“Policy relevance” is a trap – it forces research to be digestible to political power which deradicalizes it.
Sjoberg and Whooley 14 [Laura Sjoberg is British Academy Global Professor of Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway University of London and Head of the Department of Politics, International Relations, and Philosophy. Her research addresses issues of gender and security, with foci on politically violent women, feminist war theorizing, sexuality in global politics, and political methodology. She teaches, consults, and lectures on gender in global politics, and on international security. Her work has been published in more than 50 books and journals in political science, law, gender studies, international relations, and geography. Jonathon Whooley is a full-time lecturer at San Francisco State University, where he teaches strategy and war, cybersecurity, American foreign policy, gender, critical security studies, terrorism, intelligence agencies, and global politics.; “39. Perverse effects, potential harms, and international relations research in the world”; Handbook of Research Methods in International Relations; August 22]//eleanor
In the United States (US), how much or how little academia can contribute to US foreign policy or policy relevance in general is entirely contingent upon whether or not the perception by the academy and its various and sundry academics is in line with the goals and role of the United States in the world. In the aftermath of 9/11 the US government and particularly the Bush administration took up the “Clash of Civilizations” narrative (Huntington 1993), not because the broadly ignorant text best fit the world it sought to portray, but because the perception of the Bush administration fit with the narrative of inevitable civilizational conflict. This narrative was then used to push the Global War on Terror and various US invasions in Middle Eastern and South Asian countries. During the Obama administration, similarly, the notion of tech-friendly, democratic utopianism fit explicitly with the rationalist world view that Obama adopted (Goldberg 2016). To be policy-relevant is not necessarily a badge of honor, most often because whatever administration or foreign policy perspective currently holds sway will cherry-pick the particular section or subsection of the literature that best conforms to the prejudices and proclivities of the foreign policy. Thus, it may not make much sense to chase policy windows or shuffle down avenues of research most digestible to those in political power; rather, it may behoove those interested in lines of research considered to be outside the policy canon to simply pursue the work that most closely hews to their world view, and provide the best research and methodology possible. Chasing phantoms in the policy world of “relevance” may pay few dividends in the long term.