Funded by foundations, corporate donors and individual contributors, think tanks are endowed with the financial and human resources which enable them to systematically influence public opinion, media agenda setting and policy discussion. From time to time, when evidence is not at hand, these institutions produce tailor-made arguments, backing their ideological concepts, with the aim to influence policy making. In some cases this construction of evidence has not only remained in the position of an attempt, but actually led to specific policy reforms.
TEXTBLOCK 1/2 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611704/100438658259
Looking at the financial situation of think tanks, different funding patterns can be found. While financial contributions from foundations play an important role especially for conservative think tanks, also contributions from governments are made to certain institutions. Yet one of the most important funding sources are corporate donors and individual contributors. Although the extent to which - in most cases conservative - think tanks rely on corporate funding varies, from the US$ 158 million spent by the top 20 conservative think tanks, more than half of it was contributed by corporations or businessmen.
TEXTBLOCK 2/2 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611704/100438658207