Article What Is the Social Responsibility of Social Scientists to Influence National Security Affairs? Yagil Levy 1 Abstract Mainstream scholars of IR favor policy-relevant research, that is the agenda to influence government policymakers by offering policy recommendations. In this article, I offer a different perspective by presenting alternative arguments about social scientists’ responsibility to influence. By drawing on themes of public sociology and critical sociology, security studies and public policy, I argue that the core of this responsibility is to seek to influence policy via engagement with the public rather than with policymakers. Keywords public policy, democracy, deliberation, critical sociology, public sociology In his insightful book, Cult of the Irrelevant, Michael Desch (2019) assumes that scholars (he refers to the United States) should aspire to influence government policy makers by offering policy recommendations. He assumes rather than argues, and 1 Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication, The Open University of Israel, Raanana, Israel Corresponding Author: Yagil Levy, Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication, The Open University of Israel, P.O. Box 808, Raanana 43107, Israel. Emails: yagille@openu.ac.il; yagil.levy@gmail.com Armed Forces & Society 1-13 ª The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0095327X20917183 journals.sagepub.com/home/afs