Die Agenda der Elite

Amerikanische Think Tanks und die Strategien der Politikberatung

Abstract

This article examines the role of think tanks and policy-oriented social science in the context of shifting alignments in American politics. During the 1980s, neoconservative intellectuals and businessmen politicized policy expertise through the funding of conservative think tanks and the development of a »counterintelligentsia«. The paper analyzes the impact of this political strategy on the shaping of the national agenda and traces its intluence into the 1990s, in particular policymaking in the Clinton administration. The outcome is a significant change in the relationships linking social science, elite think tanks, and the setting of national policy agendas. The essay concludes with a discussion of the troubling questions this elite relationship poses for the theory and practice of democratic government.