Thursday, September 7th, 2006
Ideas Have Huge Consequences, Global Think Tank Survey Shows
ARLINGTON, VA., – When scholars and historians look back at the late 20th and the early 21st century and analyze why some developing countries advanced politically and economically, while others stagnated or regressed, they likely will find a strong correlation between the amount of progress in a country and its tolerance of western ideas, according to a leading authority on international think tanks.“The kinds of independent organizations known in the United States as think tanks produce the intellectual DNA necessary for positive change,” said Alejandro (“Alex”) Chafuen, president of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. “In countries where such academic and intellectual institutions are allowed to flourish, freedom is likely to flourish. In countries that don’t tolerate such institutions, freedom has great difficulty taking root,” he said.
To illustrate this point, Chafuen’s Arlington, Va.-based nonprofit organization examined civil liberties and economic and political freedoms in countries with and without independent think tanks. Three widely respected global indices were used for the comparisons: the 2006 Freedom House “ Global Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties, ” the 2005 “ Economic Freedom of the World ” survey co-published by the Fraser Institute of Vancouver, Canada and some 50 other organizations around the world, and the 2006 Wall Street Journal/Heritage Foundation “ Index of Economic Freedom. ”
In an overwhelming number of cases, the Atlas review showed, countries with the worst scores on the three indices had few, if any, independent organizations advocating “liberal” western ideas.
The Atlas survey showed:
- The most repressed countries have the fewest western-style think tanks. The majority of African and Middle Eastern countries, the two regions that scored the worst on the three indices, had the fewest independent institutions advocating private property rights, limited government under the rule of law, and other freedoms – free press, freedom of association, religious freedom, etc. – that serve as the basis of western law, tradition, and intellectual thought. The vast majority of countries in these regions had no such institutions. Indeed, just seven of 42 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and seven of 19 countries in North Africa, the Middle East and Persian Gulf boasted such organizations, Atlas found. In the two regions, the countries with the greatest number of think tanks were Israel (five such institutions) and South Africa (seven). By comparison, 19 of 30 Asian countries, 19 former Soviet Bloc countries in Central and Eastern Europe (including Russia), and 20 of 26 Latin American countries had western-style think tanks.
- Countries that deny civil and political liberties appear most hostile to organizations supporting western ideas. The proof is in the data, Atlas reported, with 33 of the 45 countries with the lowest rating, “Not Free,” on the 2006 Freedom House “Global Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties,” having no independent think tanks. The exceptions were Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Haiti, Iraq, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. Among the worst of the worst, the eight countries scoring at the bottom in both civil liberties and political freedom – Burma, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – none had freely operating think tanks.
- Countries that obstruct economic freedom also appear hostile to such organizations. The Atlas survey similarly found that 33 of the 45 countries with the lowest ratings on the 2006 Wall Street Journal/Heritage Foundation “Index of Economic Freedom” also had no independent think tanks and policy organizations. The exceptions were Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Malawi, Nigeria, Russia, Venezuela and Vietnam. Among the 12 countries with the worst scores on the Journal/Heritage “Index” – countries categorized as economically “unfree” (Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Nigeria, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe) – only three had western-style think tanks: Belarus, Haiti, and Venezuela. Similarly, just 19 of the 42 countries with the worst scores in the Fraser Institute survey had organizations advocating western-style freedoms.
INTIMIDATION NOT UNCOMMON
While repressive countries may permit think tanks and policy organizations to exist, many of them harass, intimidate and even threaten the leaders of those organizations, Atlas officials reported. In Belarus, for example, the executive director of the Mises Scientific Research Center, Jaroslav Romanchuk, has repeatedly had his computer confiscated by the government and now operates mostly “under the radar” for fear of possible reprisals. In Venezuela, travel visas for long-time think tank executives – such as Aurelio Concheso, president of the Center for the Dissemination of Economic Knowledge (CEDICE) in Caracas – routinely arrive at the last minute or are denied, making it almost impossible to leave the country.
“History shows that ideas come first,” said Atlas President Alex Chafuen. “Freedoms follow. If the free flow of ideas is inhibited or prohibited, progress and freedom will be retarded and people will be repressed.”
For purposes of their analysis, the Atlas survey included all of the countries in five regions: 1) Asia and the Pacific; 2) Latin America (including Mexico); 3) the non-Asian countries (including Russia) of the former Soviet Union; 4) the Middle East, North Africa and Persian Gulf (including Israel and Turkey), and 5) Sub-Saharan Africa.
Although think tanks have existed in the United States since the beginning of the 20th century, and have existed in some developing countries for decades, there were relatively few such institutions until just a decade or so ago. Today, Atlas works with some five dozen in the Asia-Pacific region, more than seven dozen in Russia and Eastern and Central Europe, and more than 100 in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Argentina has the most such institutions in the five regions that Atlas analyzed: with at least 30. Other countries with active intellectual networks include India (with 12 such institutes), Poland, Bulgaria and Brazil (each with 10), Mexico, the Philippines and Romania (nine each), and the Czech Republic and Russia (eight each).
“If there is good news,” Chafuen said, “it is that independent thinking and western ideals continue to take root despite the hardships that their advocates may face. There are many more intellectual freedom-fighters around the world in 2006 than there were a decade ago. And, we hope, there will be many more still a decade from now.
“In China, for example, intellectual entrepreneurs have established six independent think tanks and are vigorously promoting economic and political liberalization. In Argentina, the country of my birth, there are 30 freedom-oriented think tanks. There are eight in the Czech Republic and six in Serbia & Montenegro. Even in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, where anti-American sentiments run high, there are five institutions devoted to liberty, proving that such ideas die hard.”
The Atlas Economic Research Foundation ( www.atlasusa.org ), which recently observed its 25th anniversary, serves as a mentor, clearinghouse, training ground, and networking hub for research and policy institutions around the world that support western ideals of freedom.
The organization is headquartered in Arlington, Va.
Click here from more information on independent think tanks around the world.
Please comments to Elena Ziebarth, Atlas's Director of Public Affairs.