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Intel - Think Tanks

 

"In God we trust.
All others we monitor."
 

  Economics | History | Intelligence | Military | Regions | Religion | Terrorism | 

  
    

Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies  
  • Founded: 1968
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  • Location: Egypt
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American Civil Liberties Union
  • Description: The ACLU was founded by Roger Baldwin, Crystal Eastman, Albert DeSilver and others in 1920. We are nonprofit and nonpartisan and have grown from a roomful of civil liberties activists to an organization of more than 500,000 members and supporters. We handle nearly 6,000 court cases annually from our offices in almost every state. The ACLU has maintained the position that civil liberties must be respected, even in times of national emergency. The ACLU is supported by annual dues and contributions from its members, plus grants from private foundations and individuals. We do not receive any government funding.

American Conservative Union
  • Description:  Large conservative political lobbying group in the United States. The group is a major supporter of the Republican Party. They are well-known for their ranking of politicians according to how they voted on key issues, providing a numerical indicator of how much the lawmakers agreed with ACU. These scores are often used in political science research.

American Enterprise Institute
  • Description: Mission is to support the "foundations of freedom - limited government, private enterprise, vital cultural and political institutions, and a strong foreign policy and national defense." The Institute is an independent, nonprofit organization supported primarily by grants and contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals.

American Foreign Policy Council
  • Description: Played an essential role in the US foreign policy debate since 1982. AFPC is a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing information to those who make or influence the foreign policy of the United States and to assisting world leaders, particularly in the former USSR, with building democracies and market economies.

Amnesty International
  • Description: Essentially it compares actual practices of human rights with internationally accepted standards and demands compliance where these have not been respected. It works to mobilize public opinion in the belief that it is this which has the power to exert pressure on those who perpetrate abuses.

Arms Control Association
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Aspen Institute
  • Description: In 1945, Paepcke visited the decaying former mining town of Aspen in the Roaring Fork Valley and was inspired by its natural beauty, envisioning that it could be transformed into a place where artists, leaders, thinkers, musicians from all over the world could gather in a place secluded from their daily lives. In 1949, in order to help fulfill his vision, Paepcke organized a 20-day international celebration for the 200th birthday of German poet and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Benador Associates
  • Description: Benador Associates, founded in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, and which has been instrumental in servicing public opinion worldwide by providing political information at the time not readily available on one single website, is announcing important changes as of winter 2007.

British American Security Information Council
  • Description: It deals with global security issues, such as nuclear policies, armament and disarmament.

Brookings Institute
  • Description: The Brookings Institution is a center-left think tank. Of the 200 most prominent think tanks in the U.S., the Brookings Institution studies are the third most-cited of all public policy institutes by Members of Congress, behind only the Heritage Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Canadian Institute of International Affairs
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Canadian Institute Strategic Studies
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  • Location: Canada
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Carnegie Council on Ethics in International Affairs
  • Description: A New York City-based foreign policy think tank. Founded in 1914, and originally named Church Peace Union, Carnegie Council is an independent and nonpartisan institution, aiming to be the foremost voice of ethics in international affairs. The Council focuses on, Ethics, War and Peace, Global Social Justice, and Religion in Politics as its three main themes. The Carnegie Council is separate and independent from all other Carnegie philanthropies.

Carnegie Endowment International Peace
  • Description: Dedicated to advancing cooperation between nations and promoting active international engagement by the United States.

Carter Center
  • Description: Organization founded by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter. The Atlanta-based Carter Center has helped to improve the quality of life for people in more than 65 countries. In partnership with Emory University, the Center is committed to advancing human rights and alleviating unnecessary human suffering.

Cato Institute
  • Description: Advocates policies that advance "individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.” Scholars are libertarian in their policy positions, typically advocating diminished government intervention in domestic, social, and economic policies and decreased military and political intervention worldwide. Specific policy proposals advanced by Cato scholars include such measures as abolishing the minimum wage, reforming illegal-drug policies, eliminating corporate welfare and trade barriers, diminishing federal government involvement in the marketplace and in local and state issues, enhanced school choice, and abolishing government-enforced discrimination along with restrictions on discrimination by private parties.

CENSA
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  • Location: USA
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  • Description: Seeks to become the premier venue for virtual collaboration in addressing emerging national security affairs and policy renewal.

Center of Concern
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  • Location: USA
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Center for Defense Information
  • Description: organization composed partially of academics and a few retired high-ranking military officers formed for the purpose of critical analysis of United States defense policy.

Center for Global Food Issues
  • Description: The Center for Global Food Issues is a project of the Hudson Institute, a conservative US think-tank. The Center has received criticism from the Union of Concerned Scientists and other organizations.

Center for International Policy
  • Description: Founded by diplomats and former peace activists in the wake of the Vietnam War. The Center campaigned to ensure that a government's human rights record became a factor in allocating aid. They also played a role in Central America's post conflict reconciliation, the effort to end the embargo on Cuba, and efforts to limit U.S. military assistance to the Western Hemisphere, especially Colombia. In the 1990's the Center expanded its agenda to include reform of the national intelligence agencies.

Center for Non-Proliferation Studies
  • Description: The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) strives to combat the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by training the next generation of nonproliferation specialists and disseminating timely information and analysis. CNS at the Monterey Institute of International Studies is the largest nongovernmental organization in the United States devoted exclusively to research and training on nonproliferation issues. Dr. William Potter established the Center in 1989 with a handful of Institute students. Today, CNS has a full-time staff of more than 40 specialists and over 50 graduate student research assistants located in offices in Monterey, Washington, DC, and Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Center for Security Policy
  • Description: Specializes in identifying policies, actions, and resource needs that it believes are vital to American security; many of its most prominent members have been characterized as neoconservatives.

Center for Strategic & International Studies
  • Description: Conducts policy studies and strategic analyses on political, economic and security issues.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
  • Description: A "policy organization ... working at the federal and state levels on fiscal policy and public programs that affect low- and moderate-income families and individuals."

Chatam House (RIIA)
  • Description: The Royal Institute of International Affairs was founded in 1920 as the Institute of International Affairs following a meeting at the previous year's Paris Peace Conference. The first chairman was Robert Cecil, while Lionel Curtis served as honorary secretary. Arnold J. Toynbee later became director. The Council on Foreign Relations, its American sister institute, was established the following year.

Claremont Institute
  • Description: The institute publishes the Claremont Review of Books, a quarterly journal of political thought and statesmanship, as well as other books and publications, including reprints of Jaffa's works. It is known for espousing a legal philosophy called Declarationism whereby the United States Declaration of Independence is treated as a legal document and component of the government's organizing doctrines alongside the United States Constitution. Most of the Institute's members are followers of the teachings of Leo Strauss including Jaffa, who was a student of Strauss.

Competitive Enterprise Institute
  • Description: CEI's stated belief is that consumers are best helped not by government regulation of commercial interests, but by consumers being allowed to make their own choices in a free marketplace.

Council for a Livable World
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  • Location: USA
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Council on Foreign Relations
  • Description: Came about as a result of a meeting on May 30, 1919, at the Hotel Majestic in Paris. Some of the fifty participants were Edward M. House, Harold Temperley, Lionel Curtis, Lord Eustace Percy, Herbert Hoover, Christian Herter, Paul Warburg, and American academic historians James Thomson Shotwell of Columbia University, Archibald Coolidge of Harvard and Charles Seymour of Yale.

Economic Policy Institute
  • Description: Founded "to broaden the discussion about economic policy to include the interests of low- and middle-income workers," It states as its mission, "to provide high-quality research and education in order to promote a prosperous, fair, and sustainable economy."

Federalist Society
  • Description: Seeks to promote the ideology set forth in its "Statement of Principles" through its activities. In working to achieve these goals, the Society has created a network of intellectuals that extends to all levels of the legal community. The Student Division has more than 5,000 law students as members and, through the national office's network of legal experts, the Society provides speakers for differing viewpoints at law school events. The activities of the Student Division are complemented by the activities of the Lawyers Division, which comprises more than 20,000 legal professionals, and the Faculty Division, which includes many in the academic legal community.

Foreign Policy Research Institute
  • Description: The Institute conducts research on geopolitics, international relations, and international security in the various regions of the world as well as on ethnic conflict, U.S. national security, terrorism, and on think tanks themselves. It publishes a quarterly journal, Orbis, as well as a series of monographs and books. It publishes bulletins distributed electronically about 50 times a year.

Fraser Institute
  • Description: Libertarian think tank based in Canada. In terms of Canadian political terminology, it is fiscally conservative. Its mandate is to advocate for competitive markets to better provide for the economic and social well-being of all Canadians. It is critical of government spending, high taxes, government deficits, and generally any government action that cannot be supported by Libertarian principles.

Heartland Institute
  • Description: The Heartland Institute features an Internet application called PolicyBot which serves as a clearinghouse for conservative research from other think tanks

Henry L. Stimson Center
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Heritage Foundation
  • Description: Influential research institute...stated mission is to "formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense." Its operations have transformed the traditional concept of the "think tank" and have had a significant impact on the domestic and foreign policies of the United States government.

Hudson Institute
  • Description: founded by the futurist Herman Kahn and other colleagues from the RAND Corporation. The Institute promotes public policy change in accordance with its stated values of a "commitment to free markets and individual responsibility, confidence in the power of technology to assist progress, respect for the importance of culture and religion in human affairs, and determination to preserve America's national security." It is the organization about which the phrase "think tank" was originally coined.

Human Rights Watch
  • Description: Produces research reports on violations of international human rights norms as set out by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other internationally-accepted human rights norms. This is intended to draw international attention to abuses and to put pressure on governments and international organizations to reform. Researchers conduct fact-finding missions to investigate suspect situations and generate coverage in local and international media.

Independent Institute
  • Description: Institute sponsors studies of major political, social, economic, legal, environmental and foreign policy issues. It has more than 140 research fellows. The Institute was originally established in San Francisco, and was re-located in 1989 to Oakland. In 2006 the Institute opened an office in Washington, D.C.

Institute for Economic Affairs
  • Founded: 
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  • Location: Britain
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  • Description: The mission of the Institute of Economic Affairs is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems.
    The IEA achieves its mission by:
    - a high quality publishing programme
    - conferences, seminars and lectures
    - outreach to university, college and school students
    - brokering media introductions and appearances;
    - and other related activities

Institute for International Economics (Peterson Institute)
  • Description: Focused on international economics,

Institute for Public Accuracy
  • Description: Encourages mainstream news media to interview alternative sources.

Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation
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International Alert
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International Conflict Research
  • Founded: 
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  • Location: Britain
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International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Herzliya
  • Founded: 1996
  • Funding: ICT relies exclusively on private donations and revenue from events, projects and programs.
  • Location: Israel
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  • Description: Among ICT's activities are academic courses, seminars, conferences, research and publication of papers, articles and commentaries, consulting and training, threat assessment, legal assistance, lectures and workshops. The ICT administers the largest public domain research database on the Internet of terrorist organizations, activists and incidents from 1988 to the present time.

International Institute for Strategic Studies
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International Peace Bureau
  • Description: the world's oldest international peace federation.

International Peace Academy
  • Description: Research and policy development institution created with support from UN Secretary-General, originally with the purpose of studying UN peacekeeping and developing peacekeeping doctrine.

International Peace Research Institute, Oslo
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ISN: International Relations and Security Network
  • Description:  Free public service that provides a range of products and resources to encourage the exchange of information among international relations and security professionals worldwide.

International Studies Association
  • Founded: 1959
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  • Location: USA
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  • Description: The International Studies Association (ISA) was founded in 1959 to promote research and education in international affairs. With well over four thousand members in North America and around the world, ISA is the most well respected and widely known scholarly association in this field. ISA cooperates with 57 international studies organizations in over 30 countries, is a member of the International Social Science Council, and has nongovernmental consultative status with the United Nations.

Ludwig von Mises Institute
  • Description: The Ludwig von Mises Institute was established in 1982 under the direction of Margit von Mises, widow of Ludwig von Mises, who chaired its board until her death in 1993. The founder and current president is Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
  • Description: Influential New York City-based free market think tank. Their self-described mission is to "develop and disseminate new ideas that foster greater economic choice and individual responsibility." The Institute supports and publicizes research on taxes, welfare, crime, the legal system, urban life, race, education and immigration among others.

National Center for Policy Analysis
  • Description: Develops and promotes private alternatives to government regulation and control, solving problems by relying on the strength of the competitive, entrepreneurial private sector. Topics include reforms in health care, taxes, Social Security, welfare, education and environmental regulation.

National Democratic Institute for International Affairs
  • Description: Since 1983, NDI has forged strong ties with political, civic and governmental leaders and organizations in more than 100 countries. The Institute also has produced training materials, reports and statements, as well as assisted local democratic forces with developing customized materials to advance democratic values, practices and institutions in their own countries. Access Democracy is designed to provide access to the best of this information, and facilitate contacts and discourse among democratic advocates. The Internet makes possible this shared global dialogue unimagined even a decade ago. Headquartered in Washington, D.C. with field offices in all regions of the world

National Endowment for Democracy
  • Description: Founded in 1983, purportedly to help train people in democracy and manage money grants from the U.S. Congress to that effect. Although administered by a private organization, its funding comes almost entirely from a governmental appropriation by Congress. The NED is sometimes referred to as "Project Democracy", an appellation favored by Lt. Colonel Oliver North

Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers
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Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
  • Description: In consultative status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The foundation is a catalyst in enhancing global security by initiating and supporting efforts to reduce nuclear dangers; strengthening international law and institutions; and working to inspire and empower a new generation of peace leaders.

Project for the New American Century
  • Description: Neo-conservative think tank, based in Washington, DC co-founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan. The group was established in early 1997 as a non-profit organization with the goal of promoting American global leadership.

Public Agenda
  • Founded: 1975
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  • Location: USA
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  • Description:  For over a quarter of a century, Public Agenda has been providing unbiased and unparalleled research that bridges the gap between American leaders and what the public really thinks about issues ranging from education to foreign policy to immigration to religion and civility in American life. Nonpartisan and nonprofit, Public Agenda was founded by social scientist and author Daniel Yankelovich and former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance in 1975. Public Agenda's two-fold mission is to help:
    * American leaders better understand the public's point of view.
    * Citizens know more about critical policy issues so they can make thoughtful, informed decisions.

RAND Corporation
  • Description: Nonprofit global policy think tank first formed to offer research and analysis to the United States armed forces. The organization has since expanded to working with other governments, private foundations, international organizations, and commercial organizations.

Reason Foundation
  • Description: Publishes Reason magazine. Reason is self-described as nonpartisan and publishes a statement of values that can best be described as libertarian.

Resources for the Future
  • Description: RFF researchers publish consistently in the most respected peer-reviewed journals and are valued by academic colleagues around the world for their scholarly contributions and analysis. As an organization dedicated to both fundamental research studies as well as highly applied analysis, RFF is honored to have a Nobel Laureate serving on its Board of Directors. Through briefings, seminars, conferences, congressional testimony, print publications, and audio and video streaming on our web site, research findings and analytic insights are widely circulated to journalists and policymakers as well as environmental advocates and business leaders. RFF’s Staff of over 100 people in the Washington headquarters is supplemented by 20 University Fellows, 4 academic Fellowship and Internship programs that have supported numerous scholars and students, and a network of scholars and practitioners that span the globe from Uganda and China to Mexico and Russia.

Saban Center for Middle East Policy
  • Description: In May 2002, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy was launched with a special address by His Majesty King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to a select audience of policymakers in Washington, D.C. With the addition of the Saban Center, the Brookings Institution has rapidly become one of the most dynamic centers for research and analysis of U.S. policy in the Middle East. It was founded with the help of prominent Los Angeles businessman Haim Saban, who made a generous initial grant and pledged additional funds to endow the Center. Under the leadership of Director Martin S. Indyk and Director of Research Kenneth M. Pollack, the Saban Center fosters research and discussion on some of the most crucial problems facing the United States today. The Saban Center draws on a diverse staff with expertise in such issues as regime change and nation building in Iraq, Palestinian-Israeli peace, and U.S. Relations with the Islamic World. As an integral part of the Foreign Policy Studies program, directed by Carlos Pascual, the Center provides a forum for all Brookings scholars engaged in Middle East-related research.

Social Science Research Council
  • Description: The Social Science Research Council is an independent, not-for-profit research organization founded in 1923. Based in New York City, it mobilizes researchers, policy makers, professionals, activists, and other experts from the private and public sectors to develop innovative approaches to issues of critical social importance. The SSRC is committed to the idea that social science can produce necessary knowledge—necessary for citizens to understand their societies and necessary for policy makers to decide on crucial questions.

Stockholm International Peace Research
  • Description: Founded to commemorate 150 years of unbroken peace in Sweden. Its task is to conduct scientific research into questions of conflict and cooperation of importance for international peace and security, in order to contribute to an understanding of the conditions for peaceful solutions of international conflicts and for a stable peace.

Strategic Studies Institute
  • Description: US Army's institute for geostrategic and national security research and analysis. It is part of the U.S. Army War College.

Stratfor
  • Description: Strategic Forecasting, Inc., more commonly known as Stratfor, is a private intelligence agency founded in 1996 in Austin, Texas. Barron's once referred to it as "The Shadow CIA". George Friedman is the founder, chief intelligence officer, and CEO of the company. Fred Burton is Stratfor's Vice President for Counterterrorism and Corporate Security.

TransAfrica Forum
  • Description: TransAfrica Forum is the oldest and largest African American human rights and social justice advocacy organization promoting diversity and equity in the foreign policy arena and justice for the African World. TransAfrica Forum envisions a world where Africans and people of African descent are self-reliant, socially and economically prosperous, and equal participants in a just international system structured to benefit their self-determined governments and peoples.

TRANSCEND
  • Description: TRANSCEND was founded August 1993 by Johan Galtung and Fumiko Nishimura, Otto Scharmer and Katrin KSufer as a conflict mediation organization, based on Galtung's experience with 20 conflicts over 35 years. Dietrich Fischer joined, and the real start was 19 June 1995 when Fischer and Galtung from Switzerland invited 11 others. The Executive Committee consists at present of Galtung director, Fischer co-director, and Katrin KSufer treasurer.
    Thus, TRANSCEND is a "virtual" organization. Very frequent internal communication is mainly by e-mail. Our very limited funds have so far only permitted one face-to-face meeting of members: at Taplow Court December 1999.

Transnational Foundation for Peace
  • Founded: 1986
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  • Location: Sweden
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  • Description: TFF is an independent think tank, a global network and a website for peace by peaceful means. It inspires a passion for peace from the grassroots to the corridors of power. TFF is an all-volunteer global network. It promotes conflict-mitigation and reconciliation in general and in selected conflict regions through meticulous on-the-ground research, active listening, education and advocacy. TFF is predominantly people-financed, and operates on donations from citizens who sympathize with our goals and methods. Next, it is based on unpaid voluntary work by all Associates, the founders, assistants, etc. Among the grant-givers and donors over the years are the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1991-1999), Stockholm; the Alva & Gunnar Myrdal Foundation, Greenpeace International, the Futura Foundation, the Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of Research, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, England; Apple-Macintosh Sweden, the Swedish International Development Authority, SIDA, Soka Gakkai International, Japan, Polden-Puckham, England and the Folke Bernadotte Academy in Sweden.

Transnational Institute
  • Founded: 1974
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  • Location: USA
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  • Description: Founded in 1974, the Transnational Institute (TNI) is an international network of activist-scholars committed to critical analyses of the global problems of today and tomorrow, with a view to providing intellectual support to those movements concerned to steer the world in a democratic, equitable and environmentally sustainable direction. In the spirit of public scholarship, and aligned to no political party, TNI seeks to create and promote international co-operation in analysing and finding possible solutions to such global problems as militarism and conflict, poverty and marginalisation, social injustice and environmental degradation.

Urban Institute
  • Description: n the mid-1960s, President Johnson saw the need for independent nonpartisan analysis of the problems facing America's cities and their residents. The President created a blue-ribbon commission of civic leaders who recommended chartering a center to do that work. In 1968, the Urban Institute became that center. Today, we analyze policies, evaluate programs, and inform community development to improve social, civic, and economic well-being. We work in all 50 states and abroad in over 28 countries, and we share our research findings with policymakers, program administrators, business, academics, and the public online and through reports and scholarly books.

US Institute for Peace
  • Description: The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan, national institution established and funded by Congress. Its goals are to help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, promote post-conflict stability and development, and increase peacebuilding capacity, tools, and intellectual capital worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering others with knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by directly engaging in peacebuilding efforts around the globe.