The think tank concept is “increasingly devoid of meaning.” Or so say the commentators who believe think tanks are merely “part of the intellectual echo chamber of our politics,” organizations that have become so politicized it is hard to distinguish “objective advice and high-priced advocacy.”
That is only part of the story. In recent years, Redstone has had the good fortune of interacting with think tanks around the world that are making real contributions toward solving concrete problems – without sacrificing rigor or adopting partisan ideology. The Center for Global Development (CGD) is informing policy on everything from immigration to vaccines. Fundación ARU is improving microfinance programs while building a culture of evaluation in Bolivia – and in the process pioneering a new breed of non-ideological Bolivian think tanks. The Institute of Economic Affairs helped Ghana’s political parties overcome extreme polarization – American think tanks, take note – and manage newfound oil revenues to avoid the “resource curse.” In developing countries, especially, think tanks often improve policy by offering assistance to government officials who lack the resources of their counterparts in richer countries.
A cynic might comment that these are isolated cases – that think tanks cannot be rigorous and independent while focused on policy change. Think tanks can sacrifice the former to be strategic, in the process becoming an advocate “advancing a particular ideological agenda,” in the words of political scientist Donald Abelson. Or they can remain rigorous but “sleepy” places focused merely on “supplementing the policy needs of government.” And even if think tanks could find a balance – say, something like the strategic philanthropy being adopted by many of their funders – it would be stifling: Freedom to explore, so crucial to research, would be threatened by bureaucratic managers too focused on delivering results to demanding funders.
But our experience suggests there is a powerful middle ground in which think tanks can pull from the best practices of strategic philanthropy and advocacy to increase their impact while maintaining rigor and independence. These “think and do tanks” (as CGD describes itself) combine those traits to ensure well-researched evidence informs policymaking. A new book by Andrew Selee at the Wilson Center is evidence of the growing interest in this trend, and a good source for anecdotes that portray the many “flavors” of think tank strategy (including that of the more ideological institutions).
We have observed three key steps that help strategic “think and do tanks” succeed:
- Define a goal, then set priorities. Selee rightly encourages think tanks to start by considering what they want to achieve. We have found it helpful to go a step further to spell out clear criteria for setting priorities. These include the benefit that success in a given effort can deliver toward the institution’s goals, the contribution that the think tank can make to policy change, the likelihood that the policy will change (a topic that Selee does not address), and the cost to the think tank of making its contribution. These criteria can help in the consideration of difficult tradeoffs without dictating decisions.
- Plan activities that match the broader context. Think tanks rarely are active throughout the policy change process. As Selee notes, for example, many research-focused think tanks leave rough-and-tumble advocacy to more activist NGOs. However, think tanks still should consider the bigger picture of what is needed to translate their research into policy so they can contribute to policy change as productively as possible. My colleagues’ recent paper Assessing Advocacy lays out a framework to help think tanks consider how to do this effectively. For example, the bread-and-butter of think tanks is designing good, technically sound policy proposals. But a sound policy proposal can do even more if it is designed to speak to important policy-makers and constituencies, and if the think tank chooses opportunities in cognizance of the external environment and whether capable advocates exist.
- Assess progress continuously. Focus on real-world results and the think tank’s role in producing them, where possible. A recent study by the Peruvian think tank GRADE concludes that measuring these results is “more relevant but also more difficult,” especially because think tanks often are most active in the earliest stages of policy development. Selee reaches a similar conclusion. As a result, it is tempting to rely on objective measures of output and visibility in public discussion, as was done in a recent effort by scholars at CGD to rank think tanks. These measures can be valuable (especially when constructing an index), but less informative when a think tank is setting priorities and assessing its ultimate impact. We recently worked with the International Development Research Center’s Think Tank Initiative to experiment with one possible approach, which is summarized here. We look forward to seeing this and other methodologies emerge and evolve.
“Think and do tanks” demonstrate that there is a productive path away from the false dichotomy of strategic but ideological and rigorous but not strategic. These institutions are showing that decision-making informed by the political process, but not beholden to it, helps advance – rather than compromise – evidence-based policymaking.