Think Tanks

Nonprofit research organizations engaging in public policy analysis, research, and often advocating solutions. The term think tanks describes a wide range of organizations established to assess the validity and utility of the ideas that form the basis for policy. In [Page 721]addition to evaluating ideas, think tanks often develop new concepts upon which future policies might be based.

Some think tanks are strictly nonpartisan, researching policy issues without regard to the political implications of their final analysis. Others view their main purpose as providing intellectual support to politicians or parties. Think tanks—more properly, public-policy research organizations—are ubiquitous in U.S. political life, and many occupy the same sphere of activity as interest groups, media consultants, spin doctors, and political parties.

The term think tank first was used during World War II and was applied to a secure room or environment where defense scientists and military planners could meet and confer over strategy. Today, the term is used to cover more than 2,000 U.S.-based organizations that engage in policy analysis and development—as well as at least 2,500 similar institutions worldwide.

Largely the consequence of efforts by leading phil-anthropists and intellectuals, the first major wave of think tanks in the United States began to emerge at the beginning of the 20th century. These initial enterprises were foreign-policy institutes where scholars and private-sector elites could meet, conduct research, and debate issues. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (established in 1910 by Pittsburgh steel baron Andrew Carnegie), the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace (created by President Herbert Hoover in 1919), and the Council on Foreign Relations (established in 1921) became the leading forums for the exchange of ideas and debate on international subjects in the early 20th century. Later to appear were the Brookings Institution, established in 1927, and the American Enterprise Institute, established in 1943.

Today, with the intensity of the competitive political debate, think tanks have come under as much censure as praise. According to journalist Tom Brazaitis, writing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, modern think tanks are “political idea factories where donations can be as big as the donor's checkbook and are seldom publicized.” Another critic has observed that “Think tanks are like universities minus the students and minus the systems of peer review and other mechanisms that academia uses to promote diversity of thought. Real academics are expected to conduct their research first and draw their conclusions second, but this process is often reversed at most policy-driven think tanks.”

However, not all assessments of think tanks are negative. Andrew Rich, a political scientist who has studied think tanks, says that they “remain a principal source of information and expertise for policy makers and journalists….Their studies and reports are regularly relied upon to guide and/or bolster members of Congress in their legislative efforts”.