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Political Science General

Do Think Tanks Matter?, First Edition

Assessing the Impact of Public Policy Institutes

by (author) Donald E. Abelson

Publisher
McGill-Queen's University Press
Initial publish date
Mar 2002
Category
General, General
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780773569904
    Publish Date
    Mar 2002
    List Price
    $34.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780773523166
    Publish Date
    Mar 2002
    List Price
    $110.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780773523173
    Publish Date
    Mar 2002
    List Price
    $29.95

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Description

Do Think Tanks Matter? evaluates the influence and relevance of public policy institutes in today's political arena. Many journalists and scholars believe the explosion of think tanks in the latter part of the twentieth century indicates their growing importance in the policy-making process. This perception has been reinforced by directors of think tanks, who often credit their institutes with influencing major policy debates and government legislation. Yet the basic question of how and in what way they influence public policy has, Donald Abelson contends, frequently been ignored. Abelson studies the experiences of think tanks in the United States, where they have become an integral feature of the political landscape, and in Canada, where their numbers have grown considerably in recent years but where, compared to their U.S. counterparts, they enjoy less prominence in policy-making. By focusing on the policy cycle, issue articulation (that is, getting issues on the political agenda) and policy formation and implementation (actually affecting the outcome of policies already on the political agenda), he argues that think tanks have sometimes played an important role in shaping the political dialogue and the policy preferences and choices of decision-makers, but often in different ways and at different stages of the policy cycle.

About the author

Donald E. Abelson is professor and chair, political science, and co-director, Centre for American Studies, The University of Western Ontario. He is the author of Do Think Tanks Matter? Assessing the Impact of Public Policy Institutes.

Donald E. Abelson's profile page

Editorial Reviews

"An important contribution to a body of literature that is increasingly recognised in the social sciences as an undeveloped field and worthy of more extensive investigation. Abelson's comparative insights will have wider significance in drawing attention to how think tanks find different points of access within the policy cycles. He provides extensive coverage of the issues, concerns, and debates confronted by think tank directors, their funders, and their users, and provides the most up-to-date account of the literature." Diane Stone, Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick----"Well-written and lucid ... this is a seminal contribution to the field. Abelson has a sophisticated and up-to-date understanding of the literature and the phenomena that he studies." Evert Lindquist, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria

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