Brookings Institution


The Brookings Institution, often referred to simply as Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916 on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C. It conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global economy, and economic development. Its stated mission is to "provide innovative and practical recommendations that advance three broad goals: strengthen American democracy; foster the economic and social welfare, security and opportunity of all Americans; and secure a more open, safe, prosperous, and cooperative international system."
Brookings has five research programs at its Washington, D.C. campus and three international centers based in Doha, Qatar ; Beijing, China ; and New Delhi, India.
The University of Pennsylvania's Global Go To Think Tank Index Report has named Brookings "Think Tank of the Year" and "Top Think Tank in the World" every year since 2008. The Economist describes Brookings as "perhaps America’s most prestigious think-tank."
Brookings states that its staff "represent diverse points of view" and describes itself as non-partisan, and various media outlets have alternately described Brookings as "conservative", "centrist", or "liberal". An academic analysis of Congressional records from 1993 to 2002 found that Brookings was referred to by conservative politicians almost as frequently as liberal politicians, earning a score of 53 on a 1–100 scale with 100 representing the most liberal score. The same study found Brookings to be the most frequently cited think tank by the U.S. media and politicians.

History

1916–79

Brookings was founded in 1916 as the Institute for Government Research, with the mission of becoming "the first private organization devoted to analyzing public policy issues at the national level."
The Institution's founder, philanthropist Robert S. Brookings, originally financed the formation of three organizations: the Institute for Government Research, the Institute of Economics, and the Robert Brookings Graduate School affiliated with Washington University in St. Louis. The three were merged into the Brookings Institution on December 8, 1927.
During the Great Depression, economists at Brookings embarked on a large-scale study commissioned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to understand the underlying causes of the depression. Brookings's first president Harold Moulton and other Brookings scholars later led an effort to oppose President Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration because they thought the NRA was impeding economic recovery.
With the entry into World War II in 1941, Brookings researchers turned their attention to aiding the administration with a series of studies on mobilization. In 1948, Brookings was asked to submit a plan for the administration of the European Recovery Program. The resulting organization scheme assured that the Marshall Plan was run carefully and on a businesslike basis.
In 1952, Robert Calkins succeeded Moulton as president of the Brookings Institution. He secured grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation that put the Institution on a strong financial basis. He reorganized the Institution around the Economic Studies, Government Studies, and Foreign Policy Programs. In 1957, the Institution moved from Jackson Avenue to a new research center near Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C.
Kermit Gordon assumed the presidency of Brookings in 1967. He began a series of studies of program choices for the federal budget in 1969 entitled "Setting National Priorities". He also expanded the Foreign Policy Studies Program to include research in national security and defense. After the election of Richard Nixon to the presidency in 1968, the relationship between the Brookings Institution and the White House deteriorated; at one point Nixon's aide Charles Colson proposed a firebombing of the Institution. Yet throughout the 1970s, Brookings was offered more federal research contracts than it could handle.

1980–2017

By the 1980s, the Institution faced an increasingly competitive and ideologically charged intellectual environment. The need to reduce the federal budget deficit became a major research theme as well as investigating problems with national security and government inefficiency. Bruce MacLaury, fourth president of Brookings, also established the Center for Public Policy Education to develop workshop conferences and public forums to broaden the audience for research programs.
In 1995, Michael Armacost became the fifth president of the Brookings Institution and led an effort to refocus the Institution's mission heading into the 21st century. Under Armacost's direction, Brookings created several interdisciplinary research centers, such as the Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, which brought attention to the strengths of cities and metropolitan areas; and the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, which brings together specialists from different Asian countries to examine regional problems.
Strobe Talbott became president of Brookings in 2002. Shortly thereafter, Brookings launched the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and the John L. Thornton China Center. In October 2006, Bookings announced the establishment of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center in Beijing. In July 2007, the Institution announced the creation of the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform to be directed by senior fellow Mark McClellan, and then in October 2007, the creation of the Brookings Doha Center directed by fellow Hady Amr in Qatar. During this period the funding of Brookings by foreign governments and corporations came under public scrutiny.
In 2011, Brookings President Strobe Talbott inaugurated the Brookings India Office.
In October 2017, former general John R. Allen became the seventh president of Brookings.
As of June 30, 2019, Brookings had an endowment of $377.2 million.

Publications

Brookings as an institution produces an Annual Report. The Brookings Institution Press publishes books and journals from the institution's own research as well as authors outside the organization. The books and journals they publish include Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Brookings Review, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy, Globalphobia: Confronting Fears about Open Trade, India: Emerging Power, Through Their Eyes, Taking the High Road, Masses in Flight, US Public Policy Regarding Sovereign Wealth Fund Investment in the United States and Stalemate to name a few. In addition, books, papers, articles, reports, policy briefs and opinion pieces are produced by Brookings research programs, centers, projects and, for the most part, by experts. Brookings also cooperates with the Lawfare Institute in publishing the Lawfare blog.

Policy influence

Brookings traces its history back to 1916 and has contributed to the creation of the United Nations, the Marshall Plan, and the Congressional Budget Office, as well as to the development of influential policies for deregulation, broad-based tax reform, welfare reform, and foreign aid. The annual think tank index published by Foreign Policy ranks it the number one think tank in the U.S. and the Global Go To Think Tank Index believes it is the number one such tank in the world. Moreover, in spite of an overall decline in the number of times information or opinions developed by think tanks are referred to by the US media, of the 200 most prominent think tanks in the U.S., the Brookings Institution's research remains the most frequently cited.
In a 1997 survey of congressional staff and journalists, Brookings ranked as the first-most influential and first in credibility among 27 think tanks considered. Yet "Brookings and its researchers are not so concerned, in their work, in affecting the ideological direction of the nation" and rather tend "to be staffed by researchers with strong academic credentials". Along with the Council on Foreign Relations and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Brookings is generally considered one of the most influential policy institutes in the U.S.

Political stance

As a 501 non-profit organization, Brookings describes itself as independent and non-partisan. A 2005 academic study by UCLA concluded it was "centrist" because it was referenced as an authority almost equally by both conservative and liberal politicians in congressional records from 1993 to 2002. The New York Times has referred to the organization as liberal, liberal-centrist, centrist, and conservative. The Washington Post has described Brookings as centrist and liberal. The Los Angeles Times has described Brookings as liberal-leaning and centrist before opining that it did not believe such labels mattered.
In 1977, Time magazine described it as the "nation's pre-eminent liberal think tank". Newsweek has described Brookings as centrist while Politico has used the term "center-left".
The media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, which describes itself as "progressive", has described Brookings as "centrist", "conservative", and "center-right".
Journalists at The Atlantic and Salon have argued that Brookings foreign policy scholars were overly supportive of Bush administration policies abroad. Blogger Matthew Yglesias has stated that Brookings's Michael E. O'Hanlon frequently agrees with scholars from conservative organizations such as the American Enterprise Institute, The Weekly Standard, and the Project for the New American Century. Similarly, Brookings fellow and research director Benjamin Wittes is a member of the conservative Hoover Institution's Task Force on National Security and Law.
Brookings scholars have served in Republican and Democratic administrations, including Mark McClellan, Ron Haskins and Martin Indyk.
The Brookings Board of Trustees is composed of 53 Trustees and more than three dozen Honorary Trustees, including Kenneth Duberstein, a former chief of staff to Ronald Reagan. Aside from political figures, the board of trustees includes leaders in business and industry, including Philip H. Knight, Chairman of Nike, Inc, Robert Bass, Hanzade Doğan Boyner, Paul L. Cejas, W. Edmund Clark, Abby Joseph Cohen, Betsy Cohen, Susan Crown, Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr., Jason Cummins, Paul Desmarais Jr., Kenneth M. Duberstein, Glenn Hutchins.
Starting with the 1990 election cycle, employees of the Brookings Institution gave $853,017 to Democratic candidates and $26,104 to Republican candidates. In total, since 1990, 96 percent of its political donations have gone to Democrats.

Notable scholars

Notable Brookings scholars include former Federal Reserve chairs Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke; former Federal Reserve vice chairs Donald Kohn, Alice Rivlin, and Alan Blinder; former chairmen of the president's Council of Economic Advisers Jason Furman and Martin Neil Baily; former CEA members Sandra Black, Jay Shambaugh, and James H. Stock; dean of the University of Michigan's Ford School of Public Policy Susan M. Collins; former director of the Congressional Budget Office Douglas Elmendorf; former Assistant Secretary of State Martin S. Indyk; former US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan; former Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler; Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne;, Wall Street Journal columnist William Galston., and former NSC official Fiona Hill.

Research programs

Center for Middle East Policy

In 2002, the Brookings Institution established the Center for Middle East Policy "to promote a better understanding of the policy choices facing American decision makers in the Middle East.

Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy

In 2006, the Brookings Institution established the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy as a partnership between the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC and Tsinghua University's School of Public Policy and Management in Beijing, China. The Center seeks to produce research in areas of fundamental importance for China's development and for US-China relations. The BTC is directed by Qi Ye.

21st Century Defense Initiative

The 21st Century Defense Initiative is aimed at producing research, analysis, and outreach that address three core issues: the future of war, the future of U.S. defense needs and priorities, and the future of the US defense system.
The Initiative draws on the knowledge from regional centers, including the Center on the United States and Europe, the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, the Thornton China Center, and the Center for Middle East Policy, allowing the integration of regional knowledge.
P. W. Singer, author of Wired for War, serves as Director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative, and Michael O'Hanlon serves as Director of Research. Senior Fellow Stephen P. Cohen and Vanda Felbab-Brown are also affiliated with 21CDI.

WashU at Brookings

Under Brookings President Bruce MacLaury's leadership in the 1980s, the Center for Public Policy Education was formed to develop workshop conferences and public forums to broaden the audience for research programs. In 2005, the Center has renamed the Brookings Center for Executive Education, which was shortened to Brookings Executive Education with the launch of a partnership with the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis. The academic partnership is now known as "WashU at Brookings".

Centers

Funding details

As of 2017 the Brookings Institution had assets of $524.2 million. Its largest contributors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Hutchins Family Foundation, JPMorgan Chase, the LEGO Foundation, David Rubenstein, State of Qatar, and John L. Thornton.
Funding details as of 2017:

Funding controversies

An investigation by The New York Times, reported on September 6, 2014, found the Brookings Institution to be among more than a dozen Washington research groups to have received payments from foreign governments while encouraging U.S. officials to encourage support for policies aligned with those foreign governments' agenda.
The New York Times published documents showing that Brookings Institution accepted grants from Norway with specific policy requests and helped the country gain access to U.S. government officials, as well as other "deliverables". In June 2014, Norway agreed to make an additional $4 million donation to Brookings. Several legal specialists who examined the documents told the paper that the language of the transactions "appeared to necessitate Brookings filing as a foreign agent" under the Foreign Agent Registration Act.
The Qatari government was named by The New York Times as "the single biggest foreign donor to Brookings", having reportedly made a $14.8 million, four-year contribution in 2013. A former visiting fellow at a Brookings affiliate in Qatar reportedly said that "he had been told during his job interview that he could not take positions critical of the Qatar government in papers". Brookings officials denied any connection between the views of their funders and their scholars' work, citing reports that questioned the Qatari government's education reform efforts and criticized its support of militants in Syria. However, Brookings officials reportedly acknowledged that they meet with Qatari government officials regularly.
In 2018, The Washington Post reported that the Brookings Institution accepted funding from Huawei from 2012 to 2018.

Buildings

The main building of the Institution was erected in 1959 on 1775 Massachusetts Avenue. In 2009, Brookings acquired a building across the street, a former mansion built by the Ingalls family in 1922 on a design by Jules Henri de Sibour. This extension now houses the office of the President of the Brookings Institution.

Citations