Practitioners of statecraft use theory subconsciously, and that is how theory mostly works in the real world. But theory’s utility to policy isn’t always obvious, not just to the practitioner but sometimes to members of academia as well. This column will try and demonstrate that theory is not just useful but integral to good policy.
Foreign policy is made and executed within a shifting environment where flexibility, risk-taking, nimbleness and other elements in a leader or a diplomat’s repertoire play central roles. Good policy is, however, based on robust thinking. Classics of IR theory can be helpful in modelling the international environment, understanding the tendencies of key global forces, seeing enduring patterns, making historical comparisons, and forming perspectives
The practitioner’s view
One often hears the practitioner—the diplomat, the soldier and the occasional politician concerned with foreign policy—say that IR theory is not useful for the work that they do. That, rather than the books on theory, it is their experience of the real world that has helped them do their job. Furthermore, journalists who cover defence and foreign affairs appear convinced that direct access to policy makers makes their understanding and analysis superior to those of the university scholar.
These opinions can sometimes pit theory against policy, books against experience, texts against practice, and the word against the world, when, in fact, these go hand-in-hand, often shaping successful and lasting policies or policy predictions. There are at least six ways in which a theory’s utility and relevance for policy can be illustrated.
