The effective ones are results-oriented ‘do tanks’ rather than chattering-class debate clubs.
The effective ones are results-oriented ‘do tanks’ rather than chattering-class debate clubs.
Miami — The Atlas Network is a nonprofit group that advises and supports more than 450 independent think tanks that try to strengthen democracy and economic freedom in 90 countries. It is celebrating its 40th anniversary at its annual meeting here starting today. In the Age of Covid, never have the efforts of such groups been more important and more needed.
Covid-19 has killed millions and put a suffocating blanket on economic growth, especially in developing countries. But the damage goes beyond that. The pandemic, the lockdowns, and their aftershocks threaten to undo many of the giant gains the globe has made in economic and political progress since the end of the Cold War.
The World Bank estimates that the pandemic has pushed 115 million people into extreme poverty as supply-chain failures, lockdowns, new limits on free trade, and the reallocation of medical resources away from basic health care disrupt fragile countries.
Today, 2.6 billion people — 35 percent of the world’s population — live under regimes that are becoming more authoritarian. Only 8 percent of the world’s population live under regimes that are becoming more democratic. According to Human Rights Watch, in at least 83 countries, authorities have used Covid-19 as an excuse to limit basic rights, such as freedom of speech, assembly, and the press
One of the most effective tools to fight such trends would be to have think tanks — institutions founded to produce nonpartisan, evidence-based research carried out by experts — take on a bigger role. When they work well, they can serve as a bridge between academia and policy-makers, tailoring ideas and concepts to broader audiences as well as local conditions, and they also help overcome opposition to reform. As The Economist magazine noted in a 2017 article titles “What Do Think Tanks Do?”: “A good think tank helps the policymaking process by publishing reports that are as rigorous as academic research and as accessible as journalism.”
Some think tanks have reinvented themselves. The Pew Research Center calls itself a “fact tank,” focusing on information rather than policy recommendations. In the U.S., Americans for Tax Reform and the Committee to Unleash Prosperity are both “do tanks,” publishing reports but also mounting advocacy campaigns to put their recommendations into practice.
I’ve spent a lot of time digesting the research of think tanks and reporting on their efforts.
The Atlas Network meeting in Miami has every possible variety of think tank in attendance. Costa Rica’s IDEAS Labs wanted to reform the country’s pension law, which paid out millions of dollars to former politicians and other powerful elites. IDEAS Labs defined success for its project as educating the public about the issue; mobilizing public support to push for pension reform; establishing media and political support for the reforms; and achieving partial or total reform.
In 2020, the pension law was reformed, ending an injustice and putting the system on a sounder platform.
Other Atlas affiliates are showing real results. In the Philippines, the Foundation for Economic Freedom campaigned to help residential homeowners and smallholder farmers secure the title to their land. The number of ownership titles being issued has risen from 3,840 in 2010 to an average of 50,853 titles per year. Farmers are more likely to invest in their land when they are confident that their ownership will not be challenged.
The Samriddhi Foundation in Nepal has made progress enshrining the rule of law and freedom of enterprise in the country’s new constitution.
The Center for Indonesian Policy Studies has increased food security by reducing import duties on garlic, onions, crop seeds, and other items. This effort has saved Indonesians around $1.9 billion per year and has brought many out of poverty.
In Mexico, the think tank México Evalúa was instrumental in passing a nationwide freedom-of-information and transparency law that enables citizens to request documents and information about government operations.
Brad Lips, the CEO of Atlas Network, says his group and all of its affiliates are committed to a bottom-up theory of change. Left-wing critics accuse Atlas of all manner of sins, claiming, for instance, that it’s beholden to fossil-fuel and tobacco interests even though those sources have provided less than 1 percent of its funding over the past 20 years. It takes no government money of any kind, and 98 percent of its funding over the past five years has come from individuals and foundations such as the John Templeton Foundation and the Lilly Endowment.
The money supports the hundreds of Atlas affiliates in dozens of ways, from sponsoring MBA-style courses for think-tank leaders to showering recognition through its Dignity Unbound program on think tanks that do the most to help poor people. In just the past three years, it has helped to promote human progress through its new Center for Latin America and Center for African Prosperity.
Lips is a constant whirlwind of activity. During one recent week, he spoke by Zoom with groups in South Asia, helped moderate a book club in Britain, had virtual cocktails with a fellow think-tanker in Australia, and collected progress reports from affiliates in Latin America and Africa. His book Liberalism and the Free Society in 2021 has been praised as a worthy successor to such free-market classics as Frédéric Bastiat’s The Law and Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson.
Lips constantly has to deal with skeptics who dismiss think tanks as either false fronts for government propaganda or mere chattering societies. Some are, but Atlas Network’s standards vigorously weed out any groups those descriptions would fit.
Indeed, there are examples of think tanks that have clearly influenced policy in a major way. Margaret Thatcher referred to the Institute of Economic Affairs as her “brain trust,” and Ronald Reagan called the Heritage Foundation “a constant source of ideas and policy” for his administration.
More recently, several think tanks have taken advantage of opportunities to pursue reforms in changing political climates.
In Bulgaria, Harvard economist Kiril Petkov was able to jump from his perch at a non-Atlas think tank to become interim minister of the economy last May. In his first news conference as a minister, Petkov revealed that the state-controlled Bulgarian Development Bank distributed $550 million euros in loans to just eight companies owned by four businessmen. He launched an immediate audit of the loans.
Petkov then quickly founded an anti-corruption party called Continuing the Change, which came in first in Bulgaria’s November 14 elections even though it had just been formed. Last Friday, a new four-party anti-corruption coalition government with Petkov as the new prime minister was announced. It will take office this week.