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| US Think-Tanks: Casualties in the War of Ideas |
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In the 1960s Bill Baroody Sr, president of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) coined a phrase that became famous: "the competition of ideas is fundamental to a free society." AEI and other conservative think-tanks were setting out to develop an alternative set of ideas that were intended to challenge the liberal orthodoxy that dominated policy debates in Washington and on college campuses throughout the United States. AEI and many of the think-tanks in Washington ultimately achieved their objective through thoughtful and independent analysis of policy issues.
In the last decade, however, this marketplace of ideas has been transformed into an uncivil war of ideas between conservative and liberal ideologues. Think-tanks and their scholars are becoming the latest casualties in this ground war. Think-tanks, long recognised for their independent analysis, are now at risk of losing their credibility and independence as they get drawn into and polarised by this conflict. How and why did this happen? More importantly, what can be done about it?
Liberals love to blame conservatives for their own declining influence at the national and state level. They complain about being outspent by the donors on the right. Conservatives counter that the majority of the 1,500 think-tanks in the US are on college campuses and are controlled by the liberal elite.They also suggest that the majority of private foundations are of a liberal persuasion. Some scholars and journalists go so far as to suggest that liberal donors only support "objective research," and that is why the left is losing the war of ideas.
Such simplistic and one-sided explanations miss the big picture.They also enable the partisan merchants of fear on both sides to raise huge sums of money while providing a smokescreen for the shortcomings of their analysis.
What has happened
To understand what is really going on, we must consider the sevenfold range of environmental forces that have impacted on the ability of think-tanks to provide independent analysis and advice:- the development of partisan politics
- the growth of liberal and conservative advocacy groups
- the restrictive funding policies of donors
- the growth of specialised think-tanks
- the narrow and short-term orientation of congress and the White House
- the tyranny of myopic academic disciplines
- the growth of 24/7 cable news networks
Data collected from thirty-four of the leading United States think-tanks found that the rise in partisan politics and the pressure to align politically is polarising Washington think-tanks and compromising the quality of their debate and research. At the same time, cable news networks have created a demand for sound-bites rather than sound analysis.
Even more troubling is the fact that some liberal and conservative think-tanks have lost their independence and have been captured by these larger forces and a worldview that is negative and misanthropic. The convergence of these trends in recent years has threatened the important role think-tanks play in helping policy-makers meet the domestic and international challenges the United States faces.
Partisanship and the clash of cultures in Washington have recently reached a fevered pitch. One think-tank executive has noted that partisan politics creates a situation where there is little or no interest in balanced analysis because if a group does not lend unquestioned support on an issue, the group is thought to be as an ally of the "enemy".
How then can think-tanks address complex and dynamic issues, if answers have to be defined on partisan lines? What would happen if the public becomes willing to dismiss a particular institution's report based simply on its liberal or conservative agenda, rather than engaging in proper discussion of potential merits within a particular policy proposal?
The overwhelming complexity of most issues and the flood of information that is generated by them leads many voters either to throw their hands up or to choose an overly simplistic solution. This is precisely why think-tank scholarship, not interest-group propaganda disguised as scholarship, is so important. It must be the job of think-tanks to explore ways to effectively use television, the internet and other technologies to advance and improve the dissemination of their ideas and policy proposals. It is essential that these institutions not only increase the measure of listeners and readers, but also truly engage citizens in meaningful dialogue on key policy issues.
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