Politically, the fundamental features of American federal government are theseparation of powers (separation of the executive, legislative and judicial powers)and the balancing of powers among different branches. Legislative, executive andjudicial rights are owned separately by the Congress, the President and the Supreme Court. The congress is separated as the Senate &- the House of Representatives; the government is separated the federal government and the States govern-ments, while the rights of officials in the executive system are separated &- balanced each other. Such kind of system will definitely produce the separation ofpowers and the openness of decision making. As a result, it creates a favorablepolitical environment for the development of American Think Tanks. On the otherhand, the weakness and separation of political powers of American parties alsoprovide a big room for the Think Tanks to make influences.
Economically, the business prosperity of American gives birth to a lot ofwealthy consortiums. While the American traditions on entrepreneurship, philanthropy and religion legacy have combined to provide solid capital support for thedevelopment of Think Tanks. On the other hand, the strong conception of compe-tition and market orientation benefit to yield a free thought market. Thus all ideasdebate and collide with each other and all Think Tanks compete with each other inthis circumstance. And there is no monopoly at this market in a long term.
Culturally, the individualism, liberalism, pragmatism, distrust on rights, aswell as universalism etc. , which are advocated by the American political and cul-tural tradition let American intellectuals and the general public to actively addresson and participate in politics, thereforemaking capacity and level by utilizingTank. Besides, the highly developedthey would hope to improve the policythe creative thinking from those ThinkAmerican media, based upon freedom ofspeech, has provided an access for the Think Tank to extend their influence,which objectively spreads and enlarges the influence of Think Tanks.
Market DemandsWithout market demands, there will be no prosperity of the think tank market. The American think tank market is sustained by two market demands-thedemand for thought and the demand for talents.
The demand for thought has three factors. Firstly, the American govern-ment, faced with complicated domestic and international situations, needs the sup-port of the ideas & information from the Think Tanks. The modern think tanks inthe States firstly emerged after WWI, and developed greatly after WWII. In the1960s and 1970s, it began to prosper due to the large social demands during thattime. It was a turbulent time that the international situation was undergoing pro-found changes and reassembling, and the cold war was lingering. Meanwhile, thequick economic development in West Europe and Japan was becoming a big chal-lenge for the American economy. The failure in the Vietnam War, the Cubanmissile crisis, the raging storm of negro movement. feminist movement andstudents" movement, as well as many other complicated issues all aroused people"sconcern for government policy. Such complicated international and domestic situa-tions generated the demand for high-quality public policies from the government,yet politicians and their assistances could hardly meet this demand. Therefore, allkinds of think tanks began to emerge. It is estimated that half of the existing A-merican Think Tanks were born at that time.
Secondly, American media needs the policy interpretations and the innovativeideas provided by the Think Tank which serves as the role of opinion leaders.
Media is just a channel and platform for the transmission of messages and couldnot produce ideas by itself. Therefore, the media and the think tanks serve inter-dependently as the provider for each other-think tanks need the media to help tobroadcast and magnify its public influence, while the media needs the ideas andvoices of the think tanks to help to raise its pubic credibility and audience rating.
The third factor of demand for the think tank is from the general public. Thethink tank provides a communication platform between the general public and thegovernment, which somehow serves the function of "public sphere" as advocatedby Habermas. In this sphere, the general public and the political elites get thechance to talk about the government policy in a casual and free way.
The demand for talent refers to the demand for political talents of the Ameri-can president election held every four years. And the think tank serves as the roleto cultivate and provide talents for the next government.
Products QualityProducts quality is a key factor for market success, while the determining factor for the products quality of the think tank is the quality of its researchers, theindependence of the think tank itself and an effective operation mechanism.
Researchers of American think tank are diversified-most of them are scholarswith professional background & PhD degree, some are former government officials and others are senior media practitioners. This diversified composition ensures the compatibility of the researching results and social practice, and it alsoguarantees the probability to transfer the research results into political practices.
