
I had no time to explore the broad ethical issues when foreign officials would ask
why it was all right for the United States to have nuclear weapons while trying to
prevent them from obtaining the bomb. When I returned to the university, I used
the lack of pressure on time and politics to teach a course and then write a book on
Nuclear Ethics. And after I returned from the Pentagon and my work on East Asia
in the Clinton Administration, I turned my attention to a book about the future
distribution of power in The Paradox of American Power. For better or worse, both
works were heavily influenced by my experience in government.
My experience of a fruitful interaction between theory and practice may
be subjective, but it is not unique. As Ezra Vogel has written: “when I went to
Washington and first had to write one-page briefs, I despaired of substituting
sound bites for real thinking. I came to appreciate, however, that one pagers can
force intellectual discipline. Such space limits impel us to think about what is the
absolutely most important idea or two that we want to communicate, and to decide
how to communicate those ideas in the most effective way. As a result, I returned
to the university and began to encourage students to spend more time compressing
their thinking and to work harder to express ideas in a precise and concise way”
(2006, p. 34).
If such experiences serve as an existence theorem that academic theory and
policy practice can interact fruitfully in both directions, what could be done to
increase it and bridge the widening gap? On the official side, former ambassador
David Newsom advised his colleagues to broaden State Department research
grants, to increase scholar-diplomat programs, and to encourage senior officials to
participate in scholarly association meetings. The Intelligence community, par-
ticularly the National Intelligence Council, holds regular unclassified seminars and
conferences with academics. Internships and exchanges such as the Foreign
Affairs fellowships sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations (that Alex
George extolled in his book) have also helped to introduce young American
academics to a policy environment, though of the dozen or so annual fellowships,
the percentage from universities has declined over time. Increased lateral entry at
middle levels would be good both for the civil service and for the academy, but this
is particularly difficult in countries with a strong civil service tradition. The
internet and blogs also provide new opportunities for scholars to become involved
in policy debates on a global basis.
On the university side, Stephen Walt argues for “a conscious effort to alter the
prevailing norms of the discipline.” Departments should give greater weight to
real-world relevance and impact in hiring and promotion decisions, and journals
could place greater weight on relevance in evaluating submissions. Universities
could facilitate interest in the real world by giving junior faculty greater incentives
for participating in it (Walt, 2005, p. 41). Scholars could avoid choosing research
602 Nye

topics that are so manageable that they wind up saying more and more about less
and less (which is a current academic affliction). They would do better to heed the
advice of Robert Putnam: “Better an approximate answer to an important question
than an exact answer to a trivial question” (2003, p. 251). They would also do well
to follow the example of Alex George with his long-term concern about the
importance of bridging the gap between theory and practice, between scholar and
citizen. “In 1966, while still a member of the RAND Corporation, I saw the need
to supplement efforts to formulate general theories of international relations with
theories that are more relevant for the conduct of foreign policy” (1993, p. xxi). We
are all in his debt that he did.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Bruce Jentleson, Peter Katzenstein, Robert O. Keohane,

John Owen, and Stephen Walt for helpful comments. Correspondence concerning
this article should be addressed to Joseph S. Nye, Jr., John F. Kennedy School of
Government, Harvard University, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge MA, 01238. Email:
joseph_nye@harvard.edu

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