In person icon Connecting Ideas and Interests: Expertise, Ideology and Think Tank Policy Entrepreneurs

Abstract

This panel addresses the role of think tanks in the production and dissemination of policy ideas, and the mechanisms that allow the translation of ideas and ideology into concrete policy proposals. A key focus is the relationship between ideas and interests and how, at various levels of governance and scales, think tanks have become important conduits for connecting ideas and interests in an era of extra-parliamentary political activism. This panel pays particular attention to the following questions: In what ways are worldviews and interests represented and promulgated in mainstream and elite political discourses by think tanks? How do political parties adopt or adapt think tank expertise? Do think tanks share similar strategies and tactics for influencing political parties and the climate of opinion? The panel addresses how policies and ideas about governance travel up and down governance hierarchies and across nations and states via think tank as key nodes in various policy networks. The role of transnational think tank networks is a unifying theme across this panel. The extent to which transnational networks of policy planning and expert groups are involved in shaping political and regulatory culture is a neglected area that will be highlighted in various dimensions by the papers comprising this panel. This panel offers a comparative and differentiated analysis of think tanks, allowing for exploration of how think tanks organise and operate in different policy fields (austerity, constitution), at different levels of governance (global, EU, UK) and in different polities and political cultures (Brussels, UK, Scotland, Austria).

Title	Details
The Sociology of Knowledge-Production in Eastern European Think-Tanks: Research Practices at the Crossroads	View Paper Details
British Think-Tanks and Their Collaborative and Communicative Networks	View Paper Details
Re-Connecting Interests and Ideas in the Austerity Debate: The Battle over Euro-Bonds	View Paper Details
Sent Homeward to Think Again? The Role of Think Tanks in the Scottish Independence Debate	View Paper Details
Back to the Source? Neoliberal Think Tanks in Austria	View Paper Details