The Evolving Marketplace for Ideas: Policy Research and Partisan Polarization

• In Event: Parties, Polarization, and Clientism

Abstract

How has partisan polarization impacted the policy research and advocacy efforts interest groups and think tanks? Existing theories and popular understandings tend to view the former as relatively bipartisan access-seekers and the latter as fairly apolitical research institutions. In this book manuscript chapter, I argue that both views are inadequate explanations of organizational behavior under conditions of partisan polarization, when formal party members increasingly demand information and ideas that further their partisan goals. How have these evolving demands for research impacted the supply of such information? I develop a theory of contradictory constraints, where research producers must balance – or choose between – having influence by virtue of widespread respect for their research products or by developing clear, consistent partisan credentials that lend them access to members of a particular party. From this theory, I develop a typology of research producing organizations, with variation across two dimensions. First, groups differ in the extent to which they develop reputations as non-partisan/access-oriented or ideological/partisan. Second, groups vary with regard to whether they adopt an academic orientation – abstaining from efforts to directly influence politics – or a political orientation – working to develop relationships with those in positions of power and directly lobbying them to influence policy. Drawing on both quantitative data and interviews with policy experts and practitioners in Washington, DC, I develop hypotheses about the relative prevalence and success of each strategy, predicting that partisan organizations – and especially the “partisan-political” groups that directly advocate their ideas within their preferred party – are not only becoming more common, but also enjoy greater access to members of Congress. This theory – which is tested using a variety of methods and data sources throughout the full manuscript – has important implications for our understanding of partisan polarization (and its mutually causal relationship with outside research organizations), parties as extended networks in the policy process, and issues of representation and bias.

Author

• Zachary Albert, Brandeis University