Think tanks in politically embedded knowledge regimes: does the “revolving door” matter in China?
| Date | 01 June 2020 |
| Author | Xufeng Zhu |
| Published date | 01 June 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852318776362 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Think tanks in politically
embedded knowledge
regimes: does the
“revolving door”
matter in China?
Xufeng Zhu
Tsinghua University, China
Abstract
This article conceptualizes a “politically embedded knowledge regime” in which political
power is deeply embedded in administrative and personal networks between bureau-
cratic decision-makers and their professional consultants. To demonstrate the features
of the politically embedded knowledge regime, I evaluate the effects of the revolving
door on Chinese think tanks. I empirically find that the revolving door has a negligible
contribution to the influence and revenue of think tanks in China. Moreover, the
revolving door has significantly negatively effects on the personal social network build-
ing of think-tankers. Heterogeneous analysis and propensity score matching are con-
ducted to present the robustness of regression results.
Points for practitioners
The “revolving door” has always been regarded as an essential factor for the prosperity
of American think tanks. It has now become the prevailing recruitment strategy for
global think tanks. In particular, the Chinese government and academia are embracing
the revolving door mechanism for the development of Chinese think tanks.
Nevertheless, no systematic empirical research has been conducted to evaluate the
exact effects of the revolving door on Chinese think tanks. My empirical findings reveal
that the developmental experiences of American think tanks may not be as effective
when applied to other countries with different knowle dge regimes.
Corresponding author:
Xufeng Zhu, School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, P. R. China, 100084.
Email: zhuxufeng@tsinghua.edu.cn
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
2020, Vol. 86(2) 295–315
!The Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0020852318776362
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
Keywords
politically embedded knowledge regime, revolving door, social networks, think tanks
Introduction
The past few decades have witnessed the rapid emergence of think tanks in shaping
the production of political knowledge across continents (McGann, 2010; Stone,
2015; Stone et al., 1998). Academia has agreed that the various knowledge regimes
in which think tanks influence policymaking using their expertise are essentially
determinant for think-tank development (Campbell and Pedersen, 2014; K€
ollner
et al., 2018; Maslow, 2018). However, apart from the prevailing Anglo-Saxon
tradition characterized by an intensive competitive space for the marketplace of
ideas in liberalized democracies, we know little about the other end of the spectrum
of knowledge regimes.
In this article, I conceptualize a “politically embedded knowledge regime,” a
distinctive policymaking and consultation system in which political power is deeply
embedded in administrative and personal networks between bureaucratic decision-
makers and their professional consultants. Moreover, no mature marketplace of
ideas exists in a politically embedded knowledge regime because influencing poli-
cies through public debate is unnecessary. Think tanks cultivated in such a knowl-
edge regime both benefit and suffer from politically embedded networks. On the
one hand, think tanks are able to simply rely on their direct or indirect adminis-
trative linkages and personal networks of decision-makers rather than on public
debate to achieve influence. On the other hand, think-tankers who move from
government agencies or other sectors fail to significantly contribute to their orga-
nizational influence and revenue because they have already lost political power in
their previous agencies.
To demonstrate the distinct features of the politically embedded knowledge
regime, with a unique nationwide think-tank survey and interview data, this article
evaluates the effects of the revolving door on Chinese think tanks in terms of
influence, organizational revenue, and personal social network building. Chinese
think tanks serve as the “external brains” of the government, and they can gener-
ally be defined as stable and autonomous organizations that investigate policy
issues to influence the policy process (Zhu and Xue, 2007: 453). Chinese think
tanks are cultivated in a typical politically embedded knowledge regime in which
the traditional Chinese Confucian culture and “bureaucracy-oriented tradition”
(Guanbenwei) shape their behaviors. I argue that the revolving door’s contribution
to the influence and revenue of think tanks in China is negligible. Moreover, after
losing political power, think-tankers experiencing the revolving door have signif-
icant disadvantages in building their personal social networks. Heterogeneous
analysis and propensity score matching (PSM) are conducted to present the
robustness of the regression results.
296 International Review of Administrative Sciences 86(2)
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