"...an aversion to topics that might make a scholar visible outside the academy -- or god forbid, controversial -- because that might screw up your shot at tenure or get you criticized in print."

In my experience, the hoops through which an academic must jump if s/he wants to get tenure, promotion, merit points are getting more and more difficult to negotiate. By the time you're in a position to take the risk of becoming a public intellectual, you're old and probably a lot more conservative than you were as an assistant or associate professor. And who wants to listen to the old farts? I was 53 when I finally scored full-professor status, and my energy had already started to run out, and I never managed to get in nearly as many licks as I'd hoped to before retiring this year.

Too many of my students who've gone on to make academic careers for themselves -- students who I knocked myself out trying to politicize -- have locked themselves safely away behind walls of impenetrable academic jargon. This makes me very grateful to those youngsters who do risk it and blog. But I'd be willing to bet they don't get any brownie points for it from their universities -- indeed, it wouldn't surprise me to discover that some specially manufactured roadblocks were put in their way.

Boring, irrelevant scholarship, besides easing the way to tenure and promotion, is what keeps universities out of trouble with their funding sources, both public and private. It's also a primary cause of the decline of Western knowledge. What else can one expect from an institution that rivals the church in its conservatism?

In the otherwise unrelated field to which I now devote my professional life, academics frequently choose to stay far away from subjects touching on government policy or even human behavior.

This avoids public controversy, but I don't think they do it only for that reason. In most of the sciences, there is no greater source of regard by one's peers than having discovered or figured out something no one else has. In the physical sciences at least, it frequently happens that seemingly small discoveries turn out to have major implications. It's one of the reasons people choose to enter these fields in the first place, and it's not a reason that disappears once someone gets tenure.

Sharing discoveries with the undereducated public, from the academic's perspective, inevitably involves going over ground that was covered long ago as well as material removed from the academic's research focus. In the great land-grant universities, a common feeling is that this is what Extension is for.

I don't know if there is a similar dynamic at work among political scientists. Humans have been practicing government for thousands of years, so what is there left to discover? Maybe something, for sure, but enough to engage all the political scientists we have? And surely communicating knowledge relevant to public affairs and political life to an audience beyond one's profession must be more intrinsic to the very study of political science than to, say, the study of plant genetics, or even agronomy. Or is it?

In today's current environment, its very difficult for a young academic to research anything controversial, regardless of what issue in political science we are talking about. Society over the last few decades has gotten so politicized and politically-correct that any outspoken piece of writing or any interview out of the mainstream is viewed as either inflammatory or insensitive. Just a few weeks ago, the longtime Washington reporter Helen Thomas was pressured to resign over her comments towards Israel (which, I have to say, were a bit questionable at best), ending a 50 year career in journalism on a negative note. Professors in private universities and academics in private research task force usually get challenged or thrown out my management if their work- however innovative and groundbreaking- draws money away from their organization. Say what you want, but most Professors simply don't want to put their reputation as a scholar in jeopardy. They want to remain in the field, make more money, produce more work, and rise to the highest position possible on the totem poll.

I can't blame them. If I were an academic, I would probably do the same thing.

But it's this overly-sensitive P.C. culture that the United States now finds itself in that could gradually destroy the field of political science. Like all subjects out there, the strength and quality of political science as a discipline depends on the willingness of younger generations to join the cause. Attracting up-and-coming scholars is the only way political science departments across the country will sustain itself. But the field is not likely to attract these students if mundane topics are continually addressed and controversial ideas are not expanded upon. No one wants to spend the rest of their life in a boring occupation. But the study of politics may be getting to that point if today's academics are not brave willing to go outside the box and bypass the traditional rules of academia.

Obviously not all professors embark on boring research projects with no outside application. Most of my mentors at SUNY Plattsburgh (and I'm hoping at my graduate school as well) are in fact satisfied with their current careers and excited about issues that have been under-researched in the past. It also helps that these very same people were practitioners and had "real world" experience before they settled on academia. It would just be nice to have more of these people out there, since these are the people who will ultimately draw students in and contribute to the discipline's future success.

http://www.depetris.wordpress.com

Is net influence of such academics actually positive? It might be the case that we are better off if they are irrelevant. In your previous post you mentioned Margaret Mead, as if it were a complimentary comparison. Mead who misled millions with her bogus research. Which is not to say she was that much worse than most of the Boasians.

I have been studying the history of US Postwar Foregn policy planning, and I was amazed the clo interaction that existed in those days between scholars and the Government. Also, the articles being published in academic journals such as the APSR, during the 20s, 30s or 40s, were addressed, in plain and reader firendly language to influence the decisions of the policy-makers. Nowadays, what I have been told everytime I ask for advice on how to publish on an American journal is: check who is the editorial board and quote them in your introduction, telling how good their theories are....

You may know why I ask this: what do you think of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, and all the mathematical models he has developed toe predict future.

Dr. Walt,

I agree with your article. That's why I intend to take your "balance of threat" theory for a spin as part of my masters thesis.

I am sure they come with noble thoughts, notions of wanting to change the world and most importantly wanting to make a difference. But i guess one starts to conform for the sake of conforming lest scorned and cast-away. Its a publish or perish culture.

Perhaps its time to assess what gets published and why such articles get published. In most cases u find the thin crooked finger pointing- the subscribers and readers. So bring on the dialogue sessions and the socializing processes, lets dare the scholars to be less conservative and readers to be a little more liberal (Oh yes and the publishers to be a little more audacious)

To be honest, although I do consider myself to be a fledgling political scientist I don't pay much attention to the report after report overwhelmed with a torrent of mostly useless numbers. The articles I consider to be the most important are the ones that actually look at current issues and try to honestly say 'this group is controlled by Warlord A and his forces have broken three peace deals in the past as a result of no enforcement'. Of course we need a good foundation and useful theories to explain what we have observed, but it is a bad sign when I rely more on the writings of sociologists and soldiers rather than political scientists to explain political problems.

If I were asked what the best remedy would be, it would be to drive the old political scientists (and young ones on their way to becoming old) out of the universities and into the actual warzones. Spend five years out of New York City and in Osh or Kinshasa* and I think we would see more quality work.

*Get a map people!