The participation of research and studies centers in decision-making
Written by: A.M. Alaa Oreibi Ghanem – Arab Democratic Center
Research and studies centers have received wide-ranging and wide-ranging attention in the last decades of the twentieth century, as they have become one of the important alternatives in the process of the state’s development and its evaluation of scientific research and its prospects for the scientific future in accordance with the scientific and cognitive perspective of the development of human societies in general. Research centers have become an important and pioneering role. In the leadership of global policies recently, and it has become a major tool for the production of many effective strategic projects. It has also become an integral part of the development political landscape in many developed countries. It has also risen to a position in which it has become one of the main actors in drawing the political, social, economic and educational trends of countries and one of the Those influencing them are called reservoirs of thought, and accordingly, think tanks and opinion institutions have drawn a pivotal role in shaping the foreign policy of developed countries in general and the United States in particular. The United States of America is a model and not a promotion. Here we strikeProverbs and proverbs are striking and immeasurable ….
In the United States of America there are nearly (2000) centers for research studies in various specializations, as the Congress invites some of its experts and they appear before it and testify as experts to Congress every month for a number of centers to participate in decision-making, develop strategies for the state and provide advice to the President of the Republic and policy makers, facts and figures It is necessary for journalists and media professionals, and some of these centers are specific to certain continents or countries, and it is to be noted that the United States adopts this method because those who established it are the “founding fathers and were thinkers.”
And the important research centers that alert decision-makers in countries to how to make decisions away from improvisation that leads to mistakes. The information provided by these institutes and research centers passes through sensitive filters tasked with making the American political and strategic decision-making, which are collectively called institutions: the presidency, defense, foreign affairs and Congress, and internal affairs are represented by the ministries of interior, economy and health, and the second line of support for these key institutions comes: The intelligence service, the National Security Council, the diplomatic corps, the military bases scattered all over the world, then the media. Thus the studies of the research centers are presented as a resource of the decision-making institutions in the United States of America, that much of the research adopted by the research centers turns into advisory when they conflict With other resources. As for those that match other resources, they are referred to the application.
Scientific research is one of the most important activities that the human mind practices. It is known that the progress of nations and their civilizational renaissance depends on their care and interest in it and its applications. Hence, this importance of scientific research requires attention to its institutions and tools, such as universities, research centers and studies, whether governmental or private. Because of its essential role in the decision-making process, and in preparing the general policies of countries.
Hence, I suggest the Iraqi government to go towards research and studies centers, and we have a lot to work in one hand to serve the Iraqi national interests, and to be among the influential parties in the composition of Iraqi foreign policy, and the role of research and studies centers is the most important and most effective, as it is possible to draw these The centers have economic and social policies and plans, and there is a clamor in the community of discussion on various topics, as opinions are raised about how to manage the country’s affairs, and the state has an effective foreign policy, and considers itself seriously concerned with what is happening outside its borders so that it affects and is affected by it. Allowing studies and research centers to provide analyzes, consultations and recommendations that represent the outcome of the work of experts in the various fields of interest of the leadership, so that some of these centers have in some periods been transformed into a foreign ministry in the “shadow”, which plays a major role and influence.
Studies centers are bridging the gap between the academic sphere on the one hand, and government institutions on the other hand. In universities, research is conducted with a theoretical and methodological background, away from everyday political problems. Within government agencies, employees are drowning in the daily requirements of policymaking, making it difficult for them to take a step back to take into account the broad landscape of US policy. The centers play the role of bridging the gap between thought and practice.
The ideas put forward by the study centers play the role of building new concepts of national interests, influencing the arrangement of priorities, providing roadmaps necessary to implement policies, and building a new design for collapsing institutions.
The centers must strive behind expanding the extent of their influence to include the elites, public opinion, and contemporary, different and diverse media, to publish a large part of their intellectual and political production, while keeping another part under the degree of secrecy, and the study centers have a major role in building elite and non-elite public opinion Thus, it constitutes a large and effective leverage in guiding the decision.
And to be an element to attract the attention of policy-makers, who are always busy and already drowning in the flow of information, study centers to penetrate the many channels of the media and rely on marketing strategies for their proposals, such as: publishing articles, books and research concurrent with raising issues, appearing periodically on television channels, writing in pages Public opinion, appearing in press interviews, producing easy-to-read research papers and working papers, creating websites, as well as presenting scientific lectures in front of government institutions, and centers are formed by the efforts of pressure forces and interest groupings towards the methodology of their influence on the internal and external policies of the state.
Therefore, study centers are a complex structure of political, social, intellectual, economic and ideological in society, and therefore the evaluation of what is issued by them needs a set of determinants that take into account that structure, as well as what imposes itself in terms of structural standards related to the capabilities of each center separately, and this needs cooperation Between the government and those centers, the increasing role of research centers is an expression of the transition of scientific research from the stage of the “individual researcher” to the stage of the “researcher – institution”. The human intellectual history went through these two centralities, as research and thought centered in one stage around the individual, then moved The scientist refers to the centrality of the institution, or in other words, collective thinking or collective action in thought, in which the researcher uses the expertise that the institution provides to him, including the diversity of disciplines it includes, without canceling his individual opinion or his personal diligence.
Moreover, I propose to the Iraqi government to create an undersecretary position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for political and strategic planning, to lay down political and strategic plans, and put this article in the hands of the concerned authorities, in addition to that I offer my modest services in this aspect in the service of the Iraqi state.
