Abstract
This article examines the competences required for a career in scientific policy consultancy (especially in the field of foreign policy) in Germany and the extent to which university education in the field of political science can and does prepare for this occupation. Our analysis indicates that both university education and on-the-job training are equally important for such a career. Among the broad competences, ‘analytical skills’ and ‘expertise/know-how and experience’ are regarded as more important than ‘communication skills’ and ‘customer focus’. We have found that political consultants would prefer university programmes to include more practical elements, including a greater degree of involvement of policy-makers, and more integrated internships and innovative forms of studying such as role play and the drafting of policy papers. When comparing these findings with the university programmes offered, an ambiguous picture emerges. On the one hand, it is clear that most universities are making a concerted effort to offer new innovative programmes and to meet the challenges of the Bologna process. On the other hand, traditional perceptions and methodologies of university education have been preserved. There thus seems to be a certain gap between ambition and implementation. The article limits itself to analysing the German case but nevertheless aims at encouraging a European-wide debate about political science programmes and scientific political consulting.
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Notes
The terms ‘scientific policy advice’, ‘scientific policy consulting’ and ‘scientific political consulting’ will be used interchangeably here. We have opted not to use the term ‘political consulting’; for, without the prefix ‘scientific’, the term usually refers, especially in the US context, to general consulting in political matters, and particularly to an industry that has grown up around advising and assisting political campaigns. In terms of content, what we denote by ‘scientific policy advice’ is broader than what is usually referred to as ‘political consulting’, as it often goes beyond political campaigning. It also differs from the latter by more expressly and substantially drawing on expert, scientific or academic input.
For a detailed summary of the different models see Lompe (2006).
Decisionism refers to a philosophical position holding that moral norms are not derived from objective and immutable ethical laws but rather depend on a subjective act of will. In legal discourse, the term denotes a similar idea according to which legal norms are neither based nor depend on universally applicable laws of nature. What is important for the applicability of a law is therefore not its particular content but that it has been derived from the proper legal authority. In sociology and political science, however, decisionism is understood in the Habermasian sense according to which politicians define the objectives and means of political action. In this model, the role of scientists/experts is limited to providing expertise to previously defined objectives. Political action is therefore first and foremost political rather than utilitarian.
This and some of the subsequent parts of this section are based on Böckenförde and Niemann (2005).
Other examples include Rita Süssmuth, Alfred Müller-Armack, Karl Schiller, Rupert Scholz and Horst Ehmke.
Notable US ‘commuters’ include, among others, Condoleezza Rice, Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, Richard Haass, Stephen Krasner, Samuel Huntington, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Joseph Nye as well as Paul Wolfowitz.
Contrary to the results of the conference, the so-called ‘Kassel study’ found that 60 per cent of university representatives included in the inquiry expected the Bologna reforms to have positive effects on transnational student mobility. The degree to which the study reflects the actual situation is, however, questionable given that it mainly considered programmes that already include mobility as a mandatory degree requirement (Hellmann and Peltzer-Hönicke, 2006: I).
While the number of outgoing Erasmus students increased from 73,407 in 1994/1995 to 84,642 in 1995/1996 for instance, it decreased to 79,874 in 1996/1997 then to increase again to 85,999 in 1997/1998 (European Commission, 2008: 1).
For instance, see the offer of the private German Institute for Public Affairs, www.dipa-berlin.org.
In total, fifty-one consultants of the following institutes participated in the inquiry: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik (DGAP), Centrum für angewandte Politikforschung (CAP), Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE), Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), and Berlin Polis. Hence, consultants were chosen from the largest and most representative think tanks, while also including one smaller institute. We also ensured that respondents represented different (thematic and geographic) areas of scientific foreign policy advice, including specialists on the European Union, the Middle East, Russia, security policy, development policy, external energy policy and so forth.
Of our fifty-one surveyed consultants 67 per cent held a degree in political science, 30 per cent in economics, 9 per cent in law, 9 per cent in history, 9 per cent in area studies. Multiple entries were allowed.
Partly for reasons connected with safeguarding the anonymity of interviewees, the authors have abstained from describing the specific features and qualities of the programmes of specific universities. Neither is the inquiry meant to offer a guide to individual Master's programmes in detail.
‘Hard skills’ are defined here as analytical competence, expert knowledge and (practical) experience.
By ‘soft skills’ we mean social competences and communication skills, including rhetorical and (foreign/technical) language competencies.
The focus on these disciplines is based on the well-founded assumption that they are especially well-suited for preparing students for a career in scientific political consulting. This assumption is confirmed by the results of our inquiry, above, and is also supported by Schattenberg and Steuber (2006). The choice of relevant programmes to include in the inquiry is based on the results obtained by using the online search engine Hochschulkompass (2007).We have analysed the following Master's programmes:
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Niemann, A., Heister, S. Scientific Political Consulting and University Education in Germany: Demand and Supply Patterns in the Context of the Bologna Process. Eur Polit Sci 9, 398–416 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2010.17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2010.17