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Collaboration Between Think Tanks and Government in the Development of Public Policy
capacity of government to formulate and implement effective public
policies does, undoubtedly, directly affect a nation’s governance. It is
in this sense that think tanks play an important role in strengthening
the governance of a country. Although think tanks can be helpful
in building and strengthening governance, their existence alone is not
enough to do so. The capacity of a think tank to affect governance is
determined by the work they do and the extent to which they are able
to influence government to adopt well-designed policy. Undoubtedly,
the political context and political maturity of each country significantly
affects the capacity of civil society to contribute to the debate and the
design of public policy. Despite the limitations present, the work
of think tanks must have a long-term focus, certainly beyond the
administration currently in power.
Evolution of Think Tanks in Latin America
The existence of think tanks worldwide is a new phenomenon. The
second half of the last century was the boom period and by 2010 there
were 6,480 think tanks in the world. Of these, half were created in the
1980s and 1990s. In recent years, the number of think tanks in Latin
America has increased at a faster rate than any other region, with a total
of 690 think tanks in 2010. This represents 11 percent of the total
number of think tanks in the world, which rose from eight percent in
2007.
This trend in think tank creation is assumed to have facilitated a more
active role of civil society in matters of public policy formation. Yet,
there is doubt as to whether this has actually been the case and whether
the existence of more think tanks in the region has indeed translated
into better public policies. Unfortunately, it is difficult to measure
the impact that think tanks have had in the public policies adopted
throughout the region.
Despite the difficulty of measuring the impact of think tanks on
a country’s governance, attempts have been made to correlate the
presence of more think tanks with better governance. To evaluate this
