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Previous research has identified political ideology as central in the landmark Academies Act (2010). This article further analyses how politics of evidence played its part in the policy process by focusing on long‐term structural changes and preferences among policymakers. The article draws on policymaker interviews after the reform, a mapping of think tanks and a document analysis. The analysis shows that political–ideological preferences were derived from think tanks, and the Conservative manifesto built on skewed Swedish evidence in constructing an argument for the Act. The political choices morphed into fact‐based arguments in the policy process. While think tanks had some reservations, in the Whitehall bureaucracy the argument was reformulated as a rational deliberation. This was possible because of the long‐term change in the significance of think tanks, and how policymakers preferred politically informed opinions instead of research evidence. The conclusion argues that the evidence‐based policy emphasis is an attempt to depoliticise the scope for political arguments. The political dynamic thus results in structurally empowered and layered but depoliticising use of evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This collection of short essays presents and examines six vignettes of organisational change in British, New Zealand and European universities. Drawing on the social studies of economisation literature, formal research projects and auto-ethnographic insights, the authors detail profound changes in how knowledge is produced in universities. They examine policy documents, calculative techniques and management practices to illustrate how proliferating market rationalities, technologies and relations are reimagining university missions, reframing their practices and refashioning their subjects. Their vignettes demonstrate that market-making pressures are emerging from micro-scale socio-technical arrangements as well as altered funding models and external policy imperatives. They reveal the extent and detail of market-making pressures on academic practice in research and teaching. Finding ways to contest these pressures is imperative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is dedicated to the factor of think tanks in the US foreign policy towards China. A rapid change in attitudes to China within the US political elite is recorded, which indirectly reflects the influence of think tanks on it. Based on the analysis of reports of leading think tanks, the evolution of their views on China is demonstrated. The main conclusion is that the think tanks support an anti-Chinese consensus, strengthened during the presidency of D. Trump, and advocate stricter measures against China. Overall, the American expert community sticks to the same approaches to China and gives approximately similar recommendations to the US government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of Indonesian think tanks as policy entrepreneurs is evolving as the government has become more open to the involvement of non-state actors.They are non-partisan, groups of intellectual, and have the power to determine their own research agenda, policy focus, and public purpose. Using the case study of the poverty alleviation-oriented Village Law, this paper examines how Indonesian think tank as policy entrepreneur influenced policymakers in the development processes. This paper also explores how think tanks interact with government institutions, parliament, universities, media, interest groups, civil society, and NGOs to create policy networks and achieve policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite 97 per cent of scientists agreeing on anthropogenic global warming, the remaining 3 per cent play a critical role in keeping the debate about climate consensus alive. Analysis of climate change contrarians from multi-signatory documents reveals 3 per cent of signees to be climate experts, while the remaining 97 per cent do not meet expert criteria and are also involved with organizations and industries who make up the climate change countermovement. The data also reveal most contrarians to be aged sixty-five or older. As a result, we explore other factors (for example, collective memories and ideological views) that may have also contributed to expert and non-expert views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of IDP: Revista de Internet, Derecho y Politica is the property of Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article reveals the characteristics of think tanks as actors of the interest group politics in the European Union (EU). In this policy, they inspire public debate, conduct research, encourage new legislation and more effective public administration. A large number of European think tanks is engaged in interest group politics both at the national and supranational level of the EU governance, encouraging integration processes among the EU countries and Europeanization, which is the subject of analysis of this study. The strengthening of the role and importance of interest groups in EU policy is largely due to the increased power of the Unions institutions, since the introduction of new legislation and regulation common to all EU countries leads to the feedback from various groups that represent both public and private interests. Obviously, these groups, when interacting with the power institutions of the EU, strive for the most effective protection of their interests. For this purpose their representatives hold meetings with officials of the European Commission and the European Parliament, as well as other structures of the Union. This interaction, aiming at promoting their interests by means of lobbying and advocacy, has been regulated since 2011 by the Transparency Register, jointly created by the European Commission and the European Parliament. The purpose of this study is to analyze the quantitative performance of think tanks in the EU and to develop on its basis the Ranking of EU countries, according to the level of Europeanization of the think tanks representing them. From the research methods perspective, the study is based on the matching of statistical data from the Transparency Register and the Global Go To Think Tank Index, which serves the basis for this Ranking. The study of the ranking makes it possible to identify groups of countries with a high, medium and low level of Europeanization of think tanks in all EU countries as of January 31, 2019. The results revealed on the basis of the analysis demonstrate the heterogeneous nature of the Europeanization process of think tanks in different EU countries.

Think tanks play a fundamental role in shaping policy agendas in Western countries, especially in the US. As international biosecurity is turning from a moderate to a serious concern, the convergence of biosecurity subjects and think tanks is evidently increasing. Examining the involvement and implication of think tanks in biosecurity policy formulation domestically and internationally is, therefore, of great value. This article takes a brief look at the intellectual output of over 30 think tanks during the last five years, before and after the outbreak of COVID-19, and tries to build an understanding of the extent to which these think tanks informed strategic, operational, and tactical decisions, with the aim of providing a better basis for dealing with sophisticated biological threats.

The ethical responsibility of universities is embodied in the responsibility of university stakeholders who ensure the functioning of universities as social organizations designed to provide higher education. The research methodology consists of the theory of social systems, which includes institutional analysis, philosophy of communication and subordinate special methods, such as document analysis, value and functional analysis. Ethical responsibility of universities is specified in the specifics of the regulatory framework of ethical responsibility, educational vocation, ethics of responsibility, institutional principles of ethics of responsibility, the relationship of political and academic independence, academic freedom as a prerequisite for ethical responsibility of universities and their representatives. Ethical responsibility involves the acceptance by a person of moral and ethical norms – both universal academic ethical norms and moral and ethical norms adopted in the academic community of a particular university. Such acceptance presupposes both the recognition by the individual of certain academic values and academic virtues, and the responsibility for the consequences of his activity or inaction as a representative of the university or a participant in the organization of its functioning. This includes both compliance with the statutory norms of the university and compliance with a wider range of ethical norms – from universalist ethical norms to those recorded in international and domestic official documents governing activities and communication in the academic sphere. The article analyzes the main normative documents available in Ukraine and Europe, which regulate ethical responsibility in the educational sphere, also considers the specifics of university stakeholders and identifies the political component of ethical responsibility of universities in comparison with the responsibility of think tanks.

The article presents the final results of the project studying the system of expert and analytical support for foreign policy decisions. The project is devoted to conducting a survey and a set of interviews with employees of government bodies (leaders and chief specialists) who are involved in the process of preparing and making foreign policy decisions. The article contains the officials’ assessment of the main challenges when interacting with the scientific and expert community, as well as a "desired image" of such interaction.The study was held in two stages (stage I in February-October 2020, stage II-in January-August 2021) in the form of a survey with a set of follow-up interviews for a more detailed interpretation of the data obtained. The interviewees included 24 employees of federal executive bodies (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia and Rossotrudnichestvo; departments of international cooperation of line ministries, agencies and services); offices of the chambers of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation (departments providing international and inter-parliamentary cooperation). All participants of the study are in positions of the "managers" category or are part of the group of "chief specialists", that is, they have experience in decision-making process and/or in elaborating them. The survey and interviews were anonymous. The research is within structural-functional, institutional and regulatory approaches. The authors note that informational materials with low level of generalization and lacking recommendations and forecasts will never replace genuine analytics and expertise. Given the development of artificial intelligence, generalizing information will be automatized. As a result, expertise has to be of better quality.

Introduction. The article examines the formation of a network of Chinese think tanks as a special socio-political institution – a research system, not only aimed at solving the tasks set by the state, but also, due to the specifics of these tasks, exerting an ever-increasing influence on the same state is the customer. This process is been studied from the standpoint of social reflection, determined by the modern “fluid” nature of society, which is becoming in conditions of increasing socio-cultural dynamics and risk. Today think tanks, as a very popular institution in the West, are actively discussed in the scientific community in the context of their engagement and loss of expert independence. At the same time, in China, where such structures appeared later than in the United States and Europe, their influence on political and economic decision-making is recognized as consistently high. The aim of the study is to classify the leading Chinese think tanks and analyze their activities from the perspective of sociological reflection.Methodology and sources. The methodological basis of the study was the approach of reflective sociology, with the help of which was made an attempt to analyze the activities of modern analytical centers in the PRC and their focus. The empirical base was made up of publicly available data on the activities of Chinese think tanks, included in the list of the best, according to the American Go Global Think Tank Index Report, on the basis of which a study of the nature of these organizations and their topics was carried out.Results and discussion. Based on the study of the structural dynamics and research topics of Chinese think tanks, it is argued that the development of such a network since the 2000s is due to the reorientation of Chinese foreign policy from two “superpowers” to Europe and countries lying on the “new silk road” to it. There is a widespread opinion in the West that think tanks are capable of influencing political decision-making only in Western-style democratic societies. An analysis of the activities of modern think tanks in China refutes this opinion and demonstrates that it is there that ideas are discussed, which subsequently form the basis for political decision-making by the leadership of the PRC.Conclusion. Interaction with Europe, as the main foreign policy goal, has led to a social reflection of problems in the construction of comprehensive cooperation with it. Such a reflection combined with social practical rationality, led to an appeal to European rationalism with the aim of both understanding Europe and trying to establish communication with it using a discourse that it understands. The work of Chinese think tanks, whose importance in shaping China’s foreign policy is growing, is aimed at solving this problem.

The article analyzes the role of think tanks in the development of supranational integration projects. The significance and the international experience of using the potential of think tanks in foreign policy is considered. As a result of the study, some reasons have been identified that hinder the harmonious integration and development of interaction of think tanks within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union. The public policy of most of the EAEU countries has not yet developed a tradition related to the financing of thought factories from individuals and organizations, as well as from business structures and special trust funds, as well as tax benefits and mechanisms that facilitate this process. The lack of opportunities to receive a research order or a grant from the public or private sector, including from the supranational structures of the EAEU, which are existentially important for the functioning and development of thought factories. As a rule, this pushes thought factories to participate in grant projects of countries and organizations located outside the EAEU. As a result, in some EAEU countries, the financial flows that support this sector mainly come from other countries. In fact, using numerous grant programs and other soft tools, other external actors often use the potential of the thought factories of the EAEU countries, thereby getting the opportunity to dictate their agenda, lobby their interests and promote their vision in specific policy areas, which undoubtedly sets trends in the expert-analytical environment, affects the ideological orientation of thought factories and the formation of public opinion. There are not enough platforms that promote the interaction of thought factories within the framework of the EAEU, which, along with an insufficient financial component that can create appropriate motivation, significantly hinders the development of integration in this direction.

Over the last five years, the Indian right-wing has been discrediting left-liberal experts and encouraging pseudo-scientific religious knowledge systems. Yet, crucially, it has also cultivated its own institutional networks of those it considers to be intellectuals and experts: an ostensibly anti-colonial alternative authority to challenge the "hegemony of the progressives" and the "erstwhile custodians of discourse." This article examines the evolution of a shifting network of experts and elites, interrogating what is considered to be expertise in the context of governance. Through a study of Indian think tanks, this article shows how two forms of political legitimacy govern contemporary India: (i) populist politics, which appeals to the masses/majority by defining nationalism through rigid boundaries of caste, class and religion; and (ii) technocratic policy,which produces a consensus of pragmatism and neutralises charges of hyper-nationalism. Using data from participant observation and over 50 interviews in New Delhi, before and after the Bharatiya Janata Party's election victory in 2019, this article emphasises the relational dynamic between the two: they function through different, often contradictory, logics and content yet are able to work towards the same goals in key moments of mutual reinforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business-backed think tanks are often presented as representing the interests of economic elites. This article provides a more nuanced argument by using field theory to present the co-evolutionary dynamics between economic elites and other social forces. Three Canadian think tanks are examined to illustrate how different social forces can converge around business-backed think tanks, and how governance contexts and institutions shape these relationships. The paper also reflects on the kinds of learning these think tanks can enable depending on the kinds of actors that converge around them and on the forms of power that these actors represent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on libertarian backlash to environmentalism in the 1970s, enabled an anthropocentric imaginary. It mentions frequently tapped into by anti-statist, anti-collectivist and ultimately anti-environmentalist thinkers and actors in Western liberal democracies, which thus rearticulates human experience as the organizing principle in environmental concerns.

Contemporary relations between Germany and Central and Eastern Europe are determined by several factors. After the reunification of Germany, the country experienced some of the difficulties of the political and economic transformation due to the need to adjust conditions in the five eastern federal states, which allowed successive German governments to understand better the experience of the Central European states. Another factor influencing Germany’s involvement in this region of Europe is its geographical proximity and the resulting interest in the stabilization of this region. After the accession of Central European countries to the European Union, Germany became a link between the old and the new, Western and Eastern Europe. In intra-EU relations there arise increasingly frequently certain more or less institutionalized intermediate entities, situated between the level of the EU and the Member States. The Visegrad Group and the Three Seas Initiative that associate the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are examples of such cooperation forums. The aim of the article is to analyze the perception of both these international bodies in the German political space. The hypothesis that in relations with the V4 and 3SI Germany follows pragmatism, not perceiving the V4 and 3SI as competitors or closest partners, will be tested. \The article is based on qualitative research methods, primarily the content analysis method, institutional-legal and comparative methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article argues that the dissemination of ideas about the relationship between science, technology and society in Central America, is framed by transnationalization processes, which, in turn are driven by regional international organizations, think tanks and non-governmental organizations (NGO’s). This conclusion is reached after examining the official documents and the transnational networks generated by the flow of these ideas in Latin America. In the heyday of CEPAL-inspired developmentalism in the region, the Central American Institute for Industrial Research and Technology (ICAITI) became a key player in the development of Latin American thought on science, technology and society. ICAITI, with the help of foreign aid programs sponsored by western powers, was instrumental in establishing the scientific development policies that became dominant in Central America. Due to both internal and external factors, the “Cepalian” development model reached its limits around the decade of the 80’s and this led to the demise of the institute. However, between the 80’s and the 90’s the liberalization of the Central American economies and the restructuring of the science, technology and society institutions in the region provided other transnational actors with the opportunity to influence the agenda of scientific development. The new approach involves the supremacy of a neo-liberal and economistic perspective that is still dominant in our times.

Este trabajo se ocupa de los think tanks (TT) vinculados a partidos políticos que han proliferado últimamente en América Latina. Concretamente, pretende identificar los principales TT que colaboran con 19 partidos latinoamericanos, examinar qué utilidad estratégica tienen para los partidos y observar si hay variaciones al respecto entre estos. A partir de un análisis de contenido de las páginas web de los TT se ha construido un índice que permite medir la relevancia estratégica que tienen los TT para los partidos. El análisis evidencia variaciones destacadas en relación con la utilidad que representan los TT para el logro de los objetivos de los partidos, de modo que en algunos casos pueden llegar a adquirir la condición de centros de poder de los partidos. Asimismo, de forma exploratoria se ha observado cómo ciertas características partidistas y del entorno inciden en que los partidos establezcan vínculos más sólidos con TT y los utilicen estratégicamente.

Resumo Propomos analisar como o Instituto Millenium busca estabelecer a sua legitimidade e, consequentemente, desenhar sua posição no campo do poder. Para isso, partimos da investigação do perfil social dos mais de 250 nomes elencados em seu site. Iniciamos o texto com uma análise da retórica difundida pelo Imil no momento de sua fundação, sublinhando em quais lutas ele investe; passamos para o exame das posições ocupadas por esses agentes por meio de uma Análise de Correspondências Múltiplas; em seguida, com a Análise de Cluster, traçamos os quatro grupos principais com os quais o Imil entabula relações. Concluímos que este think tank ainda ocupa uma posição frágil no campo do poder, buscando conquistar sua legitimidade por meio da mediação de uma rede de relações composta por jornalistas, empresários, intelectuais e agentes com postos na burocracia estatal, constituintes de uma elite que atua em diversos espaços sociais.

The article presents an exposition of Arctic cooperation between Russia and China in the context of the Eurasian Economic Union development. China is viewed as a subject of the generally accepted segment of the Arctic economy. The author analyses Russian-Chinese strategic cooperation in the Arctic through the prism of the conjugation of the Russian Northern Sea Route and the Chinese Maritime Silk Road of the 21st century (Ice Silk Road). The key factors of the two countries’ interest in the joint development of the Northern Sea Route are identified. The researcher Kuklina E. A. determines promising cooperation areas in the Arctic macroregion (expert and analytical activities in the form of creating Russian-Chinese “think tanks”; investment activities in the form of direct investments in offshore oil and gas projects).

Despite the evidence concerning the substantial greenhouse gases emissions resulting from animal-based food production, climate policies and institutions around the world have barely made an issue of this link until very recently. To better understand this lack of attention, we focus on the discursive role of think tanks as prominent but under researched actors attempting to shape public policy. This contribution examines whether European think tanks have discussed animal-based diets regarding climate change policies and mitigation actions. We conduct a frame analysis study of 110 European think tanks, encoding all their available online output in English related to the link between global heating and animal-based food. We conclude that European think tanks have contributed to a manufacturing of ignorance regarding the impact our dietary choices have on the climate. Ideological reasons related to economic, anthropocentric and patriarchal worldviews explain this role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article elaborates a conceptual framework to systematize the epistemic evaluation of social systems. This framework can be used to structure an evaluation or to characterize and assess existing ones. The article then uses the framework to assess four representative evaluations of think tanks. This meta-evaluation exemplifies how the framework can play its structuring role. It also leads us to general conclusions about the existing evaluations of think tanks. Most importantly, by focusing on the organizational level, existing evaluations miss factors that are situated at the network and ecosystemic levels and that significantly determine how well think tanks serve society in producing and disseminating knowledge relevant to public policy. This conclusion suggests the need for epistemic evaluations of think tank ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The aim is to study non-governmental actors' production and use of alcohol policy knowledge in the early 20th and the 21st century respectively, by analyzing their main arguments, knowledge substantiation and their overarching discursive legitimacy. Design: The first impact focuses on prohibitionist-critical actors' engagement against the alcohol ban in the years 1916–1922. The second impact focuses on the Swedish think tank Timbro's engagement in alcohol policy in the years 2012–2020. The analysis of the two empirical cases was based on an open coding strategy with a focus on what type of knowledge claims that were made and how which reasoning was put forward in relation to these. Results: Great similarities are distinguished between the two time periods. Alcohol is an issue of freedom and at the same time a threat of crucial importance for the future society. The arguments are supported by historical, international, media and scientific evidence. The biggest difference lies in the legitimization of the argumentation. In the early 20th century this is rooted in democracy and the will of the people while the arguments of the 21st century are rooted in public health and governmentally sanctioned knowledge. Conclusion: The knowledge processes are explored as matters of political appropriation that takes place through processes of directing and stealing the spotlight. These processes show how the aspiring democracy and the existing public health policy respectively are productive preconditions for what kind of knowledge that can be brought forward. This enables a renegotiation regarding what democracy and public health policy can involve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deception is a misrepresentation of reality that attracted many researchers examining it from various perspectives. However, no due attention has been given to the discursive deception strategies in the work of think tanks. This study aims at exposing the deception strategies deployed in the conservative American think tanks' discourse which concern itself with the (re)production of socio-political realities. The study holds the significance of the detection and explication of argumentative and pragmatic discursive deception strategies which impose ideological hegemony and socio-political polarization of the positively presented Self against the negatively presented Other. This study attempts to answer a twofold question: what are the discursive deception strategies involved in the work of think tanks, and why/how these strategies are applied? To this end, eight political texts from three think tanks were analyzed adopting an eclectic model based on van Dijk (2000) and Yule (1996). The analyzed data mainly focuses on four political themes namely (1) terrorism in Islam, (2) Russian role in the Middle East, (3) the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, (4) the U.S. policy in the Middle East. The results demonstrate the pervasiveness of discursive deception strategies in the think tanks' discourse which endeavor to communicate an ideological polarization of a positive presentation of the Self against a negative presentation of the Other and reinforce a hegemony of particular socio-political realities. Findings can be beneficial for students of (critical) discourse analysis, media, communications studies, and English for special purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we consider educational populism on social media in England and Australia. In both contexts, academics are positioned as a key constituent of an unjust elite with previously voiceless teachers (UK) and students (Australia) framed as the 'just people'. While populism often speaks to nations and nationalism, as 'the people' against an 'unjust elite' or 'other', micropopulism concerns a particular community against an elite. Although educational micropopulism has been catalysed by social media, there is an underlying political project growing from the New Right coalition of economic liberals and social conservatives. New Right 2.0, a contemporary reformulation of New Right, has an agenda that goes beyond promoting free-market hegemony to promoting civic capitalism and exploits a hybridised media environment to set a policy agenda through provoking polarisation. While there are similarities in New Right 2.0 strategies in England and Australia, the key difference is the way in which micropopulism has emerged and how it plays a role in the hybridised media ecology. We develop a theoretical account of the phenomena of educational micropopulism and offer an understanding of contemporary forms of populism that reflect the sub-national as well as international dimensions of micropopulist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Created in 1920, the London-based 'British Institute of International Affairs' (in 1926 renamed the Royal Institute of International Affairs) has for a century been at the forefront of an ongoing 'Anglo-American' conversation about world politics. Yet even though the Institute was regarded from the outset as the institutional expression of a very 'special relationship' between the UK and the United States, it did very little independent research of its own on US foreign policy. This however began to change in the 1990s when the United States appeared to have become a 'superpower without a mission'. It then took on a more organized form following the attack of 9/11. At this critical juncture Chatham House decided to establish a new Study Group—the 'United States Discussion Group' (USDG)—which went on to discuss US foreign policy in depth. What this article sets out to do is outline the origins of the USDG, the main contours of what was discussed within the Group, the degree to which these discussions were different to those then underway within the US itself, and finally assess the contribution it made in helping encourage further debate on the United States within Britain's foremost foreign policy Think Tank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a comparative analysis of current Finnish and Scottish think tanks and reviews how think tanks in these countries have evolved, how think tanks seek to influence decision making and engage with their stakeholders. To address the ways of influence this paper looks how Finnish and Scottish think tanks describe themselves and how they use publications in their advocacy. Conducted content analysis indicates that usually registered association based Finnish think tanks are generally more research-focused organisations, who overall deploy more research publications for advocacy than the company based Scottish think tanks. Findings also reveal that the number of think tanks in both countries has greatly increased in the last two decades due to the political challenges with European Union and national politics. The paper provides a new approach to study think tanks in national contexts.

E-learning plays a key role in an individual's mental growth and a nation's future in today's competitive world. Traditional learning is teacher-centered, and teaching the same subject well every time is tough. Traditional teaching approaches can't be used everywhere. By mitigating this flaw in traditional learning, E-learning becomes a potent weapon for intellectual progress and contributes to intellectual society. Traditional learning's high prices, set hours, and limited classroom access may be avoided through e-learning. People are India's major strength as the world's first and biggest democracy. E-Learning benefits these countries and plays a crucial role in establishing intellectual think tanks that can be utilised by the entire world for constant growth and an aggressive reaction to other nations' logical cultures. In this regard, a more focused approach has been considered on introducing new e-learning methodologies, priorities set for each methodology for easy e-learning, and upcoming technological trends in the field of elearning such as Mobile learning, Microlearning, Beacon learning, Internet of Things(IoT), Cloud-based e-learning, Gamification, and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of 'think tanks' is one of the oldest in the policy sciences. Although the topic has been studied for decades, recent works dealing with advocacy groups, policy and behavioural insight labs and into the activities of think tanks themselves have led to discontent with the definitions used in the field, and especially with the way the term may obfuscate rather than clarify important distinctions between the different kinds of knowledge‐based policy influence organisations (KBPIO) operating in the contemporary policy landscape. In this paper, we examine the traditional and current definitions of think tanks utilised in the discipline and point out their weaknesses. We then develop a new framework to better capture the variation in the kinds of knowledge‐based organisations which operate in many sectors. We examine and critique popular academic definitions of think tanks. An additional challenge has been the rise of new kinds of knowledge‐based policy influence organizations (KBPIO) across the policy advice landscape (e.g., research institutes, policy labs, and behavioural insight teams). A diagnostic framework is introduced that captures these distinctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As policy and research institutes, think tanks have advisory and monitoring mandates that could be channelled towards consolidating democracy. Yet, although South Africa has some well-established think tanks (WETT), their presence has not translated into enhancing race relations and living conditions. There is therefore the need to explore why these institutions have been unable to sufficiently influence policy and practice, mainly in the area of social cohesion and socio-economic welfare. It is against this backdrop that the paper looks at the evolving nature and works of two WETTs. The paper considers their capacities and challenges in strengthening race relations and social protection. Proposing a persuasive argument for the creation of an enabling environment, the paper draws from political theories in suggesting ways of enhancing a vibrant think thank sector in contemporary South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of College of Languages is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)