Think Tanks Public Policy And The Politics Of Expertise

While the number of think tanks active in American politics has more than quadrupled since the 1970s, their influence has not expanded proportionally. Instead, the known ideological proclivities of many, especially newer think tanks with their aggressive efforts to obtain high profiles, have come to undermine the credibility with which experts and expertise are generally viewed by public officials. This book explains this paradox. The analysis is based on 135 in-depth interviews with officials at think tanks and those in the policy making and funding organizations that draw upon and support their work. The book reports on results from a survey of congressional staff and journalists and detailed case studies of the role of experts in health care and telecommunications reform debates in the 1990s and tax reduction in 2001.

This innovative book explores think tanks from the perspective of critical policy studies, showcasing how knowledge, power and politics intersect with the ways in which think tanks intervene in public policy.

This important Handbook is a comprehensive guide to the role, function and perceived impact of policy research-oriented institutions in North America, Europe and beyond. Over 20 international scholars explore the diverse and eclectic world of think tanks to reveal their structure, governance and unique position in occupying a critical space on the public-policy landscape.

Over the past half-century, think tanks have become fixtures of American politics, supplying advice to presidents and policy makers, expert testimony on Capitol Hill, and convenient facts and figures to journalists and media specialists. But what are think tanks? Who funds them? What kind of “research” do they produce? Where does their authority come from? And how influential have they become? In Think Tanks in America, Thomas Medvetz argues that the unsettling ambiguity of the think tank is less an accidental feature of its existence than the very key to its impact. By combining elements of more established sources of public knowledge—universities, government agencies, businesses, and the media—think tanks exert a tremendous amount of influence on the way citizens and lawmakers perceive the world, unbound by the more clearly defined roles of those other institutions. In the process, they transform the government of this country, the press, and the political role of intellectuals. Timely, succinct, and instructive, this provocative book will force us to rethink our understanding of the drivers of political debate in the United States.

Think tank traditions is a follow up to the critically acclaimed monograph Think Tanks across Nations (Manchester University Press, 1998), edited by the same authors, which was widely acknowledged as a ground-breaking work in the comparative study of think tanks. The book looks at the historical role and contemporary significance of think tanks in the West, including Europe, the United States and Canada, as well as considering their activities in China, Eastern Europe and Argentina. In so doing, the book provides a broad-based and in-depth analysis of the role of think tanks in the processes of economic liberalization and democratization.

This text provides a cutting edge analysis of the increasingly central role think tanks play in societies worldwide. Examining their control of global resources both in economic and political policy fields and their inroads into structures of power, it addresses key questions. How have think thanks reached these positions of power? Has the northern core produced neoliberal clones that have hydra-like colonised the globe? Who funds and controls these think tanks and for what purpose? How is policy making knowledge created? How are new policy ideas propagated and validated? How do think tanks become dominant sources of knowledge in public spheres including the media? Exploring the dynamics of think tank networks in specific regions and countries, this book considers the coalitions they generate to advance the social purpose they endorse and, in particular, the spaces they occupy in the structures and fields of power at the national, regional and global level.

Think tanks are proliferating. Although they are outside of government, many of these policy research institutes are perceived to influence political thinking and public policy. This book develops ideas about policy networks, epistemic communities and policy learning in relation to think tanks.