When Did Swedish Think Tanks Stop Thinking?
- Or is this a global phenomenon?
Think Tanks used to be fairly unknown, at least to the general public. But now we live in an age when many of them seem to exist solely to give their members and opinions legitimacy and make it easier for them to get quoted in media.
The strange thing is that we’ve almost had an inverse trajectory: The more popular Think Tanks have become and the more often they are referenced in media and public discourse, the more they tend to be expressing opinions as opposed to actually thinking. Why is that? To answer this question we first have to find out what they are and where they came from.
A (very) Brief History of Think Tanks
The idea that when normal structures fail to produce results, you need to do something unorthodox and outside the box is not new. There are many success stories from science and corporations that involve different kinds of SkunkWorks and share the theme ‘Lets get a bunch of crack experts in the same room and see what they can come up with.’
But Think Tanks evolved as a more specific form of unorthodoxy, differentiating themselves in a certain way that defined them:
- They originally came about to solve a Very Big Problem
- To accomplish this, they brought together many different kinds of experts from many different backgrounds
- These experts operated in isolation from the entity or organisation that wanted a solution to its problem — hence the word ‘tank’.
The Manhattan Project is one of the early examples of this idea. In 1942 scientists from different fields and from all over the world where brought together to solve the problem of how to create an atomic bomb before Hitler did. And even though Major General Leslie Groves was the ‘client’, he let Oppenheimer set up a structure independent from the Department Of Defence.
It comes as no surprise that when the Second World War gave way to the Cold War, the military proved to be a faithful subscriber to the idea of Think Tanks. After all, the nuclear and technology race that ensued contained many Very Big Problems that needed solutions within a short timeframe.
In 1948, Douglas Aircraft Corporation founded RAND—Research ANd Development—to offer the United States armed forces research and analysis. It has long since expanded its work to include health care and helping governments in other countries.
And in 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower created DARPA—The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency—to develop new technologies for the military. As with a lot of research, their work has also benefited a much vaster target audience since they gave us the Internet.
These are two of the most famous Think Tanks. They also served as ‘role models’ for many more. But as the Cold War got colder, governments in both the US and many other western countries started to put together Think Tanks for something more than science and technology: They went from innovation to forming policy.
“Governments in both the US and many other
western countries started to put together Think Tanks
for something more than science and technology: They
went from innovation to forming policy”
Why Successful Think Tanks Are Successful
Three factors stand out when we look at the successful Think Tanks of the Post War era and beyond. You could argue that if one of them is missing, you’re not actually looking at a proper Think Tank at all.
- Independence of the mind To stand outside and be totally free from the constraints of a command and control structure is the hallmark of Think Tanks. They offer a different way of organising the work as well as independence from client organisations, in which the people who tell other people what to do are not generally the most innovative types. If you can already tell someone how to do the New New Thing, you obviously already have the innovation in your grasp
- Diversity within the group The monotony of the daily grind tends to ‘bless’ companies and institutions with a homogeneity that is an antidote to new thinking. Like minds do think alike. Too alike. Which is why they need Think Tanks and why Think Tanks very obviously have to be the exact opposite. Not only do they embrace diversity, they are constructed of it, being composed of dissimilar people who have to work and think together, creating anew because of the friction between them.
- The lack of an agenda This could be construed as a subcategory of the ‘control’ in Command & Control, but it’s such an important factor that it needs its own bullet. If you already have an agenda, you are stating the solution, or part of the solution. You are giving yourself tunnel vision by focusing on a specific way of seeing the subject matter. And often an agenda dictates how a problem should be solved, thus hindering any lateral thinking and rendering innovation impossible. This is why Think Tanks don’t have a preconceived agenda, except to solve the problem they are tasked with.
and Richard Nixon
meet in 1973
From Making Policy to Lobbying Under the Table
When governments started to put together or enlist Think Tanks to help form policy, they initially did nothing different from what the Department of Defence and other agencies connected to the military had done before them. But new policies are not as clear cut as new technology. And there was already a whole breed of professionals whose only job was to influence policy: The Lobbyists.
Now, obviously defence contractors have also wanted to influence decisions, and even used lobbyists for that. But there always was a distinct difference between what Think Tanks did — innovation — and what lobbyists did. But if you are a lobbyist tasked with influencing policies in a certain area of civic life, what better way to do it than to infiltrate the Think Tank hired to help form that policy?
It was not long before the lobbyists went from inserting themselves into existing Think Tanks to starting their own. From the point of view of democracy, this is when the water became muddy.
“It was not long before the lobbyist went
from inserting themselves into existing Think Tanks
to starting their own”
In most democracies, we have quite clear rules when it comes to how you communicate, depending on who you are. The op-ed article looks different from an ad. And you can’t place an ad without having a logo in it, so we know who is trying to send a message. Democracy is based on having informed citizens, which also includes being informed about who is saying what so that we can evaluate messages and opinions for what they really are. That’s why pretending to be someone or something you are not is hindering the democratic process.
But going back to the actual Think Tanks that have a lobbying background, it’s not difficult to see that they really aren’t Think Tanks. Let’s take some Swedish examples:
Timbro describe themselves as a ‘conservative Think Tank, developing ideas and driving opinion for a market economy, freedom and openness’.
Arena Idé describe themselves as ‘a Think Tank presenting an center/left alternative to Timbro’.
Fores describe themselves as a ‘green and liberal Think Tank with an aim to renew public discourse’.
These are just three of several, and when we apply to them the criteria of proper Think Tanks we can see how they differ.
- Are they outside a command and control structure? No, they have the same kind of hierarchy as a company or a political organisation.
- Do they have a lot of diversity among their members? No, they consist of a very homogenous group of people with very similar backgrounds, sharing the exact same set of values.
- Do they lack an agenda? No, on the contrary. They operate only according to a very fixed agenda. Their mission is to further this agenda, as is clear from their own mission statements.
In other words, they are the very opposite of real Think Tanks. They are not organisations for new thinking, they propagate a very fixed and limited, preconceived set of ideas. They are not really thinking at all. They are selling existing ideas. And quite old ones, at that.
Going back to the initial question, the answer is now obvious. These Swedish Think Tanks haven’t stopped thinking because they had never started. And this is true of all of those that are ‘Think Tanks’ in name only. Which brings us to an interesting conclusion:
It is time for us all to come together in the name of democracy and decide how we want this to work. Do we want a world where an ad always has a clearly identified sender, but where it’s OK to hide political propaganda under a veil, posing as something it is not? Should we accept the use of the ‘Think Tank’ concept as a front for things that are the opposite of what Think Tanks are meant to do, in effect appropriating their cache of good will for something else?
And maybe it is time for everybody engaged in this kind of deception to ask themselves a simple question: If you have to shroud your ideas in someone else’s clothes, maybe you should rethink the ideas instead? Perhaps you should actually start thinking?
Maybe all of us—including the media—should start boycotting pretend Think Tanks and not give them any space or credence until they come out from under their veil to stand in their own clothes instead of borrowed ones?
Magnus Westerberg spends his days as Head Of Strategy at Masscreation and is currently pondering how to kickstart more diversified thinking around the future of education. migration and work.
