It is often assumed that think tanks carry enormous weight with lawmakers. In "Do Think Tanks Matter?" Donald Abelson argues that the basic question of how think tanks have evolved and under what conditions they can and do have an effect is consistently ignored. Think tank directors often credit their institutes with influencing major policy debates and government legislation and many journalists and scholars believe the explosion of think tanks in the latter part of the twentieth century indicates their growing importance in the policy-making process. Abelson goes beyond assumptions, identifying the influence and relevance of public policy institutes in today's political arena in the United States, where they've become an integral feature of the political landscape, and in Canada, where, despite recent growth in numbers, they enjoy less prominence than their US counterparts. By focusing on the policy cycle, issue articulation, policy formation, and implementation, Abelson argues that individual think tanks have sometimes played an important role in shaping the political dialogue and the policy preferences and choices of decision-makers but often in different ways and at different stages of the policy cycle. This revised and updated edition of the book includes up-to-date data (2000-08) on the growing visibility and policy relevance of think tanks in Canada and the United States....

"A Capitol Idea" reveals the extent to which think tanks in the United States have become active and vocal participants in the foreign policy-making process. In this timely exploration, Donald Abelson re-evaluates the role of these complex organizations and looks at how political influence is achieved on Capitol Hill and in the White House. Abelson focuses on a host of high profile think tanks - including the Brookings Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Project for the New American Century - and on the public and private channels they rely on to influence important and controversial foreign policies, including the development and possible deployment of a National Missile Defense and George Bush's controversial War on Terror. In the process of uncovering how some of the nation's most prominent think tanks have established themselves as key players in the political arena, he challenges traditional approaches to assessing policy influence and suggests alternative models....