Think Tanks in the World and Think Tanks in the World and in Koreain Korea

Woosik MoonGraduate School of International Studies

Seoul National University

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£ The goal of this presentation is two-fold.

£ The first one is to summarize the result of the study conducted by the NRCS (National Research Council for Economics, Humanities and Social Sciences) during the period of 2010 from comparative perspective.-The NRCS is a public institution under the Prime Minister to support research institutes and supervise them.- The NCRE study was intended to examine the global policy competitiveness of the think tanks in 5 major economies. Unlike this presentation, however, the comparison was not the objective.

£ The second one is to shed some lights on the future of the non-government public policy institute like the KDI.

I. IntroductionI. Introduction

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£ Today, there are numerous research institutes, which, separately from the university linked ones, do their policy oriented research and disseminates their research outputs in various ways.

£ They could be distinguished by their funding sources, then further by their relation to government and their mission.

II. Definition and typesII. Definition and types

Public -governmental agency-non-governmental agency

private -profit motive-non-profit motive

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£ Think tank is an imprecise and elusive concept covering many different types of institutions across countries.

£ A think tank narrowly defined is the non-governmental and non-profit policy research institute (Mcgann(2007)).

£ There are then only two types of institutes as think tanks.

-Non governmental public policy research institute (eg. CNRS, KDI, etc )

-Non profit private policy research institute (eg. The Brookings Institute)

£ Depending on the national context, other types of research institutes could be identified as think tanks as well.

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(1) The US case

£ The US is the most famous for its well developed think tanks. The US houses 1,815 think tanks, accounting for about one third of the think tanks in the world (6,305) as of 2009 (NRCS(2010)).

£ Rand Corporation is one of the most famous “federally funded research development center”.

£ Given that the intervention of the government in the economy is weak, however, private think tanks receiving funds from private donors are especially well-known. (eg. Brookings Institute)

III. Think Tanks in Major III. Think Tanks in Major EconomiesEconomies

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£ Many private think tanks are independent and autonomous.

- Reliance on government grants and funding makes the think tanks vulnerable to political and budgetary pressures from the government.

£ Think tanks in the US are also increasingly ideologically driven and called “advocacy think tanks” (eg. Heritage Foundation and Center for American Progress with their conservative and liberal values)

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£ Unlike the case of the US, there has been little role for private think tanks in France.

£ The French research system is often characterized by the dominance of the public institutes -governmental or non-governmental-accompanied first by the creation of the CNRS on fundamental research.

£ The creation of the CNRS was to cope with the weak university research, which consisted essentially of teaching and training of students.

£ The CNRS is the model of the full time professional researcher (“chercheur”), which is differentiated from the university model, which entails the dual activities of teaching and research (“enseignant-chercheur”).

(2) European case(2) European case

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£ The second feature is the multiplication of the mission-oriented public research institutes intended to respond to the research need of different governments and ministries.

£ The logic for the creation of these public research institutes is that confronted with various problems over the course of time, government departments had to develop their own research structures, which ultimately developed degrees of autonomy in the form of “government laboratories”.

£ The CAS (Centre d’analyse stratégique), which replaced the former CCP (Commissariat général du Plan), is an organization working directly under the direction of the Prime Minister and its objective is to assist the government in defining and implementing its economic, social, environmental and cultural policies. The CAS includes the Centre for Prospective Studies and International Information (CEPII) as its internal unit.

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£ In Germany, the percentage of public policy institute is very high too (75% for instance).

£ In Germany, there are different categories of think tanks, including academic think tanks (eg. SWP or DIW), advocacy institutes and party think tanks (eg, FES or Adenauer Stiftung) .

£ Academic think tanks are by far the largest group of think tanks (Thunert (2004)).

£ They usually receive funding from the federal and state governments.

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£ There are two subgroups:

£ Institutes created by the government but working independently within the public sector guidelines: One of these 45 institutes is the SPW (German Institute for International Affairs and Security) inspired by the Rand Corporation in the US.

£ Non-university institutes called “Blue List”/Leibniz Society institutes: The most visible among these are the six large economic research institutes including the DIW with a combined staffs of 400 researchers.

£ One feature is that they could operate education and training program (doctoral program).

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£ Although both Germany and France are famous for their public policy research institutes, there exists one big difference between them.

£ In Germany, direct or indirect support from the state is a proof of independence, while it is not the case in France.

£ In France think tanks could not maintain their independence in so far as they benefit from state support.

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£ A small number of think tanks with strong government ties played an important role in the development of the Northeast Asia region.

£ Public policy research institutes were dominant in Japan.

- In-house research institutes within different ministries such as PRI and RIETI.

- External public institutes (IDE-JETRO under the JETRO)

£ Business sector and financial firms established profit-seeking research institutes. However, autonomous and private think tanks in the US style are relatively new.

(3) Think Tanks in Japan and Korea(3) Think Tanks in Japan and Korea

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£ Ueno (2000) attributes this to a Confucian-based value system, which respected social and political hierarchy and their general historical reluctance to question authority.

£ Korea is more or less in similar situation. Along with the economic planning, for instance, there was a strong need for policy research. As a result, the KDI was established as a sole think tank under the Economic Planning Board.

£ However, the KDI is non-governmental public research institute.

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US France Germany Japan Korea

Public governmental

Strong Strong Strong

Public non-governmental

Strong Strong Strong Strong Strong

Private non-profit Strong Weak

Private profit Strong Strong

partisan Strong Strong

Characterization of think tanksCharacterization of think tanks

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£ The KDI has been the government’s only economic policy think tank. Over time, however, the scope of KDI research decreased as other government agencies created their own think tanks, taking relevant research departments away from the KDI (Mo (2005)). Also, there was an increasing competition from the private institutes for research. The monopolistic position as a sole provider of public research declined.

£ At the same time, together with the proliferation of the public mission-oriented think tanks and the accompanied criticism against their inefficiency, there was a need to supervise systematically their research and management.

IV. Implications for KoreaIV. Implications for Korea

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£ In 1998, the NRCS was established with the objective of supporting and fostering 23 public research institutes in the area of economics and social science.

£ Some questions: funding? Independency? Staffing? Supervision?

£ Need for remaining public:

- Private non-profit think tanks are thriving only in the US.

- Being a private does not necessary guarantee the quality of study and the autonomy.

- Job rotation of the functionary and absence of policy study

£ The problem is how to assure the autonomy of research (a big question even for the university) in a country with a strong bureaucratic tradition.

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- The German model is ideal in the sense that public funding and autonomy of research could coexist.

- The French model is very special in the sense that the researcher is as much a public servant as the government official.

£ Staff status

- Private vs. public: Whether the researcher should be privately employed or public servant is not relevant issue. The real question is the absence of horizontal mobility between research institute, university and government. All three institutions have been closed to outside people.

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- The 1982 Research Act in France contributed to removing the wall between the ministries and the research institutes placed under their supervision. The research institutes were given a new status named “EPST” (public scientific and technological establishment) and all employees, including researchers, became public servants.

-Organizer of research for national agenda (need to increase the use of external human resources in research and outsource the study).

£ Need to strengthen the monitoring and responsibility of research institutes.

- Centralized or decentralized governance

- Dissemination of research outputs

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£ Hwang, Y. W. (2009), Policies for developing market-based private think tanks, CFE Report, No. 100 (In Korean)

£ McGann, J.G. (2007) Think tanks and policy advice in the United States: Academics, advisors and advocates

£ Mustar, Philippe and Philippe Larédo (2002), “Innovation and research policy in France (1980–2000) or the disappearance of the Colbertist state”, Research Policy 31.

£ NRCS (2010), Think Tank and Global Policy Competitiveness (In Korean)

£ Stone. D, Andrew Denham,(2004), Think tank traditions: policy research and the politics of ideas, Manchester University Press

Selected ReferencesSelected References

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