Institutional dynamics and party think tank development: Britain and Germany compared

ABSTRACT

Official party think tanks have been a fixture in a number of Western European democracies for many decades but not so in the Anglo-American democratic sphere even though think tanks aligned to parties have flourished. This article explores the reasons that party and think tank ties have evolved differently in these two settings through an examination of the party think tank scene in Germany and Britain. It is suggested that the predominant form of democracy operating in each of these settings helps to explain this critical difference. While the adversarial tendencies of the British political system militate against parties taking much of an interest in establishing official party think tanks, the consensual institutional dynamics associated with Germany’s political system has encouraged parties to sponsor their formation, and reinforced the perceived importance of the party think tank vehicle as agents of democratic linkage.

KEYWORDS:

• Party think tanks
• political parties
• consensus democracy
• majoritarian democracy
• political opportunity structures
• Britain
• Germany

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Australia is the exception to this rule, with official party think tanks emerging in the mid-1990s.

2. In March 2016, the Conservative government amended the annual indexation of Short money from retail to consumer price index, imposed new transparency requirements and froze the money awarded under the PDG (Kelly, 2016).

3. For historical data, see Pinto-Duschinsky (1991a).

4. See notes in Table 2 for how these figures were determined.

5. By way of contrast, the German party think tanks are more likely to stress their ability to work independently, as against their independence from any particular set of interests.

6. For example, Nicholas Boles, Jesse Norman, Chris Skidmore and Charlotte Leslie.