Think Tanks, Foreign Policy and the Emerging Powers

Journal of Rising Powers and Global Governance Volume 2, Issue 1, 2021, 51-55

Book Review

ink Tanks, Foreign Policy and the Emerging

Powers

James G. McGann (ed.)

Think Tanks, Foreign Policy and the Emerging Powers (Palgrave Macmillan,

2019), xxx + 456 pp. 59,99 € (Hardcover),

ISBN 978-3-319-60311-7

Zhou Wenxing

Nanjing University, Nanjing

[email protected]

All rising powers, or emerging powers, are not rising in vacuum; they are con-

fronted with a variety of challenges at home and abroad. How to meet these

external challenges and thus make their rise more smoothly vis-à-vis the status

quo power (aka established power) have not only bothered the leadership of these

countries, but also concerned International Relations (IR) scholars and foreign

policy experts. e current literature makes great contribution to people’s under-

standing of grand strategies that rising powers pursue.

But these research fails

to demonstrate where these “grand strategies” are from, or how they are made,

and who made them. e volume ink Tanks, Foreign Policy and the Emerging

Powers edited by James G. McGann has shed some light on these questions by

concentrating on the role of security and international aairs (SIA) think tanks in

emerging powers and illustrating how these policy institutions facilitate to cope

with challenges via designing, revising and legitimizing foreign policy in the ever-

changing context of world politics.

James G. McGann is a senior lecturer in International Studies at the Lauder

Institute and senior fellow at Fels Institute of Government, University of Penn-

sylvania. He is also a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a

well-known SIA think tank based in Philadelphia. As director of the Lauder

Institute’s ink Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP), Dr. McGann has

been examining the evolving role and character of think tanks since the incep-

tion of TTCSP in 1989 by collecting data and conducting research on think

See, for example, Mares, David R. & Trinkunas, Harold A. 2016. Aspirational Power: Brazil on the

Long Road to Global Influence. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press; Leverett, Flynt & Wu,

Bingbing. 2016. The New Silk Road and China’s Evolving Grand Strategy. The China Journal, no.77,

pp.110-132; Pardesi, Manjeet S. 2017. American Global Primacy and the Rise of India. Honolulu,

Hawai’i: East-West Center.

Zhou Wenxing

tank trends in policymaking process. Referred to as the “think tanks’ think tank,”

TTCSP has developed and launched its rst annual Global Go to ink Tank

Index Report since 2007. Dr. McGann has authored more than fteen books on

think tanks in the past thirty plus years.

e volume under review is one of the latest books on think tanks by Dr. Mc-

Gann. It aims to “explore how security and international aairs [SIA] think tanks

in emerging powers collaborate with their policy-makers to meet current and

anticipate future foreign policy and security challenges” (pp.13-14). To achieve

this goal, the book examines 12 think tank cases that are broken down into four

parts and 25 chapters by region, i.e., Part II Africa (Nigeria and South Africa:

Chapter 5-8), Part III Asia (China, India, Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam:

Chapter 9-19), Part IV Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico: Chapter

20-25), and Part V Middle East (Qatar and Turkey: Chapter 26-29). e four

parts explicate the unique foreign policy challenges that the emerging powers

face and strategies that have been developed to eectively respond to these policy

issues by think tanks. e introduction part is composed of 4 chapters, in which

Chapter 1 and 2 provide a detailed exposition of the literature on and evolution

of SIA think tanks and the role they have played in shaping foreign and defense

policies; Chapter 3 analyzes the changing character and context of world politics

and the role of emerging powers in the multipolar world; Chapter 4 examines

the denition of “emerging powers” and their main groupings and development.

e conclusion part contains the sole Chapter 30, which assesses the ongoing

trends and major challenges for SIA think tanks in rising powers by comparing

the think tank cases analyzed in the volume and provides some suggestions for

future research.

e case studies in this book show that think tanks “have become a permanent

part of the political landscape and are now an integral part of the policy process

in many countries” “irrespective of their structure or level of autonomy” (p.8).

For example, the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS) actively con-

ducts track-two diplomacy and denes the Chinese role in the Responsibility to

Protect (R2P) and energy security and development (Chapter 10) while the AI

Jazeera Center for Studies (AJSC) in Qatar serves as a gateway for the world with

scientic research in knowledge disseminated through the media and strategic

thinking in the Arab world. When comparing with dierent cases of think tanks

contained in the book, the editor arrives at some interesting conclusions. It is

argued that dierent think tanks emphasize varying agendas. Concretely speak-

ing, “most Asian think tanks have research strands on reginal organization on

the continent, while the Latin American counterparts focus on their own region”

(p.423). e volume also points out that “emerging-power think tanks are situated

in critical regions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and their local expertise pro-

ink Tanks, Foreign Policy and the Emerging Powers

vides in-depth and expert analyses of reginal events with a global impact” (p.424).

It is needless to say that these think tanks have made great achievements and

contributed to the development of emerging powers in which they are located by

in-depth theoretical research and policy analysis. However, they are confronted

with various, and sometimes shared, problems. For example, both the Nigerian

Institute of International Aairs (NIIA) and the AJSC suer from the lack of

funding, while many other think tanks such as the CIIS are yet to broaden the

scope of research, enhance the depth and systematicity of studies, and double

down eorts to deal with relations with government as well as overcome leader-

ship challenges.

An outgrowth of the G20 Foreign Policy ink Tank Summit between TTCSP

and Brazil’s Fundação getulio Vargas (FVG) in 2012,

the edited volume is also

a product presenting Dr. McGann’s decades-long experience of research of and

consulting on think tanks. Some major merits in the book are worth mentioning.

Firstly, the cases are properly selected from the TTCSP database of nearly 7,000

think tanks worldwide based on “a clearly articulated mission and programs that

are focused on SIA research,” “a date of establishment that spanned the Cold

War period and fell within the overall parameters of the longitudinal study,” and

“a globally representative set of think tanks for the study” (pp.14-15). By doing

this, secondly, it makes these cases comparable and helps target shared challenges,

paving the way for solutions to improve the development of think tanks in emerg-

ing powers at large. irdly, the insider insights by contributors, most of who are

managers and research fellows at the think tanks they analyze, make arguments of

this volume more convincing. Lastly, the structure of this book also deserves rec-

ognition. An overview of the emerging power provided before the think tank(s) of

this country is (are) examined, for instance, makes the book more reader-friendly.

e appendix provides readers with detailed analysis of the relations between the

correlation of events with the category of think tanks established in rising powers.

However, it does not mean that the book is without any demerits. For example,

in the case of China, where the past decades have witnessed the upsurge of all

types of think tanks and their growing inuence in foreign policy, it is suggested

to introduce and analyze a private/social think tank so as to open another window

to observe the second largest power.

e volume edited by McGann has provided quite a novel insight into the role

think tanks play in emerging powers, particularly their contribution in “aiding the

transition and, most importantly, aiding the transformation of the nation’s foreign

policy to better reect its changing status globally” (p.11). In the post-COV-

ID-19 era where the great-power competition between China and the United

For details of the summit, see Doherty, Christopher, et al. 2012. G20 Foreign Policy Think Tank Sum-

mit: Summit Report, https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=ttcsp_

summitreports.

Zhou Wenxing

States is more likely to intensify, think tanks in both countries are expected to

take more responsibility in smoothing the power transition. Taking into account

of think tanks’ advantage of collaborating separate groups of researchers and en-

gaging stakeholders in the policy process, think tanks from outside China and

the United States could and should also play a due role in preventing the two

powers from heading into the alleged ucydides’ trap. In this case, this book is

recommended to practitioners, including policy makers and diplomates as well as

think tank managers. People who have strong interests in public/foreign policy,

international development, and IRs, particularly teachers and students of IRs and

political science would also nd it helpful and interesting.

Bio

ZHOU Wenxing is currently Assistant Professor at School of Government, and

Research Fellow at Huazhi Institute for Global Governance, Nanjing University.

He was Asia Fellow at John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Univer-

sity (2017-2018). Dr. Zhou’s research focuses on U.S. think tanks and American

foreign policy, the Taiwan issue, China-U.S. relations and Asia-Pacic IRs.

ink Tanks, Foreign Policy and the Emerging Powers