The Brookings Institution has been named America’s most influential think tank in the first-ever comprehensive study of the industry.
The University of Pennsylvania’s James McGann analyzed about 5,500 think tanks around the world. He sent out surveys to thousands of scholars and experts and asked them to evaluate think tanks based on their ability to shape or drive public policy questions in their home countries and regions. The United States, home to more than one-third of the globe’s think tanks, got its own category for top tanks.
Brookings was listed first, followed by New York’s Council on Foreign Relations, D.C.’s Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, California-based RAND Corp. and D.C.’s Heritage Foundation. McGann’s index is published in the most recent edition of Foreign Policy magazine. It’s the first of its kind for the multimillion-dollar think tank industry.
“In a world saturated with information, connected by the Web and challenged by complex issues that often hit like a meteor from outer space, there is growing need to know where to turn for high quality information and analysis on critical policy issues,” McGann writes in his introduction. “This report identifies and ranks the leading think tanks in every region of the world.”
Outside the United States, the United Kingdom is doing the best analysis, McGann found. Three of the top five non-American think tanks — Chatham House, the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Overseas Development Institute — are based there.
McGann’s study also saluted the D.C.-based Cato Institute as the “top think tank for innovative ideas.”
“Cato’s libertarian stance, once viewed as fringe, is now considered respectable,” McGann wrote. “With its anti-incumbent, anti-Washington attitude, Cato has antagonized liberals with its push to privatize Social Security, as well as conservatives with its vigorous opposition to the Iraq war.”
The Center for American Progress, a D.C. think tank with close ties to President-elect Barack Obama, was the only American think tank to get a shout-out among the “best new think tanks [of the past five years].”
According to McGann, “Thanks to its all-star roster of experts and savvy use of new media, CAP has emerged as the intellectual center of Democratic D.C.”
The full index is available here.
