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Washington’s foreign policy think tanks are awash in special interest funding. The Quincy Institute recently released a database, found at ThinkTankFundingTracker.org, which allows users to follow these funding relationships for themselves. According to that database and accompanying policy brief, foreign governments contributed $110 million, the U.S. government donated 1.5 billion, and Pentagon contractors gave $35 million to the top U.S. foreign policy think tanks. The investigation also found that over a third of the top think tanks disclose nothing at all about their donors.
While think tanks present themselves as independent and objective actors, the prevalence of special interest funding raises questions of intellectual freedom, self-censorship, and perspective filtering. What role does think tank funding play in influencing U.S. foreign policy, and what can be done?
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