The Politics of Think Tanks in Europe

Jesper Dahl Kelstrup

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317421634
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Politica

In the 21st century, think tanks have become more than a buzzword in European public discourse. They now play important roles in the policy-making process by providing applied research, building networks and advocating policies.

The book studies the development of think tanks and contemporary consequences in the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark and at the EU-level. A Continental think tank tradition in which the state plays a pivotal role and an Anglo-American tradition which facilitates interaction in public policy on market-like terms have shaped the development of think tanks. On the basis of a typology of think tanks, quantitative data and interviews with think tank practitioners, the interplay between state and market dynamics and the development of different types of think tanks is analysed. Although think tanks develop along different institutional trajectories, it is concluded that the Anglo-American tradition has had a significant, cross-cutting impact in Europe in recent years. The contention over the politics of think tanks runs deeper at the EU-level than in the member states and reflects disagreement over how the EU should develop in the future.

This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of political communication, public policy, European politics and comparative politics.

1 Think tanks in Europe

DOI: 10.4324/9781315688602-1

Introduction

In recent decades think tanks have become more important to public policy in Europe because they provide applied research, build networks and advocate policies. The chapter uses existing studies of think tanks in the United States and Europe as a basis for defining think tanks broadly as ‘permanent organisations that claim autonomy and attempt to influence public policy by mobilising research’. The main research question of the book is to explain the development of think tanks and the implications for public policy in the United Kingdom (UK), Germany, Denmark and at the level of the European Union (EU-level). The book subsequently discusses the consequences of the ways in which the different politics of think tanks are shaping their development in Europe.

Focusing on think tanks as the central theme of this book has two key motivations. First, the growth in the number of think tanks constitutes a long-term, global trend (McGann et al., 2014; Rich, 2004: 15; Stone, 2004: 5). Although the creation of think tanks was probably most explosive in the 1990s, well over 50 think tanks were created each year during the 2000s. As a result the total number of think tanks in the world is estimated now to be over 6,500, hereof over 1,800 in Europe according to a global survey (McGann et al., 2013: 5, 17). The creation of more think tanks motivates the desire of the book to explain the development of tank types across cases of political systems. It seems paradoxical that while think tanks, on the one hand, are conceived of as a growing phenomenon, there is, on the other hand, little certainty as to how developments of think tanks should be accounted for. Although think tanks have attracted increased political and academic attention in recent years, academics take interest in think tanks for different reasons and with different normative orientations. While some scholars claim that think tanks promote the role of civil society and democracy (McGann and Weaver, 2000), others are more sceptical of their roles as bridges between academia and policy-making (Stone, 2007 b) or of the advocatory roles that some think tanks play in policy-making (Abelson, 2006; Rich, 2004; Stone and Denham, 2004). It has motivated the research to meet a demand for a more developed explanation of why different types of think tanks are created. As the former president of the Social Science Research Council in the US and present director of the LSE Craig Calhoun remarks:

The rise of think tanks has created a buffer between academic social scientists and both broader publics and policy-makers … academic social scientists should be concerned about the implications of such a buffer between universities and important publics. The rise of think tanks may change the demand for academic social science. It certainly introduces a new factor in how academic social science will be interpreted by broader publics and policy-makers. At the very least, academic researchers ought to be investigating how this mediation works.

(2009)

Despite their quantitative growth, major political science textbooks either fail to mention them or do so only in passing (Hague and Harrop, 2013; Heywood, 2007; Wallace et al., 2010). The book does not claim that think tanks are revolutionising public policy or that the trends and ideas that they may represent are all new, innovative or normatively desirable. It does argue, however, that the development of think tanks constitutes a trend that is worthy both of further theorisation and analysis.

Second, the research addresses what it sees as a gap in existing contributions to the study of think tanks. As elaborated below, the conceptualisation of think tanks has mainly departed from an Anglo-American understanding of these organisations. While recognising the importance of this tradition, the book argues that development of think tanks in Europe has been shaped in interplay between a Continental and the Anglo-American think tank traditions. Unlike some comparative studies of think tanks in Europe (Stone and Denham, 2004; Stone et al., 1998), the book uses one typology rather than nation-specific understandings of think tanks to account for their development. To this end the book develops a typology of think tanks that distinguishes between four types of think tanks referred to as publicly funded research institutes, party-affiliated, policy and advocacy think tanks throughout the book (cf. chapter 3). This is an important step because the typology, despite institutional differences, provides an opportunity to compare the development of different types of think tanks across political systems in Europe. While three of these types in the typology, including publicly funded research institutes (PFRI), party-affiliated think tanks and advocacy think tanks, resemble types already established in the literature of think tanks (McGann and Weaver, 2000; Weaver, 1989), the typology is used to argue that policy think tanks constitute an additional type of think tank that has been overlooked in the existing literature on think tanks.

Think tanks and public policy

Several scholars have studied ‘the politics’ of various aspects of public policy. The bureaucratic politics model advocated by Graham Allison and Morton Halperin questioned the view of the state as a unitary actor and suggested instead that many actors or players with a focus on strategic issues in foreign policy as well as intra-national problems characterise the policy-making process (1972). In Technocracy and the Politics of Expertise, Frank Fischer argued that technical and managerial experts hold such comfortable positions in society, that effective opposition is increasingly limited to those with access to their own experts (1990: 26ff). Paul Pierson argued in The New Politics of the Welfare State that social policy reform in Western societies have tended to be cautious rather than radical amongst other things as a result of the tendency of recipients and electorates to punish cutbacks in welfare provisions (1996). In Think Tanks, Public Policy and the Politics of Expertise, Andrew Rich emphasised the ideological character of many think tanks on both sides of the political spectrum in the United States (2004). In The Politics of Attention Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones have argued that policy-making is characterised by stable periods with bounded rationality of institutions and less frequent punctuations that lead to policy change (2005). Later, in The Politics of Information, they indicated how the search processes of governments in public policy lead to more or less intensive policy-making activity (2015). These examples of studies of the politics of different aspects of public policy show that scholars have developed and maintained an interest in how politics influences policy-making in various, often inapparent, ways. This book follows this tradition by studying the politics related to the development of think tanks in European public policies.

The book follows other volumes about ‘the politics of …’ by arguing that changes to think tanks in Europe are not only results of exogenous forces such as the spread of think tanks from the United States, globalisation or technological advances in communication technologies. Think tanks are also shaped by endogenous forces in the polities in which they operate. Therefore their development is, intendedly or unintendedly, informed by political regulation, and the culture and norms of think tank traditions – in particular those which decision-makers and stakeholders look to for inspiration. In contrast to existing research the book does not view national traditions or knowledge regimes as the main influence on think tank development (Campbell and Pedersen, 2014). Nor does it regard the Anglo-American tradition of think tanks as the sole inspiration to the development of these organisations. Rather the book identifies two transnational think tank traditions in public policy, the Continental and Anglo-American, and focuses on their influence on think tanks developments in four cases: Germany, the UK, Denmark and the EU-level. The transnational nature of these traditions implies both traditions might be influential in the same political system. Think tanks inspired by the Anglo-American tradition, for example, might emerge in Germany, despite the historical influence of the Continental tradition in this polity.

The ambition of the book is to contribute with a theoretically informed explanation of the ways in which transnational think tank traditions shape the development of think tanks in the four political systems mentioned. While existing research on think tanks has compared think tanks in and beyond Europe (Campbell and Pedersen, 2014; Stone and Denham, 2004; Stone et al., 1998), and studies and reports on think tanks at the EU-level exist (BEPA, 2012; Boucher et al., 2004; Plehwe, 2010; Sherrington, 2000; Ullrich, 2004), the development of think tanks at the EU-level has not been compared with think tanks in EU member states on the basis of one think tank typology. To this end this book provides a comparative study of think tanks in Europe and applies one typology to a sample of think tanks in explaining their development across political systems. The lack of a clear understanding of the similarities and differences in think tank developments in EU member states and at the EU-level constitutes a gap in the comparative study of think tanks that this book attempts to fill. The book therefore adds to the literature by including think tanks from the EU-level and thus provides knowledge that is not captured by comparative studies that focus exclusively at the nation-state level (Campbell and Pedersen, 2014). Studying how EU-level think tanks have developed and vary compared to think tanks in EU member states can bring more knowledge about developments in the nature of the EU during a time of considerable change. Finally, the book goes beyond descriptive accounts of think tanks (Boucher et al., 2004; McGann et al., 2014) by attempting to explain their development on the basis of the Continental and Anglo-American think tank traditions and by analysing the interplay between these two traditions in influencing think tank developments. The book relies on a combination of quantitative data; including indicators of think tank size, number of publications, events and impact on newspapers and new media; and qualitative data including 37 interviews recorded during fieldwork in Copenhagen, Brussels, Berlin and London. The result of the analysis presented is a nuanced explanation of think tank developments and the two main traditions that have influenced the roles that they play in European public policy.

Important tendencies in the academic literatures on think tanks

Two broad tendencies characterise the study of think tanks. First, the study of think tanks has only recently, i.e. around the turn of the millennium, developed from a ‘cottage industry’ to a small research community (Stone and Denham, 2004). Second, the existing literature has a US bias, as most conceptual work and seminal studies have been carried out on the basis of a US understanding of democracy (Abelson, 2004). This section presents an account of the emergence of the think tank concept and organisation in the US and their implications for theoretical approaches and definitions of think tanks in Europe.

The think tank legacy of the United States and its global ramifications

One of the most interesting observations regarding the concept ‘think tank’ is the speed with which the meaning of the term has evolved over time and space since it was coined around the end of the Second World War. The US scholar Paul Dickson in the 1970s traced the origins of the think tank concept in the US as far back as the 1830s, when the US Secretary of the Treasury contracted the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia to study why steamboat boilers kept exploding (Abelson, 2006: 49f; Dickson, 1972). The concept did not, however, enter popular use until the Second World War when ‘think tank’ became a slang term for war rooms used for strategic planning. In the early Cold War period the RAND (Research ANd Development) Corporation came to incarnate the US think tank. Think tanks in this period were few in number, had a narrow policy-focus (national security), had government contracts, employed an inter-disciplinary community of researchers and focused primarily on strategic research (Kelstrup, 2007). Early scholarly contributions to the study of think tanks reflected a belief in the problem-solving capacity of these organisations which were reminiscent of Harold Lasswell’s belief in the application of the intellectual skills of the policy scientist for democracy (1971: 27ff). In his renowned book, Speaking Truth to Power, Aaron Wildavsky used independent think tanks as the spearhead in his criticism of public policy in Western Europe by arguing that:

It is exactly the intolerance for independent advice that has inhibited schools of public policy from starting in Europe. If you have hierarchical societies, if you ...