The Thinkers

1. Partisan Think Tanks: The Unseen Architects of American Politics

Yet U.S. partisan think tanks do little work in the electoral sphere, such as organizing campaign volunteers, funneling money to candidates and parties, or releasing campaign advertising.

Quiet powerhouses. Partisan think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, Center for American Progress (CAP), and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) are immensely influential in Washington, D.C., despite not engaging in traditional electoral activities. Unlike political parties in most democracies that control their own publicly financed think tanks, U.S. parties rely on these privately funded 501(c)(3) nonprofits. These organizations exert their power almost exclusively through the production and dissemination of information about public policy.

Filling a void. The U.S. government provides minimal public financing for political parties to conduct policy analysis. This void is filled by a unique system of privately funded think tanks that, while technically nonpartisan under tax law, operate in close alignment with either the Republican or Democratic Party. They become de facto party organizations, deeply integrated into policymaking processes.

Beyond traditional lobbying. These think tanks differ from traditional interest groups. They don't represent narrow constituencies or specific economic interests. Instead, they serve as generalist ideological actors, providing comprehensive policy advice across a broad range of issues, helping parties translate ideological priorities into concrete legislative proposals. Their influence is a puzzle, given their lack of direct electoral power, yet they are central to modern American policymaking.

2. The "Problem of Problem-Solving": How Crises Become Opportunities for Ideologues

You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.

Exploiting windows. Political systems are often forced to pivot and address unforeseen problems, creating "windows of opportunity" for policy entrepreneurs. Partisan think tanks excel at exploiting these moments, pushing their pre-existing policy goals as solutions to urgent issues, even if those solutions aren't the most effective or directly related. For example, during the 2008 financial crisis, CAP advocated for "green jobs" initiatives within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), aligning climate goals with economic stimulus.

Policy demanders' dilemma. While elected officials are office-seeking and aim to solve problems to win elections, partisan think tanks are policy-seeking. They want their allies to win, but primarily to enact their ideological agenda. This creates a tension:

• Obstacle: Problem-solving can divert attention from their core policy demands.
• Opportunity: They can insert themselves to pass something, even if it's a suboptimal solution to the immediate problem.

Short-circuiting consensus. This dynamic can disrupt the problem-solving process. If partisan think tanks successfully convince policymakers that their ideologically preferred solutions are the best way to address a crisis, it can prevent bipartisan consensus on more neutral, evidence-based approaches. This was evident in the ARRA, where some "green jobs" initiatives, while advancing progressive goals, had limited short-term impact on unemployment, potentially contributing to Democratic electoral losses.

3. The Rise of Competing Knowledge Regimes

The political system’s response was to build up a knowledge regime centered around technocratic expertise.

From consensus to conflict. The U.S. political system has seen the evolution of distinct "knowledge regimes" – the organizational machinery that generates policy ideas and research. Initially, the early 20th century saw the rise of a technocratic knowledge regime, composed of:

• Academic research universities
• A professional federal bureaucracy
• Nonpartisan think tanks (e.g., Brookings, RAND)

This system provided neutral expertise, fostering bipartisan consensus and enabling the expansion of federal government functions from the 1920s to the 1970s.

Conservative backlash. However, this technocratic consensus faced a conservative reaction starting in the 1950s. Intellectuals like William F. Buckley, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman viewed mainstream academia, science, and government as inherently liberal and enabling government overreach. They felt betrayed by Republican allies who continued to work with these "technocrats." This led to a deliberate effort to build an alternative conservative knowledge regime.

Progressive counter-mobilization. Decades later, progressives launched their own progressive counterreaction. While not sharing the same antipathy towards neutral experts, they recognized the need for dedicated organizations to advance their agenda. Think tanks like CBPP and CAP emerged, often complementing rather than directly opposing the technocratic regime, but still aiming to push the Democratic Party's policy positions.

4. Heritage Foundation: A Blueprint for Partisan Influence

Heritage rapidly changed the structure of new think tanks in the United States as well as the relationship between think tanks and elected officials and political parties.

A critical juncture. The founding of the Heritage Foundation in 1973 by former Republican staffers Ed Feulner and Paul Weyrich marked a pivotal moment. Dissatisfied with existing think tanks like AEI for being insufficiently conservative and reactive, Heritage pioneered an "advocacy model" that fundamentally reshaped how think tanks operate and interact with political parties.

Key innovations: Heritage's success stemmed from several strategic innovations:

• Strategic coordination: Researchers worked in coordinated teams, not independently, to produce policy research in advance of debates.
• Aggressive marketing: They invested heavily in disseminating their research, tailoring reports to be concise ("briefcase test") and establishing a congressional liaison office for rapid response.
• Diverse funding: Moving away from cautious corporate donors, they adopted a grassroots fundraising model from individual conservative donors, granting them greater ideological autonomy.

Capturing the party. This model allowed Heritage to become deeply integrated into the Republican Party. Their 3,000-page "Mandate for Leadership" provided a blueprint for the Reagan administration, with Heritage claiming 60% of its recommendations were implemented in Reagan's first term. This success inspired other conservative think tanks and eventually progressive ones like CAP, solidifying the advocacy model as dominant.

5. Privately Controlled, Policy-Seeking Organizations Shape Party Agendas

Instead of supporting the party’s core electoral mission, policy-seeking organizations seek to change the party’s policy positions.

A devil's bargain. Unlike party-controlled think tanks in other democracies, U.S. partisan think tanks are privately funded and policy-seeking. While they provide invaluable services to political parties—such as policy planning, research, and a talent pipeline for government roles—their primary goal is to advance specific ideological agendas, not necessarily to maximize electoral success. This creates a fundamental misalignment with office-seeking political parties.

Generalist advisors. Partisan think tanks act as generalist organizations within the extended party network. They aggregate the diverse, often conflicting, policy goals of various interest groups within a party's coalition. This allows them to offer comprehensive policy advice and strategic planning that narrow interest groups cannot, making them indispensable to party leaders. For example, they provide a "home for the party's future policy talent," with many think tank staff seamlessly transitioning into high-level government positions during presidential transitions.

Ideological pull. However, this privileged position comes at a cost. These organizations consistently push their allied parties towards more extreme ideological positions, even if those positions might be unpopular with the median voter or hinder electoral victories. If party leaders attempt to moderate for electoral gain, they risk alienating their ideological workforce and policy demanders. This dynamic means that partisan think tanks, despite being "privately controlled," effectively function as powerful, policy-driven party organizations, influencing the very direction of the party's platform.

6. Polarization's Engine: Partisan Think Tanks Drive Ideological Divergence

If partisan think tanks didn’t exist, American politics would be far less polarized.

A strong correlation. The rise of partisan think tanks closely mirrors the dramatic increase in congressional polarization since the late 1970s. As organizations like Heritage grew in size and influence, the ideological distance between the Republican and Democratic parties widened. This relationship is not merely coincidental; partisan think tanks actively work to shift their co-partisans' policy preferences to the left or right.

Evidence of influence. Multiple indicators demonstrate this link:

• Revenue growth: Heritage Foundation's revenue growth tracks almost perfectly with increasing polarization.
• Congressional testimony: The rate of partisan think tank testimony before Congress increased before significant jumps in polarization, suggesting an active role in elite persuasion.
• Issue-specific polarization: Issues that receive more attention from partisan think tanks (e.g., macroeconomics, civil rights, labor, healthcare) are consistently more polarized than those they largely ignore (e.g., public lands, agriculture, foreign affairs).

Instrumental, not sole cause. While polarization is a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon, partisan think tanks have been instrumental in accelerating and entrenching it. They provide the intellectual ammunition and policy blueprints for ideologues to push their parties to more extreme positions, transforming broad ideological goals into concrete policy proposals that drive partisan divergence.

7. The Erosion of Neutral Expertise: Congressional Capacity Cuts and Partisan Information

Congress may have sought out not more partisan information, but rather more information from outside of government to compensate for losses in staff.

A deliberate hobbling. Concurrent with the rise of partisan think tanks, Congress experienced a significant decline in its internal capacity to process information. Following the 1994 midterm elections, Republicans, fulfilling a "Contract for America" promise, severely cut the budgets and staff of congressional committees and analytical bureaucracies like the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Congressional Research Service (CRS), and Office of Technology Assessment (OTA).

Filling the vacuum. These cuts were not merely cost-saving measures; conservative Republicans viewed them as a feature, aiming to reduce Congress's ability to expand government programs. This created a vacuum, forcing members of Congress to rely more heavily on external information sources. Crucially, this shift was not towards other nonpartisan experts:

• Decline of neutral sources: Testimony from leading research universities (Harvard, Stanford, Yale) and nonpartisan think tanks (Brookings) significantly declined.
• Rise of partisan sources: The void was increasingly filled by partisan think tanks, which offered ideologically aligned analyses.

Consequences for policymaking. The result is a Congress with diminished independent analytical capabilities, making it more susceptible to ideologically driven information. This dynamic further entrenches polarization, as lawmakers, lacking robust internal nonpartisan advice, turn to sources that confirm their biases and push for more extreme policy positions.

8. Biased Policy Analysis: Weaponizing "Truth" in Political Debates

If progressives and conservatives are coming to wildly different answers from those arrived at by neutral experts, then we should consider those estimates to be biased.

Ideology over objectivity. Partisan think tanks frequently produce "biased policy analysis"—information that materially differs from the scientific or nonpartisan consensus in a direction favorable to their ideological patrons. This isn't merely about framing; it involves presenting quantitative predictions that diverge significantly from independent expert assessments.

Case studies of divergence:

• Affordable Care Act (ACA): Nonpartisan sources (CBO, RAND) predicted the ACA would decrease the deficit. CAP, a Democratic-aligned think tank, predicted an even larger deficit decrease (biased left). Heritage Foundation, a Republican-aligned think tank, predicted a massive deficit increase (biased right).
• Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA): Nonpartisan experts (CBO, JCT, Penn Wharton, TPC) predicted modest economic growth and a large deficit increase. Republican think tanks (Tax Foundation, Heritage, AEI) predicted much larger economic growth and significantly lower deficit impact (biased right).
• Biden-Harris Tax Plan: Nonpartisan sources predicted revenue increases with modest or no GDP decrease. Republican think tanks predicted similar revenue but a much more severe negative impact on GDP (biased right).

Asymmetric bias. While both sides can produce biased analysis, Republican-aligned think tanks often exhibit a stronger and more consistent divergence from the nonpartisan consensus, particularly on economic and environmental issues. This reflects their explicit opposition to the technocratic knowledge regime, allowing them to stake a claim to "alternative bases of data, fact, and 'truth.'"

9. Climate Change: A Case Study in Information Warfare

Partisan think tanks were a vital part of the push for climate change skepticism from the beginning.

From consensus to denial. Climate change policy offers a stark illustration of information polarization. In the mid-2000s, a reluctant bipartisan consensus emerged, driven by scientific warnings from the IPCC. Both Republican and Democratic platforms endorsed action, including market-based solutions like cap-and-trade. However, this consensus was aggressively dismantled by conservative think tanks.

Heritage's pivotal role:

• Early skepticism: Heritage and others had long promoted climate change skepticism, but it remained marginal.
• Post-2008 surge: As climate change gained agenda salience, Heritage dramatically increased its output, publishing a huge number of reports opposing climate action.
• Exaggerated costs: These reports often wildly exaggerated the economic costs of climate solutions. For example, Heritage predicted the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) would decrease 2030 GDP by 2.3%, far exceeding nonpartisan estimates (0.3-0.9%).

Shattering problem-solving. This aggressive campaign successfully persuaded Republican elites to not only oppose specific climate solutions but also to deny the underlying science of climate change. This interrupted the problem-solving process, making bipartisan compromise impossible. Democrats, in turn, pivoted to "green jobs" as a policy entrepreneurship strategy, linking climate action to economic stimulus, but facing an increasingly entrenched opposition.

10. Democracy's Dilemma: Information Polarization Undermines Problem-Solving

If the two political parties truly believe in a different understanding of how policy works, then they cannot find consensus around problem-solving.

The breakdown of shared reality. Information polarization, fueled by partisan think tanks, fundamentally disrupts American democracy. When political parties operate with vastly different understandings of facts, costs, impacts, and cause-and-effect relationships in public policy, the very foundation for compromise and problem-solving erodes. Even with good intentions, they arrive at opposite conclusions about effective solutions.

Consequences for governance:

• Gridlock: Disagreements over "truth" make it impossible to find common ground, leading to legislative paralysis on critical issues.
• Ineffective solutions: When parties act alone, they may implement policies based on biased analysis, leading to suboptimal or even harmful outcomes.
• Erosion of trust: Citizens witness persistent problems go unsolved, or their concerns dismissed as "not real," leading to a loss of faith in democratic institutions and a potential turn towards authoritarian leaders.

An uncertain future. The critical juncture of 1973, with Heritage's emergence, accelerated this trajectory. While new think tanks like Niskanen attempt to foster a "problem-solving" approach grounded in scientific consensus, they struggle against the entrenched influence of ideological partisan organizations. The generational change in think tank leadership faces a deeply polarized electorate, where the "information wars" continue to make effective governance a profound challenge.