Knowledge for Statecraft Lecture Given by the Winner of the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science, Uppsala, October 3, 1998

In: Scandinavian political studies, Band 22, Heft 2, S. 89-97

Abstract

The occasion of receiving the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science is perhaps an appropriate occasion to recall the origins of my interest in developing knowledge for statecraft. During the course of my years as a member of the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, I became aware that much academic research on international relations was not providing the type of theory and knowledge needed for dealing with the challenges the United States was facing during the Cold War. I felt it necessary to undertake the challenging task of devising a new approach for producing the type of knowledge that would come closer to meeting the needs of policy makers who were trying to avoid getting into dangerous war‐threatening crises and, when such crises nonetheless occurred, to manage and terminate them without triggering escalation to war.