http://polaris.nationalinterest.in/
What should be the role of think tanks and the independent policy analysts they house?
by Dhruva Jaishankar
Introspection and Questions
We are in the midst of a period of considerable introspection within India’s strategic community. Such introspection is only natural in periods of marked change (think of the existential angst pouring forth on the perceived demise of the American newspaper
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008 ... t_alterman). India’s growing strategic clout and the concomitant underdevelopment of a supplementary policy infrastructure has led to renewed attention paid to the state of international studies (Mutthiah Alagappa
http://pragati.nationalinterest.in/2009 ... l-studies/, Amitabh Mattoo
http://pragati.nationalinterest.in/2009 ... l-studies/), the necessity of an adequate ideas industry (Rohit Pradhan and Sushant K. Singh
http://southasia.oneworld.net/opinionco ... hink-tanks), and the reorganisation of the Indian Foreign Service (Satinder Lambah
http://igovernment.in/site/IFS-cadre-pr ... Hyderabad/).
Now, just as the calls for expanding, financing and empowering India’s strategic community multiply, Neil Padukone of the Observer Research Foundation (
http://www.observerindia.com/cms/sites/ ... acmaid=818) contributes a sharp critique of the think tank industry. Many of the complaints think tank experts have of Indian policy, he says, are just as applicable to their own burgeoning sector:
The common conclusions [of the strategic community] do not necessarily speak to a lack of diversity in thought, but rather to an important consensus across a broad spectrum. These conclusions are simple, yet meaningful—if not of the utmost importance for India’s future:
—India lacks a vision of itself in the world; it needs one.
—India has a very reactive strategic culture, unsure of its own potential; this should change.
—Indian government is too stove-piped; to harness its full potential, government must be integrated and coordinated across disciplines (to this I would add, across scales).
—Weak governance processes inhibit policy execution; these processes must be fixed.
—Plans too often remain in office cabinets and hard drives; they must stop gathering dust and be implemented.
But however important these insights and recommendations, the ‘strategic community’ does not practice what it preaches; moreover, we often blame others for what are essentially our own shortcomings. Think of the answers to a few, seemingly simple questions:
What is the role of think tanks and non-governmental ‘strategic analysts’ in Indian affairs? Are they publishing houses? Academic havens? Shadow governments? “Not quite sure…to inform public opinion?” Never mind that no one outside our clique listens, or is involved in the process. Quite a vision.
How should we go about enacting the policies and ideas we recommend? “The government should just take our policy suggestions; it’s up to them how to implement it.” Criticizing is just the easy part…so much for a focus on process.
Why haven’t these ideas been integrated and cross-pollinated with economists, education policy planners, business, climate scientists, development practitioners and others to forge a vision of where India should be?“Because the same people attend the same conferences saying the same things…” More integrated and coordinated, eh?
Why aren’t we acting on any of these ideas? “The government does not listen to us; there is nothing we can do.” It seems our plans are gathering dust because we’re waiting for others to act…Reactive indeed. [Observer Research Foundation]
Padukone’s objective is not simply to expose double-standards, but to suggest fresh approaches. Yet, in the process, he asks a vital question that advocates of a more robust Indian foreign policy infrastructure, amongst whom I count myself, must consider: What should be the role of think tanks (and the independent policy analysts they house)? Should they be academic havens, shadow governments or publishing houses? Or something else altogether?
Think Tanks, Government and Academia
Some of the confusion surrounding the role of think tanks in India results from their peculiar evolution. Independent Indian think tanks—like those almost anywhere—developed in conscious emulation of American (and, to a lesser extent, British) institutions. In the United States, think tanks can and often do serve all three purposes: they engage in academic scholarship like universities, they produce written material for government and public consumption, and they act as homes for those out of power. In addition, they serve a fourth valuable purpose: that of convenor, bringing together policy-makers and experts from different countries, and allowing for interface between officials and non-officials. Yet, these arrangements are all premised on a certain kind of government, one that has mechanisms for incorporating large numbers of non-career government officials, is open to considering ideas generated outside of government, and is willing to interface regularly with independent experts.
This arrangement is a rarity in any country, including India. And it doesn’t always work so well in the United States either. Two recent articles provided sobering indictments about the relationship between those making policy in the United States and those attempting to shape it from outside government; the fact that they were written by individuals whose names carried weight with both communities lent them added importance. In January, Eliot Cohen, emerging from his first tenure in the senior levels of government, observed in The Wall Street Journal (
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123267054604308313.html) that “government pays only intermittent attention to talk on the outside. To a remarkable extent, in fact, government talks only to itself.” In other words, as much as us policy wonks would like to think otherwise, our work does little to achieve our desired objectives.
Three months later, Joseph Nye wrote in The Washington Post (
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02260.html): “Scholars are paying less attention to questions about how their work relates to the policy world, and in many departments a focus on policy can hurt one’s career.” The academy, the traditional centre of scholarship, has ceded territory to think tanks, a development that Nye argues has diminished the policy process.
Bridging the Gap
How differences are to be overcome between policy-maker and policy expert is central to the question of what role think tanks ought to play, in India or elsewhere. More than fifteen years ago, the late Alexander George, then recently retired from Stanford, addressed this very question in his book Bridging the Gap: Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy (
http://books.google.com/books?id=4I7Aid ... q=&f=false). While concerned mostly with American foreign policy, much of his analysis of the interplay between ideas and practice has wider applications, outside the United States, and to domestic social and economic policy.
George outlines biases that policy intellectuals and policy-makers have about one another. Academic analysts are seen as prone to over-intellectualization, abstraction and incomprehensibility, not to mention dismissive of political factors; policy-makers are regularly accused of a tendency to simplify, an ignorance of history, and an oversensitivity to perceptions and politics, among other weaknesses. While an expert’s objective is rational decision-making, a policymaker’s goal is effective decision-making, which takes into account political and bureaucratic limitations.
To overcome these biases, external experts need to listen to what policy-makers need, and understand also what they are best-equipped to provide. What they are not well-equipped to provide is policy prescriptions. Really, when you think about it, the idea that someone sitting at a think tank, no matter how much of an expert on a given subject, should spell out what a government should do—with no responsibility, no knowledge of political considerations and no access to classified material—is faintly absurd. Yet that is something think tanks everywhere spend much time and energy doing.
George concludes that there are three kinds of knowledge useful for policy-makers that academic experts are well-equipped to provide. To expand somewhat on them (he was writing specifically on foreign policy), these are (i) abstract conceptual models (big ideas, like ‘deterrence’ or ‘containment’) that provide starting points for strategies, (ii) general knowledge produced by systematic and cumulative empirical research (historical, economic, etc.) which leads to identifying favourable conditions to enact policy, and (iii) detailed studies of specific problems grounded in fine-grained or local knowledge meant to provide policy-makers with better understandings of an individual challenge. Most else is of little use to the policy-maker given his or her position and objectives. The first category of knowledge lends itself to strategic thinking bordering on the philosophical, the second to amassing and analyzing large quantities of data and drawing insights, while the third may require specialized skills, including language training, or field-work. All take considerable time and effort that most policy-makers can scarcely afford. All three complement rather than attempt to replicate (or replace) the policy-making process.
Streams, Windows and Entrepreneurs
One notable shortfall, articulated by Padukone among others, is the absence of studying processes of policy-making. Most such research is difficult to accomplish and often mind-numbing in its dryness. There are, however, a handful of examples of accessible and informed writing on the subject. Stephen Krasner, previously director of policy planning in the U.S. State Department, offers one good example (
http://books.google.com/books?id=V9z4sw ... q=&f=false). He describes a model of policy ’streams’ and ‘windows,’ developed by other scholars before him (he abjures responsibility for the unfortunate mixed metaphors).
At the risk of oversimplification, the model essentially consists of three parallel but independent ’streams’: policy problems, policy alternatives and politics. Only when the three are aligned, does a ‘window’ open for policy to be enacted. You can have a set of policy alternatives in place, but it is not unless the political situation is right, and that there is a related problem to be faced, that any of those alternatives can be seriously considered. To actively force through a given policy requires the efforts of a ‘policy entrepreneur,’ who can work to create the right conditions or increase the likelihood of the streams’ alignment.
George’s refinement of the types of knowledge useful for policy-makers is valuable but also rather limiting. The model that Krasner describes suggests areas where independent policy wonks can exert leverage and influence. They can identify and inform potential policy entrepreneurs, they can assess the prospects of alignment of the three streams, they can (within limits) provide policy alternatives, and they can anticipate potential challenges.
India is at a distinct advantage, in the sense that its independent strategic community is developing late, and has the ability to draw on the cumulative experiences of other countries with richer histories. A vibrant strategic community is naturally desirable, but developing one in blind emulation of the United States or anywhere else is folly given the difference in the natures of various countries’ policymaking processes. Yet, some of the lessons learned (or not learned) by the American strategic community over a matter of decades, while not universal, are certainly widely applicable. Before jumping headlong into developing a large but ineffectual think tank industry, budding idea entrepreneurs should step back and consider what role such institutions can best serve.
Dhruva Jaishankar researches U.S. foreign policy towards South Asia in Washington DC. He also writes regularly for The Indian Express and Pragati, and occasionally for other publications.
Are we really that naive or merely playing naive? Just wondering only.
I mean one obviously has to first consolidate one's regional position for strategic thoughts to yield results.