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Abstract
This article examines the involvement of European think tanks (TTs) in transnational TT networks as a particular form of their social capital based on empirical data from website materials and semi-structured interviews with representatives of TTs from Brussels, London, Paris and Ljubljana, their networks and European institutions. This paper built on Bourdieu’s field theory and elements of social network analysis (SNA) contributes to a theory of the relation between fields and social networks. This study shows that positions of field members can be derived from network ties between them using different elements of SNA and Gephi software for the visualization of the TT social capital. Overall, this article argues that transnational TT networks contribute to establishing social boundaries of the transnational field of European TTs horizontally differentiating the TT field from other social fields and vertically transposing it from national to European level. Furthermore, TT social capital manifested in interaction of European TTs in these transnational TT networks determines the relational structure of their transnational TT field due to democratic deficit of the EU transnational administration which incites TTs to establish formally representative groups.
List of [non-official] abbreviations used in figures
| BR | = | Bruegel (Brussels) |
| BS | = | Bertelsmann Stiftung (Germany/Brussels) |
| CAR | = | Carnegie Europe (USA/Brussels) |
| CE | = | Confrontations Europe (France) |
| CEP | = | Center for European Perspective (Slovenia) |
| CEPS | = | Center for European Policy Studies (Brussels) |
| CER | = | Center for European Reform (UK) |
| CIR | = | Center for International Relations (Slovenia) |
| EG | = | Egmont - Royal Institute for International Relations (Brussels) |
| EPC | = | European Policy Center (Brussels) |
| FEPS | = | Foundation for European Progressive Studies (Brussels) |
| FNS | = | Friedrich Naumann Stiftung (Germany/Brussels) |
| FP | = | Fondation pour l’innovation politique (France) |
| GM | = | German Marshall Fund of the United States - Transatlantic Center (USA/Brussels) |
| HSF | = | Hanns Seidel Foundation (Germany/Brussels) |
| IEP | = | Institut für Europäische Politik (Germany) |
| IFRI | = | Institute français des relations internationales (France) |
| IPPR | = | Institute for Public Policy Research (UK) |
| KAS | = | Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (Germany/Brussels) |
| MA | = | Madariaga College of Europe Foundation (Brussels) |
| NE | = | Notre Europe-Jacques Delors Institute (France) |
| PE | = | Policy Exchange (UK) |
| PN | = | Policy Network (UK) |
| RS | = | Robert Schuman Foundation (France) |
| RUSI | = | Royal United Services Institute (UK) |
| SWP | = | Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (Germany/Brussels) |
| TEPSA | = | Trans-European Policy Studies Association (Brussels) |
| WM | = | Wilfried Martens Center for European Studies (Brussels) |
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank the journal editor, editors of this special issue and two anonymous reviewers, as well as participants of the Workshop on Think Tanks in Europe, University of Gothenburg (2017) and of the Panel “Networks in Interest Group Studies,” ECPR General Conference (2020), for providing useful comments on earlier versions of this article.
Notes
1 Translated from French by the author.
2 Translated from French by the author.
3 Translated from French by the author.
4 Besides 8 Brussels-based TTs, I also included 5 German and 2 American TTs with Brussels offices, as well as 1 EU-level TT based in Berlin, because of their intensive activity in these networks.
5 Members here include all types of members (full and associate), but also partners in a wider sense: For example, WMCES’s network includes both member foundations and partner members (see WMCES, Citationn.d.), EIN’s “network” contains list of “think tanks” and “links”: some of them overlap, while CEPS is indicated only as a “link” (EIN, Citationn.d.a.).
6 “Nodes” and “edges” are standard terms in Gephi software.