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Intellectual armaments in the war of ideas: the role and influence of independent think tanks on Australian public policy making

CEBON, MICHAEL ( 2005)

Introduction: Observers of politics in the USA and UK could well call the last 25 years 'the era of the think tank', such has been the rise to influence - and in some cases power - of these 'independent' policy research organisations. If politics is a war of ideas, think tanks are the politicians' ammunition suppliers. In the USA, there are now about 1,600 different think tanks at local, state and federal levels where in 1950, there were fewer than 25 (Abelson 2004, p. 216, 223-4). Conservative think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute CAEI) and the Heritage Foundation have, since the 1970s, risen steadily to influence and power. -nle trend began when "the best and brightest of the outgoing Ford administration, including the former President himself, joined AEI and began pumping out hundreds of studies and essays" (Ford 1992, p. 29). It continued into the 1980s when the new President Ronald Reagan hired the authors of Mandate for Leadership - a 20 volume, 3000 page manifesto published by the Heritage Foundation - and adopted a vast number of its policy prescriptions, forming the basis of what became known as 'Reaganomics' (Miller 20(5)…..