How Do Advocacy Think Tanks Relate to Academic Knowledge? The Case of Norway

Think tanks often present themselves as contributors to a more reflective and informed political debate and their policy advice as based on knowledge and research. Yet, they also claim to be alternatives to university research and research institutes and often use knowledge and expertise to pursue explicitly ideological agendas. How do think tanks handle this balancing act of knowledge provision and ideological commitment? How do they relate to academia and what characterizes their approach to academic knowledge? The paper explores these questions through an investigation of the three main advocacy think tanks in Norway, based on an analysis of their organization, activities, staff and publications, and through interviews with think tank staff. The paper describes the specific ways in which these think tanks gather and utilize knowledge, and how they position themselves relative to academia. It also reflects on possible explanations for this pattern and on its normative implications.     

Think Tanks in Iceland

This article maps the landscape of think tanks in Iceland. It shows that think tanks are very few and insignificant in Icelandic policymaking. In the literature, the growth of think tanks in European countries with corporatist pasts has been linked to a change to a more pluralist system of interest representation. The case of Iceland lends support to this claim. In contrast to Scandinavia, corporatism remains entrenched in Iceland. But although there is a very limited market for local think tanks in Iceland, it is nevertheless recognized by political actors that touting policy advice offered by prestigious (international) think tanks can bring political benefits. This is also demonstrated in the article, showing that the influence of think tanks transcends at times national borders.     

Think tanks and strategic policy-making: the contribution of think tanks to policy advisory systems

Think tanks have proliferated in most Western democracies over the past three decades and are often considered to be increasingly important actors in public policy. Still, their precise contribution to public policy remains contested. This paper takes the existing literature in a new direction by focusing on the capacity of think tanks to contribute to strategic policy-making and assessing their particular role within policy advisory systems. We propose that strategic policy-making capacity requires three critical features: high levels of research capacity, substantial organizational autonomy and a long-term policy horizon. Subsequently, we assess the potential of think tanks to play this particular role in policy-making, using empirical evidence from structured interviews with a set of prominent Australian think tanks.     

A New Era for Think Tanks in Public Policy? International Trends,Australian Realities

Although the powerful have always sought advice from the knowledgeable, it took the appeal of the policy sciences movement of the late 1940s and onward to build and consolidate a veritable industry of policy analysis and advice. ¹ One of the hallmarks of this development was the advent of institutes that were exclusively devoted to produce research‐based policy arguments and to inject these into the policy‐making process. These organisations were referred to as ‘think tanks’. Half a century later, the project of the policy sciences movement has been amply criticised, and has mutated into various philosophies of policy analysis, each harbouring distinct and often conflicting perspectives on the nature and role of (scientific) knowledge in the battle of arguments that is public policy‐making. The first wave of the policy sciences movement's privileging of science‐based policy has not disappeared. In fact it is currently experiencing a revival under the banner of ‘evidence‐based policy’. But it has to compete with other views of public policy‐making which deconstruct the authority claim of scientific knowledge, emphasising instead its contestability. Yet there are now more organisations that refer to themselves, or can be labelled, as ‘think tanks’ than ever before. Why? And what does it mean to be a ‘think tank’ in the post‐positivist era and in the increasingly boundary‐less, highly networked societies of today? This article first surveys recent developments in the world of think tanks as reported by the international literature on the subject, and then examines the implications for understanding the nature and role of Australian think tanks.     

Dynamics of change in internal policy advisory systems: the hybridization of advisory capacities in Germany

Recent scholarship on advisory systems has focussed on the externalization of advisory capacities and sectoral dynamics of change, whereas changes of internal policy advisory systems have not yet been approached systematically. This article proposes an analytical concept for exploring change dynamics in internal policy advisory systems by means of three logics for assessing policy advice (political salience, credibility and representativeness). The approach is illustrated by analysing changes within the internal policy advisory system of the German federal government (1990–2015). The analysis relies on three original datasets on ministerial departments, research agencies and governmental advisory bodies. We find that the internal advisory system of the German federal government is characterized by a differentiated hybridization of advisory logics, which has changed the nature of policy advice.     

Rebuilding Policy Capacity in the Era of the Fiscal Dividend: A Report from Canada

After two decades of focusing on deficit reduction and restructuring of operations, governments in many areas of the world are once again contemplating new policies and expenditures. In Canada, where budgetary surpluses have recently replaced deficits, the federal government has been asking whether it still has the capacity to make informed choices about new programs. This article examines Canada's recent efforts in rebuilding its policy capacity. It asks, first, to what extent and in what way was policy capacity originally lost. Second, it appraises the adequacy of new policy "networks," consisting of think tanks, consultants and government officials, as "virtual replacements" for former government-controlled advisory bodies, royal commissions, and in-house policy units. Finally, it notes the relative absence of parliamentarians, and even the political executive, from capacity-rebuilding activities, a deficiency that in the long run may undermine the legitimacy and effectiveness of such efforts.     

American Think Tanks: Policy Elites and the Politicization of Expertise

This article examines policy expertise and the role of think tanks in the context of shifting political alignments in American government. The article first considers the radical and neoconservative critiques of the liberal use of an elite group — or "new class"— of policy experts to formulate and legitimate political reform agendas, a strategy said to represent a technocratic threat to the future of representative government. The discussion then focuses in particular on the neoconservative critique and its promotion of a counter strategy designed to politicize policy expertise through the development of a conservative "counterintelligensia" and the funding of partisan think tanks. The political outcome is seen to be a significant variation in the relationships linking expertise, think tanks, and the setting of national policy agendas. Elite think tanks, conceptualized as policy "discourse coalitions," are analyzed as institutional mechanisms for coordinating the advice of leading policy experts with the interests of economic and political elites. Although the experts' role in these policy-planning organizations falls short of the threat envisioned by the technocratic critique, the political implications of the emergent elite relationship between expertise and policy formation is nonetheless seen to pose troubling questions for both the theory and parctice of representative governance.     

Introduction to Special Issue: Think Tanks in the Nordic Countries

Think tanks in the Nordic countries are now frequently referred to in national media, among decision-makers as well as in academic communities. Based on the literature on think tanks, a consensual and adversarial perspective on their development is advanced. In support of a consensual perspective, the special issue shows that a number of policy think tanks, which play consensual roles in different policy niches, have emerged in the Nordic countries in recent decades. In support of an adversarial perspective, think tank landscapes in the Nordic countries now include advocacy think tanks from both sides of the political spectrum. The mixed think tank landscapes found in the Nordic countries do not constitute a break with consensual policy-making traditions. Nevertheless, a number of privately funded think tanks, which have increased competition for funding, media visibility and political influence, have supplemented established publicly funded think tanks in particular in Scandinavia.     

Dynamics in the Dutch policy advisory system: externalization,politicization and the legacy of pillarization

Although the literature on policy advisory systems has experienced a revival in recent years, its empirical focus has mainly been on Anglophone countries (Craft and Halligan 2016). This paper applies the policy advisory systems approach to the Netherlands, which can serve as an example of the dynamics in the policy advisory systems of consensus-driven, neo-corporatist polities Lijphart in Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries, 21, 235–266 1999). Using a historical-institutionalist perspective, the dynamics of the Dutch policy advisory system from the mid-1960s to the present day are examined. Based on original cross-time survey data and an analysis of secondary sources, the impact of depillarization (mid-1960s–mid-1990s), new public management (mid-1980s onwards) and an increased pressure on the executive have had for the Dutch policy advisory system (from the late 1990s): fragmentation, externalization and a non-partisan brand of politicization are shown. More specifically, the use of the institutionalized system of permanent advisory councils has lost part of its significance in favour of both external consultants and ad hoc advisory committees. The Dutch case, with its accumulative institutional design based on Weberianism, neo-corporatism and new public management elements, has thus experienced markedly different dynamics in its policy advice system than the Anglophone countries.     

从政务信息谈国家思想库建设：一个案例分析

国家思想库在政治运行过程中起着十分重要的作用,是政府决策不可或缺的有力助手。他们不仅要保持研究工作的独立性与客观性,而且要和政府部门保持密切的联系。在我国,向国家决策层报送政务信息在一定程度上能够反映思想库作用发挥的程度。以中国科学院向国家决策层报送政务信息为案例,运用统计分析的方法分析国家决策层的信息需求,讨论政务信息与国家思想库的关系与作用,对中国科学院更好地发挥国家科学思想库的作用提出政策建议。     

Non-Governmental Policy Transfer: The Strategies of Independent Policy Institutes

Discussions of policy transfer have primarily focused on official actors and networks. The non-governmental mode of policy transfer via foundations, think tanks and non-governmental organizations is a relatively neglected dimension. Accordingly, this paper addresses the role of think tanks in promoting the spread of policy ideas about privatization. The importance of think tanks to policy transfer is their ability to diffuse ideas by (1) acting as a clearing-house for information; (2) their involvement in the advocacy of ideas; (3) their involvement in domestic and transnational policy networks; and (4) their intellectual and scholarly base providing expertise on specialized policy issues. Concepts from comparative public policy and international relations such as "social learning" and "epistemic communities" are used to outline the way think tanks advocate innovative policy ideas. However, not only have think tanks been effective in promoting the transfer of policy ideas, the international spread of think tanks also exhibits organizationaltransfer.     

Public and Private Think Tank Visibility in the Danish Parliament and Media

While the number of think tanks in Denmark has increased considerably in recent decades, our knowledge about their visibility in political arenas is limited. The article explores how and why the mentions of private and public think tanks in the parliamentary and media arenas has developed from 2005 to 2018. Building on insights from previous studies of think tanks, publicly funded think tanks are expected to achieve more parliamentary mentions than private think tanks because they are expected to be more heavily influenced by institutionalized norms to target inside actors through parliament. By contrast, privately funded think tanks are expected to achieve more media mentions than public think tanks, because they are policymaking outsiders and emphasize public advocacy over direct influence. Although publicly funded think tanks have been more visible in the parliamentary arena than private think tanks, their visibility has declined. Private think tanks are more visible than public think tanks, but media visibility for privately funded think tanks also drops towards the end of the period. The article concludes that public or private funding cannot fully explain changes in think tank visibility in the two arenas over time. Instead media and parliamentary mentions are driven by a handful of think tanks while most think tanks struggle to achieve and maintain parliamentary and media visibility over time.     

Were Bosnian policy research organisations more effective in 2006 than in 2003? Did technical assistance play a role?

In 2003 the policy development process in Bosnia and Herzegovina was characterised by international community (IC) dominance. The IC provided the vast majority of the analysis of problems facing the country and drafted many of the laws. This article documents developments from fall 2003 to fall 2006 in the use of evidence and analysis in the policy development process and the role of local policy research organisations (PROs—often called think tanks) in it. The likely relation between these changes and the activities of a PRO mentoring project that operated over the same period is also assessed. Evidence comes as a series of interviews in both years with government officials and members of parliament, on the one hand, and leaders of PROs and advocacy NGOs on the other. The broad picture that emerges from the above review is of a substantial positive development in the policy development process in Bosnia and Herzegovina over the period. Factual evidence and analysis are playing a much greater role, and PROs have been a major provider of this information. The evidence indicates that PROs have been successful in convincing the policy community that they are purveyors of objective, disinterested advice and analysis. The improvements occurred in a conducive environment that steadily placed greater responsibility for policy formation on Bosnian officials. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Assessing 30 years of Westminster policy advisory system experience

With the 30th anniversary of the policy advisory systems concept on the horizon, it is an appropriate time to reflect further on the concept’s utility, particularly in helping to understand the dynamics of system change and their implications for policy-making. This article provides diachronic analysis of the policy advisory systems in the classic Anglo-Saxon ‘Westminster’ family (Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand). Analysis focuses on five advisory units: the public service and central agencies, partisan ministerial advisers, external consultants, commissions of inquiry, and select special advisory bodies. The principle research aim is to compare these cases to shed light on advisory system dynamics through identification and analysis of shared and country-specific patterns of PAS change. We argue that the leading dynamics of politicization and externalization often used to characterize how advisory systems change masks idiosyncratic country patterns. We argue that differences in the tempo, intensity, and sequencing of advisory unit (de)institutionalization are clear in these cases and that attention to these dimensions of advisory system change add precision to understanding the organization, operation, and evolution of these systems.     

The new randomised controlled trials (RCT) movement in public policy: challenges of epistemic governance

Since 2012, a new movement of government departments, think tanks and high-profile individuals within the UK has sought to promote the increased usage of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in public policy. They promote RCTs as an evidence-based corrective for the inappropriate certainties of experts. Recent government reports and public debate around this initiative are reviewed and analysed within a framework for epistemic governance: normative insights into how knowledge for policymaking should be understood and governed drawn from science and technology studies and the policy sciences. The legitimacy of RCT evidence within policymaking is found to rest on the recognition of three key features: (1) how multiple meanings of evidence limit generalisability, (2) ensuring a plurality of evidence inputs, including those from other forms of research and expertise, and (3) building institutions for governing the use of RCTs in the public interest. Producing evidence for policymaking is a hybrid activity that necessarily spans both science and politics. Presenting RCTs as naively neutral evidence of what policy interventions work is misleading. The paper concludes by calling for more work on how the new RCT movement might engage with its own history in social and policy research on the value of experiments for policymaking.     

Measuring the Influence of Think Tanks

It is difficult to present great conclusions about the influence of thinks tanks. The major think tanks have earned an important presence in the Washington policy community. In the words of one political scientist, “Power in Washington cannot be measured precisely, yet think tanks surely have a good deal for it …” The major think tanks are important sources of information to the media, the government, and to a host of interest groups involved in the public policy process. The result is a lively competition of ideas in the policy arena.     

US Think Tanks and the Politics of Expertise: Role,Value and Impact

Think tanks are non‐profit policy research organisations that provide analysis and expertise to influence policy makers. Since the early twentieth century, US think tanks have played a major role in framing policy issues and providing analysis, but in the last thirty years, there has been a veritable think tank proliferation. This paper chronicles and analyses the development of think tanks; classification, organization, staffing and funding; marketing, public relations and public engagement, current trends. Finally an attempt has been made to measure the influence of think tanks on the American policy process.     

Policy advisory systems: change dynamics and sources of variation

The special issue aims to enhance our understanding of the conditions under which policy advisory systems vary. The contributions comprise both continental European countries (Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands) and Anglo-Saxon countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK). The introduction to the special issue briefly outlines existing scholarship on policy advisory systems and identifies different research gaps to the filling of which the special issue seeks to contribute. The introduction highlights that the articles in the special issue point to both political system and policy process variables to better systemize, theorize and explain the origins and change dynamics of policy advisory systems.     

The Finnish Think Tank Landscape – A Mixture of Consensualism and Adversity?

As a common feature of Nordic countries, the Finnish landscape of thinks tanks has been populated by large corporatist interest organisations and government-funded research organisations. In addition to this, since 2005, party-affiliated think tanks form a notable part of the picture. Recently, several small think tanks that are oriented towards specific themes, such as international relations, the environment and feminism, have been founded. This article examines Finnish developments in the field of think tanks with two objectives. First, it gives a general overview of the Finnish think tank landscape. Second, by using interview data and public mission statements of the most prominent think tanks, it explores how these organisations see their role in Finnish society. What is their relationship with media and the political machinery, and how does this relate to their position and activities as either consensual or adversarial actors? It is concluded that redeeming the place of think tanks in the Finnish polity is a continuing challenge, and resorting to adversarial tactics is not a favourable way to do so. This approach has mostly been attempted by neoliberal think tanks that, in the past, have also profited from corporatist structures to enhance their objectives.     

Economic knowledge and the scientization of policy advice

The growing role of economic expertise in contemporary policy-making has received increasing scholarly attention. Yet, so far, this discussion has only been tenuously linked to relevant debates in public policy and administration, such as the work on policy advisory systems. The article attempts to bridge this gap by examining the changing reliance on academic economic knowledge within policy advisory bodies. It does so by analysing appointments and citation patterns in Norwegian advisory commissions in economic policy over the last 45 years. The analysis shows a marked increase in the number of academic economists appointed to commissions and in citations to economic literature. Moreover, it reveals an orientation towards the most prestigious outlets of the international economics discipline. This development can be interpreted as a scientization of policy advice in the economic field, that is, a growing reliance on academic expertise for analysis and arguments about public policy.