The gap between academics and practitioners in international relations has widened in recent years, according to the authors of this book. Many international relations scholars no longer try to reach beyond the ivory tower and many policymakers disdain international relations scholarship as arcane and irrelevant. Joseph Lepgold and Miroslav Nincic demonstrate how good international relations theory can inform policy choices. Globalization, ethnic conflict, and ecological threats have created a new set of issues that challenge policymakers, and cutting-edge scholarship can contribute a great deal to the diagnosis and handling of potentially explosive situations.

Beyond the Ivory Tower can be read with equal profit by scholars who want to improve the scientific status of international relations theory and by those alarmed by IR's drift away from relevance. Lepgold and Nincic show that the effort to apply theory to policy helps enrich theory, by bringing out its hidden assumptions. They also make a strong ethical case that IR scholars should not abandon their field's honorable tradition of advising statesmen. In doing so, they provide an illuminating overview of the field and intriguing insights into the forces that shape its development. -- Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Columbia Univeristy Lepgold and Nincic show in detail how the academic study of international relations can contribute more powerfully to practical deliberations and debates. They make a compelling case that greater policy relevance can actually enhance the scientific value of scholarship. It is no coincidence that the founders of social science--Marx, Weber, and Durkheim--were all deeply imbued with a belief in the practical significance of the academic enterprise. -- Jack Snyder, Institute of War and Peace Studies and Department of Political Science, Columbia University

PrefaceThe Theory-Practice Gap in International Relations
Types of Knowledge and Their Practical Uses
How Knowledge is Acquired and Used
Scholarship and Relevance: Is There a Tradeoff?
The Inter-Democratic Peace?Theoretical Foundations and