Sean Richey emails:
I just wanted to mention that political scientists also often publish in other fields that may have more obvious concrete relevance. Statistics is a good example. Public health is another. Brendan Nyhan, Jason Reifler and I have a forthcoming article in a top pediatrics journal, the Journal of Adolescent Health. We use ideas from the political networks literature to show how social networks shape attitudes toward vaccines among college students. I doubt many would question the value of research on vaccines. There are many other examples of basic research in political science influencing more applied research in different fields.
Here is the article, entitled “The Role of Social Networks in Influenza Vaccine Attitudes and Intention Among College Students.”