Think tank researchers are a different breed. Trained as academics, they are eager to break out of a strictly academic environment by tying their studies to contemporary, high-priority, concrete issues. Their goal? To influence policy, rather than build a publications record.
Just as journalists are collectively designated the fourth estate, think tanks may be considered the fifth. Besides sharing an all-consuming passion for public affairs, think tanks, like journalists, come in all sorts and sizes. Some specialize in economics, ohers in international relations or military and security issues. Some are large and endowed with considerable wealth, others lives hand to mouth. The best think tanks combine acuity and broad connections in academe, business, and government with a flair for publicity that gives their recommendations greater visibility. Some have less desirable qualities, the worst erhaps being a tendency toward pedantry, conventionality, or predictability—qualities that direct their studies to dustbins instead of policymakers' desks.
Think tanks focus their analytic energies on matters of national concern, try to develop sensible alternatives to the status quo, and predict problems before they arise. But there is really no uniformity in their procedures, purposes, philosophies, or even their audiences. Some resemble advanced centers of scholarly learning. Some synthesize and package other people's ideas, or devote themselves to educating concerned and influential private citizens. But most focus on legislators and government offiicials.
Think tanks elude simple description. Atypical definition—that they are non-profit, non-governmental, public policy organizations which conduct intensive research and solve problems, especially in the areas of society, politics, technology, or military security—only vaguely describes them. And for the dozen or so think tanks in Taiwan, at least, this definition isn't quite correct. While most of them are registered under the Ministry of Education as non-profit organizations, nearly all of them fall into the“semi-governmental” rather than the“non-governmental” category. The majority of the island's think tanks derived their initial endowments directly or indirectly from government or political party funds, and they all depend heavily upon government for their contracted research.
Clear sky, but not smooth sailing—One problem gaining close attention from government and private think tanks is how best to develop direct cross-straits travel, telecommunications, and shipping links without endangering Taiwan's security.
How well do they succeed, compared with their counterparts in other democratic societies? This is still difficult to judge, because so few have severed the umbilical cord linking them with government coffers. Ideally, think tanks should help focus attention on public issues in ways that sharpen political debate. An unexamined policy isn't good for anyone, government official or citizen. But until think tanks become more completely supported by outside funding, they will be locked into a cycle of providing studies to their official clients on how to implement existing policies, rather than suggesting new policy directions that officials may see as being too clever, unconventional, or idiosyncratic.
This said, it should be pointed out that the local environment for think tanks is changing. Taiwan's civil society—which includes non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of all sorts—has been growing stronger since January 1989. At that time, the Legislative Yuan passed a new civic organizations law that opened the way for the wide array of NGOs found in other democratic societies. As all these organizations gain experience, they will also learn how best to push their agendas by critiquing, lobbying, and otherwise bringing pressure to bear on government movers and shakers.
Legislators and government officials in Taiwan are not yet subjected to the piles of reports, pamphlets, newsletters, journals, op-ed commentaries, press releases, and books produced by think tanks and NGOs in other democratic societies. But their time is coming. The open competition of ideas is fundamental to a free society—but those ideas must be communicated first. Taiwan's think tanks are on the right track, and their continued growth and sophistication is in every one's interests.