Another part of the problem is the different professional expectations in each realm. As you know, given that you have straddled both worlds, what is important for think tankers (an oped in the Washington Post, a piece in Foreign affairs, and a book contract with Random House) means little in the academic world. On the flip side, that killer theoretical article in APSR is met with a yawn from the policy community.

There are people out there who have done a good job at straddling both worlds, but it is difficult given these widely varying professional expectations.

The point of this post is that the new association wishes to be taken seriously as an ACADEMIC counterweight to MESA. We know very well that its sponsors are influential in the policy world, and good or bad, that’s frankly just a side effect of American politics. The policy vs academic debate is probably not one that can be resolved, but just as policy people are right to push academics to make their work more relevant to the real world, academics are right to stand up for real research and for their own credentialling mechanisms.

I suspect that SP is an academic (or in training tobe one). I take issue with his/her claim (not supported by the evidence) that those who work at think-tanks are politicized hacks who speak in pseudo-academic language. Many of the people who work at organizations like Brookings, CFR, CSIS, and the Carnegie Endowment have the same training as folks in traditional academic departments, have spent long stretches of time overseas, and have a good dela of language training. For one reason or another (family? finances? interest in policy?), they have decided to take a different path.

Traditional academics tend to bemoan the fact that they are not influential. Their voices should be heard more often, but they have got to stop insulting the people who are influential. It’s no way to get a seat at the table.

By the way, I hear Juan Cole has been doing quite a bit of consulting at CIA.

Re-reading the passage I quoted I see your point, but the way in which Lewis wrote it is ambiguous at best since he does not refer to Nazism or Bolshevism as perversions. It sounds more to me like he’s saying Nazism and Bolshevism were the first and second perversions, and then Islam the third. But I agree there is some margin for interpretation there. Still, poor choice of words. With your meaning, Islamism would have been just as a good word, since many forms of Islamisms are generally thought of as quite acceptable (e.g. AKP in Turkey, etc., although Lewis might differ on this point.)

MESA does very little that’s overtly political, perhaps its academic freedom initiative is the one big statement in the past few years, so they’ll have to be contested on the academic rather than political plane, which I’m not sure the ‘cons are so good at. If these guys want to be taken at all seriously as a new institutional counterweight they’re going to have to show membership.

To the detriment of everyone.

Christ.

And as for the academics who sign on to this association, they’ll probably still have to go to MESA or AAA or APSA to get actual academic jobs.

One thing: it’s easy for academics to dismiss MEQ on scholarly grounds, but it unfortunately has a political influence way beyond its puny intellectual calibre. As do many politicized think tanks (in some cases glorified lobbies) that policymakers prefer to consult to universities.

As for their critique of MESA and Middle East studies in US in the general, they make it sound like it’s some sort of a strict disciplined micromanaging union - it’s not. It serves a limited functional purpose and brings people together to present papers and hire new PhDs. It does not credential scholars or decide who can or cannot teach Middle East related material in universities - graduate departments giving out PhDs do that. Despite Lewis & co’s silly insinuations about MESA funding and fantasies about being independent underdogs, MESA is funded by membership dues too.

I’m afraid the neocons are going to find themselves in a position of throwing a party that nobody wants to come to. At best this new association might just offer a recruitment shop for a niche market of conservative Middle East scholars but they’ve already tried that with the Middle East Forum/Middle East Quarterly, and look at the standards of publication and scholarship those represent: http://www.mequarterly.org/