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The limits of inuence: foreign policy think tanks in

Britain and the USA

Richard Higgott and Diane Stone

Review of International Studies / Volume 20 / Issue 01 / January 1994, pp 15 - 34

DOI: 10.1017/S0260210500117760, Published online: 26 October 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0260210500117760

How to cite this article:

Richard Higgott and Diane Stone (1994). The limits of inuence: foreign policy think tanks
in Britain and the USA. Review of International Studies, 20, pp 15-34 doi:10.1017/
S0260210500117760

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Review of International Studies (1994), 20, 15-34 Printed in Great Britain

The limits of influence: foreign policy think

tanks in Britain and the USA*
RICHARD HIGGOTT AND DIANE STONE

Introduction

International non-governmental organizations and their influence over policy in

international relations have become subjects of scholarly attention in recent years.
One sector of the international policy-cum-analytic community that has received
little attention, however, is that group of nationally based non-profit indepen-
dent policy research institutes—popularly known as 'think tanks'. This is a strange
omission. Foreign policy think tanks and institutes of international affairs are of
interest to the wider debates in international relations for two reasons. On the one
hand, they aspire to be participants—if mostly marginal ones—in the foreign policy
making process. On the other hand, notwithstanding the tension between these two
roles, some contribute directly to international relations as a field of study. Yet a
common theme prevails. All foreign policy institutes are founded upon a conviction
that ideas are important. Researchers and executives of institutes, as well as their
corporate, government and foundation supporters, often believe that their intellec-
tual input into policy debates makes a difference. While this can be the case, we
suggest that it is less so than many advocates often assume.
Thus we use think tanks in this paper as a lens through which to observe the
changing agenda in international relations and, conversely, to examine the distinc-
tive character of think tanks in the policy process—seeking to inform and influence,
rather than set, policy. The context of our analysis is what Mark Zacher recently
described as the decaying Westphalian system of sovereignty and state autonomy.1
We argue that in their evolving agendas, foreign policy research institutes are
a barometer of change in international relations over time. Their concern to
extend their agendas—from the 'high politics' of diplomacy and strategy to the 'low
politics' of international economic and environmental issues in an era of globaliz-
ation replicates late twentieth-century policy concerns. Further, as foreign policy
making has become multi-faceted so too, we argue, has the think tank industry.
The paper is organized into three parts. In part 1, we provide a description of the
origins of some foreign policy think tanks in the United States and Great Britain.

* A first draft of this paper was presented to the Inaugural Pan European Conference on
International Studies, Heidelberg, September, 1992. Thanks for their comments on the paper are
extended to Jim Rollo at the RIIA, Gerry Segal at the IISS, William Wallace of St Antony's
College, Oxford and a third anonymous referee for the Review of International Studies.
1
M. W. Zacher, 'The Decaying Pillars of the Westphalian Temple: Implications for International
Order and Governance', in James N. Rosenau and Ernst-Otto Czempiel (eds.), Governance Without
Government: Order and Change in World Politics (Cambridge, 1992).

15
 16 Richard Higgott and Diane Stone

We identify three chronologically related types of organizational development: the

Old Guard, the Cold War Tanks and the New Partisans. In part 2, we address the
functional dimensions of think tank influence—at both a policy and intellectual
level—in an evolving world order. In part 3 we assess the range and limits of
influence of think tanks over foreign policy processes.
Our sample is by no means exhaustive. The paper is not a survey of think tanks,
but a partial and illustrative review, reflective of the themes we pursue. We focus
primarily on British and American policy institutes and draw upon the English
language literature. In so doing we recognize that there is a substantial body of
organizations with similar missions in non-English speaking countries. But while
foreign policy think tanks are global phenomena and have developed in diver-
gent contexts, their contemporary organizational form evolved initially and most
strongly in the USA and Britain. Accordingly, we examine their evolution in these
two countries as proto-types of policy institutes elsewhere.2

Foreign policy think tanks: towards a typology

While there has been research on the organizational and policy-making features
of independent policy research institutes broadly defined,3 very little conceptual
research on foreign policy think tanks as a category of policy actors in particular
has been undertaken.4 General theoretical understandings of the influence of think
tanks reflect conclusions as diverse as the theoretical spectrum of political science
itself. Pluralists portray them competing for the attention of elected officials in the
market place of ideas.5 Some neo-marxist and elite theorists portray them as policy

2
In addition to long-standing think tanks in the major European countries, especially France,
Germany and Scandinavia, there has been considerable recent growth in other parts of the
world—especially in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. For a discussion of think tanks in the Asia
Pacific, see J. W. Langford and K. L. Brownsey (eds.), Think Tanks and Governance in the
Asia-Pacific Region (1992). For examples from Canada and Australia, see R. W. Redford, 'Canada
and the World: The Work of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs', The Canadian Business
Review, 3 (1976), pp. 26-8 and T. B. Millar, 'The Role of the Australian Institute of International
Affairs', Australian Outlook; The Australian Journal of International Affairs, 30 (1976), pp. 1-12.
3
See H. Orlans, The Non-Profit Research Institute: Its Origin, Operation, Problems and Prospects
(New York, 1972); P. Dickson, Think Tanks (New York, 1971); and C. Weiss (ed), Organizations for
Policy Advice: Helping Government (California, 1992).
4
Any such studies have been organization-specific rather than conceptual. On the Council on Foreign
Relations, see R. D. Schulzinger, The Wise Men of Foreign Affairs: The History of the Council on
Foreign Relations (New York, 1984); L. Shoup and W. Minter, Imperial Brains Trust (New York,
1977). On the Royal Institute of International Affairs, see R. Morgan, 'To Advance the Sciences of
International Politics: Chatham House's Early Research', International Affairs, 55 (1978), pp. 240-51
and 'The Study of International Polities', in R. Morgan (ed.), The Study of International Affairs:
Essays in Honour of Kenneth Younger (London, 1972) and C. Thome, 'Chatham House, Whitehall,
and Far Eastern Issues: 1941^15', International Affairs, 54 (1978), pp. 1-29. On RAND, see B.
Smith, The RAND Corporation: Case Study of a Nonprofit Advisory Corporation (Cambridge, MA,
1977). On think tanks as foreign policy actors, see G. A. Fauriol, 'Think Tanks and US Foreign
Policy', in Thomas B. Lee (ed.), Ideology and Practice: The Evolution of US Foreign Policy (Taipei,
1985). There have also been a range of analyses of related organizations—such as the Trilateral
Commission. See S. Gill, American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission (Cambridge, 1990); H.
Sklar (ed), Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management
(Boston, 1980) but the Commission does not conform to our understanding of a think tank as an
independent policy research institute.
5
N. Polsby, 'Tanks But No Tanks', Public Opinion (April/May 1983), pp. 14-15.
 Foreign policy think tanks in Britain and the USA 17

planning organizations for a capitalist or ruling class.6 More recently, Smith

constructed an argument that such 'expert analysis' represented a threat to
democracy in the USA.7 This paper suggests the need for a more complex approach.
What we lack in parsimony is offset, we hope, by a richer insight into these
organizations.
The distinction between independent policy institutes and other organizations is
not always clear cut. Nevertheless, the institutes, centres, committees and councils
discussed in this paper are distinguishable from other actors such as research depart-
ments of political parties, interest groups, consultancies, government research
bureaux or commissions of inquiry. In short, think tanks are generally established as
(i) independent and permanent bodies and (ii) as charities or non-profit organizations
eschewing formal ties to government, political parties, universities or other organiz-
ations. In theory they have neither a dependent nor derivative policy position.
Research agendas are set by the institute rather than specific interests. These agendas
are typified by a strong policy focus and a desire to inform the policy processes
through research and analysis complemented by informal strategic advisory ties to
government, business or the public. Their emphasis is on communication.8

An Old Guard

Prior to World War I few organizations outside the policy making realm, discussed
foreign affairs.9 However, the Round Table—established in 1909 as an international
organization composed of conservative men seeking to stem the decline of the
British Empire and educate 'influential opinion on the need for adequate consti-
tutional machinery to effect a federation of the empire'—was something of a fore-
runner to the modern think tank.' 0 Membership was restricted to ensure secrecy."
Affairs were thrashed out in private and lobbying was confined to people of
recognized influence. It 'considered it a duty to take a stand on anything to do with
its raison d'etre'}1 Much of its early work was propaganda.
From the 1920s, the Round Table ceased to be of much relevance as some members
developed international interests wider than imperial matters. As an organization that
shunned publicity, conspiracy theories abounded. Further decay emerged in the

6
See G. W. Domhoff, Who Rules America Now? A View for the '80s (New Jersey, 1983) and J. S.
Peschek, Policy Planning Organizations: Elite Agendas and America's Rightward Turn (Philadelphia,
1987) and T. R. Dye, 'Oligarchic Tendencies in National Policy Making: The Role of Private
Policy Planning Organizations', Journal of Politics, 40 (1978), pp. 309-31.
7
J. Smith, The Idea Brokers: Think Tanks and the Rise of the New Policy Elite (New York, 1991).
8
For an analysis of the dilemmas of definition, see D. Stone, 'From Old Guard to New Partisans:
Think Tanks in Transition', Australian Journal of Political Science, 26 (1991), pp. 197-215.
9
S. King-Hall, Chatham House: A Brief Account of the Origins, Purposes, and Methods of the Royal
Institute of International Affairs (London, 1973), p. 7.
10
L. Foster, High Hopes: The Men and Motives of the Australian Round Table (Melbourne, 1986),
p. 11.
" Originating in London, Milner built the organization with the men who worked with him in South
Africa—the so-called 'Kindergarten'. Recruitment into this select group relied on personal
friendship, Colonial Office connections and Oxford University associations. Its primary product
was The Round Table which first went into print in 1910. Articles in the journal were unsigned as
often they were joint efforts of a discussion group.
12
Foster, High Hopes, p. 56.
18 Richard Higgott and Diane Stone

post-World War II era. Anti-colonial nationalism increased and Britain's global role
continued to decline, especially after Suez. The Round Table's behaviour became a
model for how contemporary think tanks should not, and would not, develop.
Other organizations established in the same period were more novel creations. US
institutes were found at the behest of, or with support from, philanthropists with
public spirited or religious aims of promoting peace or international understanding.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was found in 1910.13 It is bound
by strict foundation laws regarding non-partisanship. Established in 1914, the
Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs was strongly Protestant in
character and marked by an early 'excessive idealism'. It pioneered concern with
minority and human rights in the 1920s and, during World War II, denounced the
German concentration camps at the same time as the State Department denied their
existence and has generally engaged in energetic criticism of US foreign policy
throughout its existence. Over time the Council expanded beyond its Protestant
ecumenicism to identify common ground among pluralist ethical traditions.14
Also established during the Progressive Era of American politics, but with more
of a domestic focus, was the Brookings Institution. Pragmatic, reform-minded
'scientific' assessments of public administration was its initial goal. The Foreign
Policy Studies Program had been the smallest of its three research divisions.15
However, with the break up of the pre-Vietnam War foreign policy consensus,
foreign policy studies gained new momentum. A cadre of younger analysts—many
with government experience—were brought in.16 Subsequently, some of them—for
example, Fred Bergsten at the Institute for International Economics and Barry
Blechman at the Henry Stimson Center—established or became executives of other
research institutes. In the 1970s, Brookings was widely perceived as a liberal critic of
Republicanism. Since the 1980s it has become more conservative.
Both the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Royal Institute for
International Affairs (RIIA) emerged after the Versailles Peace Conference,
'growing out of the . . . discontent among the younger participants in the Versailles
negotiations at the reversion to the "old diplomacy" which they witnessed'. They
feared that the foreign policy making processes after World War I were returning to
'the pre-1914 pattern of secrecy and elite diplomacy.17 The RIIA quickly established
itself after acquiring Chatham House in 1923. Membership grew from 714 in
1922 to 1707 in 1929. Throughout the 1920-30s, endowments, gifts and individual
contributions enabled it to establish International Affairs, appoint a full-time
Director of Studies (Arnold Toynbee) and set up a library. In 1926 it acquired a
Royal Charter and spawned several offspring throughout the Commonwealth.
Entwined with both the RIIA and its sister institute, the Australian Institute of
International Affairs (AHA, established 1933) was the now defunct Institute of

13
The Carnegie Endowment has 'incubated' other organizations and maintains a loose affiliation with
the Arms Control Association which had its genesis at the Endowment and a common goal of
enhancing world peace.
14
Annual Report 1988-89, Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs (New York, 1989).
15
See D. Critchlow, The Brookings Institution, 1916-52: Expertise and the Public Interest in a
Democratic Society (Dekalb, 1985), p. 9.
16
J. Smith, Brookings At Seventy-Five (Washington, 1991), p. 104.
17
Members of the German delegation to Versailles also established a body in Hamburg, which was
disbanded in the 1930s, as were Institutes in Rome and Paris. See W. Wallace, 'Chatham House at
70: To the 1990s and Beyond', The World Today, 46 (1990), p. 75.
 Foreign policy think tanks in Britain and the USA 19

Pacific Relations (IPR).18 The IPR was set up as an international organization

composed of independent national councils to study Pacific peoples and to bring
together people of different nations and races.
Different organizational forms and practices were apparent among Old Guard
institutes. Secrecy and select membership in the Round Table became a liability in
democratizing nations. More importantly, tensions resulted from the diversity of
views that emerged from former colonies as nationalist sentiments and foreign
policy interests developed separately. Not all members of the British Empire were
enamoured with the notion of the superiority of British civilization. As one Round
Tabler noted in 1932: 'We were wrong . . . We overstated the argument for
federation of the Empire as an immediate and indispensable necessity . . . [for] . . .
a better world'.19
Other attempts to form international federations of institutes after the Versailles
Conference also failed. The difficulties of international communication and tensions
within Europe confounded cooperation via scholarship and discussion in private
bodies. The founders of the CFR, RIIA and German and French institutes learnt
quickly that foreign policy institutes functioned better as state-based entities. Again
in contrast to the Round Table, they exhibited a greater plurality of thought and
were more open to public scrutiny and—with the exception of the Council on
Foreign Relations, where it was by election—membership was theoretically open to
all qualified individuals. Chatham House has a blemished record on this score.
Membership was originally by invitation and, according to David Mitrany 'all
"radicals" . . . [Labourite and Liberal alike] . . . were left out'.20
Old Guard institutes were characterized by either overt moral and ethical concerns
to promote peace, end war and contribute to 'understanding', or were guided by
pragmatic effort to open up the foreign policy making process to a wider educated
and interested elite. E. H. Carr noted that after World War I, 'the passionate desire
to prevent war determined the whole initial course and direction' of studies
conducted to influence decision makers. 'Like other infant sciences . . . the science of
international politics has been markedly and frankly Utopian'.21 Both the Carnegie
Endowment of International Peace and Carnegie Council for International Ethics
were established to search for a non-partisan approach to world peace and the end
of war via the scientific and non-prejudicial study of international relations. In sum,
the development of institutes addressing questions of international relations and
foreign policy was a new organizational phenomenon in the inter-war period. They
were established as a response to changing global circumstances, the crises impelled
by war and the new modes of interaction among states which generated an interest
in the production and dissemination of knowledge on international affairs.

The Cold War tanks: transitional styles

The post-World War II era saw a new breed of research institute emerge. While they
had much in common with the first generation, they pioneered—especially in the
18
J. Thomas, The Institute of Pacific Relations: Asian Scholars and American Politics (Seattle, 1974).
19
Quoted in J. E. Kendle, The Roundlable Movement and Imperial Union (Toronto, 1972), p. 288.
20
David Mitrany, The Functional Theory of Politics (London, 1975), p. 39.
21
Quoted in Annual Report 1988-89, Carnegie Council, p. 7.
20 Richard Higgott and Diane Stone

USA—new techniques and approaches to policy analysis. The RAND Corporation

is often depicted as the exemplar of this group. It performed significant secret work
for the Pentagon but also produced unclassified research in the areas of strategy and
methodology in international relations. Its vast budget and close ties to the
Pentagon meant that it was atypical of policy institutes. Unlike Chatham House or
the CFR it also performed scientific research. The production of contract research
for government departments and agencies was a landmark development in think
tank activity. None the less, Cold War tanks assert concern for non-partisanship
and informed public debate. For example, the Atlantic Council (established in
1960)—although exclusive in membership—strives to be 'actively centrist and
consensus-building in nature' and professes dedication 'to the education of the
generations that will succeed to America's international leadership'.22
The original forces behind the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)
expressed similar idealistic and ethical concerns that characterized the Carnegie
institutes, but the IISS quickly developed a more eclectic style. Established in the
context of the development of nuclear weapons and the evolving US policy of
nuclear deterrence, IISS aimed to create a forum for public debate and research on
questions of massive retaliation and deterrence. Emerging from the Brighton
Conference Association (BCA), the core of its founding committee was composed
of a 1956 Chatham House study group on security, but the driving forces were
Anglican Church officials and laity.23 The BCA recruited Alistair Buchan as
founding director of the IISS. Imbued with the RAND culture of rationality,
Buchan downplayed moral and ethical questions concerning nuclear war that the
church had seen as paramount in the fledgling institute. He wanted IISS to 'create
an environment in which people could think clearly and dispassionately' about
security issues.24
A number of conservative bodies also emerged. For example, a former RAND
scholar, Herman Kahn—motivated by dissatisfaction with RAND—co-founded the
Hudson Institute. Hudson's style was captured in Kahn's famous phrase 'thinking
the unthinkable'. Its first years of existence were devoted almost entirely to defence
policy research but expanded to address other issues of national development. The
Hoover Institution should also be included in this category. Although founded in
1919, it operated in its first decades as an archive and library. Only in the 1950s did
it redefine its purpose with an elderly Herbert Hoover declaring it would 'demon-
strate the evils of the doctrines of Karl Marx'.25 East-West relations in the Cold
War context have been the focus of most of its scholarship. It remains staunchly
conservative in ethos. Former director, W. Glenn Campbell, aligned Hoover closely
with the Reagan Administration. Unlike most think tanks, it is located on a campus
—Stanford University—where a tense relationship, marked by ideological battles
with Stanford faculty, has long existed.26
Established in 1943, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) was a business
research body that had a low profile until the mid-1950s when it was resuscitated

22
The Atlantic Council of the United Slates (Washington DC, 1992).
23
M. Howard, 'IISS—The First Thirty Years: A General Overview', Adelphi Papers, 235 (1989), p. 11.
24
Howard, 'IISS', pp. 12-13.
25
Smith, The Idea Brokers, p. 186.
26
T. Bethall, 'Liberalism, Stanford-Style', Commentary, 11 (1984), pp. 42-7. The new director, John
Raisian, is more diplomatic in style and has attempted to smooth over past difficulties.
 Foreign policy think tanks in Britain and the USA 21

by executive vice president and subsequent president William J. Baroody. After

mustering a coterie of well-known conservative economists, on its board and as
scholars, the AEI proclaimed itself the conservative alternative to Brookings
including Foreign and Defense Policy Studies. The Center for Strategic and
International Studies (established in 1962) was the brainchild of David Abshire, an
army officer based at AEI who initially located CSIS at Georgetown University.
However, after clashes with the university administration, CSIS severed this
relationship in the early 1980s. In contrast to the technical orientation of RAND
defence intellectuals, CSIS privileged Western moral values and a traditional realist
conception of international relations in its policy prescriptions. This gave CSIS,
with its Clausewitzian perspective of strategy going beyond the technical dimensions
of weapons systems, a degree of difference not easily found in the other Washington
think tanks at the time.
The common characteristic of these organizations—when contrasted with less
consciously ideological Old Guard institutes—was their higher level of overt
commitment. Commitment, albeit with a normatively different hue, was shared by
the main radical alternative to emerge in the USA during the Cold War, the
Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). A self-styled progressive body, founded by
Richard Barnet and Marcus Raskin, IPS engaged in both domestic and inter-
national arenas of policy research to provide an alternative perspective on security
policy, foreign policy and development issues.27 Although on the fringes of policy
influence, some analysts credited the IPS with inordinate influence in the media,
Congress, the CIA and FBI, destroying public support for defence spending,
undermining America's democratic institutions and creating an image of the US as
'a rapacious imperial villain . . . [and] . . . threat to the world's peace and
prosperity'.28
A number of other 'progressive' institutes were established in the Cold War
years. The Center for Defense Information monitored military waste and con-
ducted statistical studies—judged, with hindsight to be credible—disputing claims
of the superiority of Warsaw Pact forces. The Overseas Development Council
(ODC) was founded by a group, including David Rockefeller, collectively concerned
to establish an institute to address US foreign aid responses to development
problems.
In summary, the Cold War tanks exhibited many features in common with the
Old Guard but also some departures in style. Generally they were large organiz-
ations with in-house research staff and budgets running into millions that flourished
in the favourable US philanthropic culture and tax regime. Aside from the AEI and
IPS, they are more specialized, often in security studies. Their ethos was ostensibly
non-partisan and reflected the positivist and behaviouralist scholas- ticism of
post-World War II attempts to develop the scientific study of international relations.
Their influence in foreign policy decision making was enhanced as experience and
familiarity with policy research institutes saw governments become more willing to
draw on outside expertise.

27
See J. S. Friedman (ed.), First Harvest: The Institute for Policy Studies, 1963-1983 (New York,
1983).
28
R. J. and E. Isaac, The Coercive Utopians: Social Deception By America's Power Players (Chicago,
1983), p. 108.
22 Richard Higgott and Diane Stone

New partisan institutes and intellectual entrepreneurialism

The changing foreign policy climate—especially (i) the increasing role of Congress
after the Vietnam War, (ii) the internationalization of the US business sector;
and (iii) a widening and professionalization of the foreign policy elite—facilitated
continued think tank development in the USA, but the latest generation of organiz-
ations are different from their predecessors in a number of ways: (i) they are less
idealistic but more ideologically and prescriptively driven; (ii) they are more focused
on single issue concerns; (iii) they display more diverse organizational forms and
styles. These factors allow us to identify four broad categories of organization:
(i) The general policy institutes. The large ideologically or politically partisan
institutes, such as the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute in the USA,
have international relations and foreign and defence policy programmes of research
complementing other programmes on domestic issues. The Cato Institute is
libertarian in ethos and was recently notable for its strident opposition to US
involvement in the Gulf War. Heritage Foundation scholars were prominent for
their conservative stance, especially during the Reagan Administration, regarding
US foreign policy towards the Soviet Union and their advocacy of the deployment
of space defences (SDI) against ballistic missiles. A narrower conservative institute
is the Ethics and Public Policy Center which focuses on ethics, international
relations and human rights. The World Policy Institute (WPI) focuses on inter-
national economic and security issues, challenging Cold War assumptions and
advancing a concept of international security grounded not in military might but in
policies that foster world economic growth and cooperation. Best described as
progressive in ethos, it was incorporated into the New School of Social Research
in 1991.
In Britain, the general policy institutes such as the Adam Smith Institute, the
Centre for Policy Studies and the Institute for Public Policy Research have not
traditionally concerned themselves with matters of a foreign policy nature. But the
growth of interest in Europe and the increasing pace of Community affairs after the
Single European Act in 1986, the move towards a Single Integrated Market and
the end of the Cold War have led to a greater interest in foreign policy concerns.
The establishment of the European Policy Forum and the Centre for Economic
Policy Research has seen the development of research on international economic
issues. The CEPR concentrates analysis on 'open economies' and the relations
between them. It does not operate with an in-house research staff but draws on the
contributions of a network of fellows dispersed throughout Europe and the USA.
(ii) Environmental institutes. Environmental pollution and degradation generally
know no boundaries and many of the environmental institutes have developed
a global focus of research although they speak primarily to national audiences.
The balance given to research and policy work of global dimensions differs from
institute to institute, but the foreign policy aspects of their research appear to be
growing strongly—as indeed are environmental matters on the agenda of inter-
national relations. While a body like the World Resources Institute (WRI) holds
most of its briefings and conferences in the USA, it also provides technical assist-
ance and policy analysis for developing countries and non-governmental organiz-
ations.29 A similar organization is the International Institute for Environment and
 Foreign policy think tanks in Britain and the USA 23

Development (IIED), headquartered in London. The World Watch Institute—

significant for its annual State of the World reports—is also global in its research
orientation whereas the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) is
regionally focused. Compared to WRI and IIED, World Watch is less academic and
more empirical in its activities, principal among which is cataloguing the destruction
of the world's resources through studies of soil erosion, nuclear energy and toxic
waste. There are now many other policy institutes researching environmental
matters—for example, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) and the Environ-
mental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) in the USA and the Tasman Institute in
Australia—but these are not so strongly focused on international relations issues.
The activities of these organizations are to be contrasted with those of pressure
groups.
(iii) Security studies institutes. Over the past two decades, security and defence
studies institutes have burgeoned. The Research Institute for the Study of Conflict
and Terrorism (RISCT) and the conservative Institute for European Defence and
Strategic Studies (IEDSS) were established in Britain in the 1970s.30 Growth is
especially noticeable in Washington DC with the emergence of bodies such as the
National Institute for Public Policy. The Henry L. Stimson Center concentrates on
arms control and international security in areas where 'policy, technology and
politics intersect'.31 By contrast, the Center for Security Policy has a commitment
to a strong national security posture and is forthright in its conservatism. It
concentrates on immediate foreign and defence policy choices eschewing time-
consuming publications and conferences in favour of 'tightly focused papers and
press releases, notable both for their brevity and the ease with which their analyses
and recommendations can be assimilated by those who must respond quickly to
world events'. Where the Center for Security Policy adopts a conservative formula
to assess international events and foreign policy, both the Washington Institute and
the Henry L. Stimson Center are more inquiring and analytical.
(iv) The international economic institutes. As the search for national economic
welfare in the global economy has become as salient as the preservation of national
security, impetus has been given to the development of these organizations. In the
USA, the Institute for International Economics (HE) is the exemplar of this brand
of think tank. It is tightly focused on international economic policy. Its economic
theory is avowedly liberal in normative and methodological orientation. All its
recommendations express a view of the world that favours open world markets. An
independent reviewer found that HE 'analyses . . . were familiar refrains' and there
was a 'fixed menu of ideas' advocating 'hard landings, target zones, exchange rate
explanations of trade deficits, etc.'.32
In contrast to the liberal, international, intellectual orientation of the HE there
are a number of bodies in the USA of a more avowedly nationalist economic
orientation. The exemplar is Clyde Prestowitz's Economic Strategy Institute (ESI)
which proffers neo-protectionist solutions—especially the adoption of policies of

29
World Resources Institute At A Glance 1991 (Washington DC, 1991), p. 3.
30
The RISCT, established in 1989, was originally the Institute for the Study of Conflict. IEDSS was
set up in 1979 and has links with the Heritage Foundation.
31
Pragmatic Steps Toward Ideal Objectives, Henry L. Stimson Center (Washington DC, nd).
32
C. D. Goodwin, Report on the US-European Economics Program, German Marshall Fund Strategic
Review, Trustee Committee No. 1 (1990), p. 6.
24 Richard Higgott and Diane Stone

'specific' as opposed to 'diffuse' reciprocity in international economic relations—

to the declining competitiveness of American industry. It sees the US foreign policy
making community as an establishment that 'has long put fighting communism over
cultivating economic power'.33 Through Prestowitz, the ESI has been at the fore-
front of that school of thought that argues that the US has lost the competition war
with Japan and the EC.34
The HE describes itself as a 'central node in the community of those engaged
in the global inquiry into international economic issues'—this community is a
relatively small number of people interested in foreign economic policy. At any one
time it includes Treasury and Finance people, a small subset of academics who have
a policy interest in the field, the specialized press, and a nebulous group of trade
representatives, former public servants, diplomats, consultants and analysts of large
corporations who, for one reason or another, have an interest in the field. HE fulfills
a research brokerage role and the resources of institutes such as HE are in demand
by decision makers. If a government department or agency lacks in-house research
capacity, it can turn to independent research institutes often within walking distance
of Capitol Hill.
While the New Partisan institutes are not completely divorced in style from our
other two categories, there are noticeable differences. They are often much smaller
operations (Heritage notwithstanding). Older organizations such as Brookings are
often perceived by the newer institutes to be too big and rigid. Optimal concen-
trations of skill are thought to be more achievable in specialized arrangements and
smallness is made feasible by modern telecommunications technology as well as a
conscious desire to remain 'lean'.35 Indeed, since the 1980s, many institutes have
emphasized targetted research to the attention of decision makers. The executive
summary tailored to bureaucratic and political needs represents the oeuvre of the
New Partisans. Not without reason, contemporary institutes are said to operate in a
marketplace of ideas. This is pronounced in the USA where the competition for
corporate or foundation funding is intense and the range of think tanks is greater
than in Britain.

Think tanks and international change

Notwithstanding the problematic and competing conclusions we can draw from

observation of twentieth-century history, technological advance, globalization and
the growth of international institutions have modified our understanding of state
autonomy and sovereignty at the end of the twentieth century.36 Just as the prolifer-
ation of international organizations, congresses and treaties and international law
are a twentieth-century phenomenon, so are foreign policy research institutes. We
argued in the previous section that their growth and their changing research agendas

33
C. V. Prestowitz, R. A. Morse and A. Tonelson (eds.), Powernomics: Economics and Strategy After
the Cold War (Lanham MD, 1991), p. xvii.
34
C. V. Prestowitz, Trading Places: How We Allowed Japan to Take the Lead (New York, 1988).
35
Annual Report, Tasman Institute (Melbourne, 1991), p. 15.
36
Zacher, 'The Decaying Pillars', pp. 58-65.
 Foreign policy think tanks in Britain and the USA 25

have mirrored trends in international relations. In this section, we argue that think
tanks can be actors in the process of change too.
If, for example, we consider deterrence theory we can see that a more sophisti-
cated aversion to war has emerged among developed states. Second strike capability
and ensuring mutual destruction have changed the cost/benefit ratio of war.37
Furthermore, the lethality of chemical and biological weapons has prompted
concern regarding international terrorism and a need to share information and
collaborate in the security sphere. The role of think tanks in determining the
calculus of war over time is apparent. RAND scholars, as civilian security intellec-
tuals, played a central part in the formulation of US security orthodoxy of the
1950s and 1960s. They, along with other academic strategists of the 1950s, were a
'transnational community of strategic analysts marked by more points of agreement
than division'.38
The civilian strategists provided criticism of the prevailing strategic orthodoxies of
massive retaliation and limited war. They dealt with arms control as a 'technical
path to improved management of conflict'.39 RAND analysts saw strategy as a
technical problem capable of rational resolution. To be part of the scholarly
strategic community required a proficiency in game theory, systems analysis and
deterrence theory. The IISS in London was also to strengthen and reaffirm this
cohesiveness. In the 1950-60s a gap between government and the military emerged
regarding the different strategic environment of the Cold War era. RAND filled this
gap:
RAND personnel 'occupied' the Pentagon as the effective personal instrument of a
Secretary engaged in sweeping strategic changes. Leading RAND figures . . . were coopted
to guide the implementation of a more rational mode of defence management and to
engage in a sweeping review of general limited war, and counter-insurgency strategies . . .
[t]heir intellectual dominance in the early 1960s was nearly absolute. Although the
Administration might dilute or reject a proposal, the mode of reasoning, the terms
employed were those popularized by Kissinger, Wohlstetter, Kahn, Schelling and others.40
This community was able to 'capture' the Pentagon for three reasons: (i) RAND
acted as an alma mater for the academic strategists; (ii) RAND was tapped into the
Air Force which provided a route to bureaucratic influence; (iii) nuclear strategy
was an area in need of urgent government attention but considered out of the realm
of expertise of the professional soldier given its technical nature, and quantitative
requirements.41 But 1950-60s-style deterrence was not timeless. Nor was RAND's
hegemony in producing academic strategists. Its dominance of security analysis was
challenged by the growing academic study of strategy and emerging centres of
strategic analysis, such as CSIS. Reevaluation of questions such as involvement in
Vietnam and other policy failures, technological developments and new adminis-

37
Zacher, 'The Decaying Pillars', pp. 67-75. See also J. Mueller, 'The Essential Irrelevance of
Nuclear Weapons', International Security, 13 (1988).
38
C. Gray, 'Strategists: Some Views Critical of the Profession', International Journal, 26 (1970-1),
pp. 773-4.
39
C. Gray, 'What RAND Hath Wrought', Foreign Policy, 4 (1971), p. 116.
40
Gray, 'What RAND Hath Wrought', p. 119.
41
C. Gray, 'The Rise and Fall of Academic Strategy', RUSI Journal, 16 (1971), p. 55. For a
discussion of RAND's role as part of an epistemic community, see E. Adler, 'The Emergence of
Cooperation: National Epistemic Communities and the International Evolution of the Ideas of
Nuclear Arms Control', International Organisation, 46 (1992), pp. 37-100.
 26 Richard Higgott and Diane Stone

trations opened space for new voices to be heard, to complicate the debate and
challenge prevailing orthodoxies.
It is not only in the strategic dimensions of the Cold War that think tanks were
influential. Their role in the ideas battle needs also to be considered. If, as an
increasing number of scholars now argue, liberal democracies are less likely to wage
war on each other than non-democratic societies,42 then the manner in which the
democratic ethos permeates the international community is an important question
for the analyst of ideas. Several think tanks have taken to the role of overt
promoters of democracy in the international sphere.
Whereas rationality underwrote the discourse within RAND, the spreading of the
'superior' ethic of democracy is one of the intellectual and policy raison d'etre of the
AEI. One of its recent publications, Exporting Democracy, is perhaps the crudest
representation of this explanation for why the US 'won' the Cold War—not on the
strength of arms or the skill of diplomats but by virtue of the democratic ideal and
the failure of the communist ideal. Ideas have potency in international politics and
are part of the character of power. Making the world safe for democracy is advan-
tageous to American national interests as a more democratic world is believed to be
a friendlier and more peaceful neighbourhood for the US.43 Repackaged for the
post-Cold War era, this argument has been a part of American foreign policy since
modernization theory informed US policy towards the developing world in the
1960s.44
The emergence since the late 1960s of the environmental research institutes is a
reflection of the way in which international physical externalities—trans-border
problems of pollution, environmental crisis (CFCs and ozone depletion) and disease
(AIDs) are challenging territorial understandings of sovereignty.45 The current
debate over the impact of environmental degradation demonstrates how research
institutes can force the pace of change in establishing new agenda issues in inter-
national relations. It should be noted that, while such institutes often regard the
world as their policy domain, they tend—in recognition of the limits imposed on
action by the state system—to be nationally constituted organizations. An exception
is the IEEP with European-wide offices.
Third, increasing international economic interdependence means that while the
state may remain the major actor in international relations, it is but one amongst a
range of levels of authority. Think tanks have played an important role in our
understanding of economic globalization at different levels. Particularly in a post-
Cold War environment, many of them have become less concerned with matters
of high diplomacy and more concerned with the international political economy.
This is the case not only with those organizations dealing with international
42
See M . W . Doyle, 'Liberalism a n d W o r l d Polities', American Political Science Review, 80 (1986),
pp. 1,151-69, and F. Fukayama, The End of History and the Last Man (London, 1992).
43
J. M u r a v c h i k , Exporting Democracy: Fulfilling America's Destiny ( W a s h i n g t o n D C , 1991), p . 6. T h e
Center for Democracy in Washington DC, in addition to research, conferences and publications,
has recently organized a Gift of Democracy programme of donations of personal computers,
printers, copiers, fax machines and other communication facilities to the Polish legislature;
international observer delegations for elections in Latin America; the Library of Democracy
collection of 'classic' works on democracy for distribution to civic groups in Eastern Europe, and
an international legislative development programme for new and re-emerging democracies.
44
See R. Packenham, Liberal America and the Third World: Social Science Ideas in Foreign Aid and
Political Development (Princeton, 1973).
45
See J. Tuchman Matthews, 'Redefining Security', Foreign Affairs, 68 (1989), pp. 162-77.
 Foreign policy think tanks in Britain and the USA 27

economic concerns—the HE or the 'advocacy' tank, ESI—but also with some older
organizations.
RAND, for example, initiated in 1988 an International Economic Studies
Program focusing on relationships and interactions between international and
domestic policies in the areas of international trade, technology, finance and
economic development. The research agenda of the Council on Foreign Relations in
the last decade has given special consideration to the reform of the multilateral trade
system; the management of the international financial system and the significance
and dangers of US-Japanese conflict over trade and competitiveness.46 Similarly, a
recent reading of Foreign Affairs reveals increased attention to global economic
management.
Nowhere more than among the Cold War tanks has international change
propelled a reassessment of institutional mission. Obsolesence, following the
collapse of communism, has been defied by reconceptualizing the problem and their
organizational role in a number of ways. Some think tanks have redirected their
efforts to aiding former communist societies in the transition to democracies and
market societies. Heritage and the Carnegie Endowment have opened Moscow
offices and, like other organizations, have shifted their concerns about security and
disarmament from superpower contests to regional conflicts.
The Hoover Institution in 1990 initiated a Foreign Diplomat Training Program
—offering Western perspectives on international relations, economics, statecraft
and diplomacy—for Bulgaria, the former Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and
Romania. Hoover scholars conduct research in these countries on prospects for
privatization, the allocation of property rights and the establishment of legal
structures to promote free market enterpreneurialism. Similarly, the Carnegie
Council for International Peace has instituted a seminar series on privatization in
Eastern Europe, while Heritage has been a source of advice to Boris Yeltsin.
Another response to the end of the Cold War has been to develop an inward-
looking focus. Interest in international political-military questions at CSIS have
now been interwoven with questions of economic and environmental security and
domestic questions. Its Strengthening America Commission was a response to the
recognition that US domestic infrastructure is crumbling. The US cannot exert
international leadership if it cannot maintain domestic credibility, thus 'strategy' has
taken on a broader meaning in the CSIS name.
Think tank activity is also part of the enhanced global 'communication' among
select policy, business and academic circles that mitigate the autonomy of the
state at the end of the twentieth century. Think tanks are often highly efficient in
the dissemination of new ideas and analyses beyond borders. They promote the
development of transnational communities of scholars and practitioners as net-
working becomes more formalised.
Of particular interest for the 1990s is the extent of interaction among American
and Asian institutes. The Honolulu based Pacific Forum has established a network
of formal relations with selected Asian Pacific institutes to provide a 'window' into
the region. It has also created a facsimile network, PacNet, to institutionalize dialogue
and information exchange. The Normura Research Institute (NRI), sponsors the

46
See for example, M. Aho and J. D. Aronson, Trade Talks: America Belter Listen, 2nd edn (New
York, 1988); E. Frost, For Richer, For Poorer: The New US-Japan Relationship (New York, 1987).
 28 Richard Higgott and Diane Stone

'Tokyo Club'—a joint research programme on global issues drawing together with
the NRI, Brookings, Chatham House, Institut fur Wirtschaftsforschung (IFO) in
Germany and the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales in Paris. The
Association of Southeast Asian Institutes of International Affairs meets to discuss
cooperative projects and the Kuala Lumpur based Institute for Strategic and
International Studies (ISIS) runs roundtables which are a key element in the evolving
regional security dialogue in the Asia Pacific.
Such interaction is conducive to 'track 2' or 'informal' diplomacy. Through the
attendance of ministers, non-governmental organizations, academics and others,
regional gatherings provide opportunities for informal dialogue. Networking pro-
motes the diffusion of think tank scholarship and perspectives as states become
enmeshed in collaborative arrangements and regimes that cast international politics
in a different mould to that which prevailed for the larger part of the Cold War era.
Assuming the continued centrality of the sovereign state to international politics in
the last decade of the twentieth century is one thing; assuming its exclusivity or
inviolability is another. Think tanks are not only indicative of the trends and
transformations that Zacher calls the decaying of the Westphalian system, they are
also part of the dynamic.
Not all institutes will, or can, be at the cutting edge of research in all areas.
Indeed, RAND's role in the development of deterrence theory notwithstanding,
foreign policy think tanks rarely aspire to such a role. Rather they seek to adapt
scholarship to a form palatable for decision makers, the media and other interested
groups. In short, they engage in research brokerage—building institutions where
intellectuals can work, rescuing ideas from obscurity, synthesizing them and putting
them in the hands of influential people.47 Successful brokers are often noted thinkers
in their own right. If not, they invariably have skills in recruiting talent, fundraising
and public relations. David Abshire at CSIS, Glenn Campbell, a past president of
the Hoover Institution, Fred Bergsten at HE in the USA, Richard Portes at CEPR
in the UK, Thierry de Montbrial at IFRI in France, Tadashi Yamamoto of the
Japan Centre for International Exchange48 and Noordin Sopiee at ISIS in Malaysia
may be thought of as examples of the modern research broker.
However, a number of foreign policy institutes—especially Old Guard and, to a
lesser extent the Cold War Tanks—have also been sites for innovation in inter-
national relations scholarship. While the organizational form of the think tank is
different to that of the university they have contributed to scholarship. The
argument can be illustrated by a look at the flagship activity of many think tanks—
the production of journals. They are crucial to the identity of many an institute.
These journals—especially of Old Guard institutes—are widely recognized as
important vehicles for the work of the individual scholar.49 While the journals are
47
J. L. Sundquist 'Research Brokerage: The Weak Link', in Laurence E. Lynn (ed.), Knowledge and
Policy: The Uncertain Connection (Washington DC, 1987).
48
This Centre has produced a useful directory of foreign policy think tanks around the world.
Similarly, the IISS publishes directories of security studies institutes—see Nicoline Van Der Woerd,
World Survey of Strategic Studies Centres (London, 1992) and John Chipman, Survey of
International Relations Institutes in the Developing World (London, 1987).
49
The CFR produces Foreign Affairs and Critical Issues, Chatham House publishes International
Affairs and The World Today. The Carnegie Endowment has published Foreign Policy since 1970,
while the Carnegie Council launched the highly successful Ethics and International Affairs in 1987.
IISS produces the Adelphi Papers and Survival. CSIS produces the Washington Quarterly, the WPI's
major output is the World Policy Journal.
 Foreign policy think tanks in Britain and the USA 29

scrupulously produced and often refereed, there is none the less, a particular tone,
theme or discernible style by which the journal, and hence the organization, can
be recognized. For example, the WPI's World Policy Journal seeks to provide
'progressive internationalist perspectives on changing world realities and inter-
national problems' whereas Heritage's Policy Review is a 'forum for conservative
debate'. By contrast, the unifying theme of Ethics and International Affairs is the
'interrelationship of ethics and foreign policy'. Articles can be seminal, as in the case
of George Kennan's supposedly anonymous article in Foreign Affairs outlining the
concept of containment, or Susan Strange's 1970 article in International Affairs,
which did so much to kick-start the study of international political economy.50
Yet research carried out by the RIIA, CEPR, Brookings, AEI, CFR or RAND is
not analogous to that undertaken in universities. Chatham House's research agenda
was traditionally concerned with 'area studies' or the analysis of a single country
in a manner which set it apart from more theoretically oriented developments in
academic international relations.51 Think tanks are stylistically more eclectic in their
approach than universities, nor are they bound to a specific discipline and incen-
tives are different. Tenure and peer review steers research to discipline-generated
questions in the academy, policy principally drives questions in the think tank.
These differences aside, Old Guard organizations have made major contributions
to the theorizing in international relations.52 By contrast, the new breed of think
tank is more concerned to bend the policy making community to its thinking on
foreign policy issues relevant to its agenda. In Robert Cox's terms, it is very much
international relations as 'problem solving' rather than 'critical theory'53 that is the
objective of the think tank. Further, the need to convey the message is as immediate
as the means adopted. In this regard new partisan tanks differ from the Old Guard
institutes which—in less competitive days—were more passive, seeking principally to
inform and educate rather than influence decision makers.

Foreign policy think tanks: the limits of influence

Moving from context to process we wish to argue that think tank influence on the
policy making processes will vary over time and according to a range of factors.54
Specifically, while ideas matter, and while think tanks are an important source of
50
See X (George Kennan), 'The Sources of Soviet Conduct', Foreign Affairs, 25 (1947) and Susan
Strange, 'International Relations and International Economics: A Case of Mutual Neglect,
International Affairs, 46 (1970), pp. 304-15.
51
Morgan 'The Study of International Polities', p. 277.
52
Bill Olson and John Groom, International Relations Then and Now: Origins, Trends and
Interpretations (New York, 1991), demonstrate the manner in which Chatham House was an
important locus for the development of the discipline of international relations in the UK in the
inter-war period.
53
See Robert Cox, 'Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory',
in R. O. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and Its Critics (New York, 1986).
54
Demonstrating influence and assessing the impact of ideas on policy is a dilemma constantly faced
by think tanks. Generally, crude measures are used—number of media reports on its work and/or
appearances of its staff, increases in funding, increases in staff size, increases in the circulation of
journals or the volumes of sales of reports, the praise of politicians or the use of publications on
university course lists are used as indicators when soliciting financial support.
30 Richard Higgott and Diane Stone

ideas, they lack clout in the absence of an existing 'constellation of institutions'

—such as political parties, governmental bureaucracies and interest groups—to
operationalize these ideas.55 More importantly, the 'political' role of think tanks
cannot be overlooked. 'In the symbolism of power, the non-governmental policy
organization will continue to be used to "signal" shifts in policy'.56 Specifically, they
can play an important legitimating role in the declaratory foreign policy of a given
government.
At a rhetorical level, 'independence' is the most closely cherished possession of a
think tank, not least because of the need to safeguard an organization's charitable
or non-profit, and thus tax privileged status. It is for this reason that many
organizations portray themselves as pursuing 'scientific' and disinterested research.
Chatham House was intended not to 'interfere with policy but provide materials
from which politicians, statesmen and journalists can form sound opinions in regard
to policy'.57 Yet, like many organizations, the RIIA has not always been seen in this
light by all observers. At its inception, the intention to establish an independent
foreign policy institute was viewed in some quarters of government as an attempt to
build a 'rival civil service' and a frequent early complaint was that its connections
with parliamentarians and the civil service gave it a semi-official status.58
The most pronounced period of collaboration with government was the 'wartime
mobilization' of Chatham House. With a government grant, it established the
Foreign Research and Press Service (FRPS) in Oxford in 1939, transformed in 1943
into the Foreign Office Research Department (FORD) still under Arnold Toynbee's
direction. For Christopher Thorne, its 'contribution to policy debates . . . consisted
in the main in the provision of raw material in the form of historical background
studies and surveys of factors that might come to play a part in the future'.59 The
dividing line between Chatham House and the official world was blurred during the
war. Thorne also argued that its independence was compromised by involvement
with the Institute for Pacific Relations (IPR) which, between 1941 and 1945, took
on significance for the Foreign Office as a forum for promoting Allied war aims in
Asia and advancing a British position against mounting anti-colonial opinion. In
return for financial support, Chatham House facilitated the Foreign Office policies
towards the IPR.60
More critical views of the RIIA's interaction with government can be found in
Elie Kedourie's discussion of the 'Chatham House version' of Middle East Policy.
The RIIA's official connection through FORD gave its 'writers and research staff
a privileged access to the official world'. Consequently, Toynbee's influences as a
Western spokesman for the Arab cause was magnified not solely by official links but
also because Chatham House research provided a 'scholarly buttress' for views
already 'widely shared among the intellectual and official classes in Britain'.
It should be noted that Kedourie does not concur with the Chatham House
perspective—regarding it as privileging the role of Arabs by portraying them as
55
P. Hall (ed.), The Political Power of Economic Ideas (Princeton NJ, 1989), p. 350.
56
Bruce Smith, 'The Non Governmental Policy Analysis Organization', Public Administration Review,
3 (1977), pp. 257.
57
Viscount Grey of Falloden, quoted in Morgan, 'To Advance the Science of International polities',
p. 242.
58
Wallace, 'Chatham House at 70', p. 76.
59
Thorne, 'Chatham House', p. 9.
60
Thorne, 'Chatham House', pp. 17-23.
 Foreign policy think tanks in Britain and the USA 31

victims of Western imperialism. But he is more concerned to criticize RIIA scholars

for their Europocentrism which promoted a 'superficial and eccentric view' of
Middle Eastern society and politics.61
Kedouri's critique notwithstanding, there have been only a few recorded instances
where the Foreign Office has consciously sought to intervene directly in Chatham
House affairs. Of those documented, there is evidence of some resistance. In 1938,
Toynbee resisted Foreign Office attempts to delay the publication of Elizabeth
Wiskeman's book, Czechs and Germans, until after the Sudeten crisis had been
resolved. In 1978, Ministry of Defence officials expressed disapproval of the
publication of Ian Smart's 'sensitive' Beyond Polaris.62 The formal wartime relation-
ship was maintained informally in the postwar period. FCO personnel regularly
attend seminars and conferences. Furthermore, Chatham House often responds to
requests from Downing Street to organize round table discussions among academic
and political figures from countries where informal contact may be preferred to
direct contact.63 More prominently, Chatham House hosted Prime Minister John
Major's EC Presidency Conference in August 1992. While it undertook all the
organization, the RIIA had little input into the selection of speakers. In the eyes of
some, including some staff spoken to, this interaction compromises the integrity of
the RIIA. The Foreign Office has also been known to 'vet' RIIA papers prior to
publication.64 While Chatham House remains independent in the conduct of its
research, 'the choice of questions is closely tailored to perceived government needs
and inhibited in posing unwelcome topics'.65 Chatham House, and its individual
researchers value and proclaim their independence even if the substance of this
independence is constrained on a range of issues.
In the USA, the war also drew the CFR into policy making circles. In 1939, the
Council approached the Roosevelt Administration to carry out on behalf of the
State Department an investigation into the impact of the outbreak of war in Europe
and subsequent peace on US interests.66 With US entry into the war, the Adminis-
tration set up an Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy to manage the
CFR's research agenda for the War and Peace Program. John Ikenberry charts
the influence of this programme over the development of Dexter White's plan for
the creation of the IMF and for informal discussions in which British and US
economists explored differences known to have existed in their respective thinking
on the shape of the post-World War II international economic order.67
61
See Elie. Kedourie, The Chatham House Version and Other Middle Eastern Studies (Hanover, 1984),
pp. 351-2, passim.
62
Wallace, 'Chatham House at 70', p. 76.
63
See John Dickie, Inside the Foreign Office (London, 1992), pp. 298-9. This is a role played by
many other institutes such as the Australian and Canadian Institutes of International Affairs.
64
In the research for this paper, both authors came across considerable anecdotal evidence of FCO
influence of aspects of Chatham House's work. Vetting can occur through the study group system
whereby 'All manuscripts submitted for publication have to pass the scrutiny of specialists from
relevant government departments, the academic world, the business community and the media'. See
Jack Spence, 'The House that Research Built', RTZ Review, 22 June 1992. The Foreign Office is a
corporate member of the RIIA. It contributes approximately £50,000 of the Institute's research
project income of approximately £1 million. See Dickie, Inside the Foreign Office, p. 299.
65
Christopher Brewin, 'Research in a Global Context: A Discussion of Toynbee's Legacy', Review of
International Studies, 18 (1992), p. 122.
66
L. Silk and M. Silk, The American Establishment (New York, 1980), p. 198.
67
J. Ikenberry, 'A World Economy Restored: Expert Consensus and the Anglo-American Post War
Settlement', International Organization, 46 (1992), pp. 289-321.
32 Richard Higgott and Diane Stone

Domhoff similarly argues that the War and Peace Study Groups were elemental
not only in the creation of the post-World War II economic institutions, but also
the United Nations. At a later time, study groups played a role in establishing a
consensus wisdom that it was necessary to defend Vietnam at all costs.68 As Silk and
Silk note, the 'disposition' of the CFR was 'to impress upon the country its
international responsibilities, and Vietnam certainly seemed one of them'.69 But the
war destroyed the potential for consensus thinking in the Council, particularly as
efforts to increase membership and make it more representative of American society
eroded exclusivity in the 1970s. Membership continued to be limited to 'those with
"sound" views', that is, influential figures who shared an internationalist perspec-
tive.70 If the Council's internationalist stance from the 1920s was a sharp contrast
with the isolationist tendencies predominant at the time in the US, in contemporary
times, it plays a more modest role as an 'agenda defining institution' attempting 'to
make a difference at the margin by asking some key questions'.71
The influence of many of the Old Guard institutes has waned since the end of
World War II. While still important bodies, no longer do the CFR or RIIA enjoy
an era when discussion of foreign policy was the preserve of a few educated men.
Private foreign policy institutes have proliferated, the increasing complexity of
foreign policy making has led to a larger cohort of foreign policy specialists and
there has also been a transformation of the context in which the independent policy
research institute operates. Prior to World War II, there were few academic centres
devoted to the study of international relations. The growth of international relations
as an academic discipline is a post-World War II phenomenon and the resources
and personnel of the major universities in this area outweigh now considerably
those of the foreign policy institutes.
Securing resources in think tanks is more difficult than in the university sector.
Many institutes are supported by foundations. The IISS has received considerable
long-term support from the Ford Foundation, and Chatham House now receives a
considerable amount of Japanese foundation support. In some degree, institutes are
beholden to agendas established by foundation executives and other sponsors.72
While many of them are highly reputed, have large endowments or attract consider-
able political patronage, institutes must adapt or try to reshape these external
forces. Foundations have changed their funding patterns over time. They are less
likely to make large gifts or fund long-term projects. Instead, with a much wider
array of institutes to choose from, foundations are able 'to hold grantees more
directly accountable for their work [and] to support new organizations for more
narrowly defined projects with more immediate pay-ofF.73
More so than in any other country, the US foreign policy institutes have played
an influential role in foreign policy making. This is due to the nature of the political

68
Domhoff, Who Rules America Now?, p. 87.
69
Silk and Silk, The American Establishment, p. 203.
70
Schulzinger, The Wise Men of Foreign Affairs, p. 19.
71
Quoted in E. F. Mandelstam, 'Shrinking Sphere of Influence', The New York Observer, 11
December 1989.
72
See T. Wright, F. Rodriguez and H. Waitzkin, 'Corporate Interests, Philanthropies, and the Peace
Movements', Monthly Review, February 1988 and Edward H. Berman, The Ideology of
Philanthropy: The Influence of the Carnegie, Ford and Rockefeller Foundations on American Foreign
Policy (Albany, 1983).
73
Smith, The Idea Brokers, p. 215.
 Foreign policy think tanks in Britain and the USA 33

system. The separation of powers allows both Congress and the President to initiate
legislation. The presence of Republicans in the White House and Democrats
controlling Congress for much of the past twenty-five years, has also generated
demand for intellectual ammunition on both sides. Executive branch departments
are fragmented into component agencies, each with interests, clients and policy
preferences which Secretaries have difficulty controlling. Additionally, Congress is
fragmented with the Senate and House fashioning legislation independently.74 The
institutionalization of advice in government policy planning staffs and bodies
such as the CIA, the National Security Council, the Council of Economic Advisers
and in the State Department has presented new opportunities for think tanks.75
By contrast, in smaller parliamentary systems such as Great Britain or Australia,
foreign policy analysis developed more extensively in the universities and
bureaucracies. The concept of collective ministerial responsibility and an ethos of
officialdom compounds the insularity of policy making and a predisposition for
secrecy.
Many policy institutes in the USA 'acts as a revolving door for individuals to
come and go from administrative agency to think tank to agency, to media, back
for a sabbatical [at the think tank] and finally into a high level policy making
position in a sympathetic administration'.76 Permeability provides an avenue of
influence and encourages a dependency on outside organisations for advice and
analysis. In addition, through intern and fellowship programmes—such as those
at the CFR, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis (IFPA) and the Carnegie
Endowment—foreign policy institutes provide experience for younger foreign policy
specialists.
Think tanks are on the boundaries of philanthropy, government, the media and
education. Although the extent of overlap varies among different political cultures
and from one institute to another, the boundaries have become blurred. With
growing interdependence, claims to independence and autonomy become problem-
atic. The social and professional interactions of institute staff and trustees, and their
career moves across different organizations, creates a matrix of networks. These
links help break down the structural distinctions between government and other
organizations, embedding think tanks in a broader social and political context. But
organizations can be marginalized if they espouse views unpopular to a government
or department. Yet only in one case has a US administration been known to have
caused the demise of an institute. The IPR was a victim of the Cold War and an
over inflated perception among Macarthyites in the late 1950s, of its influence on
US Far Eastern policy.77
The Brookings Institution attracted presidential hostility in the wake of the
Pentagon Papers scandal. The Nixon administration feared Brookings researcher,
Leslie Gelb, would produce damaging information on US involvement in Vietnam.
Nixon, personally enraged by what he saw as Brookings' undue influence, sought in
1971 to stop government contracts with Brookings and use the Internal Revenue
Service to 'pressure' Brookings. A disinformation campaign that painted Brookings
74
Carol Weiss, 'Introduction: Helping Government Think: Functions and Consequences of Policy
Analysis Organizations', Organizations for Policy Advice, p. 6.
75
J. Smith, The Idea Brokers, pp. 113-16.
76
Edwin J. Feulner, 'Ideas, Think Tanks and Government', Quadrant, November 1985, p. 24.
77
Thomas, The Institute of Pacific Relations, p. 79.
34 Richard Higgott and Diane Stone

as pro-Hanoi was also proposed.78 Even more alarming, Nixon's aides toyed with
the idea to explode a fire bomb in Brookings. While this is a remarkable episode it
is not the usual state of affairs for a think tank to incur such Presidential wrath.

Conclusion

This paper represents but a first attempt to analyse the role of foreign policy
think tanks in international relations. Analysis to-date has been unsystematic, the
purpose has been to present some empirical insights into a series of more conceptual
questions about the role of these organisations rather than assess them as isolated
bodies independently seeking to make a mark on policy. This has allowed us to
identify several types of foreign policy think tanks and see some patterns in the
nature and degree of their influence over time.
For example, the CFR's early influence was as a loosely bound anti-isolationist
policy community which wished to see the US adopt a more 'responsible' global
role. It was a community that subsequently found access and entree into the formal
decision-making arenas where it was able to inform and influence others. The
expertise within the CFR was drawn upon not solely because of the skill and
knowledge of its members and study groups but also because the Council was a
well-connected, legitimate centre for the study of international affairs. In the
uncertain, and time specific circumstances of World War II and after, it became a
favoured source of advice. A similar pattern of evolution and influence was
exhibited in RAND's role in the evolution US Cold War strategic thinking.
In their first decades, Old Guard institutes were visionary and innovative. They
were also rather more idealistic, club-like and less hyper-active than many of the
New Partisan institutes established in later decades. These newer bodies are
invariably more political and instrumental than their predecessors. Unlike the early
institutes, they do not rely primarily on scholarship to inform policy. They are
consciously more activist. This is especially the case with the new-conservative
foreign policy think tanks on the one hand and with the environmental institutes on
the other. Their aims may be different, but their modus operandi is very similar. It is
also these kinds of institutes that, despite their strong domestic constituencies,
operate most easily at the trans-national level.
Evidence in this paper has been largely of an empirical-cum-historical variety. It
may be the case that the end result of the activity among scholars, politicians,
bureaucrats, practitioners and experts that think tanks so enthusiastically pursue,
represents no more than the opportunity to interact and discuss. We think not and
conclude by posing a counterfactual argument on the significance of these organiz-
ations. If it were the case that think tanks were just talking shops and/or monu-
ments to the ego of vain men (and a few women), the think tank would have
become an irrelevant institution years ago. Some organizations are weaker and less
relevant than they used to be, yet it is also the case that many are flourishing. Those
that are successful are those that have managed to tap not only the changing inter-
national agenda of the 1990s but also the marketing techniques of the era.
78
See Silk and Silk, The American Establishment, p. 160, and Smith, The Idea Brokers, p. 97.