China in 2020: Bridging the Academic-Policy Gap with Scenario Planning

[  ] asia policy China in 2020: Bridging the Academic-Policy Gap with Scenario Planning Mercy Kuo & Andrew D. Marble This Asia Policy roundtable explores scenario planning as a method of “bridging the gap” between academic research and policymaking. Scenario planning is an exercise that combines the depth and rigor of intellectualscholarshipwiththeresults-oriented,forward-lookingpragmatism of policy analysis. The National Bureau of Asian Research recently employed this type of planning in a “China 2020” scenarios exercise. This exercise utilized scholarly concepts and rigorous academic methodology in an effort to assist policymakers by (1) offering alternative scenarios for developments in China’s foreign policy, domestic politics, economics, and society and (2) deriving from these scenarios possible future outcomes, or “futures,” for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) roughly fifteen years down the road. This introductory essay first overviews the gap between academic research and policymaking and then briefly overviews how the methodology of scenario planning can bring scholarly analysis to bear in a policymakerfriendly sketch of possible futures for China in the year 2020. The Academic-Policy Gap The inaugural issue of Asia Policy hosted a print roundtable, entitled “Bridging the Gap Between the Academic and Policy Worlds,” that featured a panel of academics with policymaking experience discussing the nexus between academic research and policymaking. These experts noted that for many decades, the U.S. government was able to broadly and effectively draw on academic research to inform policymaking in part because, after World War II, the U.S. government helped fund the establishment of various area studies centers around the country to bring together experts from different  “Bridging the Gap Between the Academic and Policy Worlds,” special roundtable, Asia Policy, no. 1 (January 2006): 2–41. Participants included Andrew D. Marble, Kenneth Liberthal, Emily O. Goldman, Robert Sutter, Ezra F. Vogel, and Celeste A. Wallander Mercy Kuo (PhD, Oxford University) is Director, Southeast Asia Studies at The National Bureau of Asian Research. She served from 2000 to 2006 with the Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, as an analyst on Asian affairs. She can be reached at . Andrew D. Marble (PhD, Brown University) is the Editor of Asia Policy and the general editor at The National Bureau of Asian Research. Before coming to NBR, he was the Editor of Issues & Studies: A Social Science Quarterly on China, Taiwan, and Asian Affairs. Submissions to the journal may be sent to . [  ] roundtable • china in the year 2020 fields of study with a common geographic interest. The region-specific research created by these centers provided policymakers with a key source of policy input. With the rise of behavioralism since the 1970s, however, academia has since undergone a structural shift to favoring the social sciences, an approach that emphasizes uncovering broad generalizations concerning political phenomena in general rather than understanding the rich texture of specific geographical locations at specific times. Academic insight is now not always as directly applicable to helping policymakers solve pressing policy issues, which tend to require focus on a particular region at a particular time. As the panel of scholars in the inaugural roundtable noted, however, academics can offer policymakers important insights. For one, at least compared to policymakers and their staff who are often pushed and pulled by daily events and have little time for in-depth research on any particular country or issue, scholars have a comparatively rich understanding of context given that many scholars have time to immerse themselves in one country, region, or issue—leading, for example, to a deep understanding of how the policy process works in particular countries. Second and perhaps more importantly, scholars rigorously test their theories and concepts related to why and how events occur and thus are aware of the limitations of such theories and concepts; policymakers often use both theory and concepts subconsciously and thus are unaware of how their tacit assumptions could lead to poor policymaking as conditions change. Third, unlike policy analysts in government, scholars have the intellectual freedom to express their personal views as formed via their in-depth, methodologically rigorous exploration of a particular issue. Academics are free to challenge the overall policy framework established by policy leaders— a luxury not available within the U.S. government...