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Understanding Think Tanks: A Global Endeavour

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Think Tanks in Australia

Part of the book series: Interest Groups, Advocacy and Democracy Series ((IGAD))

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Abstract

This chapter explores the existing international and Australian think tank literature. The review initially focuses on the foundational international literature from the late twentieth century—a period when the Australian think tank industry and its scholarly examination were together insubstantial. The focus then turns to the Australian think tank literature, which, to the present day, remains relatively modest. In aggregate, the chapter explores the key themes, concepts, and theories that purport to explain think tank roles, activities, influence, and space in the broader social structure.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For more recent literature prosecuting interest group access, see, for example, Binderkrantz et al. (2015) and Halpin and Fraussen (2017).

  2. 2.

    The Brookings Institution was officially founded in 1927, but its antecedent organisations, the Institute of Government Research, the Institute of Economics, and the Robert Brookings Graduate School, were established in 1916, 1922, and 1924, respectively. They combined to form Brookings in 1927 (Critchlow, 1985).

  3. 3.

    The five think tanks Peschek examines are the Brookings Institution, Trilateral Commission, American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, and Institute for Contemporary Studies.

  4. 4.

    Lingard (2015) and Reid (2015) also examine right-leaning think tanks and their impacts on education policy in Australia. Loughland and Thompson (2016) likewise analyse the education-policy prescriptions of a single entity—but in this case, those of the centrist Grattan Institute.

  5. 5.

    Kelly’s study focuses on the H. R. Nicholls Society, the Samuel Griffith Society, the Bennelong Society, and the Lavoisier Group.

  6. 6.

    This section does not directly engage with the enormous body of more contemporary interest group literature.

  7. 7.

    The variations and augmentations of these three approaches are acknowledged, but the focus on these foundational models is consistent with the broader thrust of this literature review.

  8. 8.

    Lindquist (2021, pp. 101, 103) encourages scholars to more explicitly connect research on think tanks to these long-established policy process theories. This book establishes the foundations for future research of this kind (in the Australian context).

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  1. Discipline of Finance, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Trent Hagland

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Hagland, T. (2023). Understanding Think Tanks: A Global Endeavour. In: Think Tanks in Australia. Interest Groups, Advocacy and Democracy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27044-4_2

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