Scholars and parishioners interested in public policy and the nature and quality of decision making in Washington will find Andrew Rich's first book to be an interesting and valuable contribution to the field. While the book focuses on an often-overlooked set of institutions—public policy research organizations—it also explores the current state of policy advice in Washington. These independent, nonprofit organizations have served our nation well by conducting research, analysis, and debate on a wide range of complex public policy issues. Thinks tanks such as the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the RAND Corporation have helped shape the thinking of policymakers for almost a century. Rich contends that their unique role in the policymaking process is now in peril, and he sets out to document how the sea change that has taken place in American politics is reflected in the changing dynamics in the policymaking community in Washington.

Rich traces the origins of the problem to the late 1960s, when think tanks became more like marketing organizations than policy research institutes and began to adopt a strategy and structure that resembled interest groups rather than universities. He effectively incorporates the earlier contributions on this subject made by Donald Abelson, “From Policy Research to Political Advocacy: The Changing Role of Think Tanks in American Politics,” Canadian Review of American Studies 25 (1966): 93–126; James G. McGann, The Competition for Dollars, Scholars and Influence in the Public Policy Research Industry, 1995, and Think About the Future of Think Tanks, 1999; David M. Ricci, The Transformation of American Politics: The New Washington and the Rise of Think Tanks, 1993; and R. Kent Weaver “The Changing World of Think Tanks,” PS: Political Science and Politics 22 (1989): 563–78.

According to Rich, think tanks have become organizations that turn experts into advocates and policy information into ammunition. Paradoxically, his research suggests that as the number of think tanks has grown and they have become more ideological and marketing oriented, their influence has not expanded proportionately to their numbers. He contends that for much of their history, these organizations provided expert advice that was “thought of as neutral, credible and above the fray of the rough and tumble of policy making” and the politics in the nation's capital (p. 2). Rich observes that a major shift has taken place in recent years as a result of some think tanks (mostly conservative ones) that no longer “maintain detached neutrality” and now behave like “advocates” that aggressively promote “ideas and ideologies.” He goes on to say that this new breed of policy experts is “highly contentious as well” and has served to erode the credibility of the entire think tank community.

Rich's thesis is a compelling one that is based on 135 in-depth interviews with officials at think tanks and those in the policymaking and funding organizations that draw upon and support their work. These interviews with the producers of policy research are placed against the backdrop of the results from a survey he conducted of congressional staffs and journalists and a set of detailed case studies he developed on the role of experts in health care and telecommunications reform debates in the 1990s and tax reform in 2001. He effectively utilizes the data he collected to assess the ideology, influence, credibility, and visibility of some of the leading think tanks in the United States. The result is a convincing argument that has been carefully developed and supported by systematic analysis and a wealth of evidence. His conclusion is that “the trend for think tanks to become more ideological and more aggressively marketing oriented is rooted in ideological and in structural changes in American politics” that became manifest during the last election (p. 205).

My only reservation about the book is that it lays the blame for the current state of policy advice on a few institutions and a narrow set of variables. I only wish that he would have considered the full range of environmental forces (partisan politics, growth of liberal and conservative advocacy groups, restrictive funding policies of donors, growth of specialized think tanks, narrow and short-term orientation of Congress and the White House and the 24/7 cable news networks) that all have impacted the ability of think tanks to provide independent analysis and advice. Despite these limitations, Think Tanks, Public Policy, and the Politics of Expertise is a must read for any student or scholar who wants to understand the radical transformation that has taken place in think tanks, politics, and public policy in the United States.