Think Tanks

With more than 5,500 think tanks worldwide in more than 170 countries, their efforts to shape the political dialogue on a wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues have resulted in a global phenomenon. Indeed, the rise of think tanks has been so dramatic in recent years that directories and indices have been produced to track their growing numbers around the world.

In the academic literature, think tanks have been described in various ways. For some scholars, they resemble idea brokers or brain trusts where policy experts congregate to analyze and make recommendations to policymakers and other opinion [Page 1646]leaders on a wide range of complex policy issues. Others prefer employing more generic terms such as policy planning organizations or public policy research institutes to account for what these organizations do. But in the mainstream media, they are more commonly known as think tanks.

The term think tank was coined in the United States during World War II to refer to a secure room or environment where military planners could meet to discuss wartime strategy. However, in the ensuing years, the term has assumed a much broader meaning. For most scholars studying this diverse population of organizations, think tanks are institutions that, first and foremost, are committed to studying and making recommendations on a host of policy issues. The vast majority of think tanks are located in the United States, where they enjoy a degree of institutional independence comparable to corporations in the private sector; are affiliated with a university; and/or are created by, and serve the needs of, government. Among the most widely recognized think tanks in the United States are the RAND Corporation, the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In addition to sharing a common desire to influence public opinion and the policy preferences and choices of policymakers, think tanks possess other defining characteristics. For the most part, they are registered as nonprofit organizations (which means that they are tax exempt), nonpartisan (a legal requirement for acquiring and maintaining tax-exempt status), and engaged in research and analysis on one or more areas of domestic and/or foreign policy. However, in some countries, including Germany, think tanks are openly partisan. In that country, political parties and foundations establish think tanks to conduct research and to help formulate ideas for party members. Think tanks can range in size from less than a dozen researchers and staff to several hundred employees. The size of their budgets, areas of specialization, ideological orientation, and nature and sophistication of their research programs vary enormously. Because scholars are unable to reach a consensus on what constitutes a think tank, several have developed typologies or classifications to account for the different kinds of think tanks that populate the policy research community. Although these classifications vary, it is generally agreed that the most common types of think tanks fall into one of three main categories: policy research institutions, or what Kent Weaver has described as “universities without students”; government contractors or specialists; and advocacy think tanks. The extent to which think tanks conduct academic research and the various stakeholders with whom they attempt to share their ideas helps to situate these institutions within these and other categories. However, there is little doubt that the majority of think tanks that have emerged since the early 1970s are more advocacy oriented, a description reserved for those organizations that seek to combine policy research with political advocacy. The quintessential advocacy think tank is the Washington, D.C.–based Heritage Foundation, which has served as a model for countless other think tanks worldwide.

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