Over a dozen prominent Washington think tanks have reportedly received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments in recent years to push U.S. Government officials to adopt policies that often reflect their donors' priorities.
According to an investigation undertaken by the New York Times (NYT), this huge fund funneling process has transformed the American think-tank world into a muscular lobbying arm of foreign governments' in Washington.
The NYT quotes experts, scholars and observers, as saying that this process has raised troubling questions about intellectual freedom.
These think tanks, the NYT report says, do not disclose the terms of the agreements they have reached with foreign governments, and they have not registered with the U.S. Government as representatives of the donor countries, which legal specialists maintain can be viewed as a violation of federal law.
Policy makers, who rely on think tanks, are often unaware of the role of foreign governments in funding the research, reports the NYT.
The paper quotes Joseph Sandler, a lawyer and expert on the statute that governs Americans lobbying for foreign governments, as saying, that this arrangement between the countries and think tanks has "opened a whole new window into an aspect of the influence-buying in Washington that has not previously been exposed."
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Sandler says that it is his view that think tanks that were once viewed as symbols academic neutrality and objectivity, have been compromised.
Among the think tanks who have such arrangements are the Brookings Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Atlantic Council.
Most of the money comes from countries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, particularly the oil-producing nations of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Norway, and takes many forms.
For example, the United Arab Emirates donated over a million dollars to the Center for Strategic and International Studies to help build the center's gleaming new glass and steel headquarters not far from the White House.
Another instance is that of the Government of Qatar, which last year agreed to fork out 14.8 million dollars over a period of four years to Brookings to fund an affiliate in Qatar and a project on United States relations with the Islamic world.
Scholars say these donations often contain implicit clauses that research groups would refrain from criticizing the donor governments.
However, top executives at these think tanks strongly defended the arrangements, telling the NYT in interviews that the money offered has never compromised the integrity of their organizations' research.
Martin S. Indyk, vice president and director of the Foreign Policy Program at Brookings, one of the oldest and most prestigious think tanks in Washington, was quoted by the NYT, as saying that it is the business of think tanks to influence policy with scholarly, independent research, based on objective criteria, and to be policy-relevant, and therefore, there was a need to be engaged with policy makers.
Frederick Kempe, chief executive of the Atlantic Council, a fast-growing research center that focuses mainly on international affairs and has accepted donations from at least 25 countries since 2008, sweared by the credibility of the think tanks.
He said most foreign governments understood that American think tanks were not lobbyists, and worked with such institutions for totally different purposes.
The daily said the think tanks' reliance on funds from overseas is driven, in part, by intensifying competition within the field.
The number of policy groups has multiplied in recent years, while research grants from the United States government have dwindled.
Foreign officials describe these relationships as pivotal to winning influence on the cluttered Washington stage, where hundreds of nations jockey for attention from the U.S. Government.
Some countries work directly with think tanks, drawing contracts that define the scope and direction of research. Others donate money to the think tanks, and then pay teams of lobbyists and public relations consultants to push the think tanks to promote the country's agenda.
The scope of foreign financing for American think tanks is difficult to determine. But since 2011, at least 64 foreign governments, state-controlled entities or government officials have contributed to a group of 28 major United States-based research organizations, according to disclosures by the institutions and government documents.
Several legal experts, who reviewed the documents, however, said the tightening relationships between United States think tanks and their overseas sponsors could violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act, the 1938 federal law that sought to combat a Nazi propaganda campaign in the United States.
The law requires groups that are paid by foreign governments with the intention of influencing public policy to register as "foreign agents" with the Justice Department.
Small countries such as Norway feel that they derive great benefit through their association with these think tanks.
As one of the world's top oil producers, a member of NATO and a player in peace negotiations in spots around the globe, Norway has an interest in a broad range of United States policies.
The country has committed at least USD 24 million to an array of Washington think tanks over the past four years, transforming these non-profits into a powerful but largely hidden arm of the Norway Foreign Affairs Ministry.
Documents obtained under that country's unusually broad open records laws reveal that American research groups, after receiving money from Norway, have advocated in Washington for enhancing Norway's role in NATO, promoted its plans to expand oil drilling in the Arctic and pushed its climate change agenda.
Norway is a major funder of forest protection efforts around the world. But while many environmentalists applaud the country's lobbying for forest protection, some have attacked the programs as being driven by pure self-interest.
Norway has also funded Arctic research at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, at a time when the country was seeking to expand its oil drilling in the Arctic region.