Think Tanks as Governance Entrepreneurs

Abstract

Think tanks are more than idea brokers; they are the creators, developers and advocates of specific political agendas. This book has interrogated the collective mobilisation of certain think tank networks in pursuit of the NTS agenda in Asia. It has brought ideas back into politics and placed ideational actors at the centre of institutional change. Building upon previous research, this book has used discursive institutionalism to explain how think tanks have used ideas to highlight the need for institutional change and provide policy alternatives. It has traced how think tanks have pushed ideas into policy making circles by using discourse and creating discursive space. Moreover, it has examined the normative impact of think tank networks’ promotion of a unified ideational agenda on regional forms of governance. In doing so, it linked institutional change to the endorsement of specific ideational agendas and placed think tank networks into the larger framework of international security actors.