The Minerva Research Initiative Social Scientific Knowledge Production as Organizational Strategy

Abstract

In response to a number of military failures in a rapidly changing war environment, the Department of Defense put forth major efforts to incorporate social science research into the US national defense strategy. Three such efforts—Project Camelot, Human Terrain Systems, and the Minerva Research Initiative—represent iterative Department of Defense efforts to better understand and change their organizational environment through legitimate academic knowledge production. Our investigation of these efforts demonstrates that when the Department of Defense wants specific information and has a difficult time obtaining it, it eventually finds a way to produce it, in this case by employing tactics similar to those employed by economic elites when they want to develop knowledge that will help them achieve their goals.