Publication: Out of the ivory tower: an explanation of the policy advisory roles of political scientists in Europe
Program
KU-Authors
Bakır, Caner
KU Authors
Co-Authors
Jungblut, Jens
Gouglas, Athanassios
Katz, Gabriel
Bandola-Gill, Justyna
Brans, Marleen
Timmermans, Arco
Anderson, Alexandra
Aubin, David
Bino, Blerjana
Bleiklie, Ivar
Advisor
Publication Date
Language
en
Type
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract
The relevance and impact of political scientists' professional activities outside of universities has become the focus of public attention, partly due to growing expectations that research should help address society's grand challenges. One type of such activity is policy advising. However, little attention has been devoted to understanding the extent and type of policy advising activities political scientists engage in. This paper addresses this gap by adopting a classification that distinguishes four ideal types of policy advisors representing differing degrees of engagement. We test this classification by calculating a multi-level latent class model to estimate key factors explaining the prevalence of each type based on an original dataset obtained from a survey of political scientists across 39 European countries. Our results challenge the wisdom that political scientists are sitting in an "ivory tower": the vast majority (80%) of political scientists in Europe are active policy advisers, with most of them providing not only expert guidance but also normative assessments.
Source:
European Political Science
Publisher:
Palgrave Macmillan Ltd
Keywords:
Subject
Political Science