The Future of Think Tanks and Policy Advice in the United States

Section 1: US INTRODUCTION.- Section 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.- Section 3: FORMER PRESIDENT'S HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE.- Building the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.- Think Tanks: Where We've Been and Where We're Going.- Looking Back at the Stimson Center's role in the early 21st century.- Section 4: CURRENT PRESIDENTS.- Achieving Inclusivity by Redefining the Think Tank Scholar.- Think Tanks Breaching the Partisan and Geopolitical Divide.- Re-imagining the Think Tank Post COVID-19.- The Challenges of Regulating Technology and the Role of Think Tanks in Informing Sound Tech Policy.- Think Tanks and the Enduring Value of Hard Questions.- The Future of Think Tanks: The Impact of Technology on Society.- Crowded, Chaotic, Contested: The New Geopolitical Order and Marketplace of Ideas.- Fighting For Progress in the Age of Disruption.- International Development Cooperation into the Decade Ahead.-Think Tanks in the New Century.- Bridging Policy Needs with Technology Solutions.- America's Think Tanks: Meeting the Challenges of Increasing Competition and New Technologies, and Maintaining Relevance in an Ever-changing World.- Reflections on the Future of Think Tanks, Drawing on Three Decades in Public Policy Research.- Thought Leadership in Uncertain Times: Four Global Trends.- The Crisis of Liberalism and the Future of Think Tanks.- Section 5.- Technology and Think Tanks: Survived the First Wave; Might not Survive the Second.- Increasing Relevance, Diminishing Access Require Unchanging Values for a Changing Audience.- Truth Decay: A Threat to Democracy and Think Tanks Alike.- The Role of the Think Tank in Creating a More Equitable and Resilient Shared Future.- The world - and the workplace - are changing. Our mission stays the same.- Section 6: CONCLUSIONS.- Are Think Tanks Fit for an Uncertain Future?.

James G. McGann is Senior Lecturer of International Studies at the Lauder Institute at the Wharton School and the School of Arts and Sciences, Director of the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program and Senior Fellow at the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the Director of the Think Tanks and Foreign Policy Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

"The book can be very insightful not only for those who are working in think tanks but for any other intellectual or activist organization or project. The audience of this book might extend to the general public, as the challenges and themes repeated across the book are, evidently, part of all of our modern lives; it might be very useful for the modern individual to look at them from this organizational perspective." (Heba al-Heraki, Insight Turkey, Vol. 24 (2), 2022)