The Quiet Power Behind Policy: How Think Tanks Shape the Possible

Some policy historians take the view that policy intellectuals are merely legitimizers of political decisions made elsewhere for other reasons. This is too cynical.

The relationship between ideas and policymaking is sometimes imagined as linear: politicians seek solutions, and intellectuals provide them. In reality, the dynamic is more complex. The role of policy intellectuals and the institutions that incubate their ideas — think tanks, universities, and policy shops — is not merely to solve problems, but to frame what problems are worth solving in the first place. Their work quietly reshapes the contours of political possibility.

At their most consequential, intellectuals and idea-generating institutions do not operate within the current political consensus; they stretch it. Their chief function is to create imaginative space for policy options that are not otherwise being considered. They play a critical role in shifting the so-called “Overton window” — a term coined by American policy analyst Joseph Overton, which describes the range of ideas considered politically acceptable at any given moment. Ideas do not move from margin to mainstream by accident. Intellectual entrepreneurs can exercise influence primarily by reframing radical or even unthinkable proposals as sensible alternatives, nudging them up the ladder of acceptability until they seem not just reasonable but even necessary. More unsettlingly, by pushing these boundaries of acceptability, think tanks can also drive political polarization.

This process does not unfold in a vacuum. For new policy ideas to gain traction, an effective collaboration or at least alliance must emerge between intellectual actors — whether academic, journalistic, or from think tanks — and politicians who are in a position to implement them. Most policy ideas die in white papers or academic journals, but a few find the right political champion and opportunity. Then, the interplay between theory and action begins to take institutional form.

There is, of course, a cynical counter-narrative: that politicians are driven purely by intellectual opportunism and only enlist intellectuals after they have made the basic decisions. On this view, intellectuals are retroactive legitimizers rather than genuine influences — politicians decide what they want to do and simply find thinkers willing to rationalize it. On this view, given the abundance of experts and think tanks, the right justification is always available for rent.

Such skepticism is not entirely misplaced. Many political actors do shop for ideas that fit preexisting agendas. Yet dismissing the independent power of intellectuals is to misunderstand how often they reshape the very terms of debate. Policy ideas are important not just in a direct causal sense, but also for creating an ambient sense for what is possible and legitimate, for creating a “climate of opinion” that frames a range of acceptable policy options. Ideas, once introduced and forcefully argued, can lodge themselves in the minds of politicians and publics alike, sometimes changing the trajectory of entire movements or administrations. Intellectuals do not merely describe the world; at their best (or worst), they remake it. As John Maynard Keynes famously remarked concerning this topic, “Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.”

Consider the influence of think tanks on recent American administrations. During the Biden administration, the Center for American Progress — long associated with the Democratic establishment — was instrumental in shaping legislative proposals and policy strategies. It was influential not only by placing scores of its alumni into key political positions within the Biden administrations, but also through its direct role in shaping Biden’s key legislative achievements, the Chips and Science Act and the Build Back Better Act. CAP’s founder, John Podesta, eventually joined the administration to directly oversee the distribution of $370B in federal subsidies for electric vehicles, wind farms, batteries and other clean energy technologies.

Under Donald Trump, the Heritage Foundation — a staunchly conservative, Christian-nationalist institution — has played a major role in shaping Trump 47’s agenda via its now-infamous Project 2025. While Trump himself is not an ideologue, and in many ways exemplifies the model of a politician who chooses his course and then seeks intellectual sycophants to justify it, there is simply no question that the Heritage Foundation has been enormously influential on him, because it has found a way to articulate its own ideologically-driven policy objectives in ways that make political sense to the instincts of the opportunist in the White House. For example, it has framed immigration and DEI policies not merely as economic or legal issues but as “existential” threats. Conversely, Trump and his MAGA fellow travelers have adopted these ideas not just because they reflects their own beliefs, but also to anchor their sentiments within a framework of apparent intellectual legitimacy and policy specificity. (As I’ve discussed before on this substack, Heritage’s long-term vision appears to be to replace the federal administrative state with a patchwork of locally governed theocratic enclaves, managed by evangelical and business elites.)

In sum, think tanks serve as both the tool of politicians and the engineers of policymaking. In the end, the policy impact of any think tank depends less on the strength of its ideas than on the proximity of its allies to actual power. They supply the normative justifications and the technical scaffolding for political agendas. Whether pioneering new concepts or providing post hoc rationalizations, they are indispensable to the policymaking process. Ideas matter — not only for what they propose, but for what they make possible. And those who generate them remain vital actors in the quiet machinery of governance.