Policy Sciences 16 (1984) 199 225 199

Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam - Printed in The Netherlands

Required Breakthroughs in
Think Tanks
YEHEZKEL DROR
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and Russell Sage Foundation, New York, U.S.A.

ABSTRACT

Think Tanks were "invented" more than thirty-five years ago. However, their actual performance is rather
disappointing, with most countries having none and with existing units not supplying essential inputs into
public policymaking. Comparison of policymaking needs with actual contributions of Think Tanks
highlights m a n y deficits, caused by exogenous and endogenous variables. Harsher adversities facing
policymaking make the contributions of Think Tanks all the more necessary, with no existing other
institutions being able to substitute for their under-performance. Therefore, breakthroughs are required for
upgrading the contributions of Think Tanks to policymaking.

I. Scope, Method and Approach

This article develops a number of prescriptions for the improvement of Think Tanks,
in the sense of enclaves of excellence in which groups of multidisciplinary scholars and
professionals work full-time on main policy problems. Analysis of policy predica-
ments leads to specification of novel contributions essential to policymaking; and
examination of the potentials of Think Tanks makes them main candidates for
providing some such essential inputs into policymaking. Nevertheless, my extended
field study shows many inadequacies in actual Think Tanks' performance. Diagnosis
and explanation of actual weaknesses of Think Tanks and prescriptions for upgrading
their outputs - these are the main subjects taken up here.
The concept "Think Tank" is used throughout this article as referring to policy
research, design and analysis organizations, with qualifications and differentiations as
explained when relevant. Think Tanks in this sense are distinct from policy analysis
units engaging in decision improvement and management within governments on one

0032 2687/84/$03.00 9 1984 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.

200

hand; and from "institutes for advanced study," devoted mainly to the production of
pure knowledge, on the other hand (for a different terminology, see Polsby, 1983). In
addition the term "Think Tank" in this article is reserved for policy research, design
and analysis organizations meeting two further conditions, namely: a) having a
minimum critical mass of around twenty-five full-time professionals; and b) not being
affiliated with a political party. Thus, the Center for National Policy is excluded as
working for the Democratic Party in the USA; the Roosevelt Center for American
Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. and the Institute for East-West Security Studies
in New York are excluded as too small; and the Outer Circle Policy Unit in London is
excluded as both too small and as an adjunct to the Liberal Party. Many organizations
are in-between Think Tanks as conceptualized in this article and other forms of
policy-oriented study units [1], the findings and recommendations of this article
applying to them pro rata.
The analysis as a whole is based on a study of the author, which includes the
following main components:

9 Two years work at a major Think Tank and later follow-up visits.
9 A three-month intensive evaluation study of another Think Tank.
9 One year involvement in the establishment of a Think Tank and its initial develop-
ment.
9 Visits, with intensive interviewing, to about fifty research institutes and related
units in the United States, Europe, Japan and in some Third World countries. (See
appendix for partial list.)
O Interviews with thirty-five offices of heads of governments, in most OECD coun-
tries and in a number of Third World countries, concerning the potential and actual
contributions of Think Tanks to high-level governmental decisionmaking.
9 A closed international meeting of heads of main Think Tanks, at which their
problems and their contributions to public policymaking were discussed extensive-
ly [2].
9 Intensive discussion of the actual and potential contributions of Think Tanks to
policymaking with a large number of policymakers and other relevant persons,
such as politicians, senior civil servants, academics, and various policy profession-
als - inter alia, in about twenty-five intensive workshops in policy planning and
policy analysis of one to two weeks duration each, in a variety of countries.
Such actor-observation and field studies, supplemented by investigation of available
literature and a sample of Think Tank publications, serve as bases for the aggregate
findings and recommendations of this article.
Combining appraisal of reality with design of improvement proposals, this article
belongs squarely to policy sciences. Dealing with meta-policymaking within a pre-
scription-oriented and empirical study based approach, this article is embedded within
broader endeavors of the author on the redesign of governance and the improvement
of policymaking under adversity (Dror, 1983d; Dror, 1984a).
 201

II. Needed Think Tank Contributions

Evaluation of the performance of Think Tanks and identification of improvements

needed in them depend on appraisal of their actual contributions to policymaking, in
comparison with desired inputs into policymaking, as changing with policy predica-
ments. Thus, when policy problems change slowly and results of existing policies are in
the main accepted as satisfactory, then incremental policy improvements are all that is
needed. But, when policy predicaments mutate radically and when policy aspiration
levels jump upward, then policy paradigm reconsideration and fargoing innovations
in grand-policies become essential. The preferable contributions from Think Tanks
differ accordingly.
Processing an extensive treatment of contemporary and foreseeable policy predic-
aments (Dror, 1984a) provides some main specifications for needed contributions
from Think Tanks, as detailed in Table I. These specifications permit evaluation of
Think Tank performance in terms of explicated standards (Dror, 1983a, part 2) and
provide goals for upgrading their contributions to policymaking.

III. Appraisal of Think Tank Performance

Appraisal of Think Tank performance raises serious difficulties, because of: the
diversity among Think Tanks; the scarcity of detailed studies of the operation of Think
Tanks and their products (still unique is B. L. R. Smith, 1966); changes in their
products over time; the absence of self-evaluation studies by Think Tanks; inherent
doubts about "guesstimating" multi-dimensional and long-range impacts on policy-
making, especially when diffuse educational effects need also to be taken into account;
and security classification of significant Think Tank works. Nevertheless, some fea-
tures of Think Tank performance, as compared with needed contributions as summed
up in Table I, are shared by nearly all and are quite visible.

Relative Scarcity of Think Tanks or Equivalents

The most striking finding of all is the relative scarcity of Think Tanks on a global scale.
The United States is an exception, with a proliferation of diverse formats. In a small
number of European countries and a very few Third World countries, and perhaps in
the Soviet Union [3], there are single or a few Think Tanks - usually small, working
within a limited policy domain and quite narrow in the disciplinary composition of the
full-time staff. There exist a few multi-national Think Tanks, such as the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the United Nations Institute for
Training and Research (UNITAR), the International Institute for Strategic Studies,
and the recently established European Centre for Policy Studies. But, the vast majori-
ty of countries have none; most of the existing Think Tanks, other than in the United
States, have a very limited scope of activity; and attempts to set up additional Think
202
Some Needed Think Tank Contributions to Policymaking Under Adversity
Policymaking requisite
policy paradigm reconsideration,
policy orthodoxy debunking,
heterodoxity and iconoclasm
diagnostics of fundamental
problems and their causes
policy agenda setting
alternative innovation,
especially on issues where
all available options are weak
broad and long-term,
perspectives
uncertainty handling
crisis management
consensus achievement
implementation improvement
rapid policy learning
grand-policy innovation
meta-policymaking and
governance redesign
This table is derived from Dror 1984a, chapters six and seven.
TABLE I
Needed contribution from Think Tanks
explication of underlying policy assumptions and beliefs; critical
evaluation of them, with alternative proposals; countercon-
ventional thinking
prediction of main predicaments and jumps in important reality
features; alternative taxonomies of issues; exploration of deeper
roots of critical predicaments; macro-diagnosis of the state of
societies
early identification of problems, with special attention to
momentous choices, passing windows of opportunity and acute
crises; alternative formulation of issues, to reduce impact of
verbal fashions
search for new alternatives, beyond incrementalism; exploration
of counterintuitive ideas; encouragement of policy inventions
special attention to inter-departmental problems, interfaces
between issues, and embedding situations; long-range lookout;
explication of life cycles of policies and their relations to life
cycles of predicaments
debugging of usual human errors in facing uncertainty; mapping
of irreducable uncertainties and ignorance; strategies for
improving "fuzzy betting" and policy gambling
designs for crisis management; contingency planning as aid to
crisis management; crisis prediction
provide factual bases for policymaking; enlighten policymakers
and public on policy issues and ways to analyse problems; value
analysis
theory of administrative behavior as basis for administrative
reforms; ways to increase organizational learning; methods for
implementation monitoring; organizational incentive systems;
feasibility mapping
evaluation methods, studies and organizational learning designs;
accelerated learning through social experimentation
all contributions above applied to the grand-policy level, plus
explication of actually followed grand-policies; special attention
to neglected grand-policy dimensions, such as risk preferences,
time preferences, and decision strategies
appraisal of policymaking and governance performance, with
multiple criteria and value sensitivity testing; proposals for
policymaking-improvement and governance redesign, both to
meet process-values and output-needs
 203

Tanks or improve the operations of existing ones are usually non-existent or on the
decline, as discussed below.
To fill out this generalized picture, a number of points must be added:

9 The history of Think Tanks goes back about thirty to forty years, with the
Brookings Institution and the Rand Corporation in the U.S.A. pioneering this new
invention in policymaking. While inadequately discussed and often misunder-
stood, the idea has nevertheless been widely diffused and is, in principle, well
known. Therefore, ignorance about Think Tanks in general cannot be blamed as a
main factor for their scarcity in most countries [4].
9 The finding on the scarcity of Think Tanks excludes policy research institutes in the
domain of economic policy, a large number of which exist in many countries, and
also quite a few dealing with the international economic order and with multi-na-
tional problems, such as economic development policies.
9 In a number of countries, special plannning units in the defense general staffor the
ministries of defense, or near them, serve partly as quasi-Think Tanks in national
security policy domains, sometimes in some combination with defense research and
development. A good illustration is the Swedish National Defense Research Insti-
tute (FOA).
9 In a large number of Third World countries and in some European countries, such
as France, special planning units or planning ministries, whether called by this
name or not, operate in part as Think Tanks in respect to economic and national
development policies. Thus, the French Planning Commission and the Japanese
Ministry of International Trade and Industry fulfill some functions of Think Tanks
in limited domains (Estrin and Holmes, 1983; Johnson, 1982). But, in general,
planning units move rapidly from consideration of main policy issues to prepara-
tion of detailed programs or forecasts.
9 Futures studies units exist in some countries (e.g., Sweden and New Zealand),
sometimes fulfilling Think Tank functions. Going back to an idea of Bertrand d e
Jouvenel (Jouvenel, 1967), "Surmising forums" are supposed to develop alternative
possible futures ("futuribles" in Jouvenel's terminology) to permit choice by the
society. Some innovative alternatives have been developed by futures studies units;
but in structure, method and scope, these units are far from Think Tanks, as
discussed in this article. More importantly, such units are usually being closed
down or made harmless, after some years of operation, with "alternative thinking"
of debatable content proving hard to maintain under governmental auspices. This
is illustrated by the closed-down New Zealand Commission for the Future and the
moved-down Swedish Secretariat for Futures Studies.
9 In quite a number of countries, party research organizations fulfill some functions
equivalent to Think Tanks (Ramsden, 1980). Especially interesting is the Austrian
law providing for public funding of party research and training institutes, the
so-called Political Academies. Still, the link of such units to party ideologies and
204

political strategies differentiate between their products and those of Think Tanks.
9 In a number of countries, attempts have been made to have universities fulfill Think
Tank functions, or to have such units located at universities. With some exceptions,
as illustrated by the unique research schools at the Australian National University,
such efforts have failed. Universities are more oriented to producing pure knowl-
edge and training professionals, rather than applied policy knowledge. Also, uni-
versities are necessarily structured by departments according to established disci-
plines. Therefore, universities cannot fulfill many of the Think Tank functions,
even when making very important other contributions to policymaking, including
special public policy teaching programs (unique to the U.S.A., with very few
exceptions in Japan, the Philippines and perhaps one or two other countries).
Antinomies between main features of universities and of Think Tanks inhibit
location of the latter within universities, though exceptions do occur.
9 In a number of countries, a variety of institutions are regarded as functional
equivalents of Think Tanks. Thus, public commissions of inquiry are often present-
ed as contributing to policymaking as might a Think Tank. This happens from time
to time, but is not the case in general. Even in Sweden, where mixed professional-
public commissions are an integral institutionalized participant in policymaking,
they do not accumulate experience, lack interdisciplinary methodological sophisti-
cation, and have little autonomy in problem formulation. Therefore, in Sweden
too public commissions do not compensate for the absence of Think Tanks in most
policy domains (Swedish Government Commission on Public Policy Planning,
1979). All the more so, public inquiries in other countries in no way approach the
contributions of Think Tanks (Bulmer, 1983; Chapman, 1973; Lompe et al., 1981).
9 Useful policy studies are engaged in by a variety of additional organizations in
various countries, as illustrated by the Committee of Economic Development
(CED) as operating in the U.S.A. and many other democracies. While often
making very useful contributions to public policymaking, which in part overlap
some Think Tank inputs, such organizations lack the necessary critical mass of
full-time, interdisciplinary and sustained policy study efforts.

Existing Think Tanks are in Growing Difficulties

The one partial exception to this finding is, not surprisingly, Japan where a special
organization, the National Institute for Research Advancement (NIRA) was set up in
1974, on a shared basis between government and private enterprises, to advance the
operations of Think Tanks in working on major national policy issues. In other
countries, with variations depending on particular legal status and specific clientele,
most T h i n k Tanks are in growing difficulties, as expressed by public critique (e.g.
Guttman and Willner, 1976), less frequent work on major policy issues, and reduced
resources. Exceptions to this situation are mainly research institutes allied to ascend-
ing political orientations supported by private corporation, especially in the U.S.A., as
 205

illustrated by the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute for
Public Policy Research.
Decreasing support for Think Tanks finds its expression also in the large difference
between original intentions and final size and scope of activities of more recently
established Think Tanks - as demonstrated, for instance, by the gap between the
original intention (as supported inter alia by the Ford Foundation) to set up a
European Think Tank patterned after The Brookings Institution and the still promis-
ing, but much more limited, scope of activities of the Centre for European Policy
Studies; or the difference between the original intentions (Ritchie, 1971) and the actual
structure of the Canadian Institute for Research on Public Policy. A proposal to
establish a Think Tank in Australia (Marsh, 1980) had no effects; a newly established
Israeli Think Tank was closed down after five years; but, interestingly, in the U.K. a
proposal to set up a Think T a n k (Dahrendorf, 1976) produced a merger between
Political and Economic Planning and the Centre for Studies in Social Policies,
resulting in the Policy Studies Institute which fulfills some important Think Tank
functions.
In some cases, unique factors are at work and put Think Tanks under special
pressure. Thus, the IIASA, originally set up as a Think Tank co-sponsored by the
United States and the Soviet Union, suffers from the worsening of relations between
the super powers and a U.S. governmental decision to stop financial support.
Leaving aside specific situations, a number of shared reasons for difficulties of
Think Tanks can be discerned, including the following:

9 Pressures on public expenditures, which in all countries result in intense efforts to

eliminate "unessential" budget items, which often means in practice the cutting of
budget items which carry no political costs. Think Tanks have small constituencies.
Therefore, their budgets are a m o n g t h e first to be cut in a period of public
expenditure stringency. The abstract a r g u m e n t - the more difficult policy problems
are, the more good and innovative policy research, design and analysis are neces-
sary - carries little weight in the real world.
9 Growing public doubts concerning the contributions of science and scientific
methodology undermine one of the main legitimations of Think Tanks and trust in
their potential contributions.
9 The political-ideological nature of many policy problems further reduces the value
of Think T a n k contributions in the eyes of policymakers. When political theologies
rather than factual disagreements dominate policy debates, then indeed the quasi-
rationalistic contributions of Think Tanks are of reduced importance.
9 An image of negative correlation between the fact that the United States is, on one
hand, most blessed with Think Tanks a m o n g all countries, and, on the other hand,
is not an obvious paragon of public policy wisdom produces a lot of skepticism, if
not cynicism, on their utility within the United States and all the more so in other
countries.
206

Single, perhaps accidental, episodes have done a lot to put the idea of Think Tanks
in disfavor in a number of countries. The leaking of the Pentagon Papers from the
Rand Corporation is a dramatic instance, often quoted in different countries as an
argument against Think Tanks. Such incidents frighten top policymakers and close
them to the idea of Think Tanks.
Even when one studies main Think Tank products with a favorable attitude, the
number of striking products and "Aha-experiences" is quite limited. Many impres-
sive studies do exist, but the products of Think Tanks fall very short of what is
needed. In part, this is due to the nature of policy predicaments, some of which
belong more to the domains of consensus, political will and symbolic politics than
to the world of quasi-rationality which is the raison d'etre of Think Tanks. Still, the
actual performance of Think Tanks within their domains of competence are often
very disappointing from the perspective of senior policymakers.

This last point leads to an issue of maj or importance, namely main shortcomings of the
outputs of Think Tanks.

Think Tank Outputs Fall Short of Policymaking Needs

Given policymaking needs as considered earlier in this article in Table I, the present
outputs of Think Tanks demonstrate many grave shortcomings.
It should be noted that shortcomings in terms of needed contributions of Think
Tanks to policymaking are not necessarily inadequacies in terms of the goals of
particular Think Tanks (on related problems of evaluating organizations, see Camer-
on and Whetten, 1983). Thus, if a Think Tank formulates its mission as supplying
mainly factual data on which policymaking can be based, then the lack of innovative
policy alternatives does not indicate any failure of that organization in terms of its
goals. Or, if a Think T a n k is a priori and because of its constituting membership
limited to handling policy issues which are not in ideological dispute and constrained
in the main to utilize quantitative methodologies, then the possibility that it deliberate-
ly neglects many of the momentous choices facing policymaking and analyzes only
limited facets of those issues which it takes up should not be regarded as a failure of
that Think Tank in its own terms.
Granted the distinction between the appraisal of Think Tanks in terms of their
defined missions on the one h a n d a n d compared with desired contributions to policy-
making on the other hand, still the aggregate weaknesses of their contributions to
policymaking needs are very serious. Some of these are presented in Table II.
Think Tanks are a very recent invention in policymaking (Dror, 1980; Levien,
1969). In terms of the usual slow rate of evolution and change in institutions of
governance, the thirty-five years or so since Think Tanks were first established and the
much shorter length of existence of most Think Tanks are far too short a time span for
main governmental processes and central features of machineries of governments t o
 207

TABLE II

Some Main Weaknesses of Think Tank Contributions to Policymaking

Policymaking requisite Main weaknesses of Think Tank contributions

(Taken from Table I)

policy paradigm reconsideration, only done in limited domains

policy orthodoxy debunking,
heterodoxity and iconoclasm
diagnostics of fundamental usually problems are defined pragmatically and causes not sought
problems and their causes very deep
policy agenda setting very little work on these lines, problem formulations mainly taken
as given, with marginal changes
alternative innovation usually incremental, with few radically new alternatives posed
broad and long-term perspectives interface between main issues hardly considered, with
comprehensive approaches being an exception; time spans
considered usually quite short
uncertainty handling quite naive and confined to refined techniques based on subjective
probabilities; nearly no debunking of human errors; very little
policy-gambling sophistication
crisis management very little work on this subject
consensus achievement some production of credible objective data, but very little else
implementation improvement despite much talk, little penetrating work
rapid policy learning some evaluation methods and interesting social experimentation,
but on very limited scale
grand-policy innovation very little work on macro-problem levels and very few grand-
policy innovations
meta-policymaking and governance only on single elements of policymaking and public administra-
redesign tion; no comprehensive work, with a few exceptions, on
constitutional reforms

This table is aggregated from the material on Think Tanks collected by the author. It fits the large majority
of Think Tanks most of the time, but there are some striking exceptions.

a c c e p t T h i n k T a n k s a n d to a d j u s t d e c i s i o n m a k i n g p a t t e r n s so as to utilize t h e m fully.
I n d e e d , t a k i n g i n t o a c c o u n t m a i n a n t i n o m i e s b e t w e e n T h i n k T a n k s a n d the t r a d i t i o n a l
m a c h i n e r i e s of g o v e r n m e n t s , as well as p o l i t i c s as a w h o l e , it is o n l y n a t u r a l f o r m a i n
g o v e r n m e n t a l a n d p o l i t i c a l i n s t i t u t i o n s to reject the i d e a of T h i n k T a n k s , to o p p o s e
t h e i r o p e r a t i o n s , a n d to h i n d e r t h e i r p o t e n t i a l c o n t r i b u t i o n s to p o l i c y m a k i n g . N e g a -
tive effects of t r a d i t i o n a l p o l i t i c s a n d m a c h i n e r i e s of g o v e r n m e n t s o n T h i n k T a n k s go
f u r t h e r : t h e y are f o r c e d to a d j u s t t h e i r p e r f o r m a n c e , d o w n g r a d i n g it so as to r e d u c e the
hostility of traditional political and governmental institutions, on which they often
depend for survival and growth.
208

The intensity and pervasiveness of antinomies between Think Tanks and traditional
governmental and political processes can be illustrated with a few examples:

9 One of the very functions of Think Tanks is to question the accepted and to debunk
the habitual, in clear contradiction to the traditionalism and conservatism built
into most bureaucratic behavior.
9 "Cold reasoning," as characterizing Think Tanks, is anathema to the "warm" if not
"hot" reasoning of politics.
9 Think Tanks are oriented to the explicit goals of governments and policies, ignor-
ing the hidden agenda dominating the latter. Thus, power aggregation and mainte-
nance is at most analyzed as a constraint in Think Tank work, while actually
constituting a major goal of political and bureaucratic behavior.
9 Think Tank processes seek to clarify objectives, explicate assumptions, and in-
crease the range of options. All these are costly to most of politics and much of
administrative behavior, impairing the latter's main goal of maintaining consensus.
9 Think Tanks base their work on scientific disciplines and professional knowledge
that is quite scarce in most bureaucracies. Therefore, admitting the importance of
Think Tank contributions would be tantamount to downgrading the professional
self-esteem and legitimation-base of bureaucracy and to admitting the obsolescence
of most of the senior officials.

Such antinomies are strong in Western democracies. They are multiplied in closed
societies and in some of the Less Developed Countries (LDCs). In closed societies,
restrictive official doctrines inhibit essential study freedoms without which Think
Tanks can hardly be useful. It is possible for dogma-exempted Think Tanks to operate
as protected enclaves in closed society, but evidence is scarce and inconclusive, as
demonstrated by the already-mentioned lack of information on Think Tanks in the
U.S.S.R. In some LDCs, absence of rationality components in political culture and
radical personalization of government (e.g., Jackson and Rosberg, 1982) [5] contra-
dict essential features of Think Tanks dynamics [6].
Basic antinomies do not exhaust the causes for resistance by main governance
institutions to Think Tanks. The realities of bureaucratic politics and constant compe-
tition for power, aggravated by intensified competition for scarcer budgets, add
additional dimensions to the antinomies between traditional governmental institu-
tions and Think Tanks. But, fundamentally, it is the absence of an accepted niche for
Think Tanks in conventional government schemata which underlies many of the
exogenous causes for their inadequacies. The fact that most political science and
public administration texts do not discuss Think Tanks when dealing with main
institutions of governance demonstrates the tenacity of traditional images of govern-
ments also among academics and the long lead times needed for new inventions in
governance to be accepted and enabled to unfold their potentials.
 209

V. Endogenous Causes for Think Tank Inadequacies

It is very hard to change social and political phenomena and to reform governmental
institutions so as to be more supportive of Think Tank activities. The main burden of
improving their contributions to policymaking falls, therefore, on Think Tanks them-
selves.
To permit their self-improvement efforts, it is necessary to identify internal causes of
performance inadequacies as main targets for upgrading endeavors. Hence, the pre-
scriptive importance of the following endogenous weaknesses of Think Tanks.

Lack of Self-Evaluation

Even Think Tanks which do a lot of work on policy evaluation for others do not study
systematically the impact of their activities, do not ask outside and detached profes-
sionals to do evaluation studies of the organization, and only rarely have annual short
retreats to review their own activities comprehensively. In short, the self-knowledge of
Think Tanks is limited, biased, segmented and probably somewhat accidental, as in all
organizations which do not engage periodically in systematic and structured self-eval-
uation.
In nearly all Think Tanks visited, relatively simple questions that are in principle
answerable (such as on content analysis of items dealing with their activities in the
mass media; on reference to Think Tank papers in legislative deliberations; on the
number of former Think Tank staff members in various policy-shaping positions; on
assessing impacts of major studies, etc.) were answered in an anecdotal manner. The
questions often took senior Think Tank officials by surprise and obviously had nearly
never been systematically examined. Usually, it was freely admitted that self-evalua-
tion is sporadic, with the reasons given for this state of affairs being similar to those
provided in other organizations, such as overload with current problems, no budget
for evaluation, and on the agenda for the next year.

Scarcity of Capacity-DevelopmentStrategies

Think Tanks usually have a multi-year work program, subject to recognized uncer-
tainty of resources. But few Think Tanks have a multi-year strategy for enhancing
their own capacities. A lot of disparate activities to build up capacities do go on, such
as sending staff members to professional conferences and for additional study, having
some methodological work going on, and sometimes recruiting professionals who
bring in new types of knowledge. Think Tanks are very good in updating their
knowledge in disciplines already represented in the Think Tank itself and included
within its professional self image. But broader strategies for building up their capaci-
ties are very scarce.
210

Limited Understanding of Policymaking Realities

A Think Tank working for many years in circumscribed policy domains develops a
good pragmatic understanding of relevant policymaking realities, but not much more.
The psychology of decisionmaking, broad comparative and multi-cultural perspec-
tives on policymaking realities, historical and cultural keys to policymaking and other
bases for coming to grips with policymaking realities on a sophisticated, professional,
and intellectual level are beyond the horizons of most Think Tanks. The very strength
of many Think Tanks in economics adds a trained incapacity inhibiting sophisticated
understanding of political realities, with economic models serving as a blinder.
This is a serious weakness, as it inhibits political marketing of Think Tanks and their
outputs, handicaps them in bureaucratic political competition, and worst of all -
prevents them from identifying needed contributions to policymaking for which there
might be latent demand. Lack of sophisticated and comprehensive understanding of
policymaking realities also explains the absence of significant Think Tank contribu-
tions to the improvement of meta-policymaking, as pointed out in Table II [7]. In
addition, it underlies the inadequate conceptualization in Think Tanks of their roles in
policymaking.

Shortcomings in Approaches and Methodologies

Outstanding professional qualifications are the main asset of Think Tanks. But, this
advantage has proven itself to be concomitantly aserious limitation to the contribu-
tions of Think Tanks to policymaking: professionals like to do high-quality work in
terms of the norms and the modes of reflection-in-action (Sch6n, 1983) accepted by
their professions, and within the domain of methodologies recognized in their disci-
plines, but not beyond them.
The original ideology (if one may call it so) of Think Tanks sought to overcome such
limitations by: a) interdisciplinary work; and b) development of new approaches and
methodologies, which would permit handling of policy issues beyond the restraints of
traditional disciplines. In practice, Think Tanks have done much to develop new
methodologies that permit novel contributions to policymaking. Thus, systems analy-
sis, cost-benefit analysis, some parts of decision analysis, scenario writing, complex
simulation models, and advanced techniques of operations research illustrate method-
ological inventions in Think Tanks, which serve as a basis for modern policy analysis.
But breakthroughs in approaches and methods are inhibited by inadequate philo-
sophy of knowledge assumptions and narrow paradigms. Positivism, narrow theo-
rems of proof, fixation on quantification, simple assumptions on causality, and a
search for smooth curves are only a few of the underlying constraints on advances in
approaches and methods needed to make policy analysis meet real-life policy predic-
aments and policymaking needs.
Additional progress in line with accepted approaches is possible and useful and is
 211

taking place, partly and sometimes mainly in Think Tanks. Albeit, present main Think
Tank methods do not permit the major needed contributions to policymaking. Thus,
to mention only two illustrations, work on grand-policies and handling of extreme
uncertainty and ignorance require approaches and methods based on new paradigms,
quite different from prevailing ones.
This is not the place for a lengthy tract on policy analysis methodologies. Neverthe-
less, this is so important a failing of Think Tanks and so central a target for necessary
breakthrough endeavors that at least some illustrations of the more crucial shortcom-
ings of Think Tank approaches and methodologies need mentioning in Table III. (For
fuller treatment see Dror, 1971; Dror, 1983b, and, especially, Dror, 1984b.)
Most Think Tanks preach rather than practice interdisciplinarity, achieving instead
at best some multi-disciplinary work, which is a quite different matter. Especially
striking is the tendency either to be mainly social science based (a minority) or mainly
economics and decision sciences based. In the social science based units, very little
attention is paid to prescriptive methodologies, while in the latter grouping, the social
sciences are expected to fit given schemata and are in the main ignored until they do so
in some never-never time. A small number of Think Tanks have both social science
departments and economic and decision sciences departments, but these two rarely
fuse within integrative studies.
Analysis of professional composition of their staffs reveals additional disciplinary
perspectives lacking in nearly all Think Tanks. Historians, psychologists, philo-
sophers, and life scientists are very scarce in Think Tanks; and when such individuals
are working in a Think Tank, their impact on methodological culture and on explicat-
ed methods of the Think Tank are minuscule, with rare exceptions.
To balance the picture, it should be noted that many individual Think Tank staff
members and some Think Tank teams overcome such limitations in their actual work,
developing professional skills going far beyond explicated approaches and methodol-
ogies. Therefore, quite a number of Think Tank products are superior in their quality
to the methodologies on which ostensibly they are based. But this is a limited
phenomenon, non-accumulative, and perhaps accidental.

Inadequate Diffusion of Findings and Knowledge

It is interesting to examine the shifting ways in which research organizations try to

insert their study results into policymaking, Quite a number of Think Tanks have
learned, often from bitter experience, that their communication skills may be as
important in achieving effects and assuring survival as the inherent quality of their
work. Therefore, in some Think Tanks a lot of attention is devoted to the formulation
of publications, the preparation of short and easily readable executive reports, the
preparation of oral briefings, and so on. Also, in many, attention to the mass media is
rising. Still, some of the Think Tanks pay little attention to communicating adequately
their studies and all Think Tanks neglect important possibilities. Thus:
212
Some Examples of Major Shortcomings of Think Tank Approaches and Methodologies
Domain
underlying philosophy of
knowledge
ideal models as guides
value handling
interdisciplinarity
multiple perspectives
(Linstone, 1983)
historic material
comparative experiences
quantitative vs.
qualitative methods
uncertainty handling
handling of time dimension
policy assumption reconsideration
alternative innovation
TABLE llI
Main weaknesses
hardly adjusted to special needs of policy studies, taken over
from economics, sometimes social sciences and physical sciences.
Thus, critical rationality has hardly been taken into account;
handling of values ignores modern works in philosophy; and
professional biases are hardly explicated and faced
seeking of optimality still prevails as a theoretic construct in
economics and decision sciences based Think Tanks, with scarce
attention to debunking and debugging as alternative approaches
and to broader meanings of"rationality." In social science based
Think Tanks, no prescriptive models at all are used, and often
they are unknown
very poor, even simple sensitivity testing to alternative value
systems being an exception. Self-explication of value assumptions
hardly takes place. Advanced value analysis is usually unknown
very scarce, as elaborated in text
nearly never used systematically
underutilized and often unknown; hardly any systematic methods
in "applied history"
underutilized and often unknown; hardly any methodologies of
comparative research for policy analysis
in social science based Think Tanks, statistical methods are used
for data processing, but prescriptive methods are mainly
unknown as mentioned above; in economics and decision sciences
based Think Tanks, quantitative methods dominate, tempered by
personal skills of analysts. Heuristic prescriptive methods are
unknown; historic approaches are almost never used; most
psychological approaches, especially from depth psychology, are
ignored; Gedanken-experimentsare not used systematically; etc.
Scenarios are an interesting exception, oscillating between pure
exercises of the imagination and efforts to put them into semi-
quantitative schemata (Builder, 1983). Even gaming is used very
little, with the exception of pioneering defense work (Davis and
Winnefeld, 1983)
as indicated in Table lI - no sophisticated methods to handle
qualitative uncertainty and ignorance have been developed, the
necessary languages as yet not being available (Dror, 1983c)
mainly discounting, which does not fit most policy problems; or
erratic
no systematic approaches available
no systematic approaches used. Thus, comparative research is
underutilized to uncover experiences of others
 213

TABLE Ill (Continued).

Domain Main weaknesses

grand-policy analysis with the exception of handling of socio-technical systems,

economics and decision sciences based Think Tanks tend to
decompose grand-policy issues so as to make them fit available
methods, mainly of semi-quantitative nature. The few Think
Tanks that work on grand-policy issues rely mainly on subjective
intuition, with little efforts to provide heuristic methods. Social
science based Think Tanks are often chaotic in this respect
organizational implementation little integration of organization theory into methodological
repertoire; nearly no knowledge of historic experiences
approaches to governance redesign non-existent
This table is aggregated from the material on Think Tanks collected by the author. It fits nearly all Think
Tanks nearly all of the time, with few exceptions. Outstanding studies do exist, but they are based on tacit
knowledge, with little distillation and advancement of underlying methods.

9 F e w T h i n k T a n k s have d e v e l o p e d an overall strategy for p r e s e n t i n g their studies to

p o l i c y m a k e r s . As a result, some p o t e n t i a l clients and m a n y possible ways for
u p g r a d i n g the diffusion of their studies are neglected.
9 T o m o v e to a technical, b u t i l l u m i n a t i n g fact, with the e x c e p t i o n of some w o r k on
defense, no T h i n k T a n k has an a d e q u a t e briefing r o o m , where m u l t i - m e d i a presen-
t a t i o n techniques a n d interactive systems are used to convey c o m p l e x i n f o r m a t i o n
a n d m u l t i - d i m e n s i o n analysis to busy a n d p r o f e s s i o n a l l y u n s o p h i s t i c a t e d decisi-
o n m a k e r s . F u r t h e r m o r e , only single T h i n k T a n k s are w o r k i n g on the m e t h o d o l o -
gies a n d techniques for d e v e l o p i n g briefing setups (on possibilities, see, for in-
stance, Waller, 1982).
9 O n l y isolated T h i n k T a n k s organize w o r k s h o p s a n d seminars for presenting m a i n
studies to interested audiences, with a d e q u a t e time to go into the depths of issues.
9 W i t h the single e x c e p t i o n of the R a n d C o r p o r a t i o n , (and, for a short p e r i o d in the
past, the B r o o k i n g s Institution), no T h i n k T a n k has d e v e l o p e d a p r o f e s s i o n a l
full-scale teaching p r o g r a m .
9 O n l y in single cases do T h i n k T a n k s organize s h o r t a n d intensive t r a i n i n g activities
in m e t h o d o l o g i e s to share with a b r o a d e r c o m m u n i t y of policy professionals.
9 F e w T h i n k T a n k s have m a d e efforts to diffuse to a wider public at least some p o l i c y
t h i n k i n g s o p h i s t i c a t i o n , as distinct f r o m p a r t i c u l a r substantive policy studies. N o r
are T h i n k T a n k s w o r k i n g on better ways for d o i n g so.

Inadequate Mission Conception

S o m e h e a d s a n d s e n i o r staff m e m b e r s of T h i n k T a n k s have a s o p h i s t i c a t e d sense for

policy p r e d i c a m e n t s a n d are distinguished by a d v a n c e d p e r s o n a l visions of T h i n k
214

Tank contributions to policymaking. But Think Tanks as a whole lack adequate

conceptions of their actual and preferable missions in policymaking.
This weakness is related to the already-mentioned inadequacy of policymaking
understanding. Erosion of initial idealistic hopes by harsh realities, which Think
Tanks have to face everywhere in their efforts to survive and develop, has also
contributed to mission conception contraction. The inadequacy of mission conception
is also closely related, as a cause and as an effect, to the absence of capacity develop-
ment strategies in Think Tanks. They need an inspired sense of mission to build up
their contributions to policymaking in the face of skeptical if not hostile environments,
inadequate demand, scarce resources, and genuine methodological problems.

VI. Improvement Prescriptions

Large deficits in contributions of Think Tanks to policymaking combine with the

potential high costs of resulting policymaking failures to make their improved per-
formance an urgent necessity. This does not mean that existing Think Tanks are not
producing important analyses for policymaking; but harsher problematics of policy-
making under adversity and growing costs of policy failures require maximum efforts to
upgrade policymaking, which in turn depend inter alia on significant improvements in
Think Tank contributions. Because of the strength of barriers to the upgrading of
Think Tank contributions to policymaking, as explored in this article, breakthroughs
in Think Tank performance are difficult to achieve, while being essential.
Improvement of Think Tanks depends both on changes in their environments and
in Think Tanks themselves, directed respectively at exogenous and endogenous causes
of their weaknesses. These two main improvement tracks are interrelated, sometimes
being interdependent and sometimes open to substitutions. Thus, without changes in
the machinery of government, it is very difficult to improve some needed Think Tank
contributions. To take one example: in the absence of policy analysis units working for
Rulers, it is very difficult for Think Tanks to work for top-level decisionmaking. As
against such interdependencies, methodological improvements can take place in
Think Tanks themselves, at universities, a n d / o r at institutes for advanced study.
Related, but different, is the possible location of improvement entrepreneurship.
Thus, senior politicians can push Think Tanks to improve themselves; and Think
Tanks can devise proposals for upgrading the machinery of government, including its
use of analysis. Additional possible improvement entrepreneurs include, for instance:9
mass media commentators, who can utilize studies to upgrade the level of public
discourse on policy issues, opposition politicians, and university academics.
Two types of actors are of special importance for improving Think Tanks, namely:
Rulers and heads of Think Tanks. Accordingly, improvement prescriptions addressed
nominally at Rulers and at heads of Think Tanks (though relevant for all possible
improvement entrepreneurs with some adjustments) are a convenient form for draw-
ing together some recommendations of broad applicability (for a different treatment,
see Dror, 1984e).
 215

Recommendations for Action By Rulers

Three interrelated recommendations for action by Rulers are crucial, especially in the
vast majority of countries which have no Think Tanks whatsoever:

I. Set up a Think Tank paying careful attention to its prerequisites, such as research
freedom, together with good channels for inserting studies into policymaking.
Finding a suitable candidate to set up a Think Tank and providing him with
continuous support and adequate resources may be the optimal mode to proceed.
Suitable public explanation of your decision to support establishment of a Think
Tank, in ways adjusted to the political context, is necessary [8].
2. If your country already has one or a number of Think Tanks, provide them with
adequate resources and get at least one of them to work for you on main issues
troubling you. Suitable liaison channels have to be established and maintained.
Occasional direct meetings with the head of the Think Tank are useful, but regular
reliance on staff for contact is essential. Probably, unless you have near to you a
high quality professional policy analysis unit, it will be hardly possible to directly
utilize Think Tank studies for your decisions. This leads into a broader set of
recommendations on how to build up a supportive system (Dror, 1984c).
3. Some familiarization with the basic ways of thinking of Think Tanks will repay
your efforts many times over. Get some personal tutoring in modern policy plan-
ning and analysis; participate in some policy gaming; and personally engage in
some relevant studies [9].

Recommendations for Action by Heads of Think Tanks

Practically speaking, heads of Think Tanks, including the director and his senior
colleagues, are the prime addressees for improvement suggestions. But heads of Think
Tanks are far from omnipotent. Many Think Tank weaknesses result from stubborn
exogenous variables. Also, many needed improvements are time-consuming and may
be inherently very difficult. Thus, development of new methodologies cannot simply
be programmed.
Furthermore, while Think Tanks are in principle hierarchically structured, they are
not highly disciplined organizations: collegial relations between mutually respected
professionals pervade, and willing cooperation is a condition for effective work. In
many respects, their organizational realities are somewhat between those of a universi-
ty and those of a physical science R & D laboratory, with the steering capacities of the
head of the organization depending on his or her ability to get agreement and evoke
enthusiasm for any new proposed direction. This further reduces their capacity to
change Think Tank features, which may be deeply rooted in modes of thinking, habits
of work, and belief systems of the professional staff. Nevertheless, as far as directed
change in Think Tanks is possible at all, heads of Think Tanks bear the prime
responsibility.
216

Many recommendations can be easily derived from the above survey of Think Tank
endogenous inadequacies. But some points deserve emphasis, formulated here in the
form of specific recommendations for action by Think Tank heads:

1. Diversify the disciplinary composition of the staff; e.g., if your staff is mainly
comprised of social scientists, add a number of economists, decision scientists,
and one or two physical scientists, and conversely. Probably, in both cases the
staff does not include any historians, philosophers, and surely no literati. Recruit
some of those to your staff.
2. Strenuous and stubborn efforts to push towards interdisciplinary work are
essential for attaining high quality performance. To do so, more is required than
setting up work teams for specific projects composed of staff members coming
from different disciplines; the teams must work as integrated groups, not sub-
divide their tasks according to disciplines. A broadly gauged conception of policy
sciences may serve as a shared open-ended framework for all Think Tank work,
with some core literature to be well known by all staff members [10]. Work shops
and annual seminars for professional staff members are good ways to advance
Think Tank capacities and to encourage interdisciplinarity [11].
3. A main way to advance Think Tank capacities, especially in the methodological
domain and in the direction of interdisciplinarity, is to urge staff members to
familiarize themselves with the modes of thinking and central ideas of what I call a
"counterdiscipline," that is, a discipline different in basic paradigms and world
pictures from their own. Thus, economists should be pushed to absorb some
psychology or history and historians should learn the fundamental schemata of
decision sciences. Staff members should also be encouraged to gain a sophisti-
cated understanding of policymaking realities within a macro-view of society as a
whole; and to broaden their world views and professional perspectives by
spending some time in governments, working in another country [12], and moving
between more theoretical and more applied studies.
4. Finding and developing supra-disciplinary individuals is a prime necessity, with
such persons to serve as intellectual leaders and professional symbols of
identification for the younger professionals.
5. Devote some Think Tank resources to "venture projects," namely studies that
have no defined client and that may even be disliked by main clients, but which
develop new Think Tank capacities. Grand policy and meta-policymaking issues
are good candidates for venture projects. Most staff should participate from time
to time in some such research projects.
6. Pay special attention to addressing Rulers, as far as possible directly and through
their senior advisors; and, if this is impossible, through surrogates, such as the
mass media. Not only are Rulers an essential support for the Think Tank, but they
are of cardinal importance in policymaking. Therefore, contributing to their
decisions is a main mode of significantly translating studies into actual
 217

policymaking. Also, looking at problems from the perspective of Rulers will add
an important dimension to all of the work, as well as forcing you and your staff to
understand policymaking realities better.
7. Efforts to build up innovative methodologies and overcome methodological
narrowness, as illustrated in Table Ill above, are a main imperative. Thus, social
science methods and prescriptive methodologies must be brought together and
fused into a comprehensive approach with its appropriate philosophy of
knowledge bases; decision error elimination, based in part on social psychology,
should supplement optimization and preferization models; historic perspectives
and comparative knowledge should serve as contexts for study of contemporary
policy problems; and heuristic approaches should displace much of present
decision analysis in handling radical uncertainty and ignorance.
8. In addition to steps already mentioned above, recommended activities to advance
approaches and methodologies might include:
- Efforts to explicate methodologies actually used in studies, with recognition
that "soft" and heuristic approaches are a legitimate family of methods and
approaches. In particular, outstanding staff members should be encouraged
and pushed to explicate their practical wisdom as far as possible; for example,
have them write methodological appendixes to main studies, teach special
workshops, run staff seminars, and prepare learned papers on soft method-
ological issues.
- Resources should be devoted to focused work on methodology, in conjunction
with substantive policy projects and as separate projects, within the venture
activities mentioned above.
Appointment of a suitable staff member, who has the qualities for advancing
-

methodological paradigms and for motivating others to do so, as a "Chief

Scientist" may be appropriate.
9. Pay special attention to better diffusion of the organization's work. Especially
attractive may be the running of short courses and workshops for policymakers as
well as for professionals, to present main Think Tank findings and to share
methodologies and approaches. If not yet done, improved publication formats
with special executive versions for busy policymakers should be introduced. If a
Think Tank is active in improving the level of public debate on policy issues,
better utilization of mass media, such as presentation of complex issues on
television, is a prime candidate for additional efforts.
10. Systematic and comprehensive evaluation of the activities, achievements and
problems of a Think Tank, is essential. Retreats of staff members to reevaluate
Think Tank activities; getting one or two of your senior staff members to do an
evaluation study; encouraging doctorate theses on a Think Tank; and having
full-scale confidential evaluations of activities done periodically by outside
experts (in ascending order of difficulty and usefulness) are some ways for
self-evaluation. Better record-keeping and real time collection of data that may be
218

useful for evaluation should be institutionalized.

11. Cooperation between Think Tanks opens up interesting possibilities for mutual
learning and shared endeavors. Present weaknesses of communication between
Think Tanks constitutes quite an omission. A preliminary meeting of some heads
of Think Tanks [ 13] demonstrated strong interest in building up cooperation and
much potential for shared activities, such as:
Systematic exchange of publications and information on main ongoing
studies.
Shared staff development activities, ranging from mutual study visits to one-
year attachments up to common workshops, seminars and training activities.
- Shared working teams on subjects of common interest, such as methodology
advancement and study diffusion modes, as already started in the U.S.A. In
some cases, partnerships in working on specific policy projects might be
attractive.
- Mutual exchange of experience between heads of Think Tanks on management
problems, staff development, marketing, communication and more.
- Shared publications, such as collections of policy study cases and state-of-the-
art volumes [14].

Beyond such specific activities is the overall need to build up the self image of Think
Tanks and to appreciate the unique missions of Think Tanks better, through mutual
discourse and shared thinking.

12. All the activities recommended above, should be integrated into an open-ended
and elastic capacity-development strategy. Working out such a strategy provides
an opportunity to reconsider main Think Tank features, challenge some basic
assumptions (Mason and Mitroff, 1981), and stimulate the staffto engage in fresh
thinking. Working out the capacity-development strategy is a major task of the
head of a Think Tank. But it is often advisable to appoint a special Deputy to be in
charge of such corporate development. In some cases this position might be
combined with the above mentioned proposal for a Chief Scientist. Whatever
solution is preferred including the possibility of delegating some of your own
time-consuming activities and devoting most of your efforts to advancing the
capacities of your Think Tank, someone high up in the Think Tank hierarchy
should be relieved of current responsibilities and devote most of his or her abilities
to upgrading the capacities of the Think Tank, in accordance with a deliberate and
explicit open-ended strategy.

VII. Think Tank Mission Reconsidered

The intellectual ancestor of the idea of Think Tanks, as of research and development
institutes in general, is Solomon's House, also called the College of the Six Days
 219

Work, as proposed in Francis Bacon's New Atlantis (Bacon 1627, especially pp. 468,
482). One significant element shared by modern Think Tanks and Solomon's House is
meritocratic elitism: Think Tanks are select units of high quality professionals
grouped in islands of excellence to make cardinal contributions to public policymak-
ing. It is not implied that other groups do not have crucial contributions for public
policymaking, the appropriate combination between, let us say, citizen participation,
public opinion polls, politicians, senior civil servants and Think Tanks being a matter
for separate consideration, with a range of workable answers. But the main thrust of
this article about the growing need for contributions by Think Tanks to public
policymaking stands in opposition to fashionable thinking, which derides the impor-
tance of contributions by experts to policymaking.
Granted, there are important and valid points in critiques of expert contribution to
policymaking, such as the mistaken tendency by some technocrats to substitute values
hidden under a cloak of professionalism for legitimate judgment by concerned citi-
zens. Nevertheless, all that is known on governance and the potentials of the different
materials out of which human institutions are made refutes widespread opinions that
professional contributions to policymaking should be downgraded. The opposite is
true. There is urgent need for new types of knowledge to serve policymaking, in due
combination with value choice by legitimate value judges, realistic vision supplied by
thinkers, conflict management by politicians, election and rejection of politicians by
citizens, and more. Without reasserting the crucial importance of professional knowl-
edge in human attempts to influence the future, there is no hope for improving
policymaking and there is no justification for upgrading Think Tanks.
Given the need to improve policymaking, inter alia with the help of additional and
new types of knowledge, a strong case can be made that augmented and advanced
policy knowledge can be supplied in part only by high-quality professional elites
working within environments conducive to focused efforts directed at difficult policy
predicaments. This is the function of Think Tanks [ 15]. But, to successfully fulfill their
mission and radically enhance their contributions to policymaking, they need to
upgrade their capacities. Overexpectation must be avoided. There is no chance for a
sudden metamorphosis in policymaking systems as a whole and in the performance of
Think Tanks in particular. Their present weaknesses are deeply rooted in rigid features
of reality and in limitations of present knowledge and are therefore hard to overcome.
But progress is possible and depends largely, albeit not exclusively, on Think Tanks
themselves, which enjoy within all constraints significant leeway in advancing their
own capacities and building up demand for their services. Realities show both serious
weaknesses at present as well as potentials for significant progress. Breakthroughs
may be hard to achieve, but striving for breakthroughs may bring about important
and urgently needed improvements.
220

Notes

l For instance, the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. is related intellectually to parts of the
Republican Party; The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. is an
institute for advanced study committed to the advancement of policy-relevant knowledge; the staff of
the National Security Council at some periods of its checkered history operated in part as a Think Tank,
though in principle it is a policy analysis and decision management unit; the Central Policy Review Staff
in the U.K., though often called "Think Tank," was a policy analysis unit.
Sui generis is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In many
respects, it operates as a successful Think Tank, such as in providing policy recommendations in
economics, science, government organization, and more. But the intergovernmental features of OECD
introduce special features requiring separate treatment.
2 The last three study activities took place in the main within an O E C D project on Aids to Policymaking,
under the auspices of the Technical Cooperation Service. In some Third World countries, study
activities took place within United Nations projects.
3 Available literature on the Soviet Union and other C o m m u n i s t countries does not permit reliable
conclusions on the role of Think Tanks or their equivalents. Think Tanks do exist, as illustrated by the
Institute of the United States and Canada in the Soviet Union. Also, many of the research institutes
probably engage in some Think Tank functions. Such bits of information do not permit reasonable
conjectures on the situation in respect to Think Tanks as a whole. For some relevant books, which do not
lead to a clear conclusion on the status of Think Tanks in the U.S.S.R., see Afanasyev, 1971; Dill and
Popov, 1979; Eran, 1979; L/Swenhardt, 1981; and G. B. Smith, 1980.
4 The early history of the Rand Corporation and the Brookings Institution is discussed respectively in B.
L. R. Smith (1966) and in Saunders (1966). Another pioneering institution was Political and Economic
Planning (PEP) in the U.K., which did not operate as a full-fledged Think Tank, but started early policy
research, design and analysis with ad hoc professionals and teams (Pinder, 1981). Books and articles
which well present the idea of Think Tanks include Dickson, 1971; Enke, 1967; and Levien, 1969;
misunderstandings of the idea of Think Tanks are illustrated by P. J. S. Smith, 1971 ; an important set of
relevant articles is provided in Baehr and Wittrock, 1981.
5 Most Third World countries do not suffer from such extreme circumstances and are in principle able to
build up T h i n k T a n k s and benefit from them, not less so than Western democracies. The inherent
difficulties of accelerated modernization make Think Tanks all the more necessary, though needed
professionals may carry a higher opportunity cost, as mentioned later. As a matter of fact, Less
Developed Countries are similar to most Western democracies in not having Think Tanks. But, some
experimentation with surrogates is going on, for instance the establishment of an institute of National
Affairs in Papua New Guinea.
6 Cultural-political barriers to Think Tanks are illustrated in extreme form by Nazi Germany: The
Leader-principle of Nazi Germany, with a hierarchy of leaders operating through arbitrary decisions
justified in terms of a leadership-myth, could not co-exist with Think Tanks. Even operations research
could not be applied to problems where it might prove decisions of leaders as in error.
7 It should be added that many governmental organizations are very hostile to Think Tank proposals for
administrative reforms. Thus, proposals by the Scientific Council on Government Policy and by the
Central Policy Review Staff(operating, in this case, as a Think Tank) to revamp public administration
and the foreign services were received with vehement attacks on the studies, also by academics, especially
in the U.K. (See Beloff, 1977).
8 In principle, in all but the smallest countries, a n u m b e r of Think Tanks are desirable, so as to provide
pluralism in approaches and positive redundancy in handling m o m e n t o u s issues. But, in a reality where
most countries have not even one real Think Tank, recommending Think T a n k pluralism is of little
relevance.
9 The absence of books written for senior politicians is amazing, especially when compared with the
abundance of texts written for senior business executives. The many books for "busy decisionmakers"
are in the main quite irrelevant to the real concerns of senior politicians and the problems they face.
10 A main finding of the study by the author was that Think T a n k staff as a whole, with a few outstanding
exceptions, are not adequately familiar with the broad literature important for advanced policy analysis
 221

outside their own disciplines. To suggest the frames of thinking and types of knowledge which should be
shared by all serious Think Tank professionals, let me provide an illustrative but hardly exhaustive list of
books demonstrating what should be common knowledge: Badie and Birnbaum, 1983; Boudon, 1982;
Brewer and deLeon, 1983; P. Checkland, 1981 ; S. Checkland, 1983; Clarkson, 1981 ; Collingridge, 1982;
Darwall, 1983; Dror, 1984a; Dunn, 1981; Elster, 1979; Goodin, 1982; Hall, 1981; Hofstadter, 1979;
House, 1982; Kahneman et al., 1982; Paris and Reynolds, 1983; Sch6n, 1983; Schulman, 1980; Scott and
Shore, 1979; Sieber, 1981; Springborg, 1981; Swain, 1981; and Wildavsky, 1979.
Needless to say but worth emphasizing, the requirements posed in this article in respect to Think Tank
professionals apply to all policy analysts, policy scientists, policy professionals and policy intellectuals
wherever and however thay may engage in policy studies. Thus, policy scholars need additional
knowledge not less so than do Think Tank professionals. Public policy schools are very amiss in this
matter, providing their students with much too narrow perspectives and knowledge (Dror, 1983b).
11 Experience by the author with a one-to-two weeks intensive workshop in advanced policy planning and
policy analysis as an integrated superdisciplinary approach - which he has developed and given for
policy professionals - has convinced him of the usefulness of such shared experiences for Think Tank
staffs. The author will be glad to send interested readers an outline of the workshop, not as a model for
what should be done, but as an example of a broad domain open to multiple initiatives.
12 Indeed, every high-quality Think Tank staff member should have good reading capacity in at least one
additional literary (as distinct from also required computer) language, such as French or German. This is
essential to appreciate other policy cultures and experiences, which provide quite different perspectives
on the predicaments of one's own country. Also, German and French have a rich literature directly
relevant to policy analysis and not available in English, as illustrated in German by Faber and Meier,
1978; Lenk 1977-1981; Lompe, 1971; and Bretzke, 1980.
13 Under the auspices of OECD in April 1981.
14 As started, but later abandoned by IIASA.
15 Another main advantage of Think Tanks at their best must be mentioned, namely their insensitivity to
public opinion and mass politics. However counterpoint this may be to widely held views, adequate
policymaking requires special institutions isolated from public pressures, as recognized in some writings
(Brecht, 1978; Sh6nfield, 1982). This is a complex and delicate issue, in need of further discussion (see
Dror, 1984a, Chapter Six).

References

Afanasyev, V. G. (1971). The Scientific Management o f Society. New York: Basic Books (translated from
French).
Bacon, Francis (1627). New Atlantis. In Richard Foster Jones, ed., Francis Bacon: Essays, Advancement o f
Learning, New Atlantis, and Other Pieces. New York: Odyssey Press, 1937.
Badie, Bertrand, and Birnbaum, Pierre (1983). The Sociology of the State. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press. Translated from French.
Baehr, R. Peter, and Wittrock, Bjorn (eds.) (1981). Policy Analysis and Po6cy Innovation: Patterns,
Problems and Potentials. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
Beloff, Max (1977). "The Think Tank and foreign affairs," Public Administration 55: 435-444.
Boudon, Paymond (1982). The Unintended Consequences of Social Action. London: Macmillan.
Brecht, Arnold (1978). Kann die Demokratie Oberleben? Die Herausforderungen der Zukunft und die
Regierung~formen der Gegenwart. Stuttgart: Deutscher Verlags-Anstalt.
Bretzke, Wolf-Ruediger (1980). Der Problembezugvon Entscheidungsmodellen. Tfibingen: J. C. B. Mohr.
Brewer, Garry D., and deLeon, Peter (1983). The Foundations of Policy Analysis. Homewood, IL: Dorsey
Press.
Builder, Carl H. (1983). Towards a Calculus of Scenarios: Santa Monica, CA: The Rand Corporation,
N-1855-DNA.
Bulmer, Martin (ed.) (1983). "Social science and policymaking: The use of research in government
commission," American Behavioral Scientist 26 (5) (May/June).
222

Cameron, Kim S. and Whetten, David A. (eds.) (1983). Organizational Effectiveness: A Comparison of
Multiple Models. New York: Academic Press.
Chapman, Richard (ed.) (1973). The Role of Commissions in Policy Making. London: Allen & Unwin.
Checkland, Peter (1981). Systems Thinking, Systems Practice. New York: Wiley.
Checkland, Sydney (1983). British Public Policy 1776 1939: An Economic, Social and Political Perspec-
tive. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Clarkson, Albert (1981). Toward Effective Strategic Analysis: New Applications of i n formation Technol-
ogy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Collingridge, David (1982). Critical Decision Making: A New Theory o f Social Choice. London: Frances
Pinter.
Dahrendorf, Ralf (1976). Policy Studies: Summary and Proposals. London: School of Economic and
Political Science, private print.
Darwalt, Stephen L. (1983). Impartial Reason. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
David, Paul K., and Winnefeld, James A. (1983). The Rand Strategy Assessment Center: An Overview and
Interim Conclusions A bout Utility and Development Options. Santa M onica, CA: The Rand Corpora-
tion, R-2945-DNA.
Dickson, P. (1971). Think Tanks. New York: Atheneum.
Dill, W. R. and Popov, G. Kh. (eds.) (1979). Organizationsfor Forecasting and Planning: Experience in the
Soviet Union and the United States. New York: Wiley, IlASA Series.
Dror, Yehezkel (1971). Design for Policy Sciences. New York: American Elsevier.
Dror, Yehezkel (1980). "Think Tanks: A new invention in government," in Carl H. Weiss and Allen H.
Barton (eds.), Making Bureaucracy Work. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, p,p. 139 152.
Dror, Yehezkel (1983a). Public Policymaking Reexamined. New Brunswick, N J: Transaction Books, with
new introduction.
Dror, Yehezkel (1983b). "New advances in public policy teaching," Journal o f Policy Analysis and
Management 2 (3): 449 454.
Dror, Yehezkel (1983c). "Policy-gambling: A preliminary exploration," Policy Studies Journal 12 ( 1): 9 13.
Dror, Yehezkel (1983d). "Governance redesign for handling the future," in William Page (ed.), The Future
of Politics: Governance, Movements and Worm Order. London: Frances Pinter, pp. 14-32.
Dror, Yehezkel (1984a). Policymaking Under Adversity. New Brunswick, N J: Transaction Books, in press.
Dror, Yehezkel (1984b). Advising Rulers: Policy Analysis and Social Sciences for Toplevel Advisors. New
York: Russell Sage Foundation, in press.
Dror, Yehezkel (1984c). Advanced Aids for Top Decisionmaking: An Action Approach. Paris: OECD, in
press.
Dunn, William N. (1981). Public Policy Analysis: An Introduction. Englewood Cliffs, N J: Prentice-Hall.
Elster, Jon (1979). Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Enke, Stephen (1967). Think Tanks for Better Government. Santa Barbara, CA: Tempo Corporation.
Eran, Oded (1979). Mezhdunarodniki: An Assessment of Professional Expertise in the Making o f Soviet
Foreign Policy. Ramat Gan: Turtledove.
Estrin, Saul and Holmes, Peter (1983). French Planning in Theory and Practice. London Allen & Unwin.
Eaber, Karl-George and Meier, Christian (eds.) (1978). Theorie der Geschichte: Historische Prozesse.
Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag.
Goodin, Robert E. (1982). Political Theory and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Guttman, Daniel and Willner, Barry (1976). The Shadow Government: The Government's Multibillion-
dollar Giveaway o f lts Decision-making Powers to Private Management Consultants, "'Experts," and
Think Tanks. New York: Pantheon.
Hall, John A. (1981). Diagnoses of Our Time: Six Views o f Our Social Condition. London: Heineman
Educational Books.
Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1979). GOdel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. New York: Basic Books.
House, Peter W. (1982). The Art of Public Policy Analysis. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
Jackson, Robert H. and Rosberg, Carl G. (1982). Personal Rule in Black Africa: Prince, Autocrat, Prophet,
Tyrant. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Johnson, Chalmers (1982). M1TI And The Japanese Miracle: The Growth o f Industrial Policy, 1925 1275.
Stanford: Stanford University Press.
 223

Jouvenel, Bertrand de (196:/). The Art of Conjecture. New York: Basic Books, (translated from French).
Kahneman, Daniel, Slovic, Paul, and Tversky, Amos (eds.) (1982). Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuris-
tics and Biases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lenk, Hans (ed.) ( 1977-1981 ). Handlungstheorien Interdiszipliniir. Five Volumes. Munich: Wilhelm Fink.
Levien, Roger E. (1969). Independent Polio, Analysis Organizations - A Major Social Invention. Santa
Monica, CA: The Rand Corporation, P-4231.
Linstone, Herald A. et al. (1983). Multiple Perspectives for Decisionmaking: Bridging the Gap between
Analysis and Action. New York: Elsevier.
L6wenhardt, John (1981). Decision Making in Soviet Politics. New York: St. Martin's Press.
L ompe, Klaus ( 1971 ). Gesellschaftspolitik und Planung: Probleme Politischer Planung in der Sozialstaat-
lichen Demokratie. Freiburg: Rombach.
Lompe, Klaus, Rass, Hans Heinrich and Rehfeld, Dieter (1981). Enquete-Kommissionen und Royal
Commission: Beispiele Wissenschaftlicher Politikberatung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und in
Grossbritannien, mit einem Beitrag zur paritiitischen Kommission on Osterreich. G6ttingen: Vanden-
h6ck & Ruprecht.
Marsh, lan (1980). An Australian Think Tank? Kensington, Australia: New South Wales University Press.
Mason, Richard 0., and M itroff, Ian I. ( 1981). Challenging Strategic Planning Assumptions: Theory, Cases
and Techniques. New York: Wiley.
Paris, David D. and Reynolds, James F. (1983). The Logic of Polio' Inquiry. New York: Longman.
Pinder, John(ed.) (1981). Fifty Years o f Political and Economic Planning. London: Heinemann Education
Books.
Polsby, Nelson (1983). "Tanks but no tanks," Public Opinion (2): 14-16, 58-59.
Ramsden, John (1980). The Making of Conservative Party Policy: The Conservative Research Department
Since 1929. London: Longman.
Ritchie, Ronald S. (1971). An Institute for Research on Public Policy. Toronto: Information Canada.
Saunders, Charles B., Jr. (1966). Brookings Institution: A Fifty-Year History. Washington, DC: The
Brookings Institution.
Sch6n, Donald A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner." How Professionals Think in Action. New York:
Basic Books.
SchuIman, Paul R. (1980). Large-Scale Policymaking. New York: Elsevier.
Scott, Robert A., and Shore, Arnold R. (1979). Why Sociology Does Not Apply: A Stud)," o f the Use o f
S6ciology in Public Policy. New York: Elsevier.
Shonfield, Andrew (1982). The Use of Public Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press9
Sieber, Sam D. (198 l). Fatal Remedies: The Ironies o f Social Intervention. New York: Plenum.
Smith, Bruce L. R. (1966). The R A N D Corporation: Case Study of a Nonprofit Advisory Corporation9
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Smith, Gordon B. (ed.) (1980). Public Policy and Administration in the Soviet Union9 New York: Praeger.
Smith, P. J. Slee (1971). Think Tanks and Problem Solving. London: Business Books.
S pringborg, Patricia ( 1981 ). The Problem o f Human Needs and the Critique o f Civilization. London: Allen
& Unwin,
Swain, Marshall (1981). Reasons and Knowledge. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Swedish Government Commission on Public Policy Planning (1979). Policy Innovation Through Policy
Reappraisak Summary of a Report by the Swedish Commission on Public Policy Planning. Stockholm:
Private distribution. Summary of SOU 1979: 61, Foernyelse genom omproevning.
Waller, Robert J. (1982). "Complexity and the boundaries of human policy making," International
Yearbook of General Systems 9:1-11.
Wildavsky, Aaron (1979). Speaking Truth to Power: The Art and Craft o f Policy Analysis. Boston: Little,
Brown.
224

Appendix

Main Think Tanks Covered in Field Study on which the Article is Based

The following list includes main Think Tanks covered in the field study on which the
article is based, but mentions only a few illustrations of related organizations also
studied, such as policy research centers at universities and party-affiliated research
institutes. Governmental ministries engaging in some Think Tank functions, planning
ministries and special defense Think Tanks are not included in the list. Most of the
institutions have been visited or revisited during the main study period, 1978 to 1983.
Some have closed down, but were studied earlier:

American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, D.C.

Australian National University, Research Schools, Canberra
Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.
Centre for Policy Studies, London
Centre for Policy Studies, Nomash University, Melbourne
Centre for Studies in Social Policy, London (merged)
Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathctyde, Glasgow
Centre for European Policy Studies, Louvain, Belgium (interviewed, but not visited)
Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C.
Hudson Institute, Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.
Institute for Policy Sciences, Tokyo
Institute of Socio-Economic Planning, University of Tsakuba, Japan
Institute of Research on Public Policy, Ottawa
International Institute for Strategic Studies, London
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria
Mitsubishi Research Institute, Tokyo
National Institute for Research Advancement, Tokyo
Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy, The Hague
New York Rand Institute, New York (closed down)
New Zealand Commission for the Future, Wellington (closed down)
New Zealand Planning Council, Wellington
Nomura Research Institute, Kanagawa, Japan
Outer Circle Policy Unit, London (closed down)
Policy Studies Institute, London
Policy Studies Unit, Royal Institute for International Affairs, London
Political Academies of two Parties, Vienna
Political and Economic Planning, London (merged)
President's Center for Special Studies, Manila
Presidential Management Staff, Manila
Rand Corporation, Santa Monica
 225

Science Center Berlin, West Berlin

Swedish Secretariat for Future Studies, Stockholm
Systems Development Corporation, Santa Monica (before transformation into private company)
Tempo, Santa Barbara (closed down)
Urban Institute, Washington, D.C.
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.
World Institute, Jerusalem (closed down)