The control of the policy advice industry: how patrons defer their decision-rights to think tank boards

Patrons of think tanks—for example, governments, corporations, philanthropists, NGOs, and so forth—may control think tanks’ boards, that is, their highest decision-making body. Whether patrons are likely to control boards is a question that remains under-explored and under-theorised in public administration and governance scholarship. It is posited that patrons are likely to control boards when the marginal benefit of partaking in decision-making does not exceed the cost of information transfer. The comparative examination of International Relations think tanks’ statutes shows that patron control is substantial. However, patronage does not always guarantee board control. Patron control is moderated by the nature of the transaction. The conclusion assesses patron control concerning decision-making processes in the think tank and the idiosyncratic character of policy advice. Points for practitioners Practitioners can assess events of goal displacement in think tanks by learning about mechanisms that facilitate or hinder patron control over think tanks. Laying out the conditions under which patrons exercise control, the latter turns out to be substantial despite not all patrons having control over think tank boards. Patron control is shown to depend on the position of stakeholders in the decision-making chain and the nonlinear relation between effort and influence in policy advice.