Will Think Tanks Control President Trump's Policies?

Will think tanks play a big role in a Trump Administration?  According to Justin Vaughn, Associate Professor of Political Science in the School of Public Service at Boise State University, they very well might.  Here is more:

The president today is arguably more of a manager than ever before, overseeing thousands of staffers and millions of bureaucrats. Sure, the president generally sets the White House’s agenda, chooses many of the individuals tasked with achieving it and ultimately serves as what George W. Bush called The Decider. (Or, if you prefer, as Harry Truman suggested, the president remains where the buck stops.) But what they are not is deeply involved in the minutiae of the policy proposals they attempt to get through Congress, or even many of the unilateral policy actions such as executive orders, signing statements and memoranda that the White House routinely issues.

Instead, a great deal of what is included in these bills and actions comes not only from the president’s chosen advisers, but also from relevant government agencies, think tanks, private industry and previous versions of failed legislation.

In fact, research I’ve conducted with José Villalobos and Julia Azari shows that when the president stresses the influence that bureaucrats and policy experts have had on a policy the White House is pushing, the legislation is more likely to pass than if they instead emphasize that a bill is a priority of the president, that it is something popular with the public, or even that the bill is the result of bipartisan cooperation.

A number of think tankers are very concerned about a Trump presidency because it appears that he would not rely as much on think tanks and think tankers compared to past presidents, the current president, and other possible future presidents such as Hillary Clinton.

Richard Reeves, Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution expresses those exact concerns here.  A scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said that everyone is turning to Google to find out about Trump's new team.

As Jack Caravelli recently reminded us, competition for the president's attention is keen, particularly in a city like Washington, DC that is full of think tanks.

Of course, think tanks have been bashing Mr. Trump for months, so it is no surprise that there may be some tension.

Think Tank Quickies (#210)

• Should all think tank research be free?  Is it?
• Former White House aide Will Jawando is running for a congressional seat in Maryland, and his wife Michelle (who earned $65,000 in the 1st half of 2015) works at Center for American Progress.
• Why a Silicon Valley funder is doubling down on a Beltway think tank (CGD).
• PS21 sponsors March 28 event: Think Tanks - What Do They Really Contribute?
• Jennifer Rubin: Heritage Foundation gives Trump legitimacy.
• China launches joint South China Sea think tank with Indonesia's CSIS; will invite other Southeast Asian think tank to join.
• Max Abrahms Twitter poll: Why did Western think tank pundits get basic facts of Syria so wrong?
• What is the Cato Institute's role as a think tank? (via Ed Crane and others)
• Women in think tanks reading list, via On Think Tanks.
• CFR on challenges of the world's oceans.
• HUD Secretary Julian Castro and DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx do Brookings.

Pivot: French Ambassador Now Hates Think Tankers

At one time, Gerard Araud, French Ambassador to the United States, loved to hang out and party with think tankers.  Now, after a year and a half in Washington, DC, it looks like he has had a bit of a falling out with think tankers.

Here is more from Moises Naim in The Atlantic:

Gerard Araud, the French ambassador to the United States, has said, in the words of the Financial Times, that Washington “is mostly about ‘PR’” and that he feels like a prisoner in the city. The ambassador also mocked Washington’s men and the city’s mores. He feels, in the FT’s words, that in D.C. “men wear suits three sizes too large for them, and dinners always start too early. Socializing with Washington’s politicians, journalists and ‘think-tankers’ takes more out of him than bargaining with adversaries.”

As a remedy, Mr. Naim actually suggests that Amb. Araud embrace think tanks even more, saying that he "could participate in one of the dozens of talks, conferences, and panel discussions held daily at the 393 think tanks that are just minutes away from his embassy."  Think Tank Watch is not sure if that was meant to be or joke or not...

Why the hate?  Is it because he has created some waves at certain think tanks?

Likelihood of a Think Tanker Being Invited to a State Dinner?

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's recent visit to Washington got Think Tank Watch thinking about how often think tankers get invitations to presidential state dinners.

Fortunately, The New York Times has done much of the leg-work, analyzing the previous nine state dinners to come up with an answer.  Here is the breakdown of who gets invited:

• Wall Street and business sector: 35%
• Intelligentsia: 17%
• Media: 16%
• Hollywood and arts: 14%
• Sports, tech, and health: 12%

In other words, around 17% of state dinner guests are from "intelligentsia," which includes the think tank world.  However, that category also includes authors, professors, and others in similar fields.  That means the chances of a think tanker securing a coveted state dinner invite are probably harder than getting into Harvard or Yale.

NYT notes that think tank guests for state dinners under President Obama have included Robert Kagan and Strobe Talbott of Brookings, and George Shultz of the Hoover Institution.

Ted Cruz's National Security Team Abounds With Think Tankers

Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has announced a national security team that is filled with conservative think tank power players.  Following are a few examples:

• Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy
• Fred Fleitz of the Center for Security Policy
• Clare Lopez of the Center for Security Policy
• Jim Hanson of the Center for Security Policy
• Elliott Abrams of Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
• Ilan Berman of American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC)
• Katharine Gorka of the Council on Global Security
• Steven Groves of The Heritage Foundation
• Mary Habeck of American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
• Michael Ledeen of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)
• Charles Stimson of the Heritage Foundation
• Jim Talent of AEI
• Daniel Vajdich of the Atlantic Council

Here is the latest Think Tank Watch post on Donald Trump's reliance on think tanks and think tank scholars.

Trump Loves CFR's President

Donald Trump is not the biggest fan of think tanks, but he does have affection for at least one think tanker: Richard Haass, the President of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Reuters has previously reported this:

Asked who he trusts on national security, Trump had warm words for three men with world views that differ from one another, and who diverge sharply on some key issues from Trump himself. They are former diplomat Richard Haass and retired U.S. Army officers Gen. Jack Keane and Col. Jack Jacobs.

Haass is a centrist foreign policy thinker and president of the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank seen as a fixture of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. The State Department's policy planning director at the time of the Iraq invasion, he wrote later that he was largely against the war.

A spokeswoman for Haass, Iva Zoric, said that he briefed Trump on foreign policy in August 2015. In a tweet late on Thursday, Haass wrote: "I do not endorse candidates. What I have done is offered to brief all candidates, & have briefed several, D(emocrat) & R(epublican) alike."

When recently asked by Fareed Zakaria about working in a Trump Administration, Mr. Haass declined to answer directly, saying that CFR has offered briefings to all of the presidential candidates and many have taken the think tank up on its offer.  Mr. Haass added that he spent about one hour together with Mr. Trump during their August 2015 meeting.

As Think Tank Watch has previously reported, Donald Trump has been consulting with think tank scholars for months.  Is this how Trump sees think tank land?

In early March 2016, a number of scholars, including think tankers, penned an open letter to Trump in opposition of his presidency.

That letter has 120 signatories, including Robert Zoellick of the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), David Adesnik of Foreign Policy Initiative, Michael Auslin of American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Robert Blackwill of CFR, Daniel Blumenthal of AEI, Max Boot of CFR, Ellen Bork of Foreign Policy Initiative, Anna Borshchevskaya of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), Joseph Bosco of Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and many others.

So basically, the entire conservative think tank establishment is against Trump, leaving only slim pickings in the think tank world.  That is probably why on March 21, when Trump revealed part of his foreign policy team, there were few mainstream think tankers to speak of on the list.  Of course, there was Walid Phares (a former senior fellow at the conservative think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies), George Papadopoulos (former researcher at the Hudson Institute), and Joseph Schmitz (who has ties to the Center for Security Policy).

However, Mr. Trump just met with Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint and others at the Washington law firm of Jones Day in Washington, DC.  DeMint and staffers at the Heritage Foundation have reportedly met with numerous candidates in the past year, including current and former 2016 presidential candidates.

Here is what a Heritage spokesman said:

Heritage spokesman Wesley Denton stressed that DeMint’s role in the meeting was restricted to discussions about policy and avoided more political topics.

“As a section 501(c)(3) organization, Heritage cannot participate in any political campaign in support of or in opposition to any candidate for public office,” Denton said in an emailed statement.

The article also notes that  the Heritage Foundation's lobbying arm (Heritage Action) has reportedly expressed the desire to work with Trump "to advance its policy goals" if he wins the Republican nomination and November’s general election.

Also, with the help of the Heritage Foundation, Trump has been making a list of Supreme Court nominees he would choose if he becomes president.

In related news, Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has recently announced his national security team.  It is heavy with think tankers from conservative think tank outfits.

AIPAC Conference Filled With Think Tankers

Dozens of think tankers from Washington's most powerful think tanks and beyond will be speaking at this year's annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference in Washington, DC.  Among them include:

• Elliott Abrams of Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
• Ghaith al-Omari of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP)
• Yaakov Amidror of JINSA's Gemunder Center
• Dan Arbell of the Brookings Institution
• Ilan Berman of the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC)
• Michael Breen of Truman Center and Truman Project
• Shawn Brimley of Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
• William Burns of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP)
• Daniel Byman of the Brookings Institution
• Soner Cagaptay of WINEP
• Mike Doran of the Hudson Institute
• Mark Dubowitz of Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)
• Charles Dunne of Middle East Institute (MEI)
• Zack Gold of the Atlantic Council
• Lawrence Haas of AFPC
• John Hannah of FDD
• Michael Herzog of WINEP
• Oren Kessler of FDD
• Emily Landau of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS)
• Matthew Levitt of WINEP
• Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution
• Alan Makovsky of WINEP
• Tara Maller of New America
• William McCants of the Brookings Institution
• Aaron David Miller of the Wilson Center
• Emanuele Ottolenghi of FDD
• Peter Pham of the Atlantic Council
• David Pollock of WINEP
• Dennis Ross of WINEP
• Michael Rubin of American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
• Natan Sachs of the Brookings Institution
• Jonathan Schanzer of FDD
• David Schenker of WINEP
• Randall Shriver of the Project 2049 Institute
• Vance Serchuk of CNAS
• Brenda Shaffer of Atlantic Council
• Michael Singh of WINEP
• Eric Trager of WINEP
• Dmitri Trenin of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Alex Votanka of MEI
• Benjamin Weinthal of FDD
• Leon Wieseltier of Brookings
• Sarah Yerkes of Brookings
• Neri Zilber of WINEP

More about the 2016 conference can be found here.

Think Tank Quickies (#209)

• FYI: Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests do not apply to think tanks.
• Rush Limbaugh: Nobody puts think tanks on TV because nobody wants to watch them. (C-Span?)
• Center for American Progress (CAP) released booklet highlighting ideas for the future of the global progressive movement; contributions from Bill Clinton, Justin Trudeau, and Matteo Renzi.
• Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL) on retirement from US House offers advice: "You can get caught up in the Washington Beltway think tanks.  You've got to stay connected to your local district."
• Lugar Center and Georgetown University release 2015 ranking of how partisan each Member of Congress is.
• Think tankers such as Jeremy Barofsky (Brookings), John Holahan (Urban Institute), and Alex Brill (AEI) sign Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease open letter to presidential candidates.
• The 2015 New Establishment Summit hosted by Vanity Fair in association with the Aspen Institute, brought in the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Bob Iger, Elon Musk, Jared Leto, and Lena Dunham.
• The problem with Turkey's think tanks. 
• Book review of "How Think Tanks Shape Social Policy Development." 
• Flashback: MSNBC's Chris Hayes spars with Employment Policy Institute over think tank moniker.

Former DC Mayor Fighting Powerful DC Think Tank

While the Brookings Institution, Heritage Foundation and other think tank behemoths battle each other over policy priorities, an enormous amount of policy battles are taking place under-the-radar at state-level think tanks across the country.

The Washington Post details one battle that is going in within Washington, DC:

[Former DC Mayor Anthony Williams's] preference for staying out of the limelight seemed to fit perfectly with his job at the Federal City Council, the historically insular group of business executives, when he took the helm in 2012. The idea was to influence policymaking behind the scenes, building on a tradition of guiding ambitious civic projects that can reshape the city over a generation or longer. The group has pushed for school reform, for example, and long ago championed the building of the Metro system.

But in an era of hashtags, viral videos and online petitions, Williams is stepping out from behind the curtain again. This time, it’s to expand the group’s mission to push out research and lobby on behalf of big business in front of D.C. Council.

His group has sized up a powerful rival in the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, a think tank on local issues that was established by the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

To the chagrin of Williams’s executives, the District has advanced a series of the think tank’s priorities, passing a major increase to the minimum wage and proposing family leave and other worker protections that, if approved, would rank among the strongest – and maybe most expensive – in the country.

Here is the homepage of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute (DCFPI).

Heritage Engaging in Supreme Court Nomination Fight

Heritage Action, the lobbying arm of the think tank Heritage Foundation, is weighing in on the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Antonin Scalia.  Here is more from The Washington Post:

The conservative activist group [Heritage Action] is engaging in a high court nomination fight for the first time, as Obama’s two previous Supreme Court nominees, Sotomayor and Kagan, had already been confirmed by the time Heritage really got off the ground in 2010.

At the beginning of this year, though, the group began laying the groundwork for the current battle. Its leaders met with a number of senators — they declined to name specific offices — urging them to block the confirmation of several Obama appointees to the federal courts who were later confirmed.

“Part of the reason we were so active early on was the thought of, something could happen on the Supreme Court and it would be a defining moment for the Republican Party in how it responded,” said Dan Holler, head of communications for Heritage Action. “It was time to begin framing the debate on judicial nominees.”

Here are some talking points from Heritage Action on the Supreme Court battle.  Among other things, they are calling for the US Senate to refuse to consider any Supreme Court nominee that President Barack Obama puts forward.

Dead Ex-Putin Aide Was in Town for Think Tank Event

Mikhail Lesin, a former aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was found dead last fall in a hotel near think tank row in Washington, DC in what some consider a possible murder, apparently was in town for an event sponsored by a well-known think tank.  Here is more from The Washington Post:

On Nov. 3, two days before his body was found, Lesin was expected at a fundraiser honoring a philanthropist and chief executive of the largest private bank in Russia, along with a Washington socialite and patron of the arts. It was organized by the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, which works to build ties between Russia and the West.

Caroline Scullin, a spokeswoman for the institute, confirmed that Lesin had been invited but did not pick up his place card for a table of 10 that cost at least $10,000.

The above-mentioned fundraiser was, more specifically, the Wilson Center's Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Awards Dinner, which took place on November 3, 2015 at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, DC.  It was honoring Petr Aven, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alfa-Bank Holding.

Sponsorship of that dinner starts at $10,000 and goes all the way up to $100,000.

The Kennan Institute was founded as a division of the Wilson Center in 1974 through the joint initiative of Ambassador George F. Kennan, then Wilson Center Director James Billington, and historian S. Frederick Starr.  The Institute was named in honor of Ambassador Kennan's relative, George Kennan, a nineteenth-century explorer of Russia and Siberia.

Kennan Institute works to improve American expertise and knowledge about Russia, Ukraine, and other states in the region.  In addition to its Washington, DC office, it also operates and office is Kiev, Ukraine.

In 2014, the Kennan Institute shut down its Moscow office amid increased tensions between the US and Russia.

Think Tank Quickies (#208)

• RAND examines threats facing US and how to address them.
• Nassim Taleb: Think tanks are literally BS vendors.
• Hoover Inst. fellow Gen. Mattis hosted roundtable with senior military fellows from DC think tanks.
• Jeffrey Lewis: It's a bad sign when you only hear about a think tank when it changes its name.
• How Gulf States have used British think tanks.
• Think tank (New America Foundation) taking aim at federal student loans. 
• Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer attended events at Brookings...who paid and did he report it?
• J.W. Mason of progressive Roosevelt Institute supports Bernie Sanders-like big fiscal stimulus, while other liberal economists (such as Austan Goolsbee of CAP) are vehemently against it.
• China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi visits CSIS. 
• CNAS proposes bipartisan national security agenda for an election year.

Headhunter to Conservative Think Tanks

How do think tanks get top talent from a large pool of candidates?  At least for conservative think tanks, they have a secret weapon: the recruiting firm called Talent Market.  Here is more from The New York Times:

Over the last year, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, a Milwaukee group that has financed decades of research into curbing the power of public sector unions, hired three new staff members: a fund-raiser, an administrative aide and a program officer.

It enlisted a recruiting outfit called Talent Market, which helps staff free-market advocacy groups, think tanks and foundations.

Unlike many long-established job placement services on the right and the left, which devote most of their efforts to posting ads or advising job-seekers, Talent Market is essentially a full-time recruiting operation.

...Talent Market says it has helped over 160 organizations find personnel since its founding in 2009, including prominent ones like the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Charles Koch Foundation.

Job-matching networks that serve a particular ideological niche have been around since at least the 1980s, when the Heritage Foundation created what became a widely trafficked database of jobs with conservative organizations and politicians.

Talent Market currently lists a number of think tanks openings, including at the Acton Institute, Mercatus Center, and a number of state-level think tanks.

Should More Women Run Think Tanks?

A new study ties female leaders to a rise in company profits, leading us to wonder if more women should be running think tanks.  Here is more from the New York Times:

Companies pondering the incentives for increased gender diversity in their executive ranks may need to look no further than the bottom line.

Having women in the highest corporate offices is correlated with increased profitability, according to a new study of nearly 22,000 publicly traded companies in 91 countries.

The study, released Monday by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a nonprofit group based in Washington, and EY, the audit firm formerly known as Ernst & Young, found that despite the apparent economic benefits, many corporations are lacking in gender diversity.

Almost 60 percent of the companies reviewed had no female board members, and more than 50 percent had no female executives. Just under 5 percent had a female chief executive.

The study found that female C.E.O.s did not significantly underperform or overperform when compared with male chief executives. While it found some indications that having more women on boards was correlated with higher profitability, Marcus Noland, the institute’s director of studies, said that “in statistical terms that evidence is not robust.”

But the data was clear about women in top management positions. An increase in the share of women from zero to 30 percent would be associated with a 15 percent rise in profitability, Mr. Noland said.

And just for the record, the Peterson Institute, the think tank that conducted the above-mentioned study, does not have and never has had a woman leader.

Here is a recent Think Tank Watch piece about women rating their think tanks poorly.

Obama Disses Think Tanks

Now that President Barack Obama is less than a year away from leaving office, he can start to speak his mind and let off some steam.  And what is on his mind about think tanks is not pretty.  The truth: He really doesn't like many of them.

In a lengthy piece about President Obama, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg reports this:

By 2013, Obama’s resentments were well developed. He resented military leaders who believed they could fix any problem if the commander in chief would simply give them what they wanted, and he resented the foreign-policy think-tank complex. A widely held sentiment inside the White House is that many of the most prominent foreign-policy think tanks in Washington are doing the bidding of their Arab and pro-Israel funders. I’ve heard one administration official refer to Massachusetts Avenue, the home of many of these think tanks, as “Arab-occupied territory.”

Foreign Policy highlighted this quote in a piece entitled "Obama, Uncensored: National Security Edition."  Under the subtitle "Rage Against Think Tanks," FP notes that a common theme throughout The Atlantic article is President Obama's "frustration with Washington's pundit class, which Obama said seeks to enforce a 'playbook' to world events that often involves 'militarized responses.'"

Think Tank Watch finds it a bit ironic that President Obama dislikes a number of think tanks while many of his top foreign policy aides were hand-picked directly from think tank land, including the Brookings Institution, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Center for a New American Security (CNAS), and Center for American Progress (CAP).

Here is a Think Tank Watch list of Obama Administration officials who have taken the "revolving door" from government work into the think tank world.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch piece on President Obama's "favorite" think tank.

Now that President Obama will be staying in Washington, DC for at least a couple of years, will he be joining a think tank or starting his own?  Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post on that very question.

Our guess is that he won't be living anywhere near think tank row...

Think Tanks Salivate at Nike Leaders' $400 Million Pledge

The head of Nike, Philip Knight, has pledged to give $400 million to Stanford University.  Think Tank Watch hears that think tank fundraisers are drooling at the prospect of such a large money haul.

Here is more:

Philip H. Knight, the co-founder and chairman of Nike Inc., said on Monday that he had pledged to give Stanford University $400 million to recruit graduate students around the globe to address society’s most intractable problems, including poverty and climate change.

The gift to the new Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program, which is modeled on the Rhodes scholarships, matches one of the largest individual donations ever to a university, the $400 million that John A. Paulson, the hedge fund tycoon, gave to Harvard last year to improve its engineering school. The Stanford project is meant to improve the world.

These kinds of megagifts to elite universities have their critics, who argue they are more about prestige and ego than academic excellence.

According to the Council for Aid to Education, less than 1 percent of the nation’s colleges received 28.7 percent of all gifts in 2015.

Of course, Knight already gives money to think tanks, including the Brookings Institution, where he sits on the Board of Trustees.  And of course, there is the Philip Knight Chair in Japan Studies at Brookings, which was established by a "generous gift" from Philip Knight (as well as a grant from the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership).

But in general colleges and universities get the really big money gifts from millionaires and billionaires, while think tanks are left with the crumbs...

In this article, think tank scholar Elizabeth Baylor, Director for Postsecondary Education at the Center for American Progress (CAP), analyzes the gift to Stanford.

Should big name philanthropists like Mr. Knight worry about how history will just their gifts?

Think Tank Watch Exclusive: UPenn Paid by the Think Tanks it Ranks

Here is another reason to take the University of Pennsylvania annual think tank rankings a little less seriously: The think tank program that conducts the study is taking money from the think tanks it ranks.

Think Tank Watch has learned that the University of Pennsylvania's Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP), which conducts and produces the much-anticipated annual think tank rankings, has taken money from a number of think tanks that it ranks in its annual rankings.  Furthermore, TTCSP does not disclose this fact anywhere in its annual report.

We find it quite ironic that TTCSP is now launching the "Assuring Quality, Integrity, and Independence (QII) Project" when it appears that TTCSP has none of that.

According to an email sent to Think Tank Watch, think tanks that have given money to TTCSP include Atlantic Council, Brookings Institution, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School, Bruegel, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), Center for a New American Security (CNAS), Hudson Institute, Urban Institute, and the Wilson Center.

While it is unclear if there is any type of "pay to play" going on, we would note that all of those think tanks get extremely high rankings in numerous categories in UPenn's think rank rankings.  Manipulation of data, favoritism, and pay to play schemes are quite prevalent across the globe.

TTCSP has suggested to Think Tank Watch that no funny business is going on, noting that donations to the QII project were capped at $1,000 "to ensure that no one think tank could be advantaged."  TTCSP also noted that donation requests were made to 7,000 think tanks, and thus, nearly all the world's think tanks had a chance to give TTCSP money.  We should add that TTCSP has not responded to questions about other potential funding it has taken from think tanks.

In the past, Think Tank Watch has written about a number of flaws with UPenn's think tank rankings.  Nevertheless, it is still considered the world's most comprehensive ranking of think tanks, and it is sometimes touted as the "think tank Oscars."  Oh, and Think Tank Watch finds them quite useful, even with all of its deep flaws.

Update: The best tweet summarizing what UPenn's think tank program is saying comes from Joe Miller, who had this to say:

Shorter @TTCSP: Yeah, we shook people down, but we we did it to everyone & didn't ask for much $, so it's cool! https://t.co/Bpw2Ye0pfx

— Joe Miller (@jjosephmiller) March 11, 2016

Think Tank Quickies (#207)

• Did former Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli spy on think tanks?
• NoMa neighborhood in DC, home of think tanks, has an affinity for nerds?
• Washington region to get professional counseling from Brookings and JPMorgan Chase to boost exports.
• New CSIS study says balance of military power in Asia-Pacific region tilting against US.
• Local Progress, club behind a blitz of new laws in US cities, first met at Center for American Progress.
• AEI scholars weigh in on the 2016 presidential debate.
• CSIS sponsors new commission on violent extremism (CSIS Commission on Countering Violent Extremism) with former British PM Tony Blair and former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. 
• CSIS: China may be installing radar system in disputed islands.
• How do free-market think tanks rank on social media?
• Think tanks do government thinking on TPP.

Franklin Foer Defends Think Tank Land

Franklin Foer, a Fellow at the New America Foundation (NAF), has recently come out in defense of Washington, DC and its think tank community:

...Ignore, for a minute, the folks who make law on Capitol Hill.  They come and go.  Instead, consider mandarin Washington, the permanent denizens of the think tanks and interest groups, consulting shops and law firms.  There are charlatans in all of those locales, of course,  But they're exceptions.  The city attracts idealists more than any other place.  And over their career, these idealists can become experts.  They come to understand how systems work, how problems can be solved.

Yes, their stock-in-trade is abstractions: statistics, seminars, social science.  But those abstractions - that out-of-touchness, if you will - are the very things that help our technocrats rise above parochialism.  They don't worry about the effects of policies on their neighbor or on the business around the corner.  Sure, our wonks have a point of view, an ideology even.  But they cast their arguments in terms of national interest, and they mean it.

Mr. Foer is currently writing a book about the threat that big technology companies pose to the future of thinking.  He was previously the editor of the New Republic magazine, and has been a staff writer at Slate and New York magazine.

Women Rate Their Think Tanks Poorly

A new website called InHerSight allows women to rate their workplace in order to help other women find and improve workplaces.

Think Tank Watch has conducted a search of major think tanks in Washington, DC, and the results do not shine a positive light on think tanks.  Following are some of the findings:

• The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) was rated a 1.8 out of 5 by women.
• Brookings Institution was rated a 2.4 out of 5.
• RAND Corporation was rated a 3.6 out of 5.
• Urban Institute was rated a 3.9 out of 5.
• Center for American Progress was rated a 4.4 out of 5.

As of our analysis, many think tanks were not on the list, including Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), and Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Here is a recent Think Tank Watch post on a new group that is highlighting diversity problems at think tanks.

Hillary's Top Aide Has a Family Think Tank

A new Vanity Fair piece entitled "Hillary's Other Daughter," which is about top Hillary aide Huma Abedin, notes that Ms. Abedin has deep family ties to a think tank.  Here is more:

Abedin was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  Her mother, Saleha Mahmood Abedin, is Pakistani; her late father, Syed Zainul Abedin, was Indian.  Both were intellectuals.  When Abedin was two years old, the family moved to Jidda, Saudi Arabia, where, with the backing of Abdullah Omar Nasseef, then the president of King Abdulaziz University, her father founded the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, a think tank, and became the first editor of its Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, which states its mission as "shedding lights" on minority Muslim communities around the world in the ope of "securing the legitimate rights of those communities."  After Syed died, in 1993, his wife succeeded him as director of the institute and editor of the Journal, positions she still holds.

It turns out the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs is an Abedin family business.  Human was an assistant editor there between 1996 and 2008.  Her brother, Hassan, 45, is a book review editor at the Journal and was a fellow at the Oxtord Center for Islamic Studies, where Nasseef is chairman of the board of trustees.  Huma's sister, Heba, 26, is an assitant editor at the Journal.

The Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA) is based in London, England.

Think Tank Institute for Policy Studies is Moving

The liberal think tank Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) will be moving from its current Washington, DC headquarters at 1112 16th Street, NW to a new office at 1301 Connecticut Avenue, NW.

IPS will be on the 6th floor of the new building and will have more than 6,000 square feet of space.

The move will bring the think tank slightly closer to the heart of think tank row, where major players such as the Brookings Institution and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) are housed.  American Enterprise Institute (AEI) will also be moving to think tank row shortly.

Besides its DC office, IPS has also has a New England office located in Massachusetts.

Google Says Goodbye to Its Think Tank

Google's think tank Google Ideas is no longer.  Google has relaunched the think tank as an incubator and renamed it Jigsaw.  The goal of the new entity is to invest in and develop tech solutions to geopolitical problems and digital attacks, according to media reports.

Jared Cohen, who has headed Google Ideas since its inception five years ago, will head Jigsaw.

Here is more insight as to why Google dumped its think tank:

Part of the transition of Google to Alphabet Inc. was management's argument that disclosure of the activity of the units of the company would help investors gain insight into how the units work and spend money, beyond its huge search engine unit.

Alphabet has dumped one of the businesses that has the least value to shareholders, its think tank dubbed Google Ideas. It has a new name, Jigsaw, and a new home, far from Alphabet's other businesses, almost all of which are more promising.

Up until its end, Google Ideas was considered to be one of the world's best for-profit think tanks.

Even with the demise of Google Ideas, Google still maintains a deep connection to think tank land and continues to donate to numerous think tanks.

Washingtonian: AEI Has One of the Best Lunches in Washington

The March 2016 edition of the Washingtonian is out with a new piece on the best lunches at US agencies, nonprofits, and schools.

The conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI) made the list, along with Kramer Middle School, the law firm of WilmerHale, Holton-Arms School, and National Geographic Society.

Here is what is said about AEI:

Salt-crusted beef tenderloin, whiskey-smoked rack of lamb, Kobe beef, and duck are staples for the red-tie crowd at the conservative think tank in downtown DC - and that's just the buffet.  "We try not to get too repetitive," deadpans chef Richard McCreadie, formerly of the Ritz-Carlton, in a Scottish brogue.  The high-end grub comes in handy when VIP panelists stay for lunch and McCreadie has minutes to whip the day's chow-line offering into an elegant sit-down.

The magazine has a picture of an AEI meal of charbroiled Maine lobster with marjoram butter sauce in a tomato concasse.  Posh.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch piece on a think tank's strength being measured by its food.

How Trump Sees Think Tank Land?

Dan Drezner has a new piece in The Washington Post entitled "Grant-writing in the Trump Administration," in which he pretends to write a message to the National Science Foundation (NSF) seeking a grant for research on economic sanctions.

In the parody piece, he argues that his work would be better than that of the think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE).  Here is more:

I want you, the NSF, to give me tremendous amounts of money to research economic sanctions. You should do this because everyone else researching sanctions is stupid. Just so unbelievably dumb.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics is a DC think tank in a funny-looking building that produces nothing but low-class research. I’ve seen how they operate, all they do is say “on the one hand, on the other hand.” Enough with the hands! We don’t need that kind of weak-ass research anymore.

If you give me the money — or, better yet, make the no-talent hacks I talked about in the last paragraph pay for it — I will produce the best, the classiest economic sanctions research you will ever see. There’s gonna be so much great research, you’ll get sick of it all. The research will come in fancy binders. And I will hire only the best people, recruit top-notch graduate students. American graduate students, no foreigners. In fact, I was thinking of starting a Sanctions University...

PIIE was just ranked as the top international economics think tank in the world by the annual University of Pennsylvania think tank rankings.

Here is how Steven Rattner recently described the crowd at PIIE.

New Group Highlighting Diversity Problems at Think Tanks

Watch out all you think tanks who lack gender diversity, because a new group may be writing about you very soon.

We are talking about The Diversity Tank, a new project looking at think tank diversity, and which has started out highlighting the gender diversity (or lack thereof) at top think tanks.

In one of its first posts, The Diversity Tank tweeted a chart looking at gender diversity of "experts" at the top think tanks in the United States.  Here is the raw data.

That chart shows that RAND Corporation leads the pack, with 42% of experts at the think tank being female.  Center for American Progress (CAP) followed RAND, with 40% of its experts being female.  At the bottom of the list was the Cato Institute, with only around 6% of its experts being female.

The Diversity Tank has also tweeted a chart showing the gender diversity among program directors at the top 10 US think tanks.  CAP was #1 with 46% of its program directors being female (RAND has only 29%).  The lowest was Cato, with not a single female program director.  Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) had the next lowest, with females making up only 13% of its program directors.

The Diversity Tank sent out another recent tweet showing gender diversity on think tank boards.  Of the top 10 US think tanks, the Center for American Progress has 33% of its board consisting of females, the highest of the think tanks.  Close behind is National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) with 32%, CFR with 31%, Wilson Center with 29%, and Heritage Foundation with 27%.  At the bottom of the list was Cato Institute, with only 10% of its board members being female.  CSIS only has 13% of its board members being females.

The Diversity Tank's formation comes as the Obama Administration has proposed new regulations that would require employers with 100 or more workers to disclose how much they pay men and women.

The Diversity Tank tells Think Tank Watch that it started its project due to frustration with the lack of diversity at think tanks.  "It's a huge problem that stems from specific hiring practices that can be changed if there's enough incentive.  The hope is that the more publicity this problem gets, the more incentive there will be to address," says Diversity Tank, which also noted that a much bigger problem at think tanks is lack of racial and class diversity.  Diversity Tanks, however, said that is much harder to measure than gender using publicly available data.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post on women in think tanks, and another on women as think tank heads.  Is the average DC think tank event still five guys in suits?  And do men still dominate the think roles at think tanks?  Here is another Think Tank Watch piece on women leadership roles at think tanks.

We also wonder whether think tanks will continue to be slammed for lack of gender diversity on think tank panels.

CAP President Passed Secrets to Clinton

Here is more from Politico:

As President Barack Obama's signature health-care reform proposal bogged down in Congress in 2009, Clinton paid close attention.

In a May 26, 2009 email, longtime Clinton adviser Neera Tanden passed on "hush hush" information that the Senate Finance Committee was considering a variant of the so-called "public option" — one or more government-run health-care plans that could exist alongside private ones. Tanden said she was pushing for a "cost trigger" that would allow a public plan if costs went too high.

"All of this is super secret," wrote Tanden, then part of the health care legislative team at the Department of Health and Human Services. Ultimately, no public option was part of the Affordable Care Act passed by Congress in 2010.

Tanden also indicated in the same email exchange that she was ready to make sure Clinton got credit if some of her policy ideas emerged in the final bill.

"Lots of things could fall in the direction of your campaign proposal — a mandate with a smallish version of the exclusion along with a premium cap. That's by no means assured, but if it does break that way, I will try to ensure I'm not the only one who notices (between us, of course)," Tanden wrote.

Neera Tanden, who had very close ties to the Clintons and the Obama Administration, is now the head of the Center for American Progress (CAP).  She recently said that she wants to see a half-female for the next US president.

CAP is said to be the go-to policy shop for Hillary Clinton, and the liberal think tank would likely play a huge role in a Clinton presidency.

Steven Rattner Describes Crowd at Peterson Institute

Here is how Steven Rattner describes the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE):

A few days ago, I visited the shiny headquarters of the Peterson Institute for International Economics on “think tank row” in Washington — basically, the locker room of the Team Globalization and Free Trade cheering squad.

I was there to take part in a discussion of an old friend’s outstanding book on the subject, Steven R. Weisman’s “The Great Tradeoff: Confronting Moral Conflicts in the Era of Globalization.”

...Then I went rogue and uttered two blasphemous words: “Ross Perot.” He had a point, I said heretically, when he campaigned in 1992 against the landmark North American Free Trade Agreement, saying that it would result in a “giant sucking sound” of jobs headed south to Mexico.

A cool breeze drifted toward me.

As I looked out at my audience, I realized that the room was filled with winners — folks who, from all appearances, earned their livings from intellectual labor. Neither their jobs nor their wages were in jeopardy as countries ranging from Vietnam to Colombia became more competitive with us.

PIIE is certainly one of free trade and globalization's biggest proponents, and it always has been.

While at PIIE (formerly known as the Institute for International Economics), the scholar John Williamson coined the term "Washington Consensus," which is often seen as synonymous with globalization and neoliberalism.

Just last month the think tank came out with a study on the benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and bashed a competing study by Tufts University that did not support its findings.

Heritage Foundation Honors Ryan's Top Staffer, But Disses Budget

Here is more from Jake Sherman of Politico:

The conservative Heritage Foundation is throwing a "reception" to honor Speaker Paul Ryan's chief of staff David Hoppe, even as its lobbying arm tries to derail the House Republican leadership's 2017 budget.

Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint and former president Ed Feulner are listed as the hosts of the Thursday evening event, which is scheduled to be held at the Heritage Foundation's Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters, according to a source familiar with the event.

Hoppe, who joined Ryan's (R-Wis.) staff when he became speaker, is a longtime Capitol Hill hand. He worked for former Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) — Ryan's political mentor — former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and former Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). He also worked as a lobbyist for many years and he was a staffer at the Heritage Foundation.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch piece on Speaker Ryan's deep ties to think tank land.  Here is a Politico piece entitled "Heritage Complicates House GOP's Plans to Break Budget Impasse."

Think Tank Quickies (#206)

• A foreign policy debate between Trump and Sanders would probably drive the entire think tank community to invest in Canadian real estate, says Michael Koplow. 
• Urban Institute weighs in on Marco Rubio's tax plan for president.
• EPI study: Imports from China by Walmart eliminated/displaced 400,000+ jobs?
• Eurasia Review: Think tanks often part of the problem, not the solution.
• Inside the Kanye West think tank.
• Alejandro Chafuen on the top free-market think tanks in 2015. 
• Jared Bernstein: "Yo, other DC think tanks - our CBPP nerdlings are better than yours" because they pick up the president's budget in person.
• Valentine's Day poem on Koch-backed think tanks, via Sean McElwee.
• Brookings on how to deal with corporate short-termism.
• Why even the best Russian think tanks struggle to influence foreign policy.
• New America Foundation (NAF) holds event on Amazon's monopoly.