Widening the horizons of EU foreign policy teaching and research: Reflections on the Antero panel with practitioners (P. Lehtonen)

Submitted by poznan on Tue, 01/26/2016 - 17:19

During Antero’s December workshop in Brussels, the network organised a panel with two senior EU foreign policy officials. The aim was to identify issues of European foreign policy not sufficiently covered in university teaching and research from the practitioners’ perspective.

It became evident that both academics and policy officials tend to departmentalise their thinking, limiting it only to their current sphere of action. Sharing our thoughts only amongst ‘ourselves’ in rather homogenous groups creates blind spots and may distort our understanding of policies and ultimately, of the world. It seems that we in a way resemble horses wearing blinkers while we race our separate career tracks unaware of what is happening elsewhere. But is this an issue solvable by enhancing communication and cooperation between the academy and the practitioners? And how should it be done?

Research has recently been encouraged to become more multidisciplinary and it would certainly also benefit from cooperation with non-academic actors. Researchers usually get only glimpses into the world of policies ‘out there’ through their fieldwork, and publish studies which probably will be read by a handful of similarly oriented people. As for the policy officials, their work is sometimes too concentrated to Brussels, with poor connection to political events outside the EU bureaucracy.

The enthusiasm academics show to study and teach EU institutions and organigrams seemed excessive to the practitioners we met. They said it would be more fruitful to assess the impacts of policies. That would also help research to produce more policy relevant knowledge. Concentrating research on the institutions and powerful elites of European countries is furthermore an ethical issue in EU research. Perhaps we focus on institutions because they are not as volatile as the realities of foreign policy and thus easier subjects of study. But shouldn’t we increasingly be informed of the human beings affected by European policies?

One way to remove our ‘academic blinkers’ fixated with institutions would be to invite a range of experts to visit classes. These specialists would include policy officials, but not only them. It was suggested during the workshop, that students would also benefit from interaction with subjects affected by policies – a topical example of such a person would be an asylum seeker. In addition, involving anyone with experience of fieldwork, such as a military officer or a humanitarian worker, would be helpful in educating students about the multiplicity of perspectives and realities. Of course, teaching is limited in time and finances, which implies organising classes with a variety of visitors might prove wishful thinking, especially at universities not situated in Brussels. Nonetheless, in the Antero context, we might be able to carry out these visits in various institutions teaching similar courses and record them to be used by the others.

Another teaching practice with potential and needs to engage non-academics would be the simulations of realistic foreign policy events. Cooperating with policy officials would be particularly useful in the case of simulations as the officials are familiar with making difficult policy choices. They could ideally comment on the simulations created for teaching or even be present at parts of them. This would clarify the constraints policy implementers face, as well as inform students and teachers of the complexities and pressures involved.

Concerning the blind spots in teaching, the question of ‘skills versus substance knowledge’ was raised during the panel. That is, what skills would be essential to teach and how much factual knowledge do students need. Obviously this is a conundrum to which we gained no simple solution, especially noting that the practitioners probably don’t know what exactly is currently being taught. The panellists stated that it is important for students to understand what is happening and know how to act. They reminded that the skills and knowledge needed depend entirely on the nature of the practical work each student will be doing in the future, hence encouraging internships and learning by doing.

It seems indeed impossible to cover the whole spectrum of practical skills and knowledge related to European foreign policy in teaching. But luckily, we can widen our horizons by reaching out to non-academic experts in this field. In practice, for instance collaboration with policy officials may well give rise to new internship opportunities at their institutions. Furthermore, as it was noted at the Antero workshop, students could be involved as organisers of the events hosting outside experts, thus gaining skills. Perhaps this organising work could even be considered as an internship in itself. Another idea worth exploring voiced at the workshop was that students would be very motivated to present papers or posters to the visiting experts, on the subject of developing certain policy areas. This might be helpful to the practitioners too, firstly in helping them to lift their ‘practical constraint blinkers’ and secondly, because they rarely have time to develop a political question in depth due to these practical limitations.

 by Pinja Lehtonen, University of Tampere