scholarly journals Anti-Corruption NGOs as Think Tanks

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 4-16
Author(s):  
Yusuke Ishikawa
Keyword(s):  
Think Tanks ◽  
Preliminary Review ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
Governmental Organization ◽  
Transparency International ◽  
Implementation Processes ◽  
Initial Implementation ◽  
The Uk

While anti-corruption scholars have analyzed and explained theoretically citizen-based anti- corruption approaches, studies on one of the most important aspects of a leading anti-corruption non-governmental organization (NGO) has been limited: the role of Transparency International (TI), in particular national branches of TI, as a think tank. Drawing on data from an interview with a former head of TI in the UK (TI-UK), this study will conduct a preliminary review and analysis of the effects of TI-UK in anti-corruption policymaking. The analysis shows that TI-UK was not only involved in the drafting of legislation but also had an impact on the outcomes during the legislation and initial implementation processes. This study is expected to contribute to understandings of anti-corruption policymaking processes and development of theories and practices of anti-corruption reforms.

Case study 2

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewan Ferlie ◽  
Sue Dopson ◽  
Chris Bennett ◽  
Michael D. Fischer ◽  
Jean Ledger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Informal Networks ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
Significant Potential ◽  
Key Stakeholders

This chapter analyses the role of think tanks in generating a distinctive mode of policy knowledge, pragmatically orientated to inform and shape issues of importance to civil society. Drawing on political science literature, we argue that think tanks exploit niche areas of expertise and influence to actively mobilize policy analyses and recommendations across diverse stakeholders. Through our exploratory mapping of think tanks, geographically concentrated within London, we characterize their influence as significantly boosting knowledge intensity across the regional ecosystem. In particular, we study the empirical case of one London-based think tank which powerfully mobilized policy knowledge through its formal and informal networks to build influential expert consensus amongst key stakeholders. We conclude that such organizations act as key knowledge producers and mobilizers, with significant potential to influence policy discourses and implementation.

Thinks tanks and their role in policy making in ireland

2021 ◽  
pp. 157-170
Author(s):  
Chris McInerney
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
International Experience ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
Complex Issue ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Broad Variety

This chapter reviews the role of think tanks in policy making. Like most modern democracies, Ireland relies on a range of sources to influence the choices and designs of public policy. Apart from political and administrative influences, a broad variety of civil society, academic and private sector actors seek to access, influence, advise, inform and sometimes embarrass those in power. The chapter focuses on ‘think tanks’, defining them, reviewing international experience, examining different types and considering the complex issue of assessing think tank influence. It maps out Ireland’s limited think tank landscape and examines recent developments. Think tanks’ influence on Irish policymaking is assessed across a number of indicators.

Brazilian businessmen movements: Right-wing populism and the (dis)connection between policy and politics

Organization ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 394-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amon Barros ◽  
Sergio Wanderley
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Right Wing Populism

We advocate for the relevance of taking Brazilian past experience and theorization of populism into account to understand present-day challenges. We depart from Weffort’s conceptualization of populism to discuss the role of businesspeople movements in supporting and taking control of the political agenda through think tanks. According to Weffort, populism is built over precarious alliances that tend to favor policy or politics in different moments. During times of divergence among political elites, a populist leader emerges as a mediator in orchestrating an unstable hegemony among asymmetric classes. At the same time, the classes included in the populist alliance give legitimacy to the populist leader; they hinder his capacity of imposing decisions. However, treason of the weakest within the alliance is certain. We suggest that the political role played by the think tank IPES, in 1960s Brazil, in reframing middle-class demands is akin to contemporary populist events in Brazil—represented by the election of Jair Bolsonaro—and in the Anglo-Saxon world. Trumpism and Brexit are examples of a still-powerful free-market ideology project wrapped up under a populist discourse (re)framed with the support of businessmen and think tanks. A corporate takeover of government and the imposition of a free-market agenda are certain, as it is the treason of the weakest in the populist coalition. CMS academics should engage with the demands that give birth to populist movements as a way to dispute the neoliberal hegemony and anti-democratic populist solutions.

Corruption, Underdevelopment, and Extractive Resource Industries: Addressing the Vicious Cycle

2006 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleanor R. E. O’Higgins
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Culture ◽  
Multiple Stakeholders ◽  
International Regulation ◽  
Demand And Supply ◽  
Governmental Organization ◽  
Transparency International ◽  
International Agencies ◽  
Resource Industry ◽  
Industry Associations

The systemic role of corruption and its link to low human development is explored. The extractive resource industry is presented as an arena where conditions for corruption—monopoly and discretion without accountability—are especially intense. Corruption is maintained by a self-reinforcing cycle. Multiple stakeholders are involved in the maintenance of and/or opposition to the cycle: investing corporations, host country regimes and officials, inter-governmental bodies like the OECD, industry associations, non-governmental organization (NGO) watchdogs like Transparency International, and international agencies facilitating global investment like the World Bank. Complementarity of interests between the demand and supply sides provides strong incentives for entrenched players to maintain corruptive relationships, to protect past gains and sustain current ones. Compulsory international regulation, maximum transparency, effective detection, and enforcement are recommended to enhance accountability, thereby reversing the cycle. It is also necessary to create a corporate culture built on integrity, if regulation itself is to succeed.

Understanding how corporations both drive & use neoliberalism to block progress in public health

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
D Miller
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
Industrial Sectors ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Significant Public Health ◽  
Economic Elites

Abstract This paper examines the role of corporations in the creation and utilisation of think tanks, lobby ventures and front groups, both nationally and internationally. It examines how these were implicated in the introduction of neoliberalism in the 1970s/80s. It briefly tells the story of the development of the Mont Pelerin Society and how its acolytes 'littered the world' with free market think tanks which then did battle in the struggle to introduce neoliberalism. It examines how this led to the 'disembedding' (Polanyi 1944) of political and economic elites from society via the rise and maturation of a wide range of intermediary institutions and organisations including three main kinds of groups: National and transnational policy planning groups; Think tanks and think tank networks; lobbying and public relations consultancies. This part of the paper concludes by examining the role of those industrial sectors that have had the most significant Public Health footprint in the neoliberal revolution, in each of the three kinds of groups mentioned above. The paper then turns to the concrete advantages that these ongoing changes gave specific corporate actors with negative public health effects

scholarly journals Institutionalization of Foreign Policy Think Tanks in Italy and in the UK: An Explanatory Framework

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 96-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Longhini
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Funding Policy ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
Italian Case ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Us ◽  
Closed Door ◽  
Few Data ◽  
The Uk

Abstract This article explores the phenomenon of foreign policy think tanks in Europe in a comparative perspective and offers a framework of analysis for this topic. Assuming that think tanks were largely imported from the US after World Wars I and II, the article argues that European think tanks have been influenced by the different national political contexts in which they have undergone a process of institutionalization. First, the article hypothesizes that such contexts have contributed to determining different incentives for cooperation between think tanks and national policymakers. Such cooperation is based on the willingness of policymakers to turn to think tanks for expertise, advice or validation of policy decisions. Secondly, different political contexts are expected to influence the strategies of action that think tanks have developed towards policymakers and their audience. In this respect, the article identifies three strategies: the generalist, the advocate and the lobbyist. Empirically, the article is based on a survey of eleven organizations conducted in two countries, Italy and the United Kingdom, in 2013-14. Given that very few data are available on this type of organization, their activities, funding, policy audience and goals are investigated. These indicators are used to investigate the main commonalities and differences between the two cases and to compare them with the hypotheses. The results first show that there is comparatively more funding available for think tanks in the UK system than in the Italian one. Secondly, there is apparently more willingness from policymakers to turn to think tanks for expertise in the former case, considering that the UK think tanks hold a higher number of closed-door events and parliamentary hearings. On the contrary, where policymakers tend, instead, to more scarcely rely on external expertise - as it seems more evident in the Italian case - the core audience of think tanks tends to shift to other, more accessible targets (the public opinion, the academia or even businesses). The case study makes it more evident how advocacy becomes a far less important activity for an Italian think tank than a UK one.

scholarly journals Think tanks, policy networks and education governance: The rising of new intra-national spaces of policy in Portugal

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofia Viseu ◽  
Luís Miguel Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Policy Networks ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
Education Governance ◽  
Information Generation

This article focuses on the role of think tanks in education governance in Portugal, We are interested in contributing to a literature that discusses the emergence of new intra-national spaces of policy, and examines how the actors operating in those spaces work and influence education policy. This article is based on an empirical study conducted by EDULOG, a think tank for education that has been operating since 2015. We mapped EDULOG’s activities, the information generation activities, organizations, and actors connected to EDULOG using a network ethnography and social network analysis. This study shows that a) this organization articulated a network of actors from different sectors, including the academy, business and government agencies; and b) EDULOG acts as a space of social and cognitive intermediation, committed to developing knowledge geared towards policy decision and problem solving.

Any better ideas? Think tanks and policy analysis in Canada

2018 ◽  
pp. 275-296
Author(s):  
Donald E. Abelson
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Policy Initiatives ◽  
Appointed Officials

This chapter explores the role of think tanks in Canada, and their efforts to contribute to the formulation and implementation of public policy. As the Canadian think tank population continues to grow, more questions about how and under what conditions they are able to shape public opinion and the policy preferences and choices of elected and appointed officials are being asked. This chapter highlights the diverse and eclectic nature of Canadian think tanks, and the various ways they have been able to offer their insights and analysis of domestic and foreign policy issues. In doing so, consideration is given to the methodological hurdles scholars must overcome to evaluate more accurately the extent to which think tanks are able to influence both the content and outcome of major policy initiatives.

scholarly journals The UK’s China Policy under U.S.-China Strategic Rivalry

2019 ◽  
Vol 05 (02) ◽  
pp. 177-196
Author(s):  
Summers Tim
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
China Policy ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This paper looks at issues in the formation of the United Kingdom’s policy toward China during a period of growing strategic rivalry between the United States and China, focusing particularly on the relationship between policy debates and the output of UK-based think tanks on China. By analyzing the policy debate and think tank output on three current key themes, including maritime politics in the South China Sea, whether to allow Chinese companies to participate or invest in “critical national infrastructure,” and China’s suspected “interference” in other countries’ domestic politics, this paper shows that UK-based think tanks tend to prioritize security concerns more than economic opportunities with regard to the UK’s China policy. Nevertheless, the impact of U.S.-China tensions and of policy advocacy and research on the UK is issue-dependent.

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