505 Olivier Urrutia The role of Think Tanks in the definition and application of defence policies and strategies Experts themselves are unable to agree on a definition as there are differences from country to country. Think tanks vary enormously in size, in the resources they have available to them, in their areas of research, in their legal structure and in their management models. Many works defining think tanks were published in the 90s; among them, works by certain North American pioneers such as James McGann, Ken Weaver and Donald Abelson. These authors identified the following criteria for the definition of a think tank: • An independent organisation. The level of independence is determined by its statutes and financing sources (private or public/private and mixed) or its direct links with state powers (active politicians who occupy a position in the organisation). • Dedication to general interest. • A permanent work team focusing on research. • The production of innovative proposals and prospective public policies, with the aim of participating in the debate. • A non-profit organisation. • An organisation that has its own freely-accessible communication resources (website, blogs, publications, conferences etc.) in order to disseminate information to as broad an audience as possible. Due to the non-fulfilment of some of these criteria, NGOs, philanthropic foundations, platforms of political parties or political figures, and lobby groups are excluded. As explained by Thomas Medvetz, think tanks face an eternal cycle of the double movement of rapprochement and withdrawal, which allows them to obtain the balance they need for their legitimacy. While withdrawal tends to differentiate think tanks from the institutions closest to them (or to distance them from those who finance them) and thus affirm their independence, rapprochement, on the other hand, re-establishes a dependency with regard to these institutions so that the think tank can enjoy the symbolic and material resources they have to offer. This balance allows the existence of academic, political and business ties, and each link ensures the legitimacy that then guarantees independence in relation to other institutions. The positioning of think tanks in the field of expert opinion on public policies can be summarised as follows: a think tank is more academic than a lobby, more business-like than a university, and more political than a business.2 As a differentiating criterion, it can be said that a think tank organizes research tasks, anticipating actions from the side of lobby groups. Think tanks use bi-directional communication, mixing influence with informative 2 MEDVETZ, Thomas, Terra Obscura: Vers une théorie des think tanks américains, in Yann Bérard, Renaud Crespin, Aux Frontières de L’expertise : Dialogues entre Savoirs et Pouvoirs, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2010, Chapter 11, p. 157. Also available under: http://sociology.ucsd.edu/ faculty/bio/documents/Medvetz.10.Terra.pdf p. 8
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