How international relations looks from the ivory tower
International relations scholars find a remarkable consensus on the most pressing foreign-policy issues of today, according to a survey of the discipline by four researchers at the College of William and Mary.
According to the study -- which was based on the responses of 1,112 international-relations professors -- experts across the ideological spectrum "agree far more on current policy and future threats than they disagree." That consensus is especially striking when it comes to the Iraq war: Eighty-nine percent of scholars say the war will ultimately damage security in the United States. Eighty-seven percent consider the conflict unjust, and 85 percent are pessimistic that a stable democracy will be possible in Iraq in the next 10 to 15 years.
Only 1 percent of the respondents ranked George W. Bush among the past century's most effective foreign-policy presidents. The researchers say that low figure may be because 70 percent of respondents identified themselves as liberal, whereas just 13 percent were conservative. But, they write, "this liberal bent alone does not explain the scholarly consensus," because majorities from both parties agreed on several other issues. For example, scholars "overwhelmingly" pointed to international terrorism, weapons proliferation, and the rise of China as a world power as the biggest foreign-policy challenges for America during the next 10 years.
The study was conducted by Daniel Maliniak, a research associate in international relations; Amy Oakes, an assistant professor of government; Susan Peterson, dean for educational policy in arts and sciences and a professor of government; and Michael J. Tierney, an assistant professor of government....
Read entire article at Chronicle of Higher Education
According to the study -- which was based on the responses of 1,112 international-relations professors -- experts across the ideological spectrum "agree far more on current policy and future threats than they disagree." That consensus is especially striking when it comes to the Iraq war: Eighty-nine percent of scholars say the war will ultimately damage security in the United States. Eighty-seven percent consider the conflict unjust, and 85 percent are pessimistic that a stable democracy will be possible in Iraq in the next 10 to 15 years.
Only 1 percent of the respondents ranked George W. Bush among the past century's most effective foreign-policy presidents. The researchers say that low figure may be because 70 percent of respondents identified themselves as liberal, whereas just 13 percent were conservative. But, they write, "this liberal bent alone does not explain the scholarly consensus," because majorities from both parties agreed on several other issues. For example, scholars "overwhelmingly" pointed to international terrorism, weapons proliferation, and the rise of China as a world power as the biggest foreign-policy challenges for America during the next 10 years.
The study was conducted by Daniel Maliniak, a research associate in international relations; Amy Oakes, an assistant professor of government; Susan Peterson, dean for educational policy in arts and sciences and a professor of government; and Michael J. Tierney, an assistant professor of government....