This process, though, establishes a counter productive we they relationship between the thinkers and the doers. It assumes that advice as well as action are acts. Both are processes that go on over long periods of time. Analysts stop after analysis because beyond it is the quagmire of politics and administration, yet their advice is dependent upon these very processes and vice versa.
It is necessary to unite both the clients and the researchers in analysis and implementation. The Center for Community Economic Development, a think tank based in Cambridge, already fuses its staff with the people of the communities it serves. Also, the New York City RAND Institute attempts to draw its municipal clients into the research and to allow the researcher to take part in the implementation of the research. The result is an improved recommendation from the think tank that evolves with the client, insuring a better likelihood of action from a client who is wiser and more competent from his participation in the research process.
FOR WHOM DO and should the think tanks work? The government, of course, is the largest and most powerful employer. But it is mostly the executive brand, and even further the top levels of the executive agencies which rely upon the economists, analysts, researchers and specialists. However the current development within think tank into become one's own client. In other words, think tanks by contracting several clients, are obtaining freedom to become their own client since they are not totally responsible to one client. This has its advantages. Working for only the top levels of the government is like writing in the sand. High officials too often fall to the tide of appointments, and elected officials' priorities constantly fluctuate. The limits of time play too risky a role for the think tank to lay all its bets on the instability of government officials.
Analysis is also an instrument of power. Although legislatures hold the purse strings, access to think tanks should move toward working and co-cooperating with the legislatures across the United States, including the U.S. Congress.
How will people accept the increasing intrusion of think tanks into the government? If the think tanks are allowed to become a constructive part of the policy-making process and if there is a fusion between analyst and decision-maker, the probability is that the public will accept it with eagerness. There are four reasons" (1) Elected officials remain responsible for their actions in their own minds and the minds of the public. A high-level official, being human, has no desire to cede authority to anyone else.
Therefore, a strong check on outside decision-making remains. (2) Even if authority is ceded to certain analysts, the authority is usually being ceded by appointed officials. They have no greater legitimacy than any other appointee. (3) The benefits of the analysts outweigh the disadvantages. Analysts are more scientists than politicians. Scientists leave a trail-they leave records that tell you why. Consequently, the public can become aware of their decisions more easily than of the politicians' acts. (4) Concurrently, a radical strengthening of the democratic process results. Scientists bear accountability for their own actions. They make the public decision process more explicit--and this is far more compatible with democratic theory than the incidents in American history when politicians' trails have lain hidden under mounds of bureaucratic red tape or trapped in the minds of silent government officials.
Eventually, though, a balance of power must be struck between the government, including the think tanks, and the government. If we want general participation in policy analysis and execution, effective means of participation must be supplied. Although steps have been taken in this direction by particular think tanks, the government and all analyst groups should provide means through which interest groups can avail themselves of the analysis. There must be an opening of channels of communication between the think tanks and the citizens whom their decision affect.
IF THE PUBLIC does not take advantage of its own intelligence, the management of public opinion will be left to the media. As a result, the top analysts and political leaders will end up talking only to themselves. Advantage must be taken of the awareness and self-steering mechanism of the electorate.
By exerting their influence upon those organs of the government which employ think tanks, mostly within the executive branch, citizens can grasp--feebly but surely--the strings of power that blow in bureaucratic winds. The Pentagon Papers was a beginning. The press has a responsibility to seek out and then inform the public of abuses within the decision-making process of the government. Then, through the force of popular opinion and at the polls, Americans can accept or reject the government's and in particular the think tanks, course of action, or, as with Vietnam, refuse to participate in implementation of policies. The interaction between the public and public policy deserves more definition.
Today, the highest responsibility of the think tank is not to solve problems but to raise the level of competence of its client. Tomorrow, the think tank's supreme responsibility will lie in raising the level of competence of its most important client, the public.