Tom Pepinsky

Category: Research

  • Political Science and the Critique of Policy Relevance

    The disconnect between academic political science and real-world policy is a topic of some concern in current discussions of the purpose and future of political science. Dan Drezner has insisted that even the most technical political science (or narrowly for him, IR) research has pretty clear implications for policy if you take the time to read it. Political scientists could probably do better to reach out—for this purpose, blogs are a tremendous resource—but the point is that there is plenty of policy relevant research out there already.

    There is, of course, another view. That is the perspective that political scientists should not reach out to policymakers, because they won’t listen. Or, they will mess it up. Or, they actually just select the research that comports with their views, sometimes even creating intellectual homes to produce the research that contains the ideas that will justify their actions (this is the critique of the Chicago school of economics and the Mercatus Center). In the extreme, it takes the form of beliefs like the RAND Corporation invented game theory as a tool of domination; or less audaciously, that the beliefs nurtured by RAND enabled domination. It’s ultimately a lazy critique, often made from the sidelines, and it contains within it the Simpsonesque implication that the lesson is, never try to engage with the policy community. Because you should never try, you can both be a strong critic of whatever odious thing you think is being done, but you are happily excused from offering any sort of solution.

    That critical view is a real barrier to policy engagement among academic political scientists. That said, the idea that policymakers are either ideological, or essentially career-minded, or flitting from one hot academic trend to another, is easy to understand. It is especially clear in the field of development (microfinance experiments for the QJE!). For someone with an academic background, especially a critical one (my college buddy loved to say that he wanted to “subvert the dominant paradigm”), the development industry can be depressing place. But my sense is that the general critique of the development industry greatly underestimates the self-awareness and self-criticism of many who work on the ground. There are plenty of “helicopter consultants,” but there are also of people who are deeply invested in local knowledge and understanding as well. Not just as naive do-gooders (although these exist too), but as real critical thinkers.

    Because I don’t see the development industry as simply an instrument of domination, I conclude for those of us who work on basic problems of governance and accountability, thinking in terms of policy relevance is profitable. I have no illusions that our research will shape the policy agenda, but it can be targeted in a way that finds common cause with the sorts of careful and critical thinking that, to me, should help to produce good policy.

    That is why I was particularly excited to receive an email from a colleague at AusAID in Jakarta, who reported that he had shared some thoughts with his colleagues about my recent paper on migration and the origins of governance in Java. I quote from his memo:

    Pepinsky’s paper is a novel new contribution to the growing literature on the political origins
    of comparative economic development – this time at a sub-national level. But is it of any
    relevance to us [the aid community]? The answer is in the last paragraph of the paper:

    “Understanding local political economies in the post-colonial states that have inherited extractive institutions requires attention to the informal institutions, norms, and practices that supported exchange when modern market relations were first established. Effective strategies to reform local economies, in turn, will depend on the informal institutions that they have inherited from the colonial
    era.”

    In other words – when working at the local level – it’s good to know a little history!

    Know history. Take local context seriously. Think about the political contexts in which market relations were formed, and why that matters. Exactly!

  • There Is No Alternative to the Academic Job Talk

    Dan Nexon does not like the interview process for research-intensive political science departments. He particularly does not like the job talk. He asks if there are viable alternatives to the modal job talk. The answer is no.

    Here is what a job talk does: it gives the candidate 35-45 minutes to present his/her research, followed by questions.  The point is to give the candidate a chance to introduce the argument, the evidence, the research style, the implications…and then to defend them. Some people find this objectionable. I don’t: I enjoy both giving job talks and attending them. But that’s not Dan’s point. He wants to know, what are the alternatives?

    • No talk at all? OK, then how I do know you (rather than your adviser or classmates/coauthors) understand your argument and can defend it? One-on-one meetings aren’t enough: anyone who’s ever compared one-on-one experiences with a colleague knows why.
    • No formal presentation, just straight to comments on a paper? This produces a bias in favor of presenting completed papers. Book-style dissertations where two chapters are the writing samples have little chance here. It also focuses on a single piece of research rather than a broader intellectual project. Remember, we care just as much about what you intend to write than about what you’ve written so far.
    • No formal presentation, but led by a discussant? The discussant—rather than the job candidate—gets enormous power. Think of how this could be gamed by biased committee members. Plus, the bias against book-style dissertations still survives.
    • Standard talk, but given less weight as compared to one-on-one meetings, sessions with grad students, writing samples? In principle this is fine, but this is not an “alternative” to having job talks. And we already live in a world where colleagues are free to discount the job talk completely, and often do.
    • Shorter job talk? Again, not an alternative. And I don’t see why, say, 20 minutes is any better than 35.

    One common defense of the job talk is that it is a way to make teaching observable. Maybe, but I don’t think that job talks are interpreted as proxies for teaching demonstrations (although for a methods talk this might help) in most research-intensive departments.

    I’ll note that a vigorous Twitter discussion followed Dan’s post yesterday evening. But as far as I can tell, most of the complaints are about how lazy departments are (“if everyone read everyone’s file you wouldn’t need to have job talks”) or how psychological biases pollute how we evaluate talks (“you think you’re basing your decision on the quality of the talk, but what you’re really doing is evaluating how white/male/able to buy a well-fitting suit the candidate is”). Fair criticisms, but irrelevant for judging whether job talks should be eliminated or replaced.

    At the end of the day, I do agree that published research, not the ability to speak in public, is the best measure that we have of scholarly impact and intellectual firepower. That is why oral presentations are not used to award tenure, publications are. It is also why job talks really don’t matter for senior-level hiring decisions.

    There are plenty of things that make job talks less than perfect. That is why job talks are just one part of the interview process. See Nate Jensen and Jeremy Wallace for more.