Tainted counsel: a new book argues that many American think tanks offer more spin than truth.

Tainted counsel: a new book argues that many American think tanks offer more spin than truth. A Capitol idea: Think Tanks and U.S. Foreign Policy Donald E.Abelson McGill-Queen's University Press 367 pages, hardcoverISBN-13: 9780773531154 ISBN-10: 0773531157 One of the central preoccupations of intellectuals is how to speaktruth to power. Donald Abelson in A Capitol Idea: Think Tanks and U.S.Foreign Policy deftly reveals how adept American think tanks are inmassaging the world of power, but whether they are any longer interestedin truth is now the more pertinent question. After nine chapters ofexhaustive analysis on the interaction between knowledge and power,Abelson concludes with both the promise and the problem: In foreign policy, as in domestic policy, what is desperately needed is the wise counsel and judgment of experts operating at arm's length from government who can present a range of options to political leaders. If policy experts from think tanks can do so without framing their recommendations to suit their political preferences, they will make an invaluable contribution to the policymaking process. On the other hand, if the political and ideological beliefs of think tank scholars taint their recommendations, there is little to be gained. This is Abelson's third book on the subject (in 1996 hepublished American Think Tanks and Their Role in U.S. Foreign Policy andin 2002 Do Think Tanks Matter? Assessing the Impact of Public PolicyInstitutes). His preoccupation serves us in good stead, both because thesubject is important (whatever influences the foreign policy of thehyper-power is important) and because each book builds upon itspredecessor. In Do Think Tanks Matter, for example, Abelson concluded that itwas impossible to speak definitively about the influence of think tanksdespite the self-serving claims and reams of press clippings put forwardby think tank presidents, and that influence could only be ascertainedon a case-by-case basis. In A Capitol Idea, Abelson therefore followshis own advice and looks at two critical case studies, the promotion ofballistic missile defence and George W. Bush's war on terror This article is about U.S. actions, and those of other states, after September 11, 2001. For other conflicts, see Terrorism. The War on Terror (also known as the War on Terrorism , toassess who influenced the process and how. Since both issues are on thecurrent Canadian foreign policy agenda, by describing the policybackground of each case, Abelson makes an important contribution toCanadian public policy Canadian Public Policy is Canada's leading journal examining economic and social policy. The aim of the journal is to stimulate research and discussion of public policy problems in Canada. debate even though his book is about the UnitedStates United States,officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. . Building on the base of his past work, and also classics such asJames A. Smith's The Idea Brokers: Think Tanks and the Rise of theNew Policy Elite, Abelson starts by examining the gap between knowledgeand politics. For Plato, Aristotle or Thomas Hobbes, all of whom advisedthe leaders of their day, the search for truth was central and power wasincidental. Francis Bacon, the 17th-century philosopher who became LordChancellor lord chancelloralso called Lord High Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great SealBritish official who is custodian of the great seal and a cabinet minister. Until the 14th century the chancellor served as royal chaplain and king's secretary. of England, but fell long and hard after being accused ofaccepting bribes, nevertheless recognized that truth is more oftenwatered with necessity for political utility: he said that the bestadvisors were books, for they "speak plain when counsellorsblanch blanchto become pale. ." In Bacon's day, there was a court. Today we have boutiquethink tanks. In the knowledge business there are still, of course,towering intellectuals who influence public policy by the force oreloquence of their ideas. One of the greatest, Jane Jacobs Noun 1. Jane Jacobs - United States writer and critic of urban planning (born in 1916)Jacobs , recentlypassed away. In her many books, Jacobs uncompromisingly described thetruth about our society and forced the political world to come to her.In her last book, Dark Age Ahead, for example, Jacobs proclaimed againthat the beginning of wisdom is to be self-aware and that the role ofthe intellectual was to tell the truth at all cost. She felt thatpowerful persons or groups usually find it in their interest to preventadaptive change, and if that happens, a society begins to decay. (Thisis precisely what she thought was happening to North America North America,third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. as weentered the 21st century.) Less heroically than towering individualfigures like Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian of technology and science. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a tremendously broad career as a writer that also included a period as an influential literary or John Maynard Keynes Noun 1. John Maynard Keynes - English economist who advocated the use of government monetary and fiscal policy to maintain full employment without inflation (1883-1946)Keynes ,university research centres, by and large, also still put a premium onlogic, thought or verifiable experiments, not on packaging or politicalrespectability. But A Capitol Idea focuses on a third category of the knowledgefactory, one that arrived on the scene about a hundred years ago: thethink tank. These organizations originated in the United States. Theterm "think tank" came into use during World War II with themodel being the Rand Corporation Rand Corporation,research institution in Santa Monica, Calif.; founded 1948 and supported by federal, state, and local governments, as well as by foundations and corporations. Its principal fields of research are national security and public welfare. (which today has an annual budget ofnearly US$200 million and a staff of more than a thousand), butAbelson's analysis goes back to the 1830s. He writes of fourdistinct waves of American think tank development, whose example hasspawned replicas elsewhere in Europe and Canada. In the United Kingdom,for example, Margaret Thatcher Noun 1. Margaret Thatcher - British stateswoman; first woman to serve as Prime Minister (born in 1925)Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven, Iron Lady, Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Thatcher served as vice-president of the Centrefor Policy Studies before she became leader of the Tories, and after shedethroned Heath it became a major influence on her thinking; today,Demos has had a similar (though less pronounced) influence onBlair's New Labour project. Abelson provides a very useful typology typology/ty��pol��o��gy/ (ti-pol��ah-je) the study of types; the science of classifying, as bacteria according to type. typologythe study of types; the science of classifying, as bacteria according to type. to classify the differenttypes of think tanks. First, there are large "universities withoutstudents," which employ more than 50 scholars with broad-basedagendas and budgets of more than US$30 to US$50 million (the BrookingsInstitution Brookings Institution,at Washington, D.C.; chartered 1927 as a consolidation of the Institute for Government Research (est. 1916), the Institute of Economics (est. 1922), and the Robert S. Brookings Graduate School of Economics and Government (est. 1924). or Hoover Institution The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace is a public policy think tank and library founded by Herbert Hoover at Stanford University, his alma mater. The Institution was founded in 1919 and over time has amassed a huge archive of documentation related to President ). Then come think tanks such as Randor the Urban Institute, which are government contractors to serve theneeds of government agencies such as the U.S. Air Force or theDepartment of Housing and Urban Development. Advocacy think tanks have aclear ideology and aggressive salesmanship (and do not do much actualresearch): the Heritage Foundation, for example, is a major force inWashington pushing an agenda of marketplace deregulation DeregulationThe reduction or elimination of government power in a particular industry, usually enacted to create more competition within the industry.Notes:Traditional areas that have been deregulated are the telephone and airline industries. , including thecreation of free enterprise zones and development of the Star Warsinitiative. There are also candidate-based (or vanity) think tanks togenerate ideas for an individual. (While progressives have also createdsuch organizations, by far the best known again come from theconservative side of the ledger, from Ross Perot's United We Standto Bob Dole's Better America.) More than 2,000 think tanks exist inthe United States, most at universities, but 500 or so operateindependently of a university or government, and it is mainly theseprivate think tanks that are analyzed in The Capitol Idea. In his case studies of ballistic missile defence and the war onterrorism Terrorist acts and the threat of Terrorism have occupied the various law enforcement agencies in the U.S. government for many years. The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, as amended by the usa patriot act, Abelson comes up with some surprising findings. Despite theattention given to large organizations such as Brookings or the AmericanEnterprise Institute The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) is a conservative think tank, founded in 1943. According to the institute its mission "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism — limited government, , Abelson finds that small organizations with theright idea at the right time can influence the right people. GeneralDaniel Graham For other persons named Daniel Graham, see Daniel Graham (disambiguation).Daniel Graham (born November 16, 1978 in Torrance, California) is an American football tight end who plays for the Denver Broncos of the NFL. , for example, briefed candidate Ronald Reagan on a missileshield in the New Hampshire New Hampshire,one of the New England states of the NE United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts (S), Vermont, with the Connecticut R. forming the boundary (W), the Canadian province of Quebec (NW), and Maine and a short strip of the Atlantic Ocean (E). Republican primary in 1980 and then went onto found High Frontier, a small Virginia-based think tank that publisheda report on a ground-based and space-based defence system. Graham wasinvolved in the initial discussions on missile defence, and in 1983President Reagan shocked the world by making a televised address on hisvision of an impenetrable shield. Twenty years TWENTY YEARS. The lapse of twenty years raises a presumption of certain facts, and after such a time, the party against whom the presumption has been raised, will be required to prove a negative to establish his rights. 2. and several billions ofdollars later, Canada is now faced with a decision to join a system thatstill has not been proven conclusively to work. Even more tellingly, the Project for the New American Century The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is an American neoconservative think tank based in Washington, D.C., co-founded as "a non-profit educational organization" by William Kristol and Robert Kagan in early 1997. thinktank, founded in 1997, had only a budget of US$600,000 and fourfull-time staffers, but it released a 76-page study on "RebuildingAmerica's Defenses," which called on the United States"to fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theaterwars" and "to develop and deploy global missiledefenses." Among those who drafted and endorsed PNAC'sstatement of principles during the Clinton administration were DickCheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, Republican thinkers who allbecame senior figures in the administration of George Bush II. In thisway, organizations like PNAC PNAC Project for the New American CenturyPNAC Pakistan National Accreditation CouncilPNAC Pontifical North American CollegePNAC Port-Based Network Access Control (IEEE 802.1x)PNAC Pilot Not At ControlsPNAC Provident National Assurance Company are not only think tanks but also"holding" tanks for opposition intellectuals waiting for theirmoment in the sun. The American system of government is so porous, with so manydecision points in Congress, that think tanks spend as much timeinfluencing members of Congress and the media as they do persuadinggovernment agencies of the worth of their ideas. The phrase "thinktank" connotes non-partisan scientific research, but, as Abelsondemonstrates conclusively in his study, many of the most effective thinktanks do little research, but a great deal of public relations public relations,activities and policies used to create public interest in a person, idea, product, institution, or business establishment. By its nature, public relations is devoted to serving particular interests by presenting them to the public in the most . The dilemma, concludes Abelson, is that public policy should not bethe monopoly of government, that complex problems require a diversity ofoptions, well researched and well presented. As Smith writes in The IdeaBrokers, "truth speaks to power in different tones of voice."But Abelson's book also demonstrates that the advocating vanitythink tanks are often vehicles of spin gussied gus��sy?tr.v. gus��sied, gus��sy��ing, gus��sies SlangTo dress or decorate elaborately; adorn or embellish: gussied herself up in sequins and feathers. up by the gloss of socialscience. Canada once had an answer to Abelson's dilemma, but it is anadvantage we threw away. Lester B. Pearson's government created theEconomic Council to provide a counterveil to the Department of Finance,and the Science Council did the same for industrial policy. PierreTrudeau's government created the Canadian Institute forInternational Peace and Security as a tax-supported source of foreignpolicy expertise. Such a system of open, publicly supported yetarm's-length research challenged the conventional orthodoxy withingovernment departments. That is the laudable aspect of the Americansystem--a thousand policy ideas bloom. But, because independentorganizations like the Economic Council were tax supported, they did notonly cater to the rich, powerful or well organized, which is thedownside of the American system. The Department of Finance alwaysresented the economic and science councils and, regrettably, BrianMulroney's government, in one of its last acts, abolished theCanadian invention of government-supported think tanks. To theirdiscredit, neither the Jean Chretien nor Paul Martin governmentsrestored Mr. Pearson's useful idea. Socrates, the founder of Plato's school (perhaps the firstthink tank), believed the unexamined life was not worth living. JaneJacobs believed that we must continually examine the realities of ourtime to make the necessary changes to stave off a new Dark Age.Organized thinking, independent of government, can play a role. But theAmerican models so painstakingly analyzed by Donald Abelson are far frombeing a capital idea. Thomas S. Axworthy is chair of the Centre for the Study ofDemocracy The Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD) is a multidisciplinary research organization which enhances the study of democracy both within Canada and abroad. Founded in the mid-1990s, CSD is a non-profit, non-partisan organization affiliated with the School of Policy Studies at , Queen's University, a university-based think tank ofvery modest dimensions.