Do Think Tanks Matter?: Assessing the Impact of Public Policy Institutes

Agar Adamson is the author of Letters of Agar Adamson, 1914–19 and former chair of the Department of Political Science at Acadia University in Nova Scotia.

Think tanks are staffed, for the most part, by individuals who have
strong views. They are also home to both retired and aspiring
politicians, as well as academics in various periods of their careers.
They are not known to be politically neutral, although some are. In this
well-researched and well-written book, Donald Abelson of the University
of Western Ontario sets out to answer the question, Are think tanks of
any practical value or are they just a cozy retreat for academics and
ex-politicians?

The difficulty of assessing the influence of think tanks is a recurring
theme. As Abelson points out, your opinion of a given think tank will
invariably be influenced by your own political views. Thus, an adherent
of the Canadian Alliance will tend to look with favor on the work of the
Fraser Institute because Preston Manning is now on its staff. Similarly,
people with a left-wing bent will generally prefer the work of the
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives over that of the Atlantic
Institute for Market Studies.

Do Think Tanks Matter? concludes with an excellent bibliography,
extensive notes, and an index. Especially welcome are the profiles of
American and Canadian think tanks found in the book’s two appendixes.
The omission of British think tanks is unfortunate, for much of Margaret
Thatcher’s so-called revolution was based on the work of the
London-based Centre for Policy Studies.