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Lessons - The Truth About Think Tanks | Eli Clifton - Senior Advisor & Investigative Journalist · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this Lessons episode, uncover the complex world of think tanks and their
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  outsize influence on policy making. Learn how funding shapes foreign policy debate
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  by conflicts of interest often go undisclosed, and the role investigative journalism plays
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  in uncovering the hidden forces behind the scenes.
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  If you can, just describe what a think tank is where people don't quite understand
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  that concept because people may not have ever experienced this before or really understood
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  around this world. So one interesting thing about think tanks that people always assume
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  as first of all that there is a definition and that there is such a legal thing as a think tank.
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  There is no such thing as the legal entity of a think tank. But a lot of research institutions
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  in Washington DC and elsewhere usually in capitals around the world are independent entities
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  that conduct policy research. And to be clear, the audience, the intended audience for this research
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  is really generally not the general public. It's policy makers. And that's not a bad thing.
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  It's a good thing. I work at a think tank now. I will defend that. But it's not academic
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  research. You're doing it because you're trying to cram up a policy solutions for policy makers
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  to implement. So it's a way that one tries to inject ideas and policies into the policy making
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  process. Okay, no, that makes sense. Okay, so sorry, I didn't interrupt your story. I just
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  want to understand what that was. And yeah, the more I started looking at it, and I was reporting
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  on foreign policy, and I could very clearly see that a number of institutions in Washington DC,
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  where I was, had a very outsized influence in the foreign policy debate. They seemed to be
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  generating a lot of the analysis and policy proposals, and would then appear before Congress as
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  witnesses that were clearly being implemented as policy. And I started to report more and more
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  on who was funding these entities and who was trying to shape the foreign policy debate.
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  And I think the thing that I always come back to with the foreign policy debate is that people
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  think of it as very exotic, that foreign policy is maybe above normal politics in some ways.
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  You know, politics ends at the water red just nothing very complex. And the more I looked at it,
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  the more I was realizing, you know, it's not that it's not different than any other contested
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  policy space, at least in American politics and probably in contested politics anywhere in the world.
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  You know, there's interests, there's private interests, there's public interest, there's foreign
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  interests, and they're all competing. The only difference is that we don't talk about it.
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  We don't talk about it the same way. We pretend that this is somehow just a very fair and pure
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  competition of ideas that everybody wants the same outcome. And if you walked into a room where
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  you had people, let's say abortion or same-sex marriage or environmental protection of people
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  who are on opposite ends of the debate and said, hey guys, I assume you all want the same outcome.
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  They would laugh at you. Of course, yeah, we wouldn't be as ingenuous
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  place to start the discussion, right? You guys want different outcomes? That's okay.
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  That's right. Yeah, exactly, but that's how that's how it works. So I guess the whole point is,
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  you know, you hope that the policy decisions that are implemented are done by somebody that
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  represents you and represents your country and you feel that they're, you know, they've reached a
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  level in their attitude that they can make those smart decisions. And you, I think everybody
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  understands that there's going to be money that are funding up opposing ideas constantly.
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  You just hope that there's enough money funding both sides and then you come to an educated idea
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  after the data and the facts. And I think part of that is to, you know, and again,
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  in other policy spaces, I think we talk about it very openly that there's dark money,
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  there's influences, people want different outcomes. We have a pretty good conversation about that.
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  In foreign policy, I don't think that we do. And I think it's really, you know, it's harmful
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  to the United States and probably to other countries as well that we aren't having, you know,
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  a more honest conversation about the fact that this is a debate that has people who want different
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  outcomes. And some of those interests are, you know, serving a very narrow group of people
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  or even other countries. And, you know, that's okay, but we should at least be having a conversation
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  about it. And that's what that's sort of prompted your career path. That's why you started to focus
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  on some of these, so some of these foreign policy focus think tanks. So you have on both sides,
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  people putting money into try and what are they trying to solve for like obviously foreign policy
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  is immense and massive. So there must be some topics that are probably more prevalent than
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  others. Or is it just there's a think tank for literally every conversation, every different
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  problem that's being trying to solve the U.S. wants to have a hand in at least influencing some
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  way? Well, you know, I think the diversity of think tanks and of ideas inside the beltway
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  for, you know, to narrow the scope a little bit is a far more limited than most people would think.
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  And this kind of goes back to mayor area of interest in my area for reporting that, you know,
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  there really is something called the so-called blob, which is what Benjamin Rhodes referred to as the,
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  you know, sort of the foreign policy establishment. Excuse me, it's politicians. It's, but a lot of people
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  who are these analysts that think tanks. And they sort of police what are the acceptable policy
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  lines to take? What are the acceptable objectives that we're trying to pursue? And the more closely
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  I look at it, the more I've seen and I've written about this extensively, there's also kind of the
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  same set of funders throughout, you know, the weapons companies are major funders of think tanks
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  that work on foreign policy. So are a small set of foreign countries, the United Arab Emirates,
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  Taiwan, Norway, Japan are some of the big foreign funders of think tanks. And they don't just fund
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  one think tank. They don't just fund progressive or liberal think tanks and conservative think
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  tank. They'll want to fund across the spectrum. And I don't think it's that big of a coincidence then
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  that you don't see an enormous array of policy ideas coming out. Little lone policies that may
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  question the US relationship with, let's say, auditocratic countries like the United Arab Emirates
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  or quest series questioning of the size of the defense budget or about whether we need certain
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  weapon systems that are incredibly expensive. Those are the types of conversations that it seems
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  like the conversation around that is very constrained. Interesting. So it's it's almost like if you have
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  certain entities that fund both sides, then then you're never going to have a discussion around
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  a certain policy that could actually negatively impact that entity. But you're going to have
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  you seemingly and on seemingly like a perceived unbiased view or unbiased donations towards
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  think tanks because it seems like well, we're for funding progressive, liberal and conservative
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  and Republican ideas. So how can you say that we've ever been biased? Exactly. Because they're
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  funding both sides of that. I love wrapping my head around this because this isn't that new to
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  me. So I'm like completely amazed. Interesting quality here that, you know, is, you know, in journalism
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  or in academia, there's kind of some rudimentary concepts of a conflict of interest avoidance.
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  Yeah. But your common sense stuff like, you know, let's say one of your funders may stand
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  to benefit from the work that you're doing or the argument you're making. You would proactively
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  disclose that and academic journals talk about doing it. Journal newspapers talk about this.
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  It doesn't mean you can't publish it. It doesn't mean you can't make that argument. That's not what
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  it doesn't even mean. There's anything corrupt going on. It just means that to protect yourself,
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  you proactively say, hey, you know, there's this financial link over here. And that's usually
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  considered very positive, but also a common sense thing. It basically doesn't exist in Washington.
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  And I've looked very closely at it and sort of in the foreign policy realm, you know,
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  regularly you'll see think tanks publishing materials that are beneficial to let's say one of
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  their foreign government funders that's urging closer relations between the United States and
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  that country. It doesn't mean it's a bad argument. It doesn't mean it's wrong. But there is
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  something deeply flawed with a, you know, a set of standards that seem to say that you don't need
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  to disclose a potential conflict of interest like that. And that obviously extends in a major
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  way to the weapons companies that are funding a lot of the foreign policy research in Washington.
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  And candidly, like I'm just thinking through like the reason why this would be,
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  why you protect yourself is because if this ever came to light, then obviously your argument
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  or your policy is discredited immediately. But you're saying the issue is that there's not
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  enough conversation. So this stuff doesn't really come exactly exactly. You're a couple steps
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  ahead of me there. Yeah, because the conversation's in there. The scrutiny isn't there. And as a result,
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  some simple standards that, excuse me, that are really, really rudimentary and that people get
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  their heads around in academia or in journalism just don't exist. They get thrown out the window.
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  You know, I asked a major think tank without naming names here. I have a couple times asked
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  them because I've seen them doing things that are beneficial to their funders. And I've said,
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  do you guys have a conflict of interest policy? They said, yeah, absolutely. And I said, well,
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  can I see it? Yeah, yeah, sure. We'll send it over. And they send it over. And it's a really good
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  in-depth policy dictating how to avoid conflicts of interest between outside work and work being
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  done for the think tank by employees of the think tank. But it never crossed their minds that
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  there could be a potential conflict of interest between the funders of the think tank and the work
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  that they're producing. I mean, it's kind of amazing that they were several steps ahead and they
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  hadn't even thought about a more rudimentary role. So this is, this is your passion. That's what you
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  got. And so when you start to, when you start to go into this world, where do you decide to spend
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  your time? What, what drives you to look at one thing versus another? And also, how do you emerge
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  yourself in this world so that you can investigate on something that seems to be just, that seems
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  to have no discussion around it? Well, I think that that's, that's a large part of it. And having
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  frankly, a lot of people who, who, who help flag these things to me, you know, and say, hey,
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  there's something interesting going on here. Because I don't, I don't pretend to be an expert,
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  let's say on, you know, the, the debate over the how or if there should be an end to the
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  Korean war. But, you know, people have, have, have assisted me in being like, hey, there's
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  something going on here. There seems to be, you know, a flood of money, um, that is pushing,
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  you know, in a certain direction. And no one's talking about it. And I am amazed by how often
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  that happens. You know, normally if there was, you know, a massive sort of dark money for
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  lack of a better term, campaign towards, uh, a contested policy issue, there would be, uh,
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  you know, some questions and other investigative journalists would, would dig into it. And I think
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  in foreign policy, um, again, it's sort of seen as a, a elite. It's seen as also maybe not
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  something that it's expected that, that every day people are supposed to be paying attention to
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  or engaged with. And I think just a lot more flies under the radar for lack of a better term. And
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  as an investigative journalist, I, I did the, the crudest way of putting it, but I think it is
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  also true is that it is a very target rich environment. Because there's not that many people covering
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  it with a high degree of scrutiny. And as a result, people are acting in incredibly
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  brazen ways. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe
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  button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation,
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  check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.