From Mr C. J. Buttigieg

Slowly but surely the think tank idea is doing the rounds. However, not unlike other proposals suggested by Labour Party exponents, bloggers and other negative columnists are having a field day trying to ridicule and take the mickey out of an excellent vehicle. The reception class concept received the same treatment and died. I hope Labour will give the think tank idea careful consideration and make it part of its revitalised tools in the party.

In my former career I had tried, to no avail, to introduce a similar mechanism, but the idea never materialised, primarily due to our conservative attitude and the reluctance to try out and test an innovation.

We now have one of the Labour Party leadership contenders putting this concept on the list of his priorities, if elected. I appeal to the rest to consider the proposal and, for the good of the party, to promote it. This is a good concept that has been tried, tested and adopted by more advanced countries.

Aided by the Wikipedia Encyclopedia, I will give some background to the think tank concept.

A “think tank” is an organisation, institute, corporation, or group that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economy, science or technology issues and industrial or business policies. Many think tanks are non-profit organisations, which some countries, such as the US and Canada, provide tax-exempt status. While governments, interest groups, or businesses fund many think tanks, some also derive income from consulting or research work related to their mandate.

There are different opinions about think tanks; supporters like the National Institute for Research Advancement hail them as “one of the main policy actors in democratic societies, assuring a pluralistic, open and accountable process of policy analysis, research, decision-making and evaluation”. Opposing them, critics have called them “little more than public relations fronts ...

generating scholarship that serves the advocacy goals of their industry sponsors.”

Since “think tank” is a term that has only been in use since the 1950s, there is still some debate over which was the first think tank. One candidate is the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies founded in 1831 on the initiative of the Duke of Wellington. Another is the Fabian Society of Britain, founded in 1884 to promote gradual social change. The Brookings Institution, founded in the US in 1916 is another candidate for the first think tank. The term “think tank” itself, however, was originally used in reference to organisations that offered military advice, most notably the Rand Corporation, formed originally in 1946 as an offshoot of Douglas Aircraft and which became an independent corporation in 1948.

Until around 1970, there were no more than several dozen think tanks, mostly focused on offering non-partisan policy and military advice to the United States government, and generally with a large staff and research budgets. After 1970, the number of think tanks exploded, as many smaller new think tanks were formed to express various and ideological views.

Until the 1940s, most think tanks were known only by the name of the institution. During the Second World War, think tanks were referred to as “brain boxes” – the slang for skull. The phrase “think tank” in wartime American slang referred to rooms in which strategists discussed war planning. The first recorded use of the phrase referring to modern think tanks was in 1959, and by the 1960s the term was commonly used to describe RAND and other groups assisting the armed forces.

In recent times, the phrase “think tank” started being applied to a wide range of institutions, and there are no precise definitions of the term. Marketing or public relations organisations, especially of an international character, sometimes refer to themselves as think tanks.

Charles J. Buttigieg

MELLIEHA