Think Tank Resources
These guides and think tank or nonprofit search engines can help you locate and evaluate think tanks, NGOs, and other organizations that produce policy literature.
- Transparify"Transparify provides the first-ever global rating of the financial transparency of major think tanks. In early 2014, we visited the websites of over 150 think tanks in over 40 countries to find out whether they provide information on who funds them and how much they receive from each source. The good news is that there already is momentumtowards greater transparency. In early 2015, we followed up with a second round of ratings of the same think tanks to see whether their transparency has improved. This momentum has held for our 2016 ratings -- think tanks around the world are becoming more and more transparent."
Selected Think Tanks
- Center on Budget and Policy PrioritiesPolicy analysis and research reports on issues effecting low and moderate-income households.
- Urban InstituteA "nonpartisan economic and social policy research organization" since 1968, the Urban Institute uses its web site to disseminate research briefs and reports on policy issues, including health care, housing, welfare, work & income, economy & taxes, crime & justice. The Policy Jargon Decoder is a useful glossary of public policy terms.
- Economic Policy InstituteEPI is a is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank "that seeks to broaden the public debate about strategies to achieve a prosperous and fair economy". Their web site features briefings, data and reports on economic issues such as minimum wage, trade policies, employment trends.
- Public Agenda OnlineShort, fact-based reports on public opinion and public policy issues. Compiled by Public Agenda, a non-profit research orgnization. Provides regular coverage of 19 topics: abortion, alcohol abuse, America’s global role, crime, the economy, education, the environment, the family, the Federal budget, gambling, health care, illegal drugs, immigration, internet speech/privacy, Medicare, race, right to die, Social Security, and welfare.
- More Think Tanks
Some recent reporting on Think Tanks
Projects
- Policy Agendas Project"Initiated in 1993 ... he Policy Agendas Project developed a coding scheme utilizing 19 major topic and 225 subtopic codes. Codes are assigned based on policy content and are mutually exclusive and exhaustive. All activities are categorized, and each item (such as a congressional hearing) is assigned one and only one category...
The series include Congressional hearings, public laws, roll call votes, Congressional Quarterly coverage, Presidential State of the Union speeches, Executive Orders, Supreme Court cases, a sample of New York Times articles, and Gallup’s Most Important Problem public opinion series. In addition, the Project tabulates Congressional Budget Authority using the Office of Management and Budget’s categorization. We also work with the Congressional Bills Project to make available Congressional bills introduced, and with James Stimson to make available Policy Moods opinion data on an issue-by-issue basis. The total number of observations across all series is almost 260,000 (over 500,000 including Congressional bills)." [Website]
Grey Literature Resources for International Agriculture & Development
Not all websites are created equal! Major nongovernmental organizations and various scholarly associations can be rich and authoritative websites, especially for the kind of grey literature not published in mainstream scholarly journals (including white papers, evaluation reports, training materials, and the like). Below are a few useful places to start.
- Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture, and Development (CIIFAD)This rich site also has a good section of other international resources at Cornell.
- International Initiative for Impact Evaluation"3ie funds impact evaluations and systematic reviews that generate high quality evidence on what works in development and why. Evidence on development effectiveness can inform policy and improve the lives of poor people."
- International Labour OrganizationThe International Labour Organization (ILO) promotes rights at work, encourages decent employment opportunities, enhances social protection and strengthens dialogue in handling work-related issues.
- International Organization for MigrationIOM is an inter-governmental organization that works closely with governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental partners to promote humane and orderly migration by providing services and advice to governments and migrants.