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Excerpt
of:
$1 BILLION FOR IDEAS:
CONSERVATIVE
THINK TANKS IN THE 1990S
by David Callahan
National Committee for
Responsive Philanthropy
March 1999
Introduction
Ideas are the very stuff of politics.
Whoever decides what the game is about also decides
who gets into the game.
How the national debate is framed, and what options
are put before the public, can be more important ultimately
than the immediate choices made. The framing defines
the breadth of the nation’s ambitions, and thus either
raises or lowers expectations, fires or depresses imaginations,
ignites or deflates political movements.
Long before Richard Weaver’s Ideas Have Consequences was
first published in 1948, an appreciation was growing of the
role that ideas play in the nation’s political life. As
many have noted, ideas matter in a variety of ways. They
can and do serve as the flagships of ideological and intellectual
movements. They can help create new social understandings
of old issues. They can weaken existing political coalitions
or pave the way for the formation of new ones. And they
can also provide lawmakers and others with the architectural
frameworks within which to build policy agendas and justify
governing decisions.
In fact, the more fundamental changes in American politics
may not be in election results, but rather in the rise and
fall of different ideas and their attendant policy agendas.
Given this, significantly more attention needs to be
directed to the issue raising, issue framing and issue suppression
process in American politics today. How is it that some
ideas become public ideas, or politically influential, while
others do not? How are issues defined for public attention,
framed in policy terms or suppressed in public policy debates?
How do nonprofit research and advocacy organizations
frame issues in the marketplace of ideas? And what role
does private money play in supporting ideas and helping to
set the agenda of American political life?
On the premise that ideas and the institutions that promote
them matter, this NCRP report focuses attention on the top
20 conservative policy institutions of the 1990s. Included
among them are some of the most powerful and well known institutions
operating in the nation’s capital today. The Heritage
Foundation, the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise
Institute have become veritable household names to those even
remotely familiar with conservative think tanks’ ascendant
role in structuring the nation’s political conversation. Given
their unflagging commitment to the marketing of their policy
products and the sophistication of their political communications,
their brand name status should not be surprising. This
report, however, also focuses needed attention on seventeen
additional, lesser-known think tanks whose work promotes the
same broad ideological themes and whose activities buttress
those of “star” institutions like the Heritage Foundation.
The rising influence of numerous smaller conservative think
tanks has been a notable development during the 1990s. Together,
these and other conservative policy groups have been able to
define policy issues and approaches for public attention, skillfully
using mainstream and alternative media outlets to create a
powerful echo effect in and beyond the nation’s capital.
In focusing on the operating philosophies and policy activities
of 20 top national conservative policy institutions, $1 Billion
for Ideas builds on two earlier NCRP research reports that
examined the burgeoning of state-level conservative think tanks
(1991) and the funding side of the conservative political renaissance
(1997). The latter report documented the grantmaking
strategies of 12 ideologically conservative foundations, concluding
that their philanthropic investments contributed in substantial
ways to building and sustaining and intellectual and activist
infrastructure on behalf of conservatives’ anti-government
and unregulated markets agenda.
This 1999 report picks up the threads of that analysis to
provide an expanded and more detailed analysis of 20 leading
conservative think tanks.
Summary of Findings
The top 20 conservative think tanks studied in this report
are:
- American Enterprise Institute
- American Legislative Exchange Council
- Atlas Economic Research Foundation
- Cato Institute
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Citizens for a Sound Economy
- Competitive Enterprise Institute
- Empower America
- Employment Policy Foundation
- Ethics and Public Policy Center
- Family Research Council
- Free Congress Research and Education Foundation
- Heritage Foundation
- Hoover Institution
- Hudson Institute
- Manhattan Institute
- National Center for Policy Analysis
- National Center for Public Policy Research
- Progress and Freedom Foundation
- Reason Foundation
Based on a review of their annual reports, websites, policy
products and other publicly available information, the following
findings stand out:
- Expenditures by the 20 institutions examined were
$158.1 million in 1996. This amount was a significant
increase from 1992, with many organizations more than doubling
their budgets over the four-year period. To put this
figure in perspective, the Republican Party raised and spent
$138 million in “soft money” contributions in 1996, $20 million
less than the 20 policy groups profiled here.
- Partial data from 1997 indicates that spending by
center-right and far-right think tanks continues to grow
rapidly, suggesting that the 1990s has been a period of continued
institution-building by political conservatives. Overall
spending by these institutions between 1990 and 2000 is likely
to top $1 billion.
- Early generous support by conservative foundations
and wealthy individuals has enabled many of these institutions
to develop impressive fund raising apparatuses, allowing
them to diversify their finding bases and attract even higher
levels of donor support. Many of the institutions examined
now receive as much as two-thirds of their funding from individual
and corporate supporters.
- A number of smaller and relatively new conservative
think tanks have risen to new positions of visibility in
recent years. While the five largest and most well-known
policy institutions (the Heritage Foundation, Hoover Institution,
Center for Strategic and International Studies, American
Enterprise Institute and Free Congress Research and Education
Foundation) expended half of the $158 million total, the
remaining $80 million was spent by 15 smaller policy organizations
working to advance core elements of the conservative agenda.
- Conservative policy organizations continue to promote
a highly ideological world view, working on multiple policy
fronts to privatize the public sphere and elevate the market
as the prime mechanism for social arbitration and resource
allocation. These policy groups have pushed aggressively
to privatize Social Security and Medicare, loosen laws governing
workplace safety and the rights of workers to organize, roll
back environmental and consumer safety regulations, cripple
the ability of nonprofit organizations to engage in public
policy debate and advocacy, privatize systems of public education,
and pare back the scope, size and cost of government in numerous
other areas. They also saw their long-standing crusade
to end the federal welfare entitlement come to fruition in
1996.
- Conservative policy groups have shown increasing sophistication
in waging high-intensity battles over extended periods of
time, better coordinating their activities with lobbyists
in the private sector, political operatives in Washington
and the states, and activists at the grassroots. Major policy
battles between 1993 and 1996 over telecommunications and
health care have taught these institutions important lessons
and helped them to refine their advocacy operations. Many
operate like “extra-party” organizations, adopting the tactics
of the permanent political campaign by incorporating a fund
raising arm, a lobbying arm, a policy analysis and development
arm, a public relations arm, and a grassroots mobilization
or constituency development arm.
- The structure of political opportunities continues
to advantage conservative policy entrepreneurs. Contributing
factors include the continued demobilization of large swaths
of the American electorate, the decisive role that special
interest money plays in national politics, the media’s political
importance, the transformation of political parties from
citizen mobilization vehicles into top-down fund raising
machines, organized labor’s declining ability to help set
broad national budget and policy priorities, the single issue
focus of many liberal and left institutions, and their failure
to develop and communicate to the American electorate an
overarching public philosophy for the country.
- There is no mainstream left-of-center parallel to
the critical mass of conservative policy institutions currently
operating in the United States today. Conservative
policy institutions tend to be multi-issue organizations
with multi-million dollar budgets, powerful corporate boards,
and significant media access. They work along dual
tracks, promoting a broad public philosophy while tying specific
policy initiatives to it. They also tend to pursue
bold structural reforms with the potential to change both
the substance of police and the rules of the political game
for decades to come.
Conclusions
For policy entrepreneurs on the right, the conservative
takeover of Congress in 1994 provided major opportunity to
implement a political vision and related policy agenda on which
they had worked for some three decades. Battling the Clinton
Administration during 1993 and 1994 had energized their ranks
and swelled their budgets, but working with the new Congress
presented them with a chance systematically to transform America’s
public policy agenda. As this report shows, that opportunity
was not squandered. Since 1995, the national policy discussion
in numerous areas has moved noticeably to the right. The federal
welfare guarantee has been eliminated. Partial Social Security
Privatization, unthinkable a decade ago, is supported by numerous
members of Congress, including some moderate Democrats. Sweeping
telecommunications deregulation has been enacted. New
tax breaks for the rich have been passed by Congress, with
more proposed. Legislation authorizing school vouchers has
been endorsed by the House of Representatives. Efforts to stem
global warming have been slowed. The flat tax is now
a proposal being seriously discussed by many in Washington.
It is impossible reliably to gauge the exact role of conservative
think tanks in bringing about this rightward shift in American
politics. Clearly, many other factors have been at work,
including the changing political attitudes of the American
public, the skill of conservative political leaders, and the
well-funded lobbying efforts of a multitude of private sector
interests. But to those who play or observe the Washington
game, on both left and right, the influence of conservative
think tanks is inescapable. Most impressive is the way
in which conservative policy entrepreneurs have successfully
won support for their grand story of American politics. If
national politics can be seen largely as a contest of broad
frameworks, there is little question that conservatives have
won this game in recent years.
In 1993 and 1994, the ideological framework underpinning
American public policy was in major flux. The Clinton
Administration was vigorously putting forth a new story of
public policy that combined elements of the traditional liberal
agenda with centrist thinking. That story stressed the
critical importance of fresh government initiatives to correct
for market failures, as in the area of health care, and also
to equip American workers to compete in the global economy
through education and job training. While highlighting
new arguments about personal responsibility and values, especially
on the issue of welfare, the Clinton Administration’s story
also reaffirmed the enduring value of long-standing government
programs for assisting elderly Americans and protecting the
environment. During 1993 and 1994, conservative leaders
like Newt Gingrich were deeply concerned that the success of
this story – and particularly the passage of a national health
insurance program – would inaugurate a new era of middle class
support for activist government.
But between 1994 and 1997, the Clinton Administration’s
fledgling grand story was effectively demolished as a basis
for a public policy agenda. While the current political
climate is often characterized as “centrist” in nature, such
an assessment is deceiving since the entire gravity of American
politics has shifted radically to the right in recent years,
delimiting a range of policy options that once occupied a central
place in the political mainstream. Major new efforts
to expand the role of government in order to solve social or
economic problems appear to be virtually unthinkable, despite
the strong economy and a budget surplus. At the same time,
many government programs which were previously protected from
political attack – most notably entitlements for the elderly
and environmental protections – are now under legislative assault. Even as public trust for government has edged up slightly
in recent years, the long-standing conservative crusade to
discredit government as a vehicle for societal progress has
come to fruition as never before. And even as market
failures have become more evident in areas such as managed
health care, housing, and in the growing ranks of the working
poor, conservative arguments extolling the virtue of an unfettered
free market have gained ever wider currency in national policy
discussions.
Today, conservative think tanks are well positioned to help
consolidate and extend the major conservative policy gains
of recent years. In terms of research and advocacy, these think
tanks have learned important lessons during the Clinton era
about how successfully to move policy debates in a climate
characterized by public disengagement from politics and the
growing influence of special interest groups. In particular,
they have perfected their strategies for building elite and
public support for policy ideas through extended campaigns
that reframe broad arguments, popularize specific blueprints
for action, and mobilize grassroots support.
The infrastructure now in place to support these efforts
is extensive. If current trends hold, it is likely that
some of the smaller conservative think tanks like NCPA, Reason,
and the Competitive Enterprise Institute will expand in significantly
larger institutions. Of special importance is the human
capital that conservative think tanks have at their disposal.
Over the past two decades, these institutions have nurtured
a large class of professional conservative policy intellectuals
and marketers that is not found elsewhere on the political
spectrum. By giving particular attention to developing
the careers of younger policy specialists, conservative think
tanks have assured a large reservoir of new leadership that
can guide these institutions into the 21st century. Currently,
many of the top leadership positions in conservative think
tanks are filled by individuals who played founding roles in
these organizations during the 1970s and 1980s. As these leaders
retire, they will likely be replaced by policy entrepreneurs
who, if anything, are more ideologically aggressive and more
sophisticated in the area of media technology.
Beyond its reservoir of human capital, the national conservative
policy institutions are well endowed with allies in the state
and local arenas, along with strong networks to manage these
alliances. If conservatives can sustain the recent trend
toward devolving federal responsibilities to the state level,
these relationships will become ever more important for implementing
long-term strategic efforts to reduce the size and scope of
government. But even in the absence of further devolution,
the growing sophistication with which national and local conservative
policy activists coordinate their efforts is likely to yield
rising dividends. Likewise, conservative think tanks can be
expected to leverage the strengthened links that they have
forged with the private sector during the 1990s, closely coordinating
future policy campaigns.
In terms of resources, there is every indication that the
funding stream that currently supports the conservative policy
infrastructure will continue to grow. For the core group
of foundations that have been heavily funding conservative
think tanks in the past two decades, recent political developments
have represented a major payoff of their long-term strategic
investments. These funders can be expected to move with
as much vigor in the future as they have in the past to assure
the continuing transformation of America’s public policy agenda. Clearly, as well, corporations have developed a new appreciation
for the importance of underwriting policy work and their giving
to conservative think tanks can be expected to continue. The
passage of major campaign finance reform legislation would
be sure to increase corporate funding of the conservative policy
infrastructure as private sector actors redirect resources
into other channels for influencing political developments.
Overall, the rising strength of conservative policy institutions
is likely to reinforce trends toward a greatly narrowed public
policy debate in the United States. At a time when national
wealth and economic inequality are rising hand in hand, no
real discussion is on the horizon for reviving the American
ideal of shared prosperity. At a time of growing public
disengagement from politics, there are few serious proposals
under debate for strengthening America’s impoverished democracy. And at a time of enduring racial problems in the United
States, no major new initiative to alleviate this blight on
our society are under consideration. In all of these
areas, finding solutions that would improve American life will
not be easy. Unfortunately, as the conservative story
becomes ever more influential, the search for such substantive
solutions become an ever lower priority on the national agenda.
Link to purchase a copy
of the full report, $1 Billion for Ideas: Conservative
Think Tanks in the 1990s, or contact:
National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy
2001 S
Street NW #620
Washington, DC 20009
Telephone: 202-387-9177
Fax:
202-332-5084
e-mail: info@ncrp.org
website:
www.ncrp.org
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