Abstract

AbstractPolitical scientists in Europe are more extrovert in their behaviour as academics than is sometimes thought. They live outside the ‘ivory tower’ for part of their time and deliver knowledge and information to practitioners in the policy process. The majority takes a role as opinionating scholar; this happens more often than being an expert or a pure academic. Despite variation between countries, individual characteristics of respondents make a large difference to the extent and nature of engagement. Age, gender and type of employment contract have a strong predictive effect. Age and status of employment relate to the professional life cycle: more experienced scholars with a permanent academic position are more active in advising than their younger colleagues at the department of political science. These factors interact with gender, but the relevance of gender for advisory engagement is also strongly socially constructed. Female political scientists abstain more often, and when engaging they take an expert role, staying closer to evidence with less outreach to the public environment. This apparent gender gap occurs widely across all spheres of professional affiliation, and it requires more systematic attention within the academic political science community.

Highlights

  • In most European countries, political scientists based at universities perform other tasks than research and education alone

  • It is impossible and undesirable to derive one uniform type of ‘best’ and ‘most justified’ advisory role for political scientists as a group of academics. This was our point of departure in this book, and the general observation that political scientists across European countries engage to different degrees and in various ways underlines the importance of this neutral stance

  • The findings of our joint comparative project on the different other dimensions of advising lead us to examine how it may be possible to move beyond the simple model of advisory activities of academic political scientists

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Summary

16.1 Introduction

In most European countries, political scientists based at universities perform other tasks than research and education alone It is impossible and undesirable to derive one uniform type of ‘best’ and ‘most justified’ advisory role for political scientists as a group of academics This was our point of departure in this book, and the general observation that political scientists across European countries engage to different degrees and in various ways underlines the importance of this neutral stance. The findings of our joint comparative project on the different other dimensions of advising lead us to examine how it may be possible to move beyond the simple model of advisory activities of academic political scientists.

16.2 The General Picture Emerging from the Survey Project
16.2.1 The Non-unitary State of Political Scientists in Europe
16.3 Unpacking the Dimensions of Advising
16.3.1 Why Political Scientists Engage
16.3.2 The Flow of Advice
16.3.3 The Receiving End
16.3.4 Topic Areas of Political Scientists
16.4 Political Scientists in the Policy Advisory System
16.4.1 State Structure
16.4.2 Trends
16.5 Revisiting the Simple Model of Advisory Roles
Findings
16.6 Outlook
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