511 Olivier Urrutia The role of Think Tanks in the definition and application of defence policies and strategies right time and in the right hands”11 There are also certain contextual elements that explain the recent and current stagnation in the number of new think tanks established worldwide: • Political and regulatory environment hostile to think tanks and NGOs: economic crisis, lack of philanthropic culture, dictatorships, etc. • A decrease in the number of public and private donors for policy research • Lack of institutional development which leads to an inability to adapt to change • Increased competition from consulting firms, law firms and electronic media • Institutions that have served their purpose and have discontinued their operations A cultural “cooling off” can be observed from the side of the southern Europeans as regards the financing of think tanks, which may be due to them considering think tanks as being intangible as far as their content is concerned: research, reflection, ideas. Public and private donors are interested in short-term expertise and advice, and favour specific projects, instead of investing in long-term ideas. II. ORIGIN A comparative but non-exhaustive presentation of the Spanish, French and Ame-rican models (historical, cultural and political), as well as papers written by experts on think tanks in the area of defence and security, help to understand the think tank-defence link. A modelling exercise using papers produced by certain think tanks in the area of defence allows us to broadly pinpoint the differentiating impact that culture and the historical and political context have on these organisations. United States It is just as complicated and risky to try and identify with any precision the con-textual elements that lead to the emergence of a think tank as it is to define what a think tank is. However, it is essential to identify the conditions for emergence in order to better understand how and why think tanks influence defence policies. Some experts date the precedent of the current phenomenon to the end of the 19th century when reformist assemblies were created in certain states (Massachusetts), from which the American Social Science Association12 was born. Other experts pinpoint the main 11 Expression used by François-Bernard Huyghe, permanent researcher at the Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques 12 A. SMITH, James, Idea Brokers: Think Tanks And The Rise Of The New Policy Elite, New York :
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