07/08/2010 — Goran Buldioski on Think Tanks
Press often writes based on what it has been told by think tankers but rarely writes about them. Elite press even more so. So ‘Send for the wonks’, the article that appeared in the Economist on July 27, is worth highlighting for all those who follow the developments in the world of think tanks. Especially those who trace the transfer of think tankers into politics (so called revolving door function of think tanks). Those who search for the elusive definition of impact in the work of these organizations would be even more delighted to read how ResPublica, the Institute for Economic Affairs, Reform and Policy Exchange, four British think tanks are making an impact on the current policies. Of course, ‘impact’ based on the transfer from ‘policy’ into ‘politics’.
Transfer of Eastern European ‘wonks’, albeit not reported by the Economist, follows similar trends in some countries. This year’s notable mentions come from Slovakia following the recent parliamentary elections: Eugen Jurzica, who stepped down as INEKO executive director last year, became the Minister of Education, Science, Research and Sport two months ago; Miroslav Bebaly traded his place at the Slovak Governance Institute for a seat in the Slovak Parliament. And there are not the only ones 
. In Slovakia, the think tanks have always been traditionally linked with the liberal and center-right ideologies and consequently in favor of those political parties. Therefore the transfer to and from Government in Slovakia is very common and does not undermine the credibility of the sector (OK, I am sure that Robert Fico will disagree with my interpretation ).
Regrettably, this cannot be said for the countries in the Western Balkans (Albania was in the limelight last year) . But this is a different story that deserves a special blog-post in future to follow some of my previous musings.
05/08/2010 — Goran Buldioski on Research & Resources, Think Tanks
In the past, independent think tanks have tended to perceive communications as an optional, marginal activity. However, the creation of a comprehensive annual communications strategy is becoming integral to the activity of any think tank including those in Central and Eastern Europe. Every organization requires a communications strategy to maximize its work’s impact, but technological advancement and the perception that there is abundant information and analyses at policy makers’ disposal complicate the task of choosing appropriate channels of communication.
At the end of May 2010, Policy Association for Open Society (PASOS) and the Think Tank Fund gathered 20 executive directors and/or directors of communication of CEE think tanks at a workshop in London (insert the agenda). The 2-day workshop hosted by the European Council of Foreign Relations (ECFR) benefited from the experiences of the London- based think tanks (IPPR, DEMOS, CER, Chatham House and several other organizations such as Global Witness, Open Society Institute). While participants have positively evaluated the events, PASOS has recorded some of the presentations and put them available here:
1. Developing and implementing a communications strategy – overview
Peter Harrington, former Communications Director, DEMOS, UK
download Powerpoint of Peter Harrington’s presentation (3.8Mb)
listen to Peter Harrington’s presentation (MP3, 31Mb, 45 minutes)
2. Developing and implementing a communications strategy – New media tools
Kathryn Corrick, digital media consultant
listen to Kathryn Corrick’s presentation (MP3, 45Mb, 49 minutes)
3. Communication strategy – Case study of Center for Research and policy Making (CRPM) – Macedonia. Presenter: Marija Risteska, Director
download Powerpoint of Marija Risteska’s presentation (610kb)
listen to Marija Risteska’s presentation (MP3, 20.5Mb, 23 minutes)
4. Communication strategy of a particular project – Case study of Providus Center for public Policy – Latvia. Presenter: Krista Baumane, Development Director
download Powerpoint of Krista Baumane’s presentation (173kb)
listen to Krista Baumane’s presentation (MP3, 15.6Mb, 23 minutes)
5. Building relations with media and policy stakeholders/ Effective advocacy strategies
Nicholas Walton, Head of Communications, European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)
listen to Nicholas Walton’s presentation (MP3, 15.5Mb, 17 minutes)
Fiona Napier, International Advocacy Director, Open Society Institute
listen to Fiona Napier’s presentation (MP3, 21.8Mb, 24 minutes)
I hope you find them useful. Let me know your comments and ideas below.
Important note: All presentation slides are property of the presenters and should not be copied
07/05/2010 — Goran Buldioski on CEE policy processes
On Wednesday, May 5 the New York Times brought a very interesting opinion piece contributing to the debate on how much and if policy does matter*. In a style close to one of a Weberian disciple, David Brooks , NYT columnist found very interesting examples in comparing the life expectancy and other human development indicators of Swedes that migrated in the USA a century ago with those who stayed in Sweden.
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21/04/2010 — Goran Buldioski on Think Tanks
CEE Think Tanks – Functions and Thematic areas
In February, I criticized the Think Tank Rating of Pennsylvania University on this blog. My criticism is partly grounded in my conviction that ranking of think tanks do not tell us much about the work they do but rather the image and reputation they enjoy among the respondents of the survey.
Criticism without suggestion of an alternative is a futile and unproductive endeavor. Since I do not believe in ratings, I always tried to learn what think tanks really do in this region. That has brought me to explore their functions and the thematic foci.
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25/03/2010 — Goran Buldioski on Think Tanks
A person that has recently started to work with think tanks in Central and Eastern Europe asked me to recommend some readings so that s/he can grasp the field better. Recommending some key readings was a much harder hard task than I initially envisaged. There are several reasons for it. While the body of literature on think tanks globally, and in the US in particular, is relatively rich, there is very little written on the think tanks in CEE. Second, most of this existing texts / analysis is qualitative in nature with exception of some country case studies (see my next post on some quantitative analysis). Third, the attempted conceptual frameworks have always tilted towards Anglo-Saxon definition and interpretation of the think tanks. As we know by now, this has its own limits when applied to CEE think tanks. And finally, it seems that the interest to write about think tanks has waned in the last 4-5 years.
Having read a lot of articles and books written about think tanks in CEE, I realized that maybe it will be useful to share them on this blog not only to those that ask for J. So below you will find a non-exhaustive list organized by the following categories:
General Readings on think tanks | CEE specific | Country specific | Quality Standards for think tanks | Specific niche / subject (such as management, accountability)
I hope you find it useful. And please suggest any other article, book, text that you recommend
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03/03/2010 — Goran Buldioski on CEE policy processes
“There is a pathos in television dialogue: the rapid exchange of monologues that fail to find the issue, like ships passing in the night; the reiterated preface, ‘I think that…,’ as if it mattered who held which opinion rather than which opinion is worth holding; the impressive personal vanity that prevents each ‘discussant’ from really listening to another speaker”.
Sounds like all the political talk-shows you have recently witnessed on a local TV stations in Belgrade, Zagreb, Sarajevo,…. Skopje or Tirana ? Or the columns you try to regularly follow in the daily newspapers in each of these places?
I though the same.
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02/02/2010 — Goran Buldioski on Think Tanks
THE GLOBAL “GO-TO THINK TANKS 2009” and Why I do not believe in it!
And… could we trust this ranking?
Think Tanks and Foreign Policy Program at the University of Pennsylvania and its director,
James G. McGann, have done it again! The new Ranking for 2009 or THE GLOBAL “GO-TO THINK TANKS” is out. And I suppose anyone in the world with access to Internet knows about it by now! I received this information eight times: five times directly from the author and his team alone, then from a friend of mine who deals with NGOs (not think tanks), another one whose primary interest is independent media and internet and the third forward was from a not-for-profit lawyer. And these messages were only for the occasion of the report launch only. The same process gets repeated few times a year. I am sure most of those who deal with think tanks in this region have been subject of a similar ‘bombardment’ of information.
Setting aside my dissatisfaction with the communication strategy / distribution of the product (almost reaching spamming dimensions), my main concerns are with the contents of this ranking. From the soundness of the methodology including the rigor of the selection to imputed conclusions to the lack of accuracy in the presented information, this ranking is riveted by mistakes and inconsistencies.
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24/01/2010 — Goran Buldioski on Think Tanks
Innovation has been on my mind for a while and for different reasons. Think tanks in Central and Eastern Europe, for most part, have employed traditional ways in reaching various audiences. Policy briefs or studies distributed to policy makers and media alike, publishing short articles in the press, TV appearances at talk shows or short statements for the news, holding press conferences have been the ‘bread & butter’ of usual think tank communication strategy. With the advancement of internet, most have added a web-site with their policy products; a few innovative ones have added ‘youtube’-like video features, interactive sections, blogs and comments on their web-site. Certainly there is a visible progress in this respect.
Yet, two innovative communication strategies have impressed me last week.
First the Kosovo Stability Initiative (IKS) has distributed their ‘Thinking Green Fact_Sheet’ in some 100 coffee bars and restaurants in Pristina. Knowing the Balkan’s ‘coffee culture’ this is a spot on distribution strategy. Simple, cheap and hopefully effective (yet to hear about the feedback from IKS).
Second, Slovak Governance Institute (SGI) is pushing the use of social networking websites such as Facebook one step further. We all know (and some are members) of all sorts of online communities. Many think tanks in CEE and its network PASOS have established their fun clubs / supporting groups on Facebook. Having done this, SGI will soon launch an advertisement campaign for their project ‘New Ideas for Slovakia’ aimed at the 1-million Slovak registered on Facebook. Each Slovak on Facebook will see a small add and link to the new policy briefs that SGI has recently published. According to Miro Beblavy, SGI director, this way of reaching the broader public is much cheaper than any other media and worth the experiment. I am really curious in the results.
With young people reading less and less conventional newspapers and not following news on TV, strategies such as these two might find the shortest route to reaching out new audiences.
23/01/2010 — Goran Buldioski on Think Tanks
When some one reads at least 3-4 policy studies and dozen of policy briefs per week as I do, one wonders what could be done to make them more interesting, more unusual and still relevant and readable. This is not to complain that those policy papers that stick to the canon (ex summary, introduction, definition of problem; evaluation of policy options; recommendation) are boring. Neither one should neglect the innovative writing such as the European Stability Initiative’s policy research-cum-investigative journalism style. There is innovation out there, but is there something revolutionary?
Recently, I have come across the following article (thanks Darko): A Portuguese success story: could i be the future of newspapers? about making the I-newspaper. Newspapers are another area where form is entrenched and has rarely being changed (in the paper editions, online does not count ). Mind you I am not expert on newspapers . Yet, how many times you have immediately rushed to the international pages of a newspaper neglecting the technology or entertainment section. Newspaper sections have been standardized and around for a long time. While few object, still where the innovation could happen?
Defying the existing standards, the Portuguese news paper has the following sections:
1. Opinion is the first section of the paper, based on the key word think. No other Portuguese paper starts out with opinion.
2. Radar is the second, accompanied by the key word know. Figueiredo said the assumption was that readers will already know a lot from other sources, but Radar aims to offer a quick overview of everything that has happened in the past 24 hours. The section is eight pages long, and the longest article is half a page.
3. Zoom is the third section, connected to the key word understand. The 22-26 page section looks at between eight and 13 topics in depth, with articles taking up one to ten pages. “We deal with these subjects with a lot of care, and we use the best teams,” Figueiredo said.
4. The fourth section is called More, linked to the key concept feel. This is where anything about people’s private, cultural, social lives goes. Figueiredo explained that the team did not want to give the section a more specific name, or the content would be limited. More encompasses the fifth need that the paper wanted to address: sports, about 80% of which is focused on football – “this is very important in Portugal,” Figueiredo said.
This concept has definitely intrigued me. What could be the i-policy brief ?
19/12/2009 — Goran Buldioski on Random musings
When I started this blog earlier this summer, I decided to use it only as a space for sharing my professional reflections on policy-making processes and the role of think tanks within. This day, December 19, 2009 poses a serious challenge to this decision of mine. I will try to balance my personal and professional reflections on the great decision to put Macedonian, Serbian and Montenegrin citizens on the White List of Schengen countries (All EU except the UK and Ireland).
While for many December 19 is just an ordinary day, if not tiring, in the pre-Christmas shopping frenzy, for me – a Macedonian living in the European Union- it is a day for second coming out of age. Second, since at age of 36, I feel like being given a second suffrage. This time, it is not the right to vote, it is the right to move freely, to travel to ‘Europe’. Gone are the long lines in front of the EU embassies, suffering all sorts of humiliations. After 18 years, 10 passports (including my old Yugoslav passport), some 120 visas and countless amount spent*, I can travel to almost the entire EU without a visa. It feels almost like a first vote, even better since the choice is greater (sic! to local Macedonian politicians). I vividly remember my first international travel in 1991, exactly 18 years ago. Then, at the down of the Yugoslavia’s demise, I visited London, proud of my Yugoslav passport, then the entry ticket to both the West and the East.
This is a great achievement which I hope will not end up here. I look forward to Albanians and Bosnians being able to share the same excitement that has now overwhelmed me (already in 2010). This is also a time to thank to all civil servants and some politicians, but also extend the gratitude to many think tanks and NGOs that have pushed this agenda. I want to personally thank to think tanks such as European Movement Albania, PoPuLaRi in Bosnia, Group 484 in Serbia, Center for Research and Policy Making in Macedonia, European Stability Initiative and Policy Association for Open Society (PASOS) and European Institute in Bulgaria – for their efforts. Knowing that the list is much longer, please excuse me for not mentioning many more NGOs and think tanks that have contributed to this effort. And not to forget Kosovo (read the last report of FORUM 2015)!
At the end of this note I would to ask for volunteers to explain to my 87-year grandma what kind of Wall fell earlier today. She asked my mum after watching all the news coverage and celebrations and was somewhat disappointed that they did not show a wall on the news . Obviously, the old women likened this event with the coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Warning to the volunteers: it should be easy and understandable, almost as a short comment in a popular daily newspaper .
*Only the last UK visa amounted to 267 Euros. Unfortunately UK visas will stay around for a while.