Think Tank Visibility in Policy Advisory Systems

Paper for International Conference on Public Policy in Milan 1-3 July 2015

Panel : T08P06 - Comparing policy advisory systems

Session 1: Wednesday, July 01th 16h15 - 18h15 (Santa Agnese SA325)

Author: Jesper Dahl Kelstrup, Assistant Professor, Roskilde University, Denmark ([email protected]).

Please do not cite or quote without permission.

Abstract

Previous contributions to the literature on policy advisory systems have discussed how location (Halligan, 1995) and policy content (Craft & Howlett, 2012) can be used to characterise members of policy advisory systems. This paper supplements these concepts with an analytical study of the visibility of think tanks in different policy advisory systems. Think tanks are relevant to the study of policy advice for two reasons. First, think tanks might contribute towards expanding the space for policy advice (Medvetz, 2012) provided that they become visible to policy-makers in public policy debates. Second, as the literature on varieties of capitalism and knowledge regimes emphasises, institutional differences between coordinated and liberal market economies may be important for understanding comparative variation in policy advice (J. L. Campbell & Pedersen, 2014). Analytically the paper studies quantitative differences in think tank activities (events, publications and newspaper impact) to indicate comparative differences in the visibility of these organisations. The analysis reveals variation between the think tank visibility in Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark and the level of the European Union (EU) in the period 2006-2012, but this variation does not follow the coordinative-liberal distinction. The analysis discusses further avenues for analysing the variation in the spaces that think tanks inhabit in different policy advisory systems which should be explored in future research.

Key words: Policy advisory system, think tank, visibility, comparative variation, European Union.

Introduction

In recent decades more think tanks that attempt to influence policy-making have been created across Europe. The increase in the number of think tanks can be interpreted as an expansion of the space in which policy ideas and advice is made available to policy-makers (Medvetz, 2012). This interpretation lies in continuation of the increased focus on content (as a supplement to location) in policy advisory system (e.g. Craft & Howlett, 2012). For the purpose of promoting comparative studies of policy advisory systems, the paper uses original quantitative data to compare think tank activities in coordinated (Germany and Denmark) and liberal market economies (United Kingdom and the EU). Two theoretical literatures are used to inform the framework for analysis. First, sociological understandings of knowledge production are used to argue that policy advisory systems are influenced by spaces of think tanks (Medvetz, 2012) in which think tanks can operate as epistemic arbiters (Seabrooke, 2014). Second, the distinction between coordinated and liberal market economies in the literature on varieties of capitalism (Hall & Soskice, 2001) is used to create the expectation that think tank visibility varies depending on the type of market economy. The methods section selects four cases of policy advisory systems and the think tanks to include in the analysis on the basis of existing indexes and a minimum criterion of think tank activity. Three types of activities including the events hosted by think tanks, the publications that they issue and their newspaper citations are selected as indicators of visibility. The analytical section compares quantitative indications of think tank events, publications and newspaper citations in the four coordinated and liberal systems in the period 2006-2012. The analysis reveals variation between the four individual cases but also finds that this variation does not follow the coordinative-liberal distinction.

Think tanks and policy advisory space

Many of the contributions to the think tank literature have been concerned with how to conceptualise think tanks (Dickson, 1972; McGann & Weaver, 2002; Medvetz, 2008; Pautz, 2011; Rich, 2004; Smith, 1991; Stone, 1996, 2001, 2007; Stone, Denham, & Garnet, 1998; Stone & Denham, 2004; Weaver, 1989). The think tank literature, however, suffers from what Giovanni Sartori has termed a ‘travelling problem’ (Sartori, 1970: 1033f) i.e. that approaches inherit different concepts, definitions and typologies that have already been defined and re-defined differently in the existing public policy literature. A problem found in many of the attempts to define think tanks is that they do not use what Sartori calls ‘universal conceptualisations’ (Sartori, 1970: 1044). One of the reasons for the lack of general conceptualisations is that the most common definitions as well as the literature have a bias towards the United States. As Diane Stone writes the understanding of what constitutes a think tank is highly ‘reflective of the socio-political context in which think-tanks were first constituted’ (Stone, 2007: 260). It is commonly agreed that think tanks raise questions about the interaction between science and interests in policy-advice. Whereas some contributions define think tanks as ‘independent’ organisations (McGann & Weaver, 2000; Rich, 2004) others question their independence from economic or political interests (Pautz, 2012; Stone, 2007). This paper broadly understands think tanks as organisations which claim autonomy and attempt to

Think tank visibility in policy advisory systems. Author: Jesper Dahl Kelstrup ([email protected]). T08P06 - Comparing policy advisory systems. Session 1: Wednesday, July 01th 16h15 - 18h15 (Santa Agnese SA325). influence public policy by mobilising research (cf. Kelstrup, 2014 for an elaboration of this discussion).

In the context of policy advisory systems it is interesting to go beyond definitions of think tanks and to elaborate how these organisations act in policy advisory systems. This agenda has been advanced by Thomas Medvetz who conceptualises how think tanks operate in a space of expertise and created their own ‘space of think tanks’. Sociologically, a space of think tanks can be thought of as an interstitial field that transcends other fields and allows think tanks to gather, balance and assemble academic, political, media and economic capital (Medvetz, 2012: 137ff). If think tanks can convince potential stakeholders that it is likely to influence policy-making over time it provides them with incentives to support the think tank and to build a new market for policy advice. The roles of think tanks are therefore relational to other organisations such as public bureaucracies, media organisations, corporations and universities. And the roles of the policy advisors employed at think tanks balance those other professions namely the public official, the journalist, the businessman and the academic scholar. From a sociological perspective it is therefore reasonable to associate think tanks with a range of practices across these fields. The space of think tanks and the organisations operating in it can exchange of more than one type of capital. Many think tanks simultaneously offer intellectual credibility (academic field), perceived impact (media field), policy knowledge (political field) and market compatibility (economic field) (Medvetz, 2012). These forms of capital are attractive for organisations in other fields. A university for example would usually want the capitals from the three other fields. But it is restricted in attaining that capital themselves because it would risk questioning their academic capital which is crucial for its existence if they went too far in relying on policy knowledge (rather than academic), on private funding (rather than public) and media impact (rather than scholarly). Political decision-makers are likely to look for solutions beyond narrow communities amongst other things because they are concerned how they are positioned in a dynamic political debate. Think tanks are important to policy advisory systems because they relate to new dynamics in policy advice. Although it is reasonable to assume that government have more control over ‘inside’ than ‘outside’ agents (Halligan, 1995), the ability of government to pick ideas/content that is established in public discourse by outside agents such as think tanks, paradoxically, give decision- makers more control than were they only to rely on advice within a narrower advisory system. This occurs for example in periods of “economic, social or political crisis, change(s) in government” where a “policy window of opportunity” can arise in which policymakers demand “a concrete solution to an urgent problem” (Braun, Chudnovsky, Ducote, & Weyrauch, 2010: 89) that may be provided by outsiders.

A further step in understanding the roles that think tanks can play in policy advisory systems concerns the activities that they perform in order to become visible and relevant for other agents. Here it is interesting to refer to the literature on professional knowledge production. One contribution to this literature focuses on the concept of ‘epistemic arbitrage’. This concept has been developed by Leonard Seabrooke to describe the supply and demand underlying the opportunities

Think tank visibility in policy advisory systems. Author: Jesper Dahl Kelstrup ([email protected]). T08P06 - Comparing policy advisory systems. Session 1: Wednesday, July 01th 16h15 - 18h15 (Santa Agnese SA325). for professionals to gain recognition. More precisely ‘epistemic arbitrage’ denotes a form of professionally generated success:

‘The concept of epistemic arbitrage is that professionals can mediate between different pools of knowledge for strategic advantage to position themselves and their preferred skill set and knowledge as the best way to address problems’ (2014: 3).

Seabrooke goes on to argue, that: ‘Arbitrageurs can become arbiters when moving from spot to statistical arbitrage … to shaping systems of knowledge and how governance is conducted’ (2014: 11). The conceptual distinction between epistemic arbitrage and arbiters simplifies ontological debates about policy advice because it constructs the (successful) agent as one that is able to become an arbiter in policy-making by performing epistemic arbitrage continuously. Building on the idea that think tanks and the professionals employed in these organisations can act as epistemic arbiters, the role of think tanks shift from performing a (neutral) function related to bridging academic knowledge and policy-making (McGann & Weaver, 2000) to organisations that search for opportunities within regulatory networks and markets to transform institutions (Seabrooke, 2014: 10f).

Varieties of capitalism and policy advice

Think tanks have now been established as organisations which provide policy advice through a space of think tanks in which professional epistemic arbitrage plays a central role. For the purpose of comparing think tanks this section uses the literature on varieties of capitalism to distinguish between different market economise and policy advisory systems.

The notion of policy advisory systems (Halligan, 1995) is a way of describing a system ‘…whereby governments receive advice not just from professional analysts in their employ or from outside groups, but also from a range of other actors, from think tanks and lobbyists, but also from partisan political advisors, scientific, technical and legal experts, and many others both inside and outside of government’ (Craft & Howlett, 2013: 187). Policy advisory systems vary not only according to the relative size and resources of actors inside and outside of government, but also according to their political traditions and culture. The literature on policy advisory systems has recognised that policy advice varies both according to the positions of agents in- or outside the public sector as well as with the ability of government to control it (Halligan, 1995). Contributions to the study of policy advisory systems have highlighted important distinctions between the type of advice offered to policy-makers (procedural vs. substantial) and whether different types of agents attempt to influence policy-making on a short- or long term basis (Craft & Howlett, 2012: 91). Institutional reasoning is not new to the study of policy advisory systems (e.g. Hustedt, 2013), but developing institutional arguments further can help distinguish more clearly between different policy advisory systems. In particular, it is worth discussing the literature on varieties of capitalism in conjunction with policy advisory systems. The study of varieties of capitalism is concerned with the role of corporations and the interplay between institutions and markets in different countries and the different strategies that states pursue in the global economy (Hall & Soskice, 2001; Katzenstein,

1985). In continuation of the literature on varieties of capitalism the concept of ‘knowledge regime’ has been advanced to understand the institutionalisation of knowledge production that occurs in different market economies (Campbell, Hall, & Pedersen, 2006; J. L. Campbell, 1998; J. L. Campbell & Pedersen, 2011). John Campbell and Ove K. Pedersen understand knowledge regimes as:

‘… the sets of actors, organizations, and institutions that produce and disseminate policy ideas that affect how policy-making and production regimes are organized and operate in the first place’ (2011: 167).

The concept of ‘knowledge regime’ is well suited for analysing the development and variation of policy advice because it incorporates new institutional thought including, it seems, the idea that most of the time change is gradual, evolutionary and path dependent (Pierson, 1998) while at the same time committing itself to a macro-level perspective on stability and change. Campbell and Pedersen argue that knowledge regimes relate to production and policy-making regimes. They distinguish between two types of production regimes and elaborate their differences. In liberal market economies, markets structure economic activity, while in coordinated market economies this is primarily done through non-market relationships including formal corporatist bargaining and various forms of state regulation (J. L. Campbell & Pedersen, 2011: 170). This dimension is important for agents in policy-making because it, besides regulating the economy, relates to the rules and norms for engaging with policy-makers and thus speaks to the study of policy advisory systems.1 In addition, the liberal-coordinated distinction is a relatively resilient in varieties of capitalism (Crouch, 2009).

Building on the distinction between coordinated and liberal market regimes, analytical assumptions regarding the variation in policy advice can be constructed: Coordinative system can be expected to contain more inside expertise compared to liberal systems with more outside agents and less government control (Halligan, 1995). Organisations in coordinated market economies with corporatist traditions tend to hold privileged positions which allow them to use their location in policy-making to influence policy-making. In contrast think tanks in liberal market economies are expected to depend on visibility in the wider space of think tanks in order to market their products and ideas publicly in order to make the content of their policy advice visible to policy-makers (cf.

1 Campbell and Pedersen also distinguish between policy-making regimes as either centralized, closed states where policy-making is restricted to a few arenas largely insulated from the dynamics of civil society or decentralized, open states where policy-making authority tends to be shared and delegated to lower levels of government. A criticism of the perspective is that processes of de-centralisation challenge the formal distinction between policy-making as either centralised or de-centralised. Whether the United Kingdom continues to exemplify a case of centralised policy-making after delegating competences to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as to local governments in the 1990s (Rhodes, 1997), or whether de-centralised policy-making is still a constitutive element of the Danish knowledge regime given the changes to its welfare model (Kvist & Greve, 2011) as well as central constraints on local and regional levels of government, are examples of disputes about the degree of centralisation in different knowledge regimes. For this reason the distinction concerning the degree of centralisation is omitted from this paper.

Craft & Howlett, 2012). For these reasons liberal market economies are expected to contain a larger number of think tanks that compete for visibility than coordinated market economies.

Methods

Until now the paper has used different literatures to established three arguments about policy advice. First, building on a study of think tanks it has been argued that these organisations contribute towards expanding the space for policy advice (Medvetz, 2012). Second, the literature on varieties of capitalism and the notion of knowledge regimes has been used to argue that a coordinative-liberal distinction is potentially important for understanding comparative variation in policy advice (J. L. Campbell & Pedersen, 2014). This section builds a framework for exploring differences between think tank activities in different market economies and their policy advisory systems.

Selecting cases of policy advisory systems and think tanks The expectation that liberal market economies are likely to have more think tanks that are more visibly compared to think tanks in coordinated market economies can be used to select four cases of policy advisory systems for analytical comparison. Germany and Denmark are included as cases of coordinated market economies. The UK and EU are chosen as cases of liberal market economies. The classification of the EU as a liberal market economy can be contested amongst other things as a result of the widespread understanding of the EU as sui generis or an ‘Unidentified Political Object’ (Delors, 1985) and because of the competing rationales in the EU’s identity (Rosamond, 2014). Yet, as a result of the strong role of liberal market regulation (Scharpf, 2010) and because of a wish to include think tanks at the EU-level in the analysis of policy advice, the EU has been included as a case of a liberal market economy.

Conventions from statistical sampling theory would recommend determining the size of the total population of think tanks and using a sampling frame to select a random sample of think tanks from this population (Bryman, 2004: Chapter 4). This approach, however, is not easily applied to think tanks, as neither the total population nor a mechanism for selecting think tanks randomly is available. In addition self-classifying as a ‘think tank’ comes with a variable bias, in that some informants interviewed in the research underpinning this paper are cautious of the term and prefer terms such as ‘research organisation’ whereas others embraced it more eagerly. On this basis think tanks constitute something similar to a ‘hidden population’ where neither practitioners nor researchers know the exact extent of the total population and where there is a bias involved in characterising oneself as a member of the population (Heckathorn, 1997: 174). The process of selecting the think tanks to be included in the analysis was initially based on data-bases or directories of think tanks including the global think tank survey (J. G. McGann et al., 2012), a web- based project on think tanks called ‘think tank Initiative’ (Think Tank Network Research, 2013), a private German think tank directory (Florian, 2013) and the EU’s transparency register (EU Transparency Register, 2013). Together these directories included more than 500 think tanks in 2013 based in Germany, Denmark, around the EU-institutions in Brussels or in the United Kingdom. The directories however, are in some instances not up to date and the selection criteria

Think tank visibility in policy advisory systems. Author: Jesper Dahl Kelstrup ([email protected]). T08P06 - Comparing policy advisory systems. Session 1: Wednesday, July 01th 16h15 - 18h15 (Santa Agnese SA325). for the think tanks listed in them vary or are not specified. Therefore many entries are invalid, either because think tanks no longer exist or because those listed produce no, or very limited, output. An open, ‘maximalist’ approach to think tank sampling has the advantage that it allows creating indexes of think tanks that can be used as an encyclopaedia containing qualitative information about a large number of think tanks. For analytical purposes, however, this approach has some shortcomings. As the criteria for inclusion are not specified the directories include think tanks with very limited activities in terms of events and publications. From a functional point of view this is problematic as including inactive think tanks in samples questions representativeness and runs the risk of over-representing the number of think tanks and consequently under-estimating their average activities. In simple terms, the average think tank appears less active and important for policy-making if inactive think tanks are included in the sample. As a consequence of this problem a minimum criterion of 15 publications, 15 events or 100 media citations in at least one year was interpreted as the minimum level of activity allowed for think tanks to live up to the definitional criterion of ‘mobilising research’ specified earlier. As a result many of the hundreds of organisations in each of the cases of political systems under investigation are not included in the study either because of their limited resources or because they have been characterised as research institutes. The data collection strategy of combining a quantitative minimum criterion and an interview-based explorative dimension, however, succeeded in establishing a sample of active think tanks that could be evaluated and elaborated in the interviews by inquiring into the partnerships, collaborations and competitors of individual think tanks. The sample constructed using the methods referred to in the above consists of 53 think tanks representing 14 from the EU, 10 from Germany, 10 from Denmark and 19 from the UK.

Three activities as indicators of think tank visibility

In an ideal world think tank activities in policy advisory systems would be studied through indicators such as the income generated by think tanks, scholarly proficiency from PhDs in staff and associated/guest university staff and their access to political decision-makers. Full information on these indicators would allow quantification and analytical statistics regarding e.g. the correlation between the capital of think tanks in different fields and the type of policy advisory system. There are, however, multiple problems in getting and collecting the type of data outlined in the above amongst other things because most think tanks do not make their budgets and source of income public. Instead, drawing on the methodology of the Global Go-to Think Tank Index (McGann et al., 2014: 15) the analysis below is based on three types of activities factors including the public events that think tanks host, the publications that they issue and the newspaper citations that they generate according to websites and newspaper search engines (cf. appendix 1 for an elaboration of the think tanks and the search process underlying the analysis). The three indicators have been measured for each of the years 2006, 2009 and 2012. Hosting events on a regular basis allows think tanks (and their stakeholders) to interact with decision-makers. Many think tanks aim at making their events meeting places for decision-makers and politicians who can interact in a lively way. Taking on a ‘salon function’ (Köllner, 2011: 5) creates the impression that ’things are happening’ at a think tank and that going to events is an

Think tank visibility in policy advisory systems. Author: Jesper Dahl Kelstrup ([email protected]). T08P06 - Comparing policy advisory systems. Session 1: Wednesday, July 01th 16h15 - 18h15 (Santa Agnese SA325). opportunity to gain information about a given policy area. Events are also used by think tanks to launch and communicate their publications and to get some press coverage on them. Interestingly events introduces a new element to the discussion of the importance of location in policy advisory systems (Craft & Howlett, 2012) because they temporarily locate multiple agents in policy advisory systems in a common venue outside government. Publications provide space for think tanks to analyse and diagnose public policy problems and present solutions. As opposed to hosting events, publications provide an infrastructure for think tanks to make the content of their policy advice available to larger audiences. Publishing material thus supplements events by allowing participants to explore policy advice more deeply and precisely. Think tank publications cover a wide variety of types including books, reports, analysis, journal articles and policy briefs. The length of think tank publications varies considerably from books and 100-page reports, to two-page policy briefs. The publications in the analysis have been quantified and simplified: A research report of 80 pages and a policy brief of 5 pages are given the equal weight of 1. As a result the data on publications says nothing about the resources that have been put into or the quality of publications. Some think tanks rely solely on their research and publications to create attention around their cause. Usually this is a successful strategy only if think tanks hold an exclusive position in the media that has very high credibility. A few think tanks take up the role as a neutral provider of economic forecasts and analysis (e.g. the Danish Economic Councils (DEC) and Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) in the UK). The mass media has been a key component of politics for almost a century and has now become so key to politics that we talk about mediated democracies (Lance Bennett & Entman, 2001). . Regrettably, studies carried out on European think tanks have focused on defining and contextualising think tanks and tend to neglect analysis of think tank media impact (Boucher et al., 2004; Sherrington, 2000; Ullrich, 2004). Frequent references to a think tank or its policy advisors in newspapers indicate that a think tank is recognised as an agent in policy debate. Some issues of reliability are related to determining the how many newspaper citations think tanks generate (cf. appendix 1 for a detailed elaboration of the search process).

Analysis: Think tank visibility in coordinated and liberal policy advisory systems

Data on each of the three indicators described in the above can be used to describe variation in think tank visibility in coordinated and liberal policy advisory systems. Table 1 below indicates average number of public events, publications and newspaper citations for the 53 think tanks in the study.

The table indicates mixed findings regarding the expectation that liberal market contain a larger number of think tanks and that the competition for visibility is higher than in coordinated market economies. First, the minimum criterion used to select think tank in this study has resulted in a larger population of think tanks in liberal as compared to coordinated systems as expected. The disagreement over think tank definitions referred to in the above, however, might challenge this finding. Existing research which has identified a much larger number of think tanks in Europe in general and in the relevant cases with as many as 287 in the UK, 194 in Germany and 34 in Denmark (McGann et al., 2014: 22). The simple, but important, discussion of how many think tanks

Think tank visibility in policy advisory systems. Author: Jesper Dahl Kelstrup ([email protected]). T08P06 - Comparing policy advisory systems. Session 1: Wednesday, July 01th 16h15 - 18h15 (Santa Agnese SA325). should be considered in studies of policy advisory systems therefore remains open. Second, the analysis contradicts the expectation that think tanks in liberal policy advisory systems are more visible. In contrast, think tanks in coordinated systems are surprisingly visible on each of the three indicators (with the exception of the low average level of public events hosted by Danish think tanks in the period). Third, there appears to be no simple case-internal relationship between the three indicators. A higher average number of events hosted and publications issued does not automatically lead to more newspaper citations in policy advisory systems.

Table 1: Indications of think tank visibility: Average number of public events, publications issued and newspapers citations for think tanks in the four cases (simple average of the years 2006, 2009 and 2012, N=53). Public Publications Newspaper Cases events issued citations DE 39 188 263 (N=10)

Coordinated DK 11 60 365 systems (N=10) EU 31 52 91 (N=14)

Liberal UK 48 53 295 systems (N=19)

In sum, the analysis suggests that other analytical expectations are needed in order to understand of the variation in think tank visibility across policy advisory systems fully. In their research on knowledge regimes Campbell and Pedersen have conducted a comparative analysis based on the ideal-typical political economies which is also based on think tanks (J. L. Campbell & Pedersen, 2008: 6ff). Their findings are broadly compatible with the present analysis in arguing that: ‘policy ideas have national origins and the way they are produced is largely determined by nationally specific institutions’ (J. L. Campbell & Pedersen, 2014: 4). This suggests that national traditions can help account for comparative variation. In relation to the present study three elaborations could provide avenues for further research. First, the number of publications issued by German think tanks appears to be much higher than the averages of the think tanks in the other cases. This tentative finding also deserves further attention. The size of some of the think tanks in the German population could play a role. A possible impact of the scientific tradition related to the relatively strong position of documents in policy advice among in German think tanks is also worth exploring. In analyses of German think tanks, Wissenschaftlichkeit, that can roughly be translated to ‘a culture of science’, has been used to characterize German policy-making (Braml, 2006: 246; Thunert, 2006: 208). The post-war emphasis on science in German society is related in broad terms to ‘Germany’s broken history’ (Wallace, 1994: 152. Quoted in Braml 2006: 246). The emphasis on (politically neutral) science in Germany’s post-WW2 political culture is evident both in practices and discourse in Germany and in

Think tank visibility in policy advisory systems. Author: Jesper Dahl Kelstrup ([email protected]). T08P06 - Comparing policy advisory systems. Session 1: Wednesday, July 01th 16h15 - 18h15 (Santa Agnese SA325). the agents that have been constituted around policy-making. Germany has well over 100 research institutes many of which work actively with the dissemination of their research and public policy (Goethe Institute, 2013). According to Braml, the research tradition and demands for German research institutes to live up to scientific standards fosters a strong mobility of PhD candidates between universities and research institutes that want to maintain their scientific reputation (Braml, 2006: 244). In the political think tank realm, however, the formal character of German policy- making and the tradition of neutral civil servants, even in positions close to decision-makers, give few incentives for government administration to exchange staff with think tanks. Second, think tanks at the EU level appear to have a lower level of citation than think tanks from the selected member states in the newspapers used for the analysis (cf. appendix 1). This finding relates to the discussion of the comparatively weakly develop public sphere in Europe and the lack of EU wide media. In particular research has indicated that advocacy thinks that take partisan or ideological positions in policy debates and are focused on generating media impact are relatively absent from the EU level (Kelstrup, 2014). Third, the average number of events hosted by think tanks in Denmark appears to be lower than in the three other cases. Think tanks in Denmark hosted 11 events per year on average from 2006-2012 according to their websites compared to 31 (EU), 39 (DE) and 48 (UK). Future studies should explore whether this finding is a result of a relatively weaker position of Danish think tanks vis-à-vis other organisations such as think tanks that have a strong place in the Danish policy advisory system. Existing research has emphasised the strong role of interest groups, notably trade unions (LO) and corporate interest organisations (DA) as well as academics participating in commissions and suggesting new policy ideas as central tenets of the neo-corporate mode of policy- making in Denmark (Christiansen & Nørgaard, 2003). It has also been recognised that there is now increased competition and more ‘priviledged pluralism’ in Denmark (Binderkrantz, Christiansen, & Pedersen, 2014). Another layer in this discussion whether an informal culture of policy advice among Danish agents in the policy advisory system can help explain that think tanks tend to host more informal events rather than the formal ones captured by this study.

Conclusion

This paper has compared the visibility of think tanks in coordinated (DE, DK) and liberal (UK, EU) market economies and policy advisory systems as indicated by the average number of events hosted, publications issued and newspaper citations achieved in the period 2006-2012. Building on a sociological approach to think tanks it has been argued that these organisations contribute towards expanding the space for policy advice (Medvetz, 2012). The literature on varieties of capitalism has been used to institutional differences between coordinated and liberal market economies are important for understanding comparative variation in policy advice (J. L. Campbell & Pedersen, 2014). Analytically the study of visibility has studied been related to how think tanks use public events, publications and media citations to become visible to policy-makers. These activities are examples of practices that challenged fixed understandings of location and content in policy advice (Craft & Howlett, 2012).

The quantitative analysis indicates that while more think tanks may be active in the liberal cases, the coordinative-liberal distinction does not explain differences in the average visibility of think tanks. Instead there is individual variation between the four cases on each of the three indicators as discussed in the above and suggested by previous research (J. L. Campbell & Pedersen, 2014). On this basis the paper has suggested that future research should explore the importance of national traditions in understanding the visibility of think tanks in different policy advisory systems.

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Appendix 1

Measuring newspaper impact: Search engines and representativity

Think tank media impact was searched in the media database LexisNexis which has 2169 newspaper sources available in ’Nexis’ as of August 2013. Citations were searched in all languages. Unfortunately Nexis has an Anglophone bias in its sources. The database thus includes 648 newspapers in the United Kingdom, 71 in the Benelux countries, 69 in Germany, 40 in France and only 1 in Denmark. Furthermore not all important newspapers are included. While it was impossible to eliminate the bias in newspaper sources, the very weak representation of Danish newspaper sources was corrected by using the Danish search engine Informedia to access the newspaper impact of Danish think tanks in the following 9 daily Danish Newspapers: Berlingske, BT, Børsen, Ekstra Bladet, Information, Jyllands-Posten, Kristeligt Dagblad, Politiken, Weekendavisen.

Magazines, journals, newswires, press releases, newsletters- blogs and web-based publications were discarded as sources because they challenge the temporal comparison of impact by over- representing the development in citations. Despite the increased importance and think tank focus on new and web-based media these sources were considered too unreliable to be used for any temporal assessment of media impact. For example the Adam Smith Institute in the UK according to the search had no less than 1.340 blog citations in 2009 compared to only 92 different newspaper citations.

The search process

All searches of media impact were performed from January 1st to December 31st in the years 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009 and 2012. Think tanks were searched by keywords were searched in the whole text. Citations were filtered for close similarity with other sources to avoid duplications.

Think tank Search term used

Centre for political studies (Cepos) Cepos Danish Institute for International Studies DIIS (DIIS) DEA (DEA) DEA MondayMorning (MM) MandagMorgen. The Danish National Centre for Social SFI Research (SFI) Danish Economics Council (DEC) Vismænd Concito (Concito) Concito Kraka (Kraka) Kraka Cevea (Cevea) Cevea Economic Council of the Labour Movement Arbejderbevægelsens Erhvervsråd. (ECLM). Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft OR (INSM) initiative for a new social market economy Bertelsmann Stiftung (BS) Bertelsmann Stiftung OR Bertelsmann Foundation Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik (DGAP) OR German Council on Foreign Relations Stiftung Neue Verantwortung (SNV) Stiftung Neue Verantwortung Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik OR German Institute for International and Security Affairs Institut für Europäische Politik (IEP) Institut für Europäische Politik OR Institute for European Politics Centre for European Studies (CES) Centre for European Studies NOT university European Liberal Forum (ELF) European Liberal Forum European Policy Centre (EPC) European Policy Centre European Council on Foreign Relations European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) Notre Europe (NE) Notre Europe Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) Centre for European Policy Studies Green European Foundation (GEF) Green European Foundation Bruegel (Bruegel) Bruegel AND think tank Foundation for International Relations and Fride Foreign Dialogue (FRIDE) Carnegie Europe (CE) Carnegie Europe Foundation for European Progressive Studies Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) Policy Exchange (PE) Policy Exchange AND think tank Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) Institute of Economic Affairs Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) Centre for Policy Studies Adam Smith Institute (ASI) Adam Smith Institute Chatham House (CH) Chatham House NOT rules International Institute for Strategic Studies International Institute for Strategic Studies OR (IISS) IISS

Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Royal United Services Institute OR RUSI Henry Jackson Society (HJS) Henry Jackson Society Reform (Reform) Reform think tank Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) Institute for Fiscal Studies Centre for European Reform (CER) Centre for European Reform Open Europe (OE) Open Europe The Young Foundation (YF) The Young Foundation New Local Government Network (NLGN) New Local Government Network Social Market Foundation (SMF) Social Market Foundation Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) Institute for Public Policy Research NOT American Fabian Society (FS) Fabian Society Policy Network (PN) Policy Network AND think tank Resolution Foundation (RF) Resolution Foundation Smith Institute (SI) Smith Institute NOT Adam Demos (Demos) Demos AND think tank Munich Institute for Economic Research (IFO) Wirtschaftsforschung AND IFO The German Institute for Economic Research Wirtschaftsforschung AND DIW (DIW Berlin) The Rhenish-Westphaelian Institute for Wirtschaftsforschung AND RWI Economic Research (RWI Essen) Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) Wirtschaftsforschung AND IWH The Kiel Institute for the World Economy Weltwirtschaft AND IFW (IfW)