Dynamist Blog

The Diversity of Think Tanks

In response to my posting and Dan Drezner's link and original posting, Fabio Rojas (a sometime contributor to Marginal Revolution) emails us both with a outside scholar's view of the landscape:

I think Virginia Postrel only gets one side of the story correct when she writes about think tanks. Of course, Postrel is correct in saying that many think tanks are media driven entities. They do specialize in producing ideologically driven "research" designed for op-eds, TV, and donors. However, you and Postrel focus on the most visible types of think tanks. The world of "think tanks" is extremely diverse, ranging from the Rand Corporation to the Cato Institute. Like any industry, think tanks — defined as intellectual organizations trying to develop policy proposals for politicians and bureaucrats — are a complex group. Here's my take on things:

1. Highly partisan & media-oriented think tanks — These are large, high profile organizations that have strong partisan and ideological identifications. Their goal is to support intellectuals whowill promote a particular agenda or ideology. They depend on private donor and occasional pubic grants, but aim to selectively distill academic and government research into items that can be easily disseminated into the mass media. If they are large enough, they might support some original research, like Brookings. These organizations produce very little that is taken seriously by practitioners and academics.

2. Industry or Public Sector ThinkTanks — These are organizations that adopt a rational, scientific stance towards pubic policy or industry issues. Their job is to serve their sector by conducting serious studies on behalf of a benefactor using accepted research techniques, or occasionally supporting basic science. Some of these organizations actually avoid publicity, as it might compromise their ability to conduct research on sensitive topics. The Rand Corporation is a good example. Some are industry specific — think of the American Bar Foundation. Since these organizations don't depend on publicity, but on reputable research, they are much more likely to have individuals with close ties to academia and reputable government agencies or private laboratories.

3> Broker Think Tank — This is a fairly obscure sector most people don't know about. Individuals, universities, corporations, interest groups, and other think tanks produce so much knowledge and ideas that it is impossible for political elites and partisan think tank people to sort through it all. There are think tanks that specialize in sorting through complex policy debates and give a succinct summary to politicians and their aids. Some of the smaller "neocon" think tanks fit this mold — they commission reports and books where policy intellectuals compress years of debate into an easy to read format for other conservatives. These folks rarely make it to the op-ed page or Fox News, but they write articles in policy journals and opinion journals. You might say broker think tanks support "policy" intellectuals who provide the academic ammunition for more visible fights in the media, and for more refined discussion in movement forums.

To answer Dan's question — what's the value added? Media oriented think tanks specialize in publicity for ideas — as long as they easily fit into a particular political agenda. Sector think tanks specialize in producing knowledge for consumption among professionals. The brokers are the intellectual middle men & women of the policy world. With respect to Virginia Postrel's post, yes, the partisan think tanks are so dominated by media that they barely produce any thing that might be considered a contribution to knowledge, but remember there is a vast network of other think tanks that do many other things.

Maybe my brain has been warped by too many years in the think tank world, but I think this is an important discussion to have--and one that's unlikely to occur publicly except on blogs. Tyler Cowen has posted some thoughts. More to come here, as well.

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