Week 8 Think Tanks Part 1

My opinion of what a think tank should be is very vague, the only real input that I can remember is when the news or TV would proclaim that some grand decision or new idea has come out of a think tank. So my impressions have always been that it was generally a bunch of old guys (experts and scientists mainly) that get together in some confined space (a tank) and hammer out ideas or solve problems. I was first under the impression that they were called together at short notice to solve some crisis like the Cuban Missile Crisis, or the Apollo 13 Crisis. Later on I gleaned bits and pieces of information that led me to believe that this was not necessarily true of think tanks. My original impressions of the tanks were strictly “black box” “top secret” secluded and highly secretive. I think I used to believe they were mainly covert operations.

To get a better grasp of the concept, I turned to the usual first stop for new info (for me) – Wikipedia. According to the source, a think tank is an “organization, institute, corporation, or group that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, science, or technology issues, industrial or business policies, or military advice.”

It appears that many think tanks are non-profit organizations (some with tax-exempt status in some countries), special interest groups, or perhaps funded by some government. Some have very specific and limited purposes, while others tackle all problems within their specialty. Many people admit the benefits of the use of great minds together are exceptional, however there are critics that claim they are "little more than public relations fronts...generating self-serving scholarship that serves the advocacy goals of their industry sponsors.", and some even question their bias towards the sponsoring or funding agency.

Although the term “Think Tank” is a relatively new term (only in vogue since the 1950s) there have been many fine examples from the early nineteenth century such as the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI), founded in 1831 at the initiative of the Duke of Wellington. Another 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 1946 as an offshoot of Douglas Aircraft and which became an independent corporation in 1948.

Critics such as Ralph Nader have suggested that because of the private nature of the funding of think tanks their results are biased to a varying degree. 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.

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 results of these debates will influence government policy makers. Think tanks in the United States generally receive funding from private donors, and members of private organizations. Think tanks may feel more open to propose and debate controversial ideas than people within government.