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2017 PEA Yearbook
New Governance and New Knowledge Brokers: Think Tanks and Universities as boundary organizations.
Gary Anderson, Pedro De La Cruz, Andrea Lopez, New York University
It is 8:15 a.m. on Friday, February 13, 2015 and the line on the gourmet coffee place assures a minimum 15-minute wait. John takes advantage of the free Wi-Fi to read the morning news on his tablet. After browsing the first couple of pages he reads the headline, “It’s a lesson in pocketing big pensions” on page 8 of the Daily News in Albany (Daily News, February 13, 2015). The headline attracts his attention because he has recently started thinking about his retirement, and the fact that he has no pension worries him. He is shocked and saddened by the facts that are presented in the article.
Apparently, according to a report from the Empire Center for Public Policy, there are almost 4,500 individuals retired from the New York City Teacher’s Retirement System who make over $100,000 per year! Furthermore, according to the same report, this number has increased dramatically in the past six years. John closes his tablet to order his coffee and smiles when he notices that the person ahead of him on the line was reading a similar report on page two of the paper version of The New York Post. Both papers took their data from a report published the day before by the Empire Center for New York State Policy.
Meanwhile, at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), a tenured university professor with over 20 years of research experience presents the findings of her latest research to eight colleagues and seven graduate students. Her research suggests that more top university graduates are choosing to spend some time teaching after college and earning a graduate degree in education, but that nearly all of them leave the teaching profession within two years. The participants in her research cited salaries and working conditions as their top reasons for leaving the profession. The professor has submitted her research for publication in an AERA academic journal.
These two vignettes illustrate two different approaches to mobilizing knowledge. One is disseminating knowledge to the audience of the New York Post with a readership of over 3 million a week, and the other, through an AERA journal with a readership of a few thousand, but likely to have maybe 200 downloads. The Empire Center for Public Policy is a member of the State Policy Network, a right wing network of think tanks, although neither newspaper identified it ideologically.
These articles in several New York newspapers appeared a mere two days after the Empire Center for Public Policy released its report. No other research was cited by the journalist who prepared the report. While this could be attributed to shortcomings of the journalist or short deadlines for articles, it is also because think tanks maintain close relations with journalists and prepare reports that use phraseology and policy-framing that are easily mined for newspaper articles.
According to Dumas and Anderson (2014), “the political right has been successful in using think tanks to provide policy knowledge and frame problems in ways that promote their ideological interests. Educational researchers have a much stronger knowledge base, but have largely struggled unsuccessfully to enter the policy conversation” (p. 9). In fact, with the emergence of ideologically-basedpolicy networks that often present themselves as neutral, universities are increasingly taking a back seat to when it comes to influencing social policy.
One element of the success of conservative policy networks is that they are proactive rather than reactive. This is, in part, because they have a strong ideological alliance, a dense, well-funded network, are committed to cross-sector advocacy, and engage effectively in both political and discursive strategies. Progressive networks, on the other hand, seem to lack a strong ideological alliance, have a more precarious policy network, and have not been very politically or discursively effective (Kovaks & Christie, 2009; Lakoff, 2004).
While educational researchers have for some time been urged to become more policy “relevant,” we want to explore in this chapter what this might mean in terms of the respective locations of universities and think tanks within social fields. Educational researchers have studied other actors within conservative policy networks, such as venture philanthropy (Scott, 2009), consultancies (Gabriel & Paulus, 2014), Edubusinesses (Burch, 2009), public-private partnerships (Scott & DiMartino, 2009), Education Management Organizations (Miron, Urschel, Yat Aguilar, & Dailey, 2011), etc. Think tanks are only one element of these policy networks, but their ability to mobilize knowledge to influence policy has been a challenge to the efficacy of academic researchers.
In this chapter, we explore the success of think tanks, as boundary spanning organizations that have become effective within multiple social fields (knowledge production, media, political, and market) to create and sustain a “common sense” that often ignores evidence based on research and scholarship. We also explore the trade-offs that universities and educational researchers face as they attempt to seek greater influence beyond the knowledge production field. This requires both doing rigorous academic research for academic journals; and competing with think tanks by more aggressively communicating findings in ways policy-makers and the general public might access and utilize (Labaree, 1998).
While some academics seek a more activist stance and are encouraged to behave more like think tanks, there are fundamental problems they face because of their institutional location in social space. Unlike universities, think tanks occupy a unique social space--part journalism, part research, part advocacy, part lobbyist--from which to mobilize knowledge and gain influence in multiple social sectors (Medvetz, 2012). Using Bourdieu’s (1985) concept of social field, we will explore the implications for university-based researchers as think tanks and other producers of knowledge seek to usurp universities as knowledge brokers and influencers of public policy.
New Governance through New Policy Networks
In the post–World War II decades until the 1980s, U.S. educators, represented by their professional associations and unions, had less competition from other policy actors and, therefore a more significant voice in education policy (DeBray, 2006). These interest groups were also part of a knowledge regime based on what Harvey (2005) calls “embedded liberalism,” that is, markets, personal freedoms, and individual choices were
embedded in regulatory and social welfare policies aimed—in theory, at least—at a common good. The schooling of low-income children was viewed as embedded in out-of-school societal supports.
Along with fields like public health and public administration, educational researchers have begun mapping the emergence of new modalities of governance outside the State, but often partnering with the State. These modalities include new global networks of venture philanthropists, foundations, think tanks, and edubusinesses. (Anderson & MontoroDonchick, 2015; Au & Ferrare, 2015; Ball, 2007; 2012; Burch, 2009; Scott, 2009). Their ability to influence education policy has become a challenge to educators and their traditional loose networks of unions, professional associations and university researchers.
These relatively recent policy entrepreneurs have formed powerful policy networks aimed at disembedding markets and individuals from regulatory policies and social welfare protections. Schooling is viewed as disembedded from out-of-school factors that impact children, such as funding levels, access to health care, birth weight, food insecurity, pollution levels, racism, neighborhood effects, and stresses associated with poverty(Berliner, 2009). This process of disembedding requires new policies and new ways of thinking about the individual and society.
New disembedded or neoliberal policy networks have three interconnected primary goals: (1) a critique of and attempt to change public perception of current policies and the creation of a new “common sense” (Gramsci, 1971; Lakoff, 2004); (2) the creation of new policies that dismantle the current infrastructure of embedded liberalism and its replacement by libertarian, free market-friendly policies (Friedman, 1962; Hill, 2010); and (3) the privatization of the policy process itself (Anderson & MontoroDonchek, 2015; Ball, 2012).
Motives behind these goals vary. Some see the public sector as a new source of profit-seeking (See the Education Industry Association), what Harvey (2005) calls capital accumulation by dispossession.Others promote the private sector as more effective and efficient and a model for the public sector to follow (Freidman, 1962). Still others believe that the discipline of the market and high stakes accountability will ensure a more equitable education for low-income students and students of color (See the Progressive policy Institute).
Think tanks represent an important node of new policy networks and are charged with the first goal: the creation of a new common sense through creating political influence and promoting ideological views through the dissemination of knowledge (McGann, 1992). Some researchers present evidence that over time these think tanks have succeeded in moving public opinion in the U.S. rightward (Burris, 2008; Domhoff, 1999; Pescheck, 1987).In the field of education, they have successful in promoting policies to weaken teachers unions, eliminate teacher tenure, give vouchers to parents, increase high stakes testing, contract services to the private sector, create more virtual schools, among others. Thus, they are not only adept at framing and disseminating these ideological views, but also at moving them through state legislatures (Anderson & MontoroDonchik, 2015)
Think Tanks as Knowledge Brokers and Boundary Organizations
Ansel, Reckhow and Kelly (2009) propose the concept of “brokerage” to explain how networks advocate for educational causes. They describe brokers as “people who accrue social capital or have a strategic capacity because of their position in the network”, and a brokerage approach to public policy as focused on “how public policy dynamics are influenced by people in a position to mediate between competing factions or ideas” (p. 721). According to Cooper (2014), among these intermediary, bridging organizations are those that are focused on brokering knowledge or research brokering organizations (RBO).
During the three decades following World War II, academics mainly served as knowledge brokers. Academics such as Kenneth Clark, Patrick Moynahan, and James Coleman influenced social policies around civil rights, Head Start, and education funding. Academics continue to file amicus briefs that influence Supreme Court rulings. Nevertheless, as Weiss (1977) and others have documented, knowledge dissemination by researchers is typically a more diffuse and indirect process, and that, when used directly, is more often used to justify decisions after the fact.
It was to some extent, the perception that liberal academics had some direct and indirect influence on social policy that spurred conservatives and the business community to initiate efforts in the 1980s to create a new set of institutions to counter this perceived liberal advantage. Among these new institutions were think tanks (Rich, 2004). While think tanks were not new, those that existed previously, tended to be viewed as relatively neutral, if not liberal, knowledge producers (e.g., Russel Sage, Brookings) or government contract shops (e.g., Rand). Conservative think tanks, with an explicit ideological and advocacy orientation have proliferated between 1980 and the present.
Conservative think tanks’ network configuration and their connections to media and legislators make them effective knowledge brokers. Many of them work through global networks and many national think tanks operate out of Washington D.C. However, many, such as the Empire Center for New York State Policy from our example above, are operating at the state levels. The Empire Center is a member of the State Policy Network (SPN), which “is made up of free market think tanks - at least one in every state - fighting to limit government and advance market-friendly public policy at the state and local levels.” (State Policy Network, 2012, p. 1). SPN, today heavily funded by the Koch brothers and other venture philanthropists, was set up during the Reagan administration to create smaller versions of the Heritage Foundation in each of the states (Center for Media and Democracy, 2013). These state level think tanks publish reports, actively place op-ed pieces in local newspapers and help coordinate the promotion of neoliberal and neoconservative bills in state legislatures.
SPN and The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) work in tandem. ALEC presents itself as a “public–private partnership,” since it brings together private corporations and state legislators from the public sector to write and promote model bills in state legislatures. But it is more than a public–private partnership. It is a partnership internally—or perhaps more correctly, a strategic alliance—and externally a node within a larger network of think tanks, corporate lobbyists, venture philanthropists,
and advocacy organizations that together form part of the new governance described above. While SPN, like most think tanks, straddles fields, but is centered in the knowledge production field, ALEC is centered in the political field, but claims to operate in the knowledge production field to avoid the transparency and tax implications of being a lobbyist organization (Anderson & MontoroDonchik, 2015).
ALEC and the SPN are both examples of how effectively think tanks work with the media, state legislatures, wealthy individuals and venture philanthropists, and corporations. Using the literature from organizational theory on “boundary spanners” and Eyal’s concept of “spaces between fields,” Medvetz (2012) developed the concept of think-tanks as boundary organizations, “specialized in mediating the relationships among more established fields” (p. 114).
Educational researchers, along with universities in general, form part of the social field of knowledge production. Schools of education, as with all professional schools, are boundary organizations in the sense that they not only produce knowledge, but also train teachers, counselors, and administrators and impact curriculum and instruction in schools. This places them in the interstices between universities and schools--between the social fields of knowledge production and education.
In this sense, schools of education are also boundary organizations and knowledge brokers, as they have struggled with how to make their knowledge relevant to the needs of practitioners. Their position within social fields raises two somewhat different dilemmas, how to create and disseminate knowledge to practitioners in schools and school districts and how to influence education policy through providing research evidence.
Both dilemmas call into question traditional models of knowledge mobilization that posit the creation of knowledge in universities, its dissemination though conferences and journals, and its utilization by practitioners and policymakers. As schools of education are challenged from all sides by alternative pathways to the preparation of teachers and principals and intermediary organizations that are more effective at influencing social and educational policy, this traditional model of knowledge mobilization has come under increasing scrutiny (Dumas & Anderson, 2014).
However, unlike think tanks, schools of education have not made significant inroads into having an impact on the political, media, or economic/market social fields (See Figure 1). As educational researchers attempt to expand their boundaries within these social fields, they experience a series of dilemmas that field theory can help to illuminate (Bourdieu, 1985; 1989; 2005; FligsteinMcAdam, 2015).
Traditionally, the goal of organizations like universities was to accrue power within their own field (i.e., The field of knowledge production in Figure 1). However, as think tanks have effectively accrued power in several social fields, they have changed the rules of the game, forcing university researchers to either consolidate power within their own field, making them less relevant to the others, or venture into other fields. This boundary organization strategy can backfire to the extent that they lose their claim to rigorous and neutral knowledge production[i].
Ironically, universities have been lured into the economic/market social field through the withdrawal of funding by the State and the subsequent pressure on educational researchers to do “sponsored” research, increasingly funded by non-profit and for-profit (e.g., Microsoft) organizations as well as increasingly underfunded government agencies. Moving into this social field may call into question the extent to which educational researchers are seen as doing independent research. University researchers in more lucrative fields, such as computer sciences and engineering, are even more compromised by producing knowledge that serves commercial interests (Ward, 2012). While moving into the political social field is perceived as risky in terms of being viewed as policy advocates (like think tanks), the move into the economic/market field has led to charges of academic capitalism (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004).