Have think tanks in Washington D.C. become politicized?

  • The paper addresses the following research question: Have think tanks in Washington D.C. become politicized from 1910 to 2010, and if so why? “Politicization” is made empirically tangible with a new primary database of all D.C. think tanks existent over the last century. Public policy-oriented research and advocacy organizations are studied from an explicitly evolutionary approach for the first time. It is found that while think tanks steadily accumulated until the early 1970s, their numbers increased fivefold from the late 1970s onwards. D.C. think tanks have, in fact, become significantly politicized over time: ideological advocacy think tanks (embracing broadly “conservative” or “liberal” worldviews) came to outnumber organizationally objective (“centrist or not identifiably ideological”) academic or contract research think tanks. Most of today’s advocacy think tanks embrace identifiably conservative ideologies. Based on chronological process tracing, it is shown that changes in the non-profit resource and tax environment, a relatively weak party system and frequent partisan polarization are important explanatory factors behind the politicization phenomenon. Far from living up to their constructive potential, it is argued, the capital city’s think tanks now frequently hysterize rather than scrutinize policymaking, applying politico-ideological principles of economic interventionism and social justice or, far more often, free markets, limited government and individual liberties to all things public policy. Main scholarly and practical implications of think tanks’ politicization are sounded out. (Hertie Student Paper Series is an online publication series of Hertie School of Governance)

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Metadaten
Document Type:Master's Thesis
Language:English
Author(s):Patrick Gilroy
Advisor:Helmut K. Anheier
Referee:Kai WegrichORCiD
Contributing Corporation:Global Public Policy Institute (GPPI)
Publisher:Hertie School of Governance
Place of Publisher:Berlin
Hertie Collections (Serial Number):Hertie School Student Paper Series (01/2012)
Publication year:2012
Publishing Institution:Hertie School
Granting Institution:Hertie School
Thesis date:2012/09/30
Number pages:53
Contributing Corporation:Global Public Policy Institute (GPPI)
Release Date:2015/01/27
Tag:Think Tanks; US public policy-making; politics of expertise
Licence of document (German):CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
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