While the Republican National Convention was in St. Paul this week, Minnesota Public Radio gathered a bipartisan group of former diplomats and a former U.S. congressman from Minnesota to discuss some of the foreign policy challenges facing the next president.

In summarizing the commonalities between the foreign policy challenges that panelists had listed, former Secretary of State and current chair of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) Madeleine Albright had this to say:

“The bottom line is - Politicians or people in the government are required to take immediate action to respond to something. And yet, the issues that are going to bite us….are all issues that take much longer to work out…As politicians, people are required to deliver now. And sometimes that immediate deliverable takes the place of something that takes longer to work out and doesn’t show immediate results. And so, the sequencing of things is what worries me.”

We’ve blogged before about the challenges public innovators face in balancing long-term goals with the short-term pressures of an upcoming election. But what are the factors that encourage politicians to make short-term sacrifices in service of a long-term goal? And how much of this decision is based on the individual’s personality versus the greater social environment and the public’s willingness to sacrifice? And how can we as the public better encourage politicians and government officials to take a longer-term view?

These are some of the many questions we’ll be examining in upcoming research. In the meantime, if you have an opinion of your own, we’d love to hear it. You can submit it to us here.