Abstract
This chapter more closely examines the methods policy institutes use to exert influence. Think tanks express ideas in many ways, but the packaging and conveyance of these ideas are critical choices that substantially impact think tank success. The chapter shows that institute characteristics and objectives play important roles in method decisions, while material resources regulate the available method choices. The chapter reveals divergences based on think tanks’ ideological persuasions and the orientations of their target audiences. Policymaker receptiveness to think tank ideation is not as homogenous as has been assumed.
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Notes
- 1.
Only 12% of respondents ‘disagree’, while 11% of respondents ‘neither agree nor disagree’.
- 2.
The survey question here states that ‘direct communication means engaging in conversation with a think tank representative (in any role) over the phone, in person, or electronically’.
- 3.
The p-value equals 0.0208.
- 4.
The Liberal/National Coalition was re-elected to government in the federal election on May 18, 2019.
- 5.
The p-value equals 0.0786.
- 6.
The p-value equals 0.0048.
- 7.
For example, the IPA scolds the Coalition for introducing the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act 2018 (Begg, 2019), upbraids the Morrison government for its digital platform reforms (Rozner, 2019), chastises the Victorian Liberal Party for lacking ideological purity (‘they suck’) (IPA, 2019), consistently rails against the introduction of the Covid-19 contact tracing app (see IPA, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c), and pillories the Coalition for its 2021 federal budget (Wild, 2021).
- 8.
Lowy has since returned to the production of Lowy Institute Papers. These are full-length books published by Penguin Random House Australia.
- 9.
Both counts exclude parliamentary submissions.
- 10.
Survey participants could select up to two response categories for this question. Figure 7.3 details one-hundred-and-thirty-two responses.
- 11.
Notwithstanding the typically uncompensated contributions of Research Fellows.
- 12.
This author attended five in-person CIS events before the COVID-19 lockdowns.
- 13.
These twelve weeks stretched from March 25, 2020 to June 12, 2020.
- 14.
The relationship with political parties is not statistically significant.
- 15.
- 16.
- 17.
Over these five years, NSW had a Coalition government, QLD had a Labor government, and the ACT a Labor government.
- 18.
Infrastructure Partnerships Australia is a Sydney-based infrastructure-focussed think tank with an Australia-wide purview. The institute focuses on public policy research and seeks to ‘shape public debate and drive reform for the national interest’ (Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, 2020).
- 19.
For example, the NSW Treasurer announced a $93 billion infrastructure spending package as part of its State Budget in 2019 (Perrottet, 2019).
- 20.
The GIPA requests (more commonly referred to as ‘freedom of information’ requests) covered meetings involving the Lowy Institute, CIS, IPA, and The Australia Institute.
- 21.
Parliamentary committees ‘investigate specific matters of policy or government administration or performance’ (Parliament of Australia, 2020a).
- 22.
Track-1.5 diplomacy refers to ‘non-official meetings usually attended by officials (acting in their private capacity)’ along with non-official actors, including academics and think tanks. Track-2 diplomacy refers to ‘the unofficial channel for political, economic and security dialogue’, primarily consisting of non-official actors (Capie & Evans, 2007, pp. 231–235).
- 23.
LinkedIn is not as prominent and is excluded from this analysis.
- 24.
The activity snapshots were taken on May 1, 2019 and May 1, 2020. Appendix A notes that upon review, the Australian Human Rights Commission would likely be removed from this study’s population. The results and analysis here are not impacted by its inclusion.
- 25.
Several other policy institutes advertise young-person engagement efforts but produce little in the way of dedicated content. These include The Australian Fabians (‘Young Fabians’), China Matters (‘Young Professionals’) and the AIIA (‘Youth Engagement’).
- 26.
The IPA defines ‘young people’ as those between seventeen and twenty-five years of age.
- 27.
Census was taken in June–July 2020.
- 28.
All podcasts were accessed via the ‘Podcast App’ between June 2019 and July 2020.
- 29.
This author viewed fifty web-based think tank videos with an aggregate twenty-six hours of content.
- 30.
Video viewership numbers are more useful than channel subscriber numbers because they demonstrate true content penetration (non-subscribers can also view video content).
- 31.
The video viewership numbers were initially tallied on June 14, 2020, and were updated on October 9, 2021. The circumstances in 2021 are largely unchanged, except for one significant development. The Centre for Independent Studies has jumped ahead of the IPA at the top of the table by doubling its views and subscriber base. Much of this jump comes from the four-hundred-and-forty thousand views of one video featuring esteemed scholars Kishore Mahbubani and John Mearsheimer debating Asian-region geopolitics (CIS, 2020).
- 32.
Data from prior years were sourced using the internet archive website Wayback Machine. A snapshot of the IPA YouTube subscriber numbers and video views was archived on June 23, 2017. Subscriber numbers were 2,429, and video views totalled 637,075 at this date (IPA, 2017). The compound annual growth rate since 2017 is 104% for subscribers and 59% for video views.
- 33.
At the revision date in 2021, the IPA had forty-six videos exceeding ten thousand views, while The Australia Institute still had two.
- 34.
The IPA’s subscriber numbers were approximately five times larger than The Australia Institute and four times larger than the Lowy Institute as of the revision date in 2021.
- 35.
See the Lowy Institute and the Regional Australia Institute websites as examples.
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Hagland, T. (2023). Influence Methods. In: Think Tanks in Australia. Interest Groups, Advocacy and Democracy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27044-4_7
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