History

Since "think tank" is a term that has only found use since the 1950s, there is still some debate over what constitutes the first think tank. One candidate is 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.

Until around 1970, there were no more than several dozen think tanks, mostly focused on offering non-partisan policy and military advice to the United States government, and generally with large staffs and research budgets. After 1970, the number of think tanks exploded, as many smaller new think tanks were formed to express various and ideological views.

Until the 1940s, most think tanks were known only by the name of the institution. During the Second World War, think tanks were referred to as "brain boxes" after the slang term for the skull. The phrase "think tank" in wartime American slang referred to rooms in which strategists discussed war planning. The first recorded use of the phrase to refer to modern think tanks was in 1959, and by the 1960s the term was commonly used to describe RAND and other groups assisting the armed forces. In recent times, the phrase "think tank" has become applied to a wide range of institutions, and there are no precise definitions of the term. Marketing or public relations organizations, especially of an international character, sometimes refer to themselves as think tanks, for example.

Types of think tanks

Think tanks represent a variety of ideological perspectives. Some think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation, are clearly aligned with conservative causes. Others, especially those focused on social and environmental reforms, such as the Tellus Institute, are viewed as clearly liberal. Still others, such as the Cato Institute, promote libertarian social and economic reforms.

A new trend, resulting from globalization, is collaboration between think tanks across continents. For instance, the Brookings Institution, Washington DC, collaborates with Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatar for an initiative on West-Islam relations. Also, in the area of West-Islam relations, Strategic Foresight Group, a think tank based in India, works closely with the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in the European Parliament. The World Economic Forum has created a Council of 100 Leaders on West-Islam relations, which brings together heads of major global think tanks ranging from Oxford Islamic Centre at Oxford University to Strategic Foresight Group, Observer Research Foundation, CSDS, Centre for Policy Research, ETC in Delhi of India and Al-Azhar University in Egypt.

 Criticism

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.^{[citation needed]} Defenders state that think tanks arose to challenge alleged liberal orthodoxy of the universities in place starting in the 1970s.

Some critics^{[attribution needed]} 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 research reports on national missile defense that accelerate investment into the very military products being produced by the military manufacturers who control RAND. Critics^{[attribution needed]} 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. The Discovery Institute has generated a great deal of controversy by injecting the controversial concept of intelligent design into public debate. [2][3][4]

In some cases, corporate interests have found it useful to create "think tanks" that are thinly disguised vehicles for corporate propaganda. For example, The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition was formed in the mid 1990s to dispute research finding a link between second-hand smoke and cancer. [5] According to an internal memo from Philip Morris, "the credibility of the EPA is defeatable, but not on the basis of ETS (environmental tobacco smoke) alone. It must be part of a larger mosaic that concentrates all the EPA's enemies against it at one time." [6]

United States Think Tanks

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 free to propose and debate controversial ideas than people within government.

Although think tanks span the political spectrum, liberal critics charge that conservative think tanks are far more prevalent than their progressive counterparts. In an annual survey, the liberal media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) lists the 25 think tanks most often cited in the mainstream media. Their data for 2006 show that the most-cited think tank was the Brookings Institution, followed by the Council on Foreign Relations, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Of these top five, the FAIR regards the first two as centrist and the next three as conservative. Regarding media citations of think tanks more generally, the FAIR found 45% to be centrist, 40% conservative or center-right, and 16% progressive or center-left. [7]