Think Tank Quickies (#197)

• AEI: 20 reasons ride-sharing is better than taxis.
• Are think tanks undermining democracy? (via Dr. Glenn Savage of University of Melbourne)
• Karen Attiah of Washington Post: "DC think tanks keep excluding Africans from Africa panels."
• Think tank CEI: "Glyphosate in Tampons, Oh My!"
• RAND Corp. on how to stop the world's growing heroin crisis.
• A case study of the US foreign policy think tanks' debates in the general elections of 2004, 2008, and 2012 (via Seyed Hamidreza Serri).
• CSIS on ISIS access to to nuclear material originating from Moldova.
• Bill Kristol interviews AEI President Arthur Brooks.
• Brookings: Make college free.
• Image of think tank financing. (h/t Transparify)
• Vladimir Putin's close confidant Vladimir Yukunin launches new think tank.

Think Tank Quickies (#193)

• Foreign Affairs: China's think tank trouble. 
• The Diplomat: The rise of Asia's think tanks.
• New Republic flashback: "Meet the Think Tank Scholars Who Are Also Beltway Lobbyists."
• Brookings President Strobe Talbott attends China State Dinner at the White House.
• Bruce Bartlett: "Washington think tanks are a cesspool of corruption." 
• Brookings scholar & former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke pens new, 600-page memoir.
• How Stephen Harper and his think tank colleagues have transformed Canada.
• Atlas Network brings us "Think Tank Shark Tank" competition.
• CSIS maps Iran nuclear deal timeline to 2026.
• New RAND study on the effectiveness of China's submarine fleet.
• Deep think tank thought of the day via Dan Kaszeta: They are call "think tanks," not "know tanks."

Think Tank Quickies (#192)

• Think tanks checking Donald Trump claims.
• Pandora founder Tim Westergren comes to AEI to discuss the future of the music industry (postponed). 
• Vice President and Senior Counselor of Heritage Foundation John Von Kannon dies.
• Brookings FP: What is next after the end of the Middle East peace process?  FP's David Kenner: A lot of think tank roundtables.
• Barry Ritholtz: Has the word "think tank" become the world's greatest misnomer?
• New eye-popping RAND report on income of anethesiologists.
• Deep think tank thought of the day via Aidan Milliff: "If a think tank does bad, there should be a process for demotion to just 'tank.'"
• Think tank Center for Security Policy defends arrest of Muslim high school student Ahmed Mohamed for bringing homemade clock to school.
• The advantages to working in Washington, DC: think tank food.
• Drawing of a think tank by Cecilia Ahern.

Think Tank Quickies (#191)

• China's rise alarming US think tanks.
• Search think funding around the world (including US) at Foundation Maps, via Foundation Center.
• Prominent healthcare economist Deborah Freund joins RAND. 
• Spencer Ackerman: "Just once I want a DC think tank report to say plainly, 'This research is not designed to be true.  It is designed to be useful.'"
• Indian think tanks in the military field.
• Brookings: Is al-Bahgdadi the new bin Laden?
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) does libertarian Cato on Sept. 16.
• State Dept. and White House interact regularly with think tanks; intel community not so much. 
• "Higher education providers" like think tanks are booming.
• Partisan think tanks/researchers prone to produce results that confirm their own political leanings.

US Military Cutting Down on Outside Think Tanks

The US Army recently issued a press release suggesting that paying outside think tanks millions of dollars for projects that can be done just as good in-house is silly.  Here is more from the release:

And, for the first time, the school is getting Army money to do it, Betros said. "So instead of the Army spending millions to hire external think tanks, we're doing IRPs that allow us to funnel some of that money back into the Army." 

Students do research projects every year, he said. But they've been more or less individually driven, he said, meaning the students choose subjects they're interested in.
"We decided to make the Army War College as relevant as possible to the larger Army, so we found research topics that were of most interest to the chief of staff of the Army."

Former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno approved the five current research projects, which in fact, aligned with his priorities, Betros said.

The US military gives tens of millions of dollars each year to a variety of think tanks.  One example is RAND Corporation, a think tank that received $34.7 million from the US Army in fiscal year 2014, $39.9 million from the US Air Force, and $64.9 million from the US Secretary of Defense and other national security agencies.

Thinks Tanks Have Deep Ties to Fortune 500 Companies

The University of California at Santa Cruz has put together a "Power Elite Database" showing the deep relationship between think tanks and corporations.  Here is an excerpt:

After the trustees of these 33 think tanks were added to the corporate network, we first looked at the relative centrality of Fortune-500 companies and think tanks in the combined database. (The six general business groups were excluded for the moment.) This analysis revealed that nine mainstream think tanks, such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Institute for International Economics, and combined think tanks/policy-discussion groups, such as the Atlantic Council and Council on Foreign Relations, were among the 15 most central organizations in the network, with the ultraconservative and liberal think tanks that remained in the database more peripheral. To make this point with one good comparison, 38.3% of the trustees of The Brookings Institution, a prestigious centrist think tank that goes back to the 1920s, are Fortune 500 directors, as compared to only 9.1% of the trustees for the ultraconservative Heritage Foundation, which was founded in the early 1970s and is not considered to be reputable by most mainstream scholars.

A map of the corporate world's connection to think tank's can be found here.

The think tanks with the deepest connections to the most powerful corporations were:

1. Brookings Institution
2. Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS)
3. Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
4. Atlantic Council
5. Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
6. Aspen Institute
7. American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
8. RAND Corporation
9. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Among other things, the study concludes that its findings "cast doubt on any claim that think tanks are a unique independent sector."  It adds: "The idea that think tanks have a considerable degree of independence becomes even more questionable when it is added that they receive a significant share of their funding from wealthy individual donors and various foundations.  The authors of the study say that think tanks can basically be characterized as "subsidiaries of the corporate community."

The study goes on to note that between 2003 and 2011, 1,260 foundations gave $1.9 billion via 10,549 individual grants to the 41 most prominent think tanks.  Moreover, the 25 largest foundations accounted for over 71% of the total donations.

Think Tank Quickies (#183)

• Atlantic Council pens new donor disclosure policy: $250 is the key number.
• How the world is changing think tanks, by Brad Lips.
• Think tanks move to fore on energy.
• CNAS is the only national security think tank to be co-led by a Democrat and a Republican.
• Even a junior analyst at a think tank can meet virtually anyone.
• Ben Wattenberg, AEI scholar and host of PBS series "Think Tank With Ben Wattenberg," dies.
• Think tanks are "overcrowded by people more concerned with official designations rather than serious policy research..."
• Heritage Foundation honors John Von Kannon with its highest honor: the Luce Award.
• Wang Chaoyong, founding Chairman and CEO of ChinaEquity Group, joins CEIP's Board of Trustees.
• Todd Harrison, formerly with CSBA, joins CSIS as Director of Defense Budget Analysis and Senior Fellow in the International Security Program.
• Robit Chopra, formerly with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, joins CAP as Senior Fellow.
• Nora Bensahel and David Barno named as Nonresident Senior Fellows at Atlantic Council.
• NAF scholars at NATO's CyCon conference; NAF cybersecurity fellows announced; NAF collaborates with community orgs to privacy and poverty in the US.
• USIP's newly-created PeaceTech Lab announces board of directors.
• RAND Corp. announces new Center of Excellence on Health System Performance.

Prospect Mag's 2015 Think Tank Awards Issued

The United Kingdom's Prospect Magazine has just announced the 2015 winners of its annual think tank awards.

Here is who won for the US side:

*Best economic/financial think tank: Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC)
(Reason and Peterson Institute for International Economics were on the shortlist)

*Best social policy think tank: New America Foundation (NAF)
(RAND Corp. and Brookings were on the shortlist)

*Best energy/environment think tank: RAND Corp.
(Brookings and World Resources Institute were on the shortlist)

*Best international affairs think tank: Brookings Institution
(Migration Policy Institute and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace were on the shortlist)

For the UK, the "think tank of the year" award went to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. 

There have been various questions about how the awards, which are underwritten by oil giant Shell, are actually chosen, including some speculation that they may be rigged.

We should also mention that a think tank has to actually enter to win.  Think Tank Watch conclusion: lame.