October
4, 2005
The Evolution of Think Tanks
By Bruce
Bartlett
There has
been some debate about think tanks among conservative bloggers
recently, with several suggesting that they are no longer contributing
meaningfully to policy debate. They have become too superficial,
too dependent on the short op-ed article at the expense of original
research, it has been charged. Such criticism, however, simply
misunderstands what think tanks are all about.
Think tanks
are not a new phenomenon. Organizations like the Brookings Institution
and American Enterprise Institute have been around for many decades.
Virtually every major university has several affiliated think
tanks. Perhaps the best known is the Hoover Institution at Stanford
University.
What is
relatively new, however, is the particular type of think tank
exemplified by the Heritage Foundation, which adopted a much more
overtly political approach to research, with a heavier emphasis
on outreach for its work, both in government and the media.
Article
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Historically,
think tanks were like universities without the teaching. Scholars
who preferred research to lecturing or whose interests were narrowly
focused gravitated to think tanks. But they were still expected
to maintain the same academic standards that applied to those
in academia.
Brookings
is still the best example of this. Its scholars are often world-renowned
experts whose work appears in top academic journals. Books by
Brookings scholars are often definitive. For many years, the late
Joseph Pechman's book on federal tax policy was the best in the
field, and Brookings largely set the agenda on that subject for
a generation.
Brookings
has always had a moderately liberal tilt. The American Enterprise
Institute was established as a moderately conservative alternative.
Democratic administrations often drew upon the former for policy
staff, while Republicans did so from the latter.
What Heritage
did that was so different was to engage in policy in a much more
aggressive way. While a Brookings book might be the authoritative
statement on a subject, it required an enormous amount of time
and money to produce. It might take many years to write. In the
end, it would only be read by a few committee staffers in Congress
or at the Congressional Research Service. Meanwhile, the legislative
process would travel its own path, often oblivious to the scholarly
research on the subject.
The people
who founded Heritage had a different idea. They had worked in
Congress and knew that congressmen, senators and staff people
only had a limited amount of time to absorb ideas and information.
A short paper that merely summarized existing research was far
more useful than a book-length treatise. And a paper that arrived
in the midst of congressional debate was infinitely more valuable
than a book that didn't appear until after the final vote.
So rather
than staff itself with expensive, world-renowned scholars, Heritage
looked for young people just out of graduate school, often seeking
their first job. It intentionally paid them poorly in order to
encourage them to move on to jobs in Congress or the administration.
This created a built-in network for Heritage's work and provided
intelligence on what issues needed to be studied and when they
were needed for maximum impact.
No pretense
was made that the research was original or even thorough. It was
more important to get 80 percent of it out in time to influence
debate than wait to get 100 percent, if it wouldn't be available
until it was too late. Heritage staff was encouraged to draw upon
the work of top-level conservative scholars, whose work was connected
to Heritage through a resource bank.
The Heritage
model was extremely innovative. When I worked there, there were
occasions when an issue would pop up in the morning, I would quickly
write a brief analysis, and it would be copied and distributed
on Capitol Hill the same day. Today, with the Internet, we take
this sort of thing for granted. But in the 1980s, it was the equivalent
of moving at supersonic speed, while traditional think tanks were
still in the horse-and-buggy era.
Another Heritage
innovation was heavily marketing its work in the media, where
its short, timely analyses were popular with reporters for the
same reason they were effective on Capitol Hill. Most think tanks
in that era made little effort to promote their work or make it
accessible to the media.
The Heritage
lesson has been learned by other think tanks, and even Brookings
and AEI now produce many short papers, written and distributed
rapidly, and engage in extensive outreach to Congress and the
media. Whatever has been lost in thoroughness is more than made
up for by greater effectiveness.
*** Correction:
In my last column, I understated the number of presidential vetoes
by neglecting to include pocket vetoes. The correct totals are
these: Franklin D. Roosevelt, 635; John F. Kennedy, 21; Lyndon
Johnson, 30; Jimmy Carter, 31; and George H.W. Bush, 44.
©2005 Creators Syndicate
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