The Importance of Think Tanks in the Twenty-first Century
Abstract
The twenty-first century will be known as an era of globalization and change, indeed, of very quick changes, due to advances in technology of communication and transportation. In this process, the state is still the center of organizing societies, but it no longer has the monopoly, except in terms of force or coercion. And even state sovereignty is now shared with other actors, including business and civil societies, while externally the state is constrained by regional and world norms, rules and their institutions. Among the civil societies, think tanks are already playing a bigger role because of the complexity of the new challenges and the quick answers that are required to respond to those challenges. The state can no longer alone run the complex society that exists today, in the twenty-first century. The state is already overstretched in her daily tasks and obligations and can no more come up in a timely fashion with ready, and thought out, answers to so many problems. This role has to be divided with think tanks, among others. Such institutions began and became very popular in the USA, which now has some 1,776 think tanks. But in the last 30 years or