Think tank

A think tank is an institute that influences public opinion by researching, developing, and evaluating political, social, and economic concepts and strategies, thus promoting them in the sense of policy advice. In doing so, some think tanks advocate a particular political or ideological line that is aggressively promoted to influence policy debates. A think tank may be organized as a foundation, association, society, or informal group. It usually employs economists, social scientists, advertising and communication professionals, as well as (former) politicians, entrepreneurs and so-called testimonials.

However, there is no generally accepted definition. The term "think tank" encompasses a wide variety of institutions that have in common the desire to influence politics. In linguistic usage, however, the term also subsumes institutions that do not pursue political goals.

The most important functions of think tanks include the presentation of research results and agenda setting. Forcing a public and scientific debate and advising politics, administration and the public are central. In the USA, think tanks serve to train a pool of experts who later become part of the administration as government officials through the revolving door effect.

The term "think tank" originated during the Second World War. The paraphrase applied to a bug-proof place (tank) where civilian and military experts worked on military strategies (think). It was not until the 1960s and 1970s that the term was used to describe practice-oriented research institutions outside the realm of security policy.

In Germany, think tanks are predominantly publicly funded, for example by the Leibniz Association or also by state funds as in the case of political foundations (e.g. the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Heinrich Böll Foundation, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Friedrich Ebert Foundation or the Konrad Adenauer Foundation). In addition, there are also some privately funded think tanks that are supported by parties, associations, companies, federations, private foundations or individuals.

Forms of think tanks

One can distinguish different types of think tanks:

• Dieter Plehwe distinguishes between "advocacy think tanks" and "academic think tanks".
• James G. McGann distinguishes for the USA between "academic" (academic consideration), "contract" (research concerning the client), "advocacy" (political-ideological line) and "political" think tanks (fundamental strategy).

Nevertheless, not all think tanks would fit in there, so there would be mixed forms and additionally one could still separate according to political opinion.

Government think tanks

These think tanks work primarily for the government and are mainly financed by the state. For their research, they can mostly rely on the help of state authorities. Their research results are often secret and therefore not published. An archetype of the government think tank is the RAND Corporation.

Advocacy think tanks

Advocacy think tanks rarely engage in research; their primary function is to market and repackage ideas. They advocate a particular political or ideological line that is aggressively promoted to influence policy debates. Unlike academic think tanks, advocacy think tanks do not engage in independent academic analysis, but buy outside expertise that fits the content of their mission statement and communication strategy. Advocacy think tanks are created by interest groups and have a clear socio-economic policy orientation. According to Dieter Plehwe, advocacy think tanks are difficult to distinguish from lobby organizations. The model for this type is the US Heritage Foundation. It introduced the idea of policy briefs, which are so short and concise that they can be read by policymakers on their way from the airport to Congress, for example. They focus primarily on short-term decision-making horizons and make intensive use of the media. The team usually consists of a few scientists and mainly PR people who "sell" these ideas.

A specifically German variant of the advocacy think tanks are the party-affiliated foundations, which are party-affiliated and co-financed by the state. The budget negotiations of the party-affiliated foundations take place in the Bundestag. Taxpayers' money is used to fund scholarship programs, congresses, journals, and studies. The foundations' branches include prestigious estates, are represented abroad and in the federal states. According to Michael Schlieben, they are "networks as broad as they are close-meshed." They are said to be better acquainted with party procedures than external advisors and thus more likely to implement reforms. These think tanks are criticised by outsiders, who say that "friendly experts are invited, unpleasant research results are withheld, money is regularly squandered, and lateral thinkers are unwanted". Thunert counts the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Hanns Seidel Foundation, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation among the party-affiliated foundations. Thanks to state funding, these are large think tanks whose work sometimes resembles the approach of academic think tanks. Other large German advocacy think tanks include the employer-affiliated Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (INSM) and Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft, as well as the trade union-affiliated Hans Böckler Foundation.

Education policy professors Alex Molnar and Kevin G. Welner examined 59 studies published by 26 different American advocacy think tanks on U.S. education policy in a review project from 2006 to 2010. They concluded that the studies were unobjectionable in some cases, but flawed in most. Those think tanks where they saw methodological errors would continually repeat those errors over the years. Most of these think tanks would also fail to act on evidence to that effect. The authors of the study came to the conclusion that these errors were often not based on ignorance or carelessness, but were the result of deliberate misleading (junk science).

Academic think tanks

Academic think tanks, sometimes referred to as "universities without students," employ numerous academics who produce and publish scientific studies. They tend to conduct basic research and have a long-term time horizon in order to influence the opinion of elites. The "progenitor" of this type is the Brookings Institution in the USA.

History

United Kingdom

As early as 1831, the Duke of Wellington founded the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank for military and security issues that still exists today.

USA

Among the oldest think tanks in the US, founded as early as the 1910s, were the Council on Foreign Relations CFR, the Brookings Institution, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. This group, composed of influential investment bankers, businessmen, academics and politicians, represented the internationalist ideals of US President Wilson.

The 1st President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Elihu Root was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize as early as 1912 for his constant efforts to balance interests and formulate arbitration treaties in international conflicts, and would later become Honorary President of the CFR. CFR co-founder Wickersham also founded the League of Nations Non-Partisan Association (LNNPA) with John Hessin Clarke, a justice of the United StatesSupreme Court, to persuade the American people to join the League of Nations. These internationalist institutions were distinguished by the homogeneity of their membership. Thus, the members of these groups were exclusively men, came from the American East Coast, had close business, social, and cultural ties with one another, were mostly wealthy, belonged to upper social classes, and had been educated at the famous elite universities of the United States. They had almost no contact with the electorate, members of middle management or middle-class businesses. The internationalism they coined and an associated globalization rhetorically addressed all citizens, but mostly reached only other internationalists or members of the foreign policy establishment. The liberal Mont Pelerin Society was founded in 1947, the RAND Corporation in 1948. Until then, think tanks were not referred to as such; the few dozen institutes were known simply by their names.

Origin of the term

Originally, think tank was a British slang term for brain. During the Second World War, it was used to describe groups that designed military strategies in bug-proof rooms. The term took on the association of a safe place to think ("think tank," locked room). After World War II, think tank evolved to refer to policy advisory institutions, places where experts from different disciplines were gathered to engage in concentrated interdisciplinary thinking. A factory-like production of ideas, however, as suggested by the direct literal sense of the German translation "Denkfabrik", is not meant.

Until the 1970s, it remained with the few dozen known think tanks that were called upon for general and independent advice to political and military authorities in the USA. They usually had a lot of staff and money at their disposal to do so. Only then did the number of think tanks explode, and many smaller institutions emerged, more often to support targeted lobbying.

Of the more than 6,300 think tanks that existed in the world in 2009, half were founded after 1980. After 1989, (economic) liberal think tanks were increasingly founded in Eastern Europe, mostly with American financial support. In Western Europe, the advisory functions of think tanks were long taken over by institutions with university status.