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Thinking About Think Tanks
D. STONE and A. Denham (eds), Think Tank Traditions: Policy Research and the Politics of Ideas, Manchester University Press, 2004, 322 pp., ISBN 0 7190 6478 3, hb. £45, ISBN 0 7190 6479 1, pb. £18.99.
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While academics often pride themselves on their detachment from immediate policy problems . . . think tanks pursue a strategy of semi-detachment: maintaining a certain distance from day-to-day policy-making, but keeping close enough to attract the attention of policy-makers to their longer-term perspectives and alternative analyses (Wallace, p. 282)
This collection, edited by two academics with a long established record of researching think tanks and their role in public policy, is a rich source of material for students and policy analysts alike. Whilst an edited volume of this kind necessarily cannot adopt any uniform analytical approach, the book does make effective use of a structured thematic arrangement for its otherwise rather disparate material. The opening section concerns itself with broad perspectives on the international context. This is followed by a group of chapters dealing with different countries within the European tradition, before providing a review of policy research in societies