Think tanks build the intellectual infrastructure for decision makers, offering research, analysis, forecasts, and recommendations on a wide range of issues--hunger, disarmament, urban planning, monetary policy, the environment. Just who does all this thinking in think tanks?
In Think Tanks and Civil Societies: Catalysts for Ideas and Action, scholars James G. McGann and R. Kent Weaver collect the insights of the world's leading think-tank researchers in a comprehensive look at the role of policy analysts and advocacy organizations in international decision-making.
“This volume is an informative collection of essays providing an overview of think-tanks from a global perspective…. The book should be of interest both to academics working on the third sector and the international flow of ideas and to policy-makers and think-tank practitioners because of its prescriptive nature.”—Stella Ladi, University of York, International Affairs.
“The Book should become the pre-eminent comparative reference source on the characteristics and roles of think tanks in all regions of the world… The format is helpful for giving the reader a sense of both the “forest” and the “trees” with regard to think tanks and dispels any notion that think tanks remain a peculiarly Western phenomenon… In its entirety the book elaborates a valuable, sophisticated and complex framework for understanding how research and ideas are packaged and promoted to affect government and politics.”---Andrew Rich, Wake Forest University, Canadian Journal of Political Science
