A century of international affairs think tanks in historical perspective

Abstract

This essay surveys the operations of foreign policy think tanks, and how they have functioned to create transnational knowledge networks, since their emergence in the early twentieth century, around the First World War. It discusses how patterns of linkages among foreign policy think tanks changed and evolved over time, and were linked to broader Anglo-American, imperial, and internationalist networks and relationships, and to the changing international political climate and configuration. It suggests some ways in which think tanks contributed to Cold War interchanges between different states, especially to Soviet bloc–Western relations and Asian–Western relations. It concludes by discussing the recent proliferation and frequent globalization of foreign policy think tanks, and suggests how such trends may develop in future. Keywords