- This article is about the institution. For other meanings, see Think Tank.
A think tank is a research institute or other organization providing advice and ideas on problems of policy, commerce, and military interest, and are often associated with military laboratories, corporations, academia, or other institutions. Usually this term refers specifically to organizations which support multi-disciplinary theorists and intellectuals who endeavor to produce analysis or policy recommendations.
History of think tanks
Since "think tank" is a term that has only found use since the 1950s, there is still some debate over what constitutes the first think tank. One candidate is the Fabian Society of Britain, founded in 1884 to promote gradual social change. The Brookings Institution, founded in the US in 1916 is another candidate for the first think tank. The term think tank itself, however, was originally used in reference to organizations that offered military advice, most notably the RAND Corporation, formed originally in 1945.
Until around 1970, there were no more than a couple dozen think tanks, mostly focused on offering non-partisan policy and military advice to the United States government, and generally with large staffs and research budgets. After 1970, the number of think tanks exploded, as many smaller new think tanks were formed to express various partisan, political, and ideological views.
Etymology and usage
Until the 1940s, most think tanks were known only by the name of the institution. During the Second World War, think tanks were referred to as "brain boxes" after the slang term for the brain or skull. The phrase "think tank" in wartime American slang refered to rooms in which strategists discussed war planning. The first recorded use of the phrase to refer to modern think tanks was in 1959, and by the 1960s the term was commonly used to describe RAND and other groups assisting the armed forces. In recent times, the phrase "think tank" has become applied to a wide range of advice-giving institutions, and there are no precise definitions of the term. Marketing or public relations organizations, especially of an international character, sometimes refer to themselves as think tanks, for example.
Types of think tanks
Some think tanks are clearly aligned with conservative or pro-market approaches to the economy, while others, especially those with an emphasis on social welfare, social equity or environmental outcomes, are viewed as more liberal or left-of-center.
American think tanks
Think tanks in the United States play an important role in forming both foreign and domestic policy. Typically, an issue such as national missile defense will be debated within and among think tanks and the result of these debates will influence government policy makers. Think tanks in the United States generally receive funding from private donors, and members of private organization think tanks may feel more free to propose and debate controversial ideas than people within government.
Chinese think tanks
In the People's Republic of China a number of think tanks are sponsored by governmental agencies but still retain sufficient non-official status to be able to propose and debate ideas more freely. Indeed, most of the actual diplomacy between China and the United States has taken the form of academic exchanges between members of think tanks.
European think tanks
In Britain, think tanks play a similar role to the United States, attempting to shape policy, and indeed there is some cooperation between British and American think tanks.
In Germany all of the major parties are loosely associated with research foundations that play some role in shaping policy, but generally from the more disinterested role of providing research to support policymakers than explicitly proposing policy. The foundations are:
In Switzerland, Avenir Suisse (which proposes a free-market liberalism agenda) is the only think tank in the sense of this article that is currently active.
After the fall of the iron curtain, Eastern Europe has seen a number of new think tanks arise, although they are still playing a relatively minor role in the forming of government policy.
Russian think tanks
Russian think tanks have experienced a precipitous decline over the past five years. Under the Soviet Union think tanks, analagous to their American counterparts, grew to play a significant role in strategic policy formation. During the era of glasnost, begun by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and continuing under Russian President Boris Yeltsin, public think tanks and policy organizations underwent a brief blooming. However, as economic problems intensified under Yeltsin, and political pressure on public organizations grew under President Vladimir Putin, most of the Russian think tanks have withered away while those who stood closer to Kremlin saw a recent revival.
Criticism
Critics such as Ralph Nader have suggested that the private nature of the funding of think tanks may bias their resulting findings. Some argue members will be inclined to promote or publish only those results that ensure the continued flow of funds from private donors. This risk of distortion similarly threatens the reputation and integrity of organizations such as universities, once considered to stand wholly within the public sector.
Some critics go further to assert think tanks are little more than propaganda tools for promoting the ideological arguments of whatever group established them. They charge that most think tanks, which are usually headquartered in state or national seats of government, exist merely for large-scale lobbying to form opinion in favor of special private interests. They give examples such as organizations calling themselves think tanks having hosted lunches for politicians to present research that critics claim is merely in the political interest of major global interests such as Microsoft, but that the connections to these interests are never disclosed. They charge, as another example, that the RAND Corporation issues research reports on national missile defense that accelerate investment into the very military products being produced by the military manufacturers who control RAND. Critics assert that the status of most think-tanks as non-profit and tax exempt makes them an even more efficient tool to put special interest money to work.
See also
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