The fact that corporate money is seeking to influence public policy is nothing unusual. From the different ways of how private money helps to shape politics the first, and most familiar is direct campaign contributions to political candidates and parties, which is especially widespread in the United States. While the second great river of money goes to underwrite lobbying apparatus in diverse state capitals, the third form of attempts to influence public policy making is less well-known, but nearly as wide and deep as the two others - it is money which underwrites a vast network of public policy think tanks and advocacy groups. Although tried to be labeled in another way, unmistakably, these donations are naked attempts by corporations and other donors, to influence the political process.
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As think tanks try to push policy making in their desired direction in such diverse fields as health, education, taxation, regulation and national security it is not surprising, that also the Internet has entered their issue list:
Another of the big players in the elite of think tanks, the conservative Washington D.C. based Cato Institute quite surprisingly has started to defend human rights in Cyberspace. Jonathan D. Wallace' "Nameless in Cyberspace: Anonymity on the Internet." sees the constitutionally guaranteed right of freedom of speech and expression in the United States under attack by proposals to limit or restrict the use of anonymity on the Internet.
Yet another conservative think tank, the U.S. based
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The Manhattan Institute, founded by
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The political orientation of think tanks is as broad as in every other kind of institutions or organizations. It ranges from conservative over centrist to progressive. Still it can be noted, that there are considerable differences between the right and the left wing of think tanks, especially concerning funding sources and revenues as well as media relations, which have considerable consequences on their perception and influence on the public as well as on policy makers.
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While most progressive think tanks acquire their funding through many different sources, for conservative think tanks financing by corporations prevails. Among the think tanks receiving a considerable amount of corporate money are the Cato Institute (U.S. conservative/libertarian), the Brookings Institution (U.S. centrist), the Heritage Foundation (U.S. conservative), the American Enterprise Institute (U.S. conservative) and the
Also, whereas the combined revenue base of such conservative multi-issue policy institutions as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, Free Congress Research and Education Foundation, the Cato Institute, and
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In 1948 RAND was created at the urging of its original sponsor, the Air Force. After World War II, RAND focused especially on research in national security. Today RAND operates on a broad front, making its research available to public policy makers at all levels, private sector leaders in many industries, and the public at large. RANDs research and analysis aims to: provide practical guidance by making policy choices clear and by addressing barriers to policy implementation; develop solutions to complex problems by bringing researchers in all relevant academic specialities; dissemination of research findings. RAND has more than 500 employees.
Official Organizational Status: Independent Institute
Political Orientation: U.S. Center-right
Scope/Research Areas: RAND specializes in: Foreign relations and diplomacy, security and defense, economic issues, regional studies, science sand technology, labor and human resource development, social issues, education and health and welfare.
Funding Sources: 1998 Budget: US$ 113.5 million. National, local and state government (83 %) and private donations (17 %).
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The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a pro-market, public policy group committed to advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government.
The World Intellectual Property Organization is one of the specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN), which was designed to promote the worldwide protection of both industrial property (inventions, trademarks, and designs) and copyrighted materials (literary, musical, photographic, and other artistic works). It was established by a convention signed in Stockholm in 1967 and came into force in 1970. The aims of WIPO are threefold. Through international cooperation, WIPO promotes the protection of intellectual property. Secondly, the organization supervises administrative cooperation between the Paris, Berne, and other intellectual unions regarding agreements on trademarks, patents, and the protection of artistic and literary work and thirdly through its registration activities the WIPO provides direct services to applicants for, or owners of, industrial property rights.
Expert systems are advanced computer programs that mimic the knowledge and reasoning capabilities of an expert in a particular discipline. Their creators strive to clone the expertise of one or several human specialists to develop a tool that can be used by the layman to solve difficult or ambiguous problems. Expert systems differ from conventional computer programs as they combine facts with rules that state relations between the facts to achieve a crude form of reasoning analogous to
Since 1984, Citizens for a Sound Economy has advocated market-based solutions to public policy problems. Uniting its 250,000 members is the fundamental belief that a strong and vibrant free-market economic system offers the best hope for creating opportunity and improving the quality of life for every American.
A computer programming language is any of various languages for expressing a set of detailed instructions for a digital computer. Such a language consists of characters and rules for combining them into symbols and words.
EDI is an international standard relating to the exchange of trade goods and services. It enables trading partners to conduct routine business transactions, such as purchase orders, invoices and shipping notices independent of the computer platform used by the trading partners. Standardization by EDI translation software assures the correct interpretation of data.
EDI might become increasingly important to electronic commerce.
Founded in 1992, the Internet Society is an umbrella organization of several mostly self-organized organizations dedicated to address the social, political, and technical issues, which arise as a result of the evolution and the growth of the Net. Its most important subsidiary organizations are the
Its members comprise companies, government agencies, foundations, corporations and individuals. The Internet Society is governed by elected trustees.