In casting their ballots for either George Bush or John Kerry today, Americans will indirectly influence the halls of academia across the nation.

Whoever emerges victorious will face the daunting task of assembling an administration, either the second for Bush or the first for Kerry.

The winner will have to appoint nearly 7,000 civil service leadership positions and support personnel as outlined in the “Plum Book,” a manual listing all the political appointees in the federal government. Recent trends show that a select few of those appointees will be drawn from the ranks of the nation’s top professors.

At the same time, many political appointees from the outgoing administration will face sudden unemployment – a transition that is exacerbated if the party in power changes. Those that are qualified to do so often consider teaching positions.

Combined, the two effects yield a game of musical chairs, of sorts, between academia and the government that is played every four years.

“It’s a counter-cyclical system that promotes democracy and effectively deals out criticism of the current policy makers,” Andrew Bennett, associate professor of government, said. Bennett served the nation as a special assistant to the Secretary of Defense during President Bill Clinton’s (SFS ’68) first term and has also advised every Democratic presidential candidate since 1984 on foreign policy issues.

To what extent the game will be played out this year depends largely on the outcome of the election.

“If we go from this Bush administration to another Bush administration then there are not going to be that many openings in the government,” Scott Fleming (SFS ’72), assistant to the president for federal relations, said.

“However, I cannot imagine if John Kerry is elected president that he would not consult with Madeline [Albright], Bob [Gallucci] and Anthony Lake. They are logical people where [sic] he would turn.”

Albright and Lake both served under Clinton and are currently Georgetown professors. Gallucci, dean of the School of Foreign Service, had a long career with both the U.S. State Department and the United Nations prior to coming to Georgetown. Fleming came to Georgetown after a career in public service including time at the Department of Education where he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary and Director of Congressional Affairs from 1995 to 2001.

Universities, similar to think tanks, serve almost as a shadow government for the political opposition, Bennett said. He described think tanks as universities without the students. They use political scientists and experts to analyze key political issues.

“There are some people in Washington who go to think tanks and universities bidding their time and waiting to return to government when the party in power changes,” he said. “When Republicans are in, Democrats go to academia and think tanks, and when democrats are in power, Republicans go there.”

Arturo Valenzuela, professor of government and the director of the Center for Latin American Studies, worked for Clinton in several capacities, including as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. He said that despite much public perception concerning the connections between universities and political appointees, few people actually transition between the two.

“There really is a huge gap between policy and the academic world,” he said. “Academics for the most part don’t know how to talk to policy makers and policy makers don’t generally pay attention to them.”

Georgetown’s location in Washington, D.C., and its academic focus on government and international affairs makes it one of the few universities to effectively bridge the gap between the two, he said.

That was the case for Valenzuela, who first came to Georgetown after teaching at Duke University. In 1993 he was appointed to by Clinton to be Deputy Assistant Secretary of State.

“When people are brought into an administration, it’s because they’ve worked with them before. It doesn’t happen that people sit around with lists and try to pick people out,” he said. “You’ve got to know them in some way. It’s a very serendipitous process.”

While political affiliation is extremely important, he said that expertise is also valued.

“Every administration has to try to have some balance between career people and political people,” he said.

Political appointees provide direction and innovation while career bureaucrats provide institutional memory, he added.

Emphasizing personal connections as a significant factor in determining some appointees, Valenzuela cited Clinton as an example.

“[Clinton] appointed people that he knew well from Georgetown to important positions, but these tended to be people like his roommates,” he said. Clinton named one roommate, Kit Ashby (SFS ’68), as U.S. Ambassador to Uruguay.

During his time working for the government, Valenzuela was on leave of absence from the university. Georgetown typically grants professors two years of leave of absence time. In Valenzuela’s case, his was extended to three. He returned briefly to the university in 1996 but soon left again to work for Clinton’s second administration.

“Unlike other places, Georgetown values its faculty that has policy experience,” he said.

That Georgetown values its relationship with the federal government is no secret.

“President DeGioia has said that one of his priorities is to capitalize on our location in Washington, D.C.,” Fleming said.

“Stargazing” into the future, Fleming said that there were several alumni currently working in government with whom “we’ve had a very warm and cordial relationship.”

Fleming mentioned Andrew Natsios (COL ’71), the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Frederick Schieck (SFS ’60), the deputy administrator of the same agency, and Maura Ann Harty (SFS ’81), the assistant secretary of state for consular affairs as people with whom Georgetown is cultivating particularly close relationships.

Neither have professors like Valenzuela and Bennett ruled out a return to government. Both worked for Democratic administrations in the past and said that returning, perhaps to a new Kerry administration, would depend entirely on the positions offered to them.

George Tenet (SFS ’76), whose long career in government included serving as the Director of Central Intelligence under both Clinton and President George W. Bush, recently joined the Georgetown faculty as a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy. He joins Jose Maria Aznar, the former president of Spain, as recent additions to the Georgetown faculty who have extensive government experience.