This article is about the institution. For other meanings, see Think Tank. A think tank is a group of individuals dedicated to high-level synergistic research on a variety of subjects, usually in military laboratories, corporations, or other institutions. Usually this term refers specifically to organizations which support theorists and intellectuals who endeavor to produce analysis or policy recommendations.
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.
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.
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.
Impact
Events which resulted from think tanks include:
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 reseach 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.
Critics charge as another example that over the past three years Microsoft has funded about a dozen think tanks (http://www.linuxworld.com/story/45362_p.htm) that have released papers attacking open-source software in hopes of slowing its success. They point to an incident in June 2004 during the dispute (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.07/linux.html) between Microsoft and SCO regarding Linux, in which the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, a Washington, D.C. think tank, claimed that Linus Torvalds could never have written Linux and concluded: "Since Linux is tainted, potential users may one day find themselves in court..." (http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/2004/06#adti4)
Not all organizations calling themselves think tanks conform to the strict definition in the first paragraph above. Marketing or public relations organizations, especially of an international character, sometimes refer to themselves as think tanks, simultaneously broadening the definition of the term and, as a promotional strategy, calling upon its traditional prestige associations (See Medinge Group).
Mapping the US think tank network Since think tanks generally prefer secrecy for their internal organizational methods, it may be difficult to map their network of connections and interests. One method of documenting the think tank network uses books published by members of the think tanks and/or journalists who write about them, noting whose names occur together on any single page of these books. While crude, this method is currently used by the organization NameBase and the results are publicly available.
See also
External links | 
Feeds |
Contact