The Thinkers: The Rise of Partisan Think Tanks and the Polarization of American Politics

by E.J. Fagan

Increasingly, political parties have adopted not only different policies, but different sets of facts. As E. J. Fagan argues, partisan think tanks have helped create these alternate realities in their capacity as de facto formal party organizations. Through the analyses generated by aligned think tanks, political elites on both the left and right frequently offer radically different assessments of a policy's consequences.

In The Thinkers, Fagan tells the story of how partisan think tanks displaced non-partisan experts to become the closest policy advisors to the Republican and Democratic Parties. He explores their history, how they influence policymakers, and how their influence impacts the polarization of American politics. More broadly, Fagan shows that the rise of partisan think tanks tracks closely with the increase in political polarization since the 1970s. Because they are funded and staffed by strong ideologues, partisan think tanks seek to move their party's preferences to the left or right of center. When they are successful, parties take more extreme positions than if they had only drawn information from non-partisan sources, which increases polarization. A powerful account of the impact of partisan think tanks on American democracy, The Thinkers will reshape our understanding of the fundamental drivers of the US's polarized political system.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published June 12, 2024

Reviews

[Jason Furman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've spent a lot of time working for think tanks, working with think tanks, and consuming the output of think tanks both while in government and outside it. And I still learned an enormous amount from this book. The overall story is familiar to people who have paid a lot of attention: as government grew the demand for expertise grew, for a while this was satisfied by ostensibly "neutral" and "non partisan" sources like universities, RAND, Brookings, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Congressional Research Service (CRS), etc. But then the conservative movement decided these were all actually liberal sources so it set up the Heritage Foundation as a counterweight, the first think tank that was explicitly partisan as well as emphasized communications and relations on Capital Hill. This was the creation of an alternative conservative "knowledge regime." Then progressives set up the Center for American Progress as a counterweight to Heritage, in part mirrored on its rapid response, easily digestible information and relations with Congress and the media. The book also intensively studies two other think tanks it considers "partisan," the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). It considers a range of others as well.

What makes the book novel is how much original data and analytics it brings to bear on a range of questions as well as a little bit more political and international context. For example, the American system is contrasted to many other countries which have explicit party think tanks that serve the party. Here the think tanks that work on a range of issues have both spare capacity to devote to the topic of the day (rather than narrower think tanks) as well as can help parties prioritize and set the agenda. One of the books more audacious claims is that partisan think tanks have played a meaningful role in polarization by supplying each side with different facts and interpretations. That the difference between the parties is less normative than the way they read the positive analysis and data.

There was some intriguing data that coded the distribution of policy papers by think tanks showing that they are skewed towards partisan topics when measured against the CRS. For example, think tanks do little on public lands, agriculture, transportation and science relative to CRS but they do a lot on health, civil rights and macroeconomics. The book also shows empirical evidence that issues partisan think tanks devote more attention to (as measured by white papers, citations by members of Congress, and testimony) are more polarized--although it is unclear what is cause and what is effect.

Other intriguing data documented the decline of witnesses at Congressional hearings from universities and "non-partisan" sources and the increase in witnesses from partisan think tanks.

The book differentiates between the think tanks. Left ones are more inclined to cite university research and accept/interpret/repackage CBO numbers. Right ones are less inclined to cite university research and do more of their own modeling. In his case studies Fagan finds that both Heritage and CAP produce biased estimates of policy but CBPP does not. He is particularly scathing on the role that money has played in shifting conservatives on the topic of climate change.

One of the weaknesses of the book was that it implicitly assumed that think tanks were the exogenous, independent variable causing lots of stuff as opposed to taking more seriously the ways in which they were reflecting and internalizing changes in the political system. How much were they driving politicians or supplying what they wanted? The book does provide some time series evidence on this issue but for a variety of reasons I was not completely convinced. Perhaps a bigger one is that it probably does too much to accept the neutrality of universities, Brookings, and the "non partisan" knowledge regime. While Heritage dramatically overstated their case against all of this they were not completely wrong. Which also means that CAP citing academic research more than Heritage does is partly a reflection of CAP being more scientific but also partly because scientists are more liberal.

I also would love to read Fagan's thoughts and analysis on what has happened more recently. In effect the book is about the period the data covers, from the 1970s through about five years ago. But since then the Roosevelt Institute has, for example, played a big role in staffing the Biden administration on economic policy. Other groups, like Groundwork Collaborative, are challenging the approach of more traditional progressive think tanks. These are barely, if at all, mentioned in the book which does give a little more attention to the alternative right-of-center think tanks like Niskanen. But hopefully this is not Fagan's last word on this topic.

[Scott Coleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating topic that provides much needed context and background on polarization and disagreement on commonplace issues. Sadly, it’s a tough read, as the book presents a very scientific approach (I do not fault the author here, it’s needed) but it makes for a more difficult read than a narrative would.

[Jonathan Mckay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Money into Power, via Intelligence

‘The Thinkers’ traces the rise of modern think tanks as an unseen influence of American policy. The pivot point is 1973, when the Heritage Foundation was founded—not just another research shop, but the first to openly embrace ideological warfare. Heritage became the Fox News of think tanks: fast, partisan, and media-savvy. The others followed. What began as university-adjacent, data-driven analysis evolved into a partisan arms race. RAND begat Heritage begat the current ecosystem—ideological, nimble, and well-funded.

One of the book’s sharper claims is that *diligence itself has been outsourced*. Where congressional staff once did the grinding work of research, now think tanks fill the gap—with all the attendant donor incentives.

This isn’t about corruption in the usual sense. It’s about a structural shift: intelligence as a commodity, policy as performance. Think tanks now devote excess capacity not to slow deliberation, but to chasing headlines. Stay on the narrative, stay relevant, stay funded.