In his second guest blog-post Andrej provides a loooong and extremely useful list of resources that complements my post from last month.

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It is my pleasure to add the first guest post on this blog.

Andrej Nosko, my colleague and Senior Program Officer at the Think Tank Fund reflects and provides excellent videos, presentations and other resource material from the event the Think Tank Fund organized last week in Budapest.

Evaluation Questionnaire Wordle

During the evaluation tweeting of an event we at Think Tank Fund organized with colleagues from IP program one of the participants tweeted “in God we trust, all others bring DATA” I googled this later to check originality, and found an interesting post adding an important question to it “Do we think, or do we know?” These two blurps are perhaps the most eloquent way of representing the idea behind what we call “evidence-based policy.” Think tanks are in the business of policy research and have intimate relationship with their data. Nonetheless, this intimacy is exclusive and the data is rarely accessible to others beyond the in-house researchers or those that have the necessary ability to comprehend technical reports.

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OSF has recently published a useful guide on advocacy:

Evidence, Messages, Change! is designed to support the advocacy efforts of Open Society Foundations grantees and partners. It offers basic tools and lessons learned for those considering conducting advocacy.

The guide outlines important steps to ensure that advocacy is as effective as possible. It draws on learning within the Open Society Foundations, especially the experiences of advocacy staff, as well as resources from other organizations.

The manual defines advocacy as an organized attempt to change policy, practice, and/or attitudes by resenting evidence and arguments for how and why change should happen.

Hope you’ll find it useful.

High quality policy research requires collection, processing and structuring of reliable information. This information, when collected properly and competently analyzed, is a prerequisite for making any evidence-based arguments and impacting concrete policies. Policy researchers collect and process vast amounts of data, however their outputs often remain in form of technical language of lengthy policy papers consisting of textual and static visual knowledge products (texts and charts), accessible to only a handful of experts.

While rigorous technical analysis provides necessary basis for informed expert discussions, and sometimes it directly influences policy makers, such approach is no longer sufficient to reach wider audiences and mobilize coalitions of stakeholders. Technical formulation of policy research products both limits the audience of these products to the experts, as well as often preventing collaboration and reuse of the publicly available data and analysis which was once already processed, for same or other policy goals. In transitional and emerging democracies the information and corresponding policy analysis not only remains scarce and/or underutilized, it often remains siloed with important context and connections being lost. As such it misses opportunities to create essential knowledge in the society and to add the necessary depth and evidence backup to policy discourse.

The recent advancement of new media has further exacerbated the challenges think tanks face. Today think tanks are forced to compete with their knowledge products on the same market of ideas with blogs, news outlets, magazines and electronic media in general. For example the way how people receive and consume information has changed since the

times of books, printed newsletters and offline information sharing in general. We have noticed that many think tanks in Central and Eastern Europe, while aware of these trends, have yet to master the art of using the new media and interactive information technology both to communicate their results, as well as to bring their work to their existing audiences and promote it among new, wider audiences by utilizing user-friendly formats and thus increase the impact of their ideas. Not only would think tanks benefit from higher visibility and impact of their ideas, but also their products could be of more value for their societies.

Based in CEE and interested to attend an event on this subject organized by the Think Tank Fund, check it out here.

Still puzzled what is this about, check out some cool visualizations and presentations of data online:

2. Perhaps the best of the NGOs/ advocacy organizations: Sunlight Foundations.

Check the wealth of their different projects.

My favorite: Dashboard on US national data catalog with almost 4,000 data sets at the tip of your fingers

3. Highlight from CEE:

Datanest Project of the Fair Play Alliance. Simply impressive!

4. Example of great civic activism from Great Britain: Fix My Street

5. Gapminder: Another pioneer of data visualization:

5.a VIDI: Data visualization tool developed by the Jefferson Institute:

6. The iconic Truth-o-Meter at Polity Fact

7. ProPublica explaining the Wall Stet Money Machine, or who bought

“collateralized debt obligations” from whom — those financial instruments that got the world into the financial mess

Interested? Check the upcoming event of the Think Tank Fund

THE THINK TANKS AND CIVIL SOCIETIES PROGRAM

Here we go again…

THE GLOBAL “GO-TO THINK TANKS”2010 edition is out!

Nobody promotes better the think tank sector among ‘non-think tank’ audience than Jim McGann! Kudos for his ability to spread the study and his results! The coverage is ubiquitous: from my friends in international organizations, to local NGOs, to some governmental officials, everyone has received the announcement for the launch of the study. And this is the good part… people who are not acquainted with the think tanks and those who have little contact with this type of organizations get to know about them – if nothing else as a checklist of ‘Who Won the Oscars in this world this year?’.

The value of this promotional effort notwithstanding, I cannot stay indifferent to the mistakes and persistent blind sports of these rankings. So, I am probably foolish to fall in the last year’s trap and comment on this year’s ranking . Anyway, here is what needs to get out of my chest .

I pick up the outdated definition of think tanks, the number of identified think tanks and a myriad of factual mistakes and inconsistencies in the rankings this year.

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I wanted to recommend Enrique Mendizabal’s blog on think tanks since long time and finally found time to do so.

Enrique Mendizabal is the Head of the ODI RAPID Programame, a position that gives him a great insight in the work of many think tanks across the world. However, his blog is more than just a reflection of his work. It is  really useful collection of references, resources and reflections on think tanks globally.

My favorite posts from the last few weeks:

On the formation of think tanks

On rankings of British based think tanks

On the definition of think tanks

There are many more posts on broader topics. I hope you find them useful.

Recently a visitor on my blog commented on one of my earlier posts that I have not given a definition of think tanks. By default, I shy away from generalizations and attempt to box-in organizations that are relatively diverse. Anyway, as with many things in life we have to generalize from time to time . So here is an evolution of definitions I have used in my texts (from newest to oldest) and some other interesting definitions I have stumbled upon:

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Three theoretical underpinnings

Recently I have been writing a longer piece on the quality of the work of think tanks in central and Eastern Europe. This has inspired me to try to look at think tanks through the lenses of two ‘classical’ political theories (pluralism and elitism) and one up and coming concept (knowledge regimes).

Excerpts from this study:

The influence[1] on policies and policy debates has been a paramount issue in the debate around think tanks. While not central to this paper, it is important to consider this issue when placing the quality of policy research in the wider political and policy environments in which think tanks operate. Stone provides an excellent overview of “different approaches to the role of think tanks in policy making” (2004:10-15). Her analysis canvases a wide array of theoretical lenses such as elite theory, pluralism, Neo-Marxist interpretations, discourse construction, and touches upon the neo-Gramscian framework, listing various network theories (knowledge networks, epistemic communities, advocacy coalition frameworks and policy entrepreneurship). Each theoretical framework makes certain assumptions about the role of ideas. Given that policy research is key step in analyzing, presenting and advocating for those ideas, the same assumption extends to the role of (quality) policy research. Therefore, this chapter briefly lists all considered theoretical frameworks and then discusses in depth the three most appropriate theories for the purposes of this paper.[2]

Some approaches, although useful in many other contexts, seem to have limited use in explaining the situation in the region. For example, the local political and business elites have never explicitly employed think tanks in their pursuit to maintain hegemonic control over society, as the Neo-Marxist frameworks would suggest. Likewise, a few of the network theories, such as the advocacy coalition approach, are simply too complex (with their emphasis on values and beliefs), to properly depict the current system of policy making in Central and Eastern Europe[3]. Next, proponents of epistemic communities who emphasized the role of experts in the policy-making process had their fine hour in the EU accession process[4]. When it comes to knowledge of the region’s political system, the more pressing debate is to identify the centers of knowledge and determine if and how knowledge influences policy before employing a theoretical framework that defined by narrow clustering of knowledge/expertise[5]. While the presented approaches are not a good fit for the purposes of this article, they single out three key features: interest groups, the role of knowledge, and the nature of the policy process. These three key features (knowledge replaced with the more narrow evidence-based analysis), will be of key importance when selecting the appropriate theoretical foundation. For each theory, in addition to listing its general definitions and features, it will be important to determine how it treats and/or perceives the quality of analytical products and their communication. Finally, the importance of evidence-based policy research for the successful promotion of ideas and a think tank’s subsequent influence on policies operating within these theoretical frameworks will be reviewed.

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Think tanks and individual researchers very often struggle to define what constitutes  quality in their analysis. While academic and policy writing manuals are not short of prescriptions for good writing, indicators or benchmarks for successful policy briefs and papers, this is still an elusive thing. I am sure you have all had a feeling of satisfaction when reading a good policy paper. And that has been first it: a feeling! – a feeling of reading a useful and pleasant read. The rationale and justification, analysis and structure of the paper/ brief have come only later. Similarly, I am sure you have also read many more papers where you felt the information is really useful, the writing is correct, but you miss the sensation of a good read, you felt the paper dry (like a cigarette smoke in a Balkan restaurant) that choked you as you progress reading it.

I do not dare to give my own definitions, anyway there are plenty of others out there. Instead find below two interesting observations about quality of research that I heard recently:

1. On the substance of research:

In the opening speech at this year’s Bled Strategic Forum , Danilo Türk , the President of the Republic of Slovenia has paid a tribute to research and in few words captured the essence of captivating policy analysis and recommendations:

He said ‘Honesty starts with intellectual honesty first’. Then, he listed imagination as an essential ingredient to scientific policy thinking, but also as a necessary step in finding strategies to implement policies. As strategy he defined a carefully thought-through set of measures. Finally, in my opinion he summarizes the essence of every analytical piece:

-         Honest analysis

-         Realistic assessment

-         Imaginative policy recommendations

2. On the form of writing and power of words:

At a recent event that PASOS and Think tank Fund organized at the premises of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), Mark Leonard, its director  speaking on communication of policy research quoted Tom Stoppard to depict the importance/value/necessity of captivating writing on part of policy analysts:

“Words… They’re innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they’re no good any more… I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you’re dead.” Taken from Tom Stoppard in ‘The Real Thing‘

These are two recent gems helping me to ‘corner’ quality of policy research. What are yours?

That think tanks compete on two separate markets, for funding and for the opportunity to provide policy advice, is a common wisdom today. Likewise it is clear that the small size of the underdeveloped national markets for policy analysis forces think tanks either to expand their analytical work regionally or undertake other (non-policy related / non- analytical) activities and operate as hybrid organizations. Another, third model is for the same group of people use their analytical skills and compete at two markets: a) the market for grants  – and thus produce publicly available policy products, and b) the market for consultancy contracts – and thus produce analysis that is a ‘private good’ in the hands of  the client who paid for it. While many organizations have tried to organized these two different types of tasks within the same entity (usually an NGO and called think tank), an emerging number of organizations open a consultancy firm (a for-profit arm) under the same name and practically operated by the staff that is also active in the public domain.

This model has recently become particularly enticing to think tanks in Western Balkans and a few have already started similar practice. While the model itself is possible and in some environments plausible, it has many embedded risks. The current scandal with Hayek Foundation, once a notable think tank in Slovakia, issues a stark warning about the consequences when consultancy is involved in murky dealings.

In a nutshell, the scandal is linked to a deal that Hayek Consulting, a for-profit arm of the better known Slovak liberal think tank FA Hayek, signed with the previous Slovak government in the range of 1.4 million Euros.  This scandal has heated the political debate and worsen the relations among the current coalition partners and the case has reached the State Supreme Audit Office and will probably will have far-reaching consequences for the main actors involved and the Slovak political scene. My interest here is to observe the irrevocable damage that Hayek, the think tank, has suffered in this process.

First there is a personal dimension in the case – whether the fees paid were realistic and to what extent the allegations that the silence of one of the most critical Slovak think tanks was bought by the previous government with this contract.  The reputation of this government critic is shredded into pieces (the situation is even more complex since two of the main actors hold high positions in the current government).  Second, the type of consultancy that Hayek Consultancy undertook in a critical period before parliamentary elections suggests that if a think tank wants to be serious / committed about its public function, it should not have never undertaken a task that would compromise its reputation and integrity.  I am not sure if Hayek – the think tank has had a code of conduct or ethical code to arrange the relations between the two entities and draw a red line to indicate what type of consulting engagement would jeopardize the reputation of the think tank. Regardless, even if they did, they would have certainly been violated in this case.

Leaving Hayek scandal and its key people to salvage their political careers and maybe save the think tank in some form, a broader question begs my attention: Is the think tank-consulting firm a viable model for sustainability of think tanks? Is it possible for a think tank to secure its integrity when signing consultancy contracts with the government or political parties knowing the how contested are the national political scenes? Or one should simply accept that following the money is ethical and leave the ethics behind ?

(More on this topic)