The relationship between ideas and policymaking is sometimes imagined as linear: politicians seek solutions, and intellectuals provide them. In reality, the dynamic is more complex. The role of policy intellectuals and the institutions that incubate their ideas — think tanks, universities, and policy shops — is not merely to solve problems, but to frame what problems are worth solving in the first place.
The role of policy intellectuals and the institutions that incubate their ideas — think tanks, universities, and policy shops — is not merely to solve problems, but to frame what problems are worth solving in the first place. Their work quietly reshapes the contours of political possibility. At their most consequential, intellectuals and idea-generating institutions do not operate within the current political consensus; they stretch it.
At their most consequential, intellectuals and idea-generating institutions do not operate within the current political consensus; they stretch it. Their chief function is to create imaginative space for policy options that are not otherwise being considered.