Sasha Havlicek
What an enormous privilege to be here this evening. My name is Sasha Havlicek, to moderate this evening’s lecture. I’ve been asked to introduce our speaker for this evening but, of course, Robin needs no introduction in this House of all houses. I have had the pleasure of knowing Robin for a very long time, we were just talking – how long?
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
11/12, and definitely 11 years.
Sasha Havlicek
Yes, and far too far. We wouldn’t admit it in public, but actually, one of our early conversations was about the challenges of the think-tank sector and the differences that we saw on a transatlantic basis, and I’m extremely interested in this evening’s conversation. It’s an important conversation, and Robin’s paper is not only an introduction to thinking through the future of think-tanks, but really, opens important questions about the future of political agency, of social agency, at a time when we desperately need that. So I’m excited to open up this conversation. I hope it’s very interactive.
Now I’ve been asked, before anything, to do housekeeping. So, I would’ve loved to say Chatham House, Chatham House Rule, but no, this is public, so, to say this is on the record. Indeed, if you feel like tweeting, you are welcome to tweet and the hashtag is CHEvents. You see how very much azure Chatham House is in this world of think-tankery.
I’ve been asked to ask you to put your phones on silent, so that it doesn’t disrupt the proceedings, and so, we will get started now and I’m delighted. Robin is going to talk to us for about 20 minutes to half an hour, after which I do hope we can open it up, but I thought I’d start with some interesting statistics about think-tanks, if I may, and just put out the Flint Survey on Attitudes to Think-tanks tells us that 52% of the people surveyed knew what a think-tank was, which we thought was quite impressive. 47% knew what a think-tank does, which is, I think, even more impressive, but here’s the rub, only 17% of people said that they trusted what a think-tank says. Part of, I think, a broader crisis, but I look forward to interrogating those problems later.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Thank you. Well, Sasha, thank you very much. It’s interesting to be sitting on this side of the chair, if you see what I’m saying, of the stage, and on the other side, but a great – I’m really thrilled that you would be here to chair it, as we’re having a discussion about The Future of Think-tanks, and Sasha leading a very important think-tank, one that, as she said, we had some time discussing, when I took over this role. I know my parents are definitely not part of that 52% who know what think-tanks are, so – but I won’t include them anymore in this speech. So, I’m really honoured, actually, to have had the opportunity to deliver or to have the opportunity to deliver the 2018 Martin Wight Lecture. He – it is obviously named after one of the most renowned international relations theorists’ that Britain has produced and, in addition to his very important work at LSE and at the University of Sussex, Martin Wight was a member of staff at Chatham House twice, just before the Second World War and just after it, and wrote his book Power Politics, during his second stint. And he served also, on our Council between 1952 and 1972, when he passed-away, and I understand that Susan, and other members of the family are here and some of his colleagues, and I want to say a big welcome to all of you, I’ve not yet, but I look forward to meeting you later.
There are three other reasons why I was really excited by – to be given the opportunity to do this lecture by Andrew Dorman and his team at International Affairs, as we are Chatham House, one of the three co-hosts of this lecture and this is our turn, I suppose, as Chatham House, this year. And I do want to do a quick call out to Andrew and Christina and Ben and Leah for all of the great work they do for International Affairs and its great performance, these days, and I know we have some Board Members here as well, so a big thanks to them. But one of the main reason I was excited about doing this is, we are approaching our Centenary in 2020. So, preparing these remarks and the accompanying article that I prepared in International Affairs has forced me to do a bit of a refresh on the fundamental purpose and values of institutes such as ours.
Second, obviously, and Sasha referred to this, international affairs have entered a period of profound turmoil and one that carries echoes, and worrying echoes, of the 20th Century, when a small number of men and women founded the original International Affairs think-tanks, which included Chatham House. So it’s an important moment to think about our continuing relevance.
The third reason I was excited about doing this, actually, is I think this international environment gives new relevance to the idea of an international society that Martin Wight, Hedley Bull and other International Relations Scholars of the English School here, developed between the 1950s and through the 1980s. If I understand the concept correctly, and it is a long time since I did my MPhil, and I have not done any international relations theories since then, but if I’m right about it, then I think, think-tanks could explore how the notion of an international society might mitigate, in practical ways, some of the return to zero sum international politics that we’re witnessing today. And to trail my one other conclusion upfront, I do think that the Western think-tanks will need to support certain key principles of national governance, if they’re going to help build a sustainable international society in the future.
So, with those little preambles out the way, let me start by looking at the creation of the first International Affairs think-tanks, what drove them? How they evolved? A little bit about the main challenges they’re currently facing and how I think they could respond, and then, a bit about how I see the principles, I mentioned, fitting within this process. The emergence of Western think-tanks, so between 1910 and 1921, Carnegie Endowment to International Peace, The Brookings Institution, Chatham House, The Royal Institute of National Affairs and the Council on Foreign Relations were founded, not by Governments, but by private individuals. And these men and women believed that introducing a scientific approach to the understanding of international affairs, would avoid a repetition of past mistakes and improve prospects for peace in the future. The object of their research was the practice of diplomacy. In Government, the Ministers and officials were their principal audience. They, initially suspicious, vacillated, I think, between tolerating and supporting the interlopers in their policy domain.
These four institutes initially hosted lectures, study groups, they engaged Ministers and officials with – and linked them up with experts and business leaders. Their theory of change was the rifle and not the shotgun approach, with papers targeted towards specific individuals in the policymaking process. But most importantly, they shared a common vision. It encompassed the Wilsonian Internationalism of Carnegie and CFR, and the liberal imperialism of the Founders of Chatham House. These were not utopians. They were simply convinced that anchoring national power, within an institutional architecture, would make international relations more stable, and of course, the institution they placed their confidence in, was the League of Nations. After the League’s failure and the devastation of the Second World War, the four institutes focussed their efforts on designing more durable international institutions. Board members and senior staff advised on the design of the UN and its affiliated institutions, thereby helping usher in a period of relative geopolitical stability, which, in turn, led to a period of sustained economic growth for the West and its allies. The accompanying Cold War served as a catalyst for the expansion of think-tanks in European capitals and in Washing DC.
The global spill over of that competition, plus decolonisation, also led to the creation of think-tank-type institutions in key capitals around the world, from Moscow and Beijing to Tokyo and Lagos. Although in most cases, they were tightly linked to their national Governments. During the Cold War, think-tanks evolved from being informal members’ clubs to centres of specialist expertise delivered by full-time staff. Their areas of research mirrored the geographic and strategic expansion of the competition between the West and the Soviet Block, with programmes ranging from conventional and nuclear deterrents to energy security. In fact, they were no longer engaged in designing a peaceful World Order, but ensuring the West would prevail in a bipolar stand-off.
The US political system, with its division of powers between the Executive and Legislative branches, its revolving door of thousands, 4,000 Presidential appointments, plus the size of its economy and the impact it can have geopolitically, provided the ideal system for American think-tanks to dominate the sector, much as American power then dominated international affairs. US think-tanks creatively convened high-level studies and commissions, composed of legislatures and former Government Officials and they served as holding pens, for future Presidential appointees and wannabes, in order to enhance their further influence.
In contrast, think-tanks in other Western capitals were circumscribed by their more closed systems of governance, which offered limited avenues for policy arbitrage. As a result, funds were harder to come by, even from national Government sources. After the end of the Cold War, think-tanks underwent another profound evolution. During this era of rapid globalisation, US think-tanks expanded in size, as the demand to understand and engage in the world has grown. Some have opened capitals – have opened think-tanks around key capitals around the world. Specialised think-tanks have also flourished across the West, responding to the demand for analysis of particular dimensions of globalisation. The rapid growth of think-tank capacity on climate change, development assistance, cyber security, global health and international finance, has reflected the deepening of international interdependence.
UK-based think-tanks have leveraged London’s role as a global hub city. Brussels-based institutes have capitalised on the enlargement and institutional deepening of the EU and the regularity power of its huge market. Geneva is promoting its role as host of the WTO and several of the UN’s most important agencies to expand its role in thought leadership. At the same time, the idea of think-tanks has spread internationally. China now has the largest number, 512 after the United States, which has close to 2,000. Australia, Argentine, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Singapore are all among countries that host internationally recognised think-tanks. They’ve become a truly global phenomenon, with a growing voice in policy debates across the world. However, this think-tank diversification has not always followed the Western Model. For Governments in China, Russia, the Gulf States, for example, the role of national think-tanks is not just about providing additional alternative advice, it’s about ensuring domestic consistency between non-governmental and official debates. It’s about helping promote official messages and policies abroad and an additional role is to ensure that Government Officials, intellectuals and national publics do not simply become consumers of western ideas, but develop their own.
Given the centralisation of political power, the weakness of a civil society and media in these countries, the notion of institutional independence for think-tanks, in some cases, is constrained and, in some cases, it is illusory and recent Government efforts in China, Russia, Egypt, and the Gulf to limit the activities of foreign institutions in policy convening on advocacy, underscore their determination not to lose control of their domestic policy debate. Globalisation has had another important effect on think-tanks. It has diluted their exclusivity. International NGOs now have their own policy units, multinational companies organise themselves into industry associations. Global media organisations like Bloomberg, Economist, the Financial Times are developing their own platforms for thought leadership. Universities, which are seeking to raise their profile internationally, have moved aggressively into the think-tank space and the World Economic Forum hosts multi-staker dialogues around the world, to bring all these constituencies together and drive them towards solutions orientated outputs, but without formally becoming a think-tank itself.
So, what sort of a world, to turn to the polarised point, do think-tanks now confront and how are they going to evolve? On the one hand, the future holds, and I think we’d all agree, enormous opportunity. Economic globalisation has enabled hundreds of millions to escape poverty and hundreds of millions more will soon enjoy levels of prosperity, unknown in human history. Rapid technological advances are providing new answers to complex, human and public policy challenges and social media enables citizens to hold political leaders much more easily to account, but at the same time, the globalised world is revealing some pretty serious challenges. No single Government or people can manage, without the help of others. The threats of the 21st Century, whether it’s climate change, rapidly communicable pandemics, persistent terrorism and crime and proliferating cyber attacks. We don’t know whether the big ongoing revolutions in big data, artificial intelligence, genetic bioto – biotech, quantum computing, will principally offer solutions to these challenges, or add to the risks.
Globalisation and technological advance has also led large segments of society to lose trust in the ability of Governments and institutions to provide for their prosperity and security and as a result, nationalism and populist politics are in the ascendant across the world, with social media serving as their accelerant. In addition, the world faces intensifying strategic competition between the US and China, sharpened by their desire, both of them, for technological dominance. The rules-based international order is eroding. There’s no sign that others will take America’s place and this leaves international institutions unable to bridge the diverse interests of their increasingly competitive member states. So, if think-tanks simply needed to adjust their areas of research to this more complex environment, their task would be relatively simple. But think-tanks have themselves been caught up in the polarisation that is a defining feature of this new period, which leaves them facing three credibility challenges, and I will drink some water before I describe them. Hold on a second.
First, communications technology has radically altered the way policy is made and legitimised. The idea that effective and legitimate policymaking and developed democracies should be more of a bottom-up process, has grown steadily with the proliferation of 24-hour news, free and immediate access to more or less truthful information via the internet, and the explosive growth of social media. This has radically changed the context within which Governments consider and deliver policy. Today, policy audiences are less interested in the outputs of think-tanks if they believe that these have no public resonance beyond the expert circles in which they were developed. The opportunities for think-tanks to rely on the trickle-down technique of taskforces and study groups to influence policymaking are shrinking. Indeed, if they want to influence policy, think-tanks must apply a growing proportion of their resources to try to mobilise popular engagement with their ideas. One approach, of course, is to comment more on current policy developments, rather than analyse the underlying drivers, but the danger is that this blurs the line between think-tanks and the media and distructs us – distracts us from our core role.
Another approach has been for think-tanks to diversify their own means of communication. Think-tank outputs now extend beyond traditional expert reports and executive summaries to blogs, infographics and sophisticated data analytics. These, then, enable think-tanks to inform policy audiences about the resonance that their ideas are having among relevant constituencies and these constituencies are no longer just to meet decisionmakers and opinion-shapers, but increasingly, the larger interested public, whose engagement is needed to legitimise the policy influence of think-tank ideas. Ironically, think-tanks’ investment in new dissemination capabilities, to reach wider audiences, has exposed a second problem: a much higher-level of public scepticism about the benefits of globalisation, the think-tanks themselves have advocated, Sasha’s point.
For example, the majority vote in the UK to leave the Union in 2016, was a remarkable rejection of the analysis and advice, offered by the majority of experts in Britain, including its think-tanks. The election of Donald Trump, as US President, was a similar blow to the internationalist communities, which populate both the right leaning and left leaning main think-tanks in the US, and the decisions that his administration have set in motion, threaten to break apart the institutional frameworks that these institutions help devise and have supported ever since. Now, I think it’s fair to criticise the leaders of the Brexit Campaign and those who have endorsed the Trump agenda for selective use of facts and frequent mendacity, but international western think-tanks also need to apply some self-criticism.
With the rise of global prosperity that accompanied the spread of open markets, investment, technology many western think-tanks evolved principally into supporters and managers of globalisation. We focused on the best ways to manage its accompanying transnational challenges, such as rising carbon emissions, the lack of effective internet governance and cyber security or the risks from pandemics and global financial instability. We analysed the need to adapt western welfare policies to the competitive demands of globalisation, promoting more flexible welfare practices, work practices and ways to manage the integration of growing immigrant communities. Were western think-tanks guilty of naivety by applying the bulk of our efforts to securing the aggregate benefits of globalisation? Probably.
In our loyalty to the liberal economic internationalism of the second-half of the 20th Century, we were certainly as guilty as the majority of Economists, in focusing excessively or, indeed, exclusively on the net gains that globalisation offered to national economies in the West and to emerging economies around the world and, insufficiently, or indeed not at all, on the local dislocation and widening economic and social inequality that accompanied this process.
Most think-tanks were overly deterministic in assuming that a rising tide of economic growth for wealthy populations would lift all boats and, in contrast, to our extensive analysis of the environmental sustainability of this growth, we applied little analysis to its political sustainability and legitimacy, including the popular demand for greater social stability and less disruption to cultural identity. A deeply damaging by-product of this period for think-tanks is that public opposition to policy arguments now quickly evolves into unshakable scepticism about underlying facts.
A good example is the area of climate change, where scepticism towards the facts of climate change often emanates from an ideological opposition to any policy solutions to reduce carbon emissions that require multilateral co-ordination or other forms of state intervention. The third challenge to the credibility of western think-tanks is the growing amounts of funding being sought by and targeted towards them. Those think-tanks that are principally or entirely funded by their national Governments, frequently face questions about their analytical selectivity or objectivity, but this has disguised the point, so those which base their claims to independence, in part, on a diversity of private funding, also face important risks.
In the first instance, it can be difficult for think-tanks to nurture critical and original thinking, when researchers and their counterparts and funding institutions, generally analyse the risks and benefits of globalisation from similar perspectives and therefore, seldom question the ever greater levels of international adaptation and integration that it demands. And now the risk is that even if funders exert no direct influence on the analysis or ideas of the institutes they support, think-tanks’ conclusions may still be perceived as being compromised, given that public trust, in most institutions, is at an all-time low. This problem has become more acute, as foreign Governments have joined foundations and companies in tapping into the soft power that think-tanks can indirectly offer them to influence policy debates in key policy designing capitals, including Washington, Brussels and London.
So, what needs to be done? To the two last parts of my remarks. Think-tanks face a paradox. The international environment is once again in desperate need of measured, objective analysis and ideas on how to navigate this turbulent period. But Government leaders now more often follow rather than lead an awakened citizenry that is sceptical and whose anger they fear and without whose proactive engagement they will fail. Think-tanks risk getting lost in the shuffle. So, how might we – they adapt? Here are five ideas that we’re working on at Chatham House.
First, double down on our core original purpose. To infuse political debate with analysis, based on facts and expertise, not on opinions and bias. I believe this commitment will prove its worth, as many media and digital platforms are seen to create societal echo chambers that can be manipulated by popularist demagogues and subversive Governments. But this makes it all the more important that think-tanks should also avoid the sad song of nationalism. We will not credible if we serve as a cypher for the perspective of our respective states or Governments. I think we need to diffuse rather than amplify the level of international antagonism that is a feature of the early 21st Century.
Second, think big. After a long period of focusing on technocratic policy solutions, we also need to offer comprehensive, creative ideas, for example, on how to promote more inclusive, equitable and sustainable growth. And, after taking a rules-based system as a given, we need to reinvigorate existing governance systems and propose new ones, lest the world slips back into the darker periods of the 20th Century. Think-tanks must also ensure decision-makers in societies recognise the dangers, in a return to balance of power politics. As, during the Cold War, we need to propose confidence building and de-escalation measures in areas of economic and military tension, and we need to delve beneath the structural drivers of conflict between large states and avoid conflicts being sparked by underlying tensions over culture, religion and historical grievance.
Third, let’s be a force for positive change. So, even as power politics re-emerge as a dominant feature of international affairs, our audiences need to be alive to the opportunities that the global spread of advances in science and technology offer to build more resilient societies within healthcare, education, power generation. Think-tanks tend to focus on risks and we pay less attention to positive developments, but if we continue focusing too much on the risks, while ignoring ways in which public policy can unlock opportunities, we will contribute, I think, to the sense of helplessness that is abetting the rise of destructive popularist politics.
Fourth, we need to innovate. As a principal example invest more time in how sub-state and non-state actors and coalitions can drive positive change. Cities, regions, local communities, multinational companies, civil society organisations, they’re not just going to be consumers of think-tank outputs and participants in our events, but partners in how to promote a new, more distributed international order. This’ll put a bigger premium on think-tanks building bridges between local and sectoral best practices, not only between those of nations, and this process is underway, actually, amongst quite a few think-tanks, as I note in the article in International Affairs. Building coalitions with businesses and NGOs could also prove valuable for think-tanks, especially in promoting the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Leading multinationals increasingly hue to the highest norm standard or regulation globally available, even if national regulators offer the opportunity to undercut it. This is increasing the case for data protection, human rights, and carbon reduction commitments.
Companies can also leverage finance at scale into impactful investment in the neediest parts of the world, with the right incentives. Think-tanks should also broaden the scope of their research methodologies, so as to assess how individuals acting in concert can play a meaningful role in responding to complex policy challenges, in the areas of climate change and resource over consumption. This will require investing in new research tools, from online surveys to the use of big tata to underpin research conclusions, as a number of think-tanks are already doing.
Fifth, let’s engage a greater diversity of voices in our research and policy recommendations. The means ensuring – this means ensuring that women are integrated across the full lifecycle of research, from designing, leading and publishing outputs to being fully represented in the networks and datasets that serve as the feedstock for future policy outputs. It also means engaging people with disabilities and a broad spectrum of ancestry and income diversity in the full range of our activities. Similarly, we need to engage more young people by offering accessible insights and by giving them the opportunity to contribute to idea generation through meetings, online interaction, and other types of programmes. In a world where top-down structures will struggle to provide leadership, it’s essential that youth are as informed as possible, as early as possible and that they develop a sufficient sense of agency to hold leaders to account and to contribute to their own solutions.
These five steps may prove difficult to execute, that will work, more work, but they are at least operationally clear. A more contentious problem will be whether western think-tanks and their international counterparts, can work together to meet the shared challenges of interdependence during what will be a very confrontational period in international affairs, and here I want to come to the principles issue. In the future, Western think-tanks cannot assume that to be effective, institutions must implicitly or explicitly be western-led. Effectiveness will be more closely linked to legitimacy, meaning that international institutions must be better reflected of the diversity of their member states and their world views. But to devise a common work programme, with the potential for influence, do think-tanks from across the world also need to possess more of a sense of common purpose? Do we need to buck the deepening sense of international political competition and share some common principles that we believe could help build a better world? If so, do we know what they are?
Well, I think after, something like, a hundred years of think-tank experience, the answer should be yes. In my opinion, there are two fundamental principles that can help think-tanks work constructively together, despite their diverse interests, values, cultures and political systems. The first basic principle is to promote a peaceful and co-operative approach to international affairs, based on widely accepted rules and not on a balance of power. The idea that think-tanks should simply accept as inevitable the current rise in international competition, cuts across the grain of all that we’ve learnt in the past century, and to take such a defeatist approach, would ignore the fact that international co-operation is now indispensable, if Governments and citizens are to confront successfully the risks emanating from an interdependent world.
China’s President Xi Jinping has championed the idea that states today form part of a community of shared interests and should act accordingly. To my mind, although Martin Wight might object, he is echoing the core principle of the English School of International Relations, which argues that states can come together, despite their inherent antagonisms, to form an international society and so, avert the perpetual risk of a decent into international anarchy. Creating an international society implies a willingness, on the part of states, to support the evolutionary amplification of the scope and depth of international law, in recognition that their self-interest drives them to share and voluntarily observe rules that constrain their scope for national action.
Now how might think-tanks support this important counterbalancing principle to the kind of social Darwinism of international affairs? One option will be for us to play a more active role in developing the norms, standards and rules around which Governments can gather, if they want to tackle successfully the cross-border challenges to prosperity and security. In future, think-tanks from across the world could offer joint ideas for the effective regulation of the global flows of goods, services, people and information, and another priority should be to improve levels of transparency around state commitments under treaties and international agreements, whether through public analysis or comparative indices. But, if an international society is to be sustainable, in a world of weak institutions and geopolitical competition, it will also depend critically on the quality of national governance.
“A community of shared interests,” Xi Jiping’s quote, “will likely contain the seeds of its own destruction if those interests are constantly revised, as a result of instability within its key constituent members.” This raises the more difficult question of whether think-tanks from different parts of the world should agree on principles for sustainable and effective national governance, so as to provide a common normative base from which they can work together. The one core principle I would put forward is that the Government of a State should be accountable to its citizens. This may appear a statement of the obvious, in this room at least, but differences in interpretation of the correct balance between the respective rights and responsibilities of citizens, on the one hand, and the state, on the other, risk becoming one of the central fault lines in international affairs this century, and this fault line could present a block to effective co-operation between western think-tanks and some of their international partners.
Whatever the short or even medium-term benefits, I believe the governance systems in which citizens are permanently kept subservient to the state risk becoming unsustainable, politically, over time. If one shares this belief then what are the basic requirements for accountable governance? One is some form of separation of powers, including the devolution of power down to levels where it can best deliver citizens’ needs, so as to avoid the demobilising, corrupting and ultimately, destabilising effects of absolute centralised power. Equally important, in my opinion, is a protected and well-regulated space for an independent civil society, including the media. Only civil society can reliably make political and economic decision-making more transparent, thereby enabling an informed public to hold Government to account. An independent civil society, in turn, depends on the primacy of the rule of law, which is the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights observes, is indispensable for protecting the rights of individuals and minorities, from the potential abusive power of the state.
To underscore the interlocking nature of these requirements, in order to have primacy, the rule of law requires a separation of political powers that enables judicial independence and protects citizens from rule by law. Given the different stages of economic development, the diverse systems of national governance around the world today, western think-tanks need to recognise that these principles will best be aspirational for some of their international partners and will be flat out rejected by others. I think it should be part of our mission, however, to encourage convergence towards these principles over time, and if countries do embed these principles and their governance systems, western think-tanks should do their utmost to ensure they are upheld and not eroded. After all, think-tanks, in both the developed and developing worlds, are themselves a critical component of civil society and we are therefore, part of that ability to make Governments more accountable, as well as effective. But think-tanks can play this role, only if they’re guided by a core principle of their own, which is their intellectual independence. Without it, we risk being perceived as additional echo chambers in an increasingly cacophonous world.
Perceptions of think-tanks’ independence will continue to be intertwined with their governance structures and funding models. Therefore, the more that think-tanks seek to extend the scope of their influence beyond elites in an era of politically awakened societies, the more they need to be fully transparent about their funding sources and ensure good quality governance, consistent with their missions. Striving for high-quality, transparent governance, in which an institution’s board can counterbalance pressures from politics and funding sources, will be essential to any think-tank’s credibility and in the end, only those think-tanks, which seeks to protect to the best of their ability the intellectual dependence and institutional autonomy that they bring, can have the confidence to challenge Governments, private institutions and the publics alike, to look beyond their ever nearer policy horizons.
So, to conclude, western think-tanks have long championed the creation of international institutions that would serve as a check to the vagaries of balance of power politics and unlock the wealth creating potential of open markets. After the Cold War, these think-tanks evolved into stewards of globalisation. They pocketed the victory of liberalism and sought to expand its remit, but without, I think, applying sufficient critical analysis to its inherent weaknesses. Today, the purpose of think-tanks is evolving once again. The idea of creating an inclusive, liberal, international order appears to be in retreat, assailed by the loss of confidence among large segments of western society and by rejection of liberal pluralist democracy, amongst some of the world’s many rising powers.
Think-tanks need to adapt now to a world drifting back to ‘me first’ balance of power politics, alongside ever deepening interdependence. In this context, think-tanks must consider whether it suffices to remain sources of objective analysis of the rising competition, interdependence and focus an offering, technical recommendations that address the challenges or, is it time once again, for leading international think-tanks to adapt a more proactive stance, explicitly promoting the principles that they believe should underpin peace and prosperity? I believe that as heirs of our counterparts of a century ago, we should not be satisfied, simply with analysing and commenting on this dangerous new phase in international relations. Nor is it enough for us to line up behind our own Governments, when policy’s increasingly driven by zero sum interpretations of international affairs. In the West, think-tanks need to engage new partners and new ideas in the process of building a co-operative, rules-based international society. But the long-term success of these efforts will be jeopardised if we set to one side the principles of accountable governance that our institute’s experience have taught us are essential to build a sustainably secure, prosperous and just world.
Our goal therefore, should be to encourage converging principles for national as well as international governance. The ultimate result, which Martin Wight would likely have endorsed, would be the emergence, for the first time, of an inclusive and not exclusive international society of states. Thank you [applause].
Sasha Havlicek
Robin, thank you so much. What a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of the context, of the purpose and focus of the modalities, of the governance of this sector, of the Think-tank sector. And with this, you raise extremely important questions that we all need to be answering today about the future of political and social agency, of political and social influence, the raison d’etre of this sector. And you talked about some pivotal turning points, in relation to the context and the backdrop against which we operate.
A pivotal change in the post-Cold War period where Governments – where policymaking is no longer the preserve of Governments alone, and with the advent of communications technology and all that has come with that, a people power and of the proliferation of competing influencers, of all shapes and forms. And I think you’ve talked very powerfully about how outmoded, in many ways, the modalities and the tools of the think-tank sector have been in relation to that pivotal, social and political change. So, crisis, here we are in crisis. You also talk about not just the failure of the modalities, the tools, the tools of the toolkit for influence, but also, a failure of the sector to clock what was centrally happening in political and social terms, the backlash to unbridled globalisation and the social impact of that, to some extent, I think this is the aftermath of the divorce of the liberal, progressive agenda from the equalities agenda and everything that came with that. But it is true, and I noted that early on. We were failing to look at the cultural challenges that were on the rise. The march of cultural and identity-based movements and needs and we’re still looking through a broadly socioeconomic prism, at all the problems of our world.
So, indeed, a big, big challenge. I wanted to come to your principles, ‘cause you lay out a, sort of, call to arms, an important call to arms, and one I absolutely support. A kind of manifesto for the think-tank sector. You laid out principles, which incorporate – there were, sort of, five principles in your piece, in your written piece, peace and co-operation, governance and accountability, which included separation of powers as one. Independent civil society and media, rule of law, independence, that all sounds, to me, an awful lot like democracy. Is this democracy, promotion in a nice package, would be my first question? And then, I suppose, following on the heels of that, I’d be interested to get your view on what has been most successful, in your view, in the recent period, in the think-tank world? That think-tanks, what think-tankery, over the last decade, have we seen be effective, in terms of influence? And I say this with slightly – and my focus is on the rise of populist and extremist movements and I just throw out there the influence of a whole array of US think-tanks, from the Middle East forum herited. I mean, a number of think-tanks that have been very active in sowing the cultural underpinnings to a populist and far right movement, and not just at home, but very effectively abroad, you know, they – to the point of organising marches on the streets of London, in support of Tommy Robinson but, of course, also, operationalising new modalities for communication. A whole tech communications infrastructure to boost and hypercharge those ideologies. That seems, to me, to have been particularly effective, but are there other examples, maybe more encouraging examples, of what has been effective in this recent period? Maybe we’ll start with those two.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Well, thank you. Thanks for giving me a chance to get my breath back, as well. That – you really went to a core question there, the first one. Is this democracy by another name? I think one of the most – we’ve talked a lot about this in our Board, our Council at Chatham House, not about democracy per se, but these principles. Do we, as Chatham House, and I’m the Director of Chatham House, but I report to a Board and I work with colleagues and staff, and we’re all a team. So, you know, I’m not going to speak, right now, on behalf as Chatham House as a whole. This is me speaking, personally, Robin, okay, Director of Chatham House in Chatham House, but still. And the point I want to make is that I think it’s incredibly important that at this particular moment, we don’t box ourselves in and that we don’t find ourselves caught on one side of what Hank Paulson, the Former US Treasury Secretary called a – he called the rising economic iron curtain, but it could be, again, a political one that might emerge.
We might end up there, but we certainly shouldn’t be contributing to it, if we can possibly help it, and if I throw democracy in here, as one of the core principles, you then have to unpack democracy, of course, into as many pieces and is it a majoritarian democracy? Is holding elections in Turkey democracy? Is a Presidential system democracy in France, which has a pretty – if somebody were trying to put the Constitution of the Fifth Republic into place right now, I think the Commission might be doing an Article 7 on France. So, you know, there’s a huge variety there, and I don’t want to get boxed on that.
Let me give you the one example of what I mean by separation of powers. Now I didn’t put elections in there as a core thing. Separation of powers, look at China. China’s gone through a period of 30 years of what strikes me of very successful, by any objective sense, opening up and that opening up was done to my reading, as a non-China expert, but I watch it, and I travel there a bit and I listen to China experts. By realising that actually, a form of separation of powers, within a communist-led system, actually allowed creativity and opportunity to arise. Business people were allowed into the Communist Party. Difference factions have taken, in essence, in turn, to lead the Communist Party, over a period of time, with every ten years having a change in leadership and every five years, a bit of a refresh of the Standing Committee of the Polit Bureau.
It’s a form of separation of powers, yeah, and so, if I put that down there as a principle and then I look at where China’s going today, and I meet with colleagues from Chinese think-tanks, I don’t say to them, “You’re not a democracy, you’re going to be in trouble.” I do say to them, “It’s interesting how that separation of powers thing that you had going, which I thought was pretty good, doesn’t seem to be quite what it was anymore.” It so happens I may have heard that comment actually from a couple of Chin – Chinese to me, as well. So, that’s what I was trying to do was to pull that out. Is there an independent media in all of these countries? No. But was there a bit of scope for academics to say things, in front of their classrooms? Do you see what I’m getting at? I want to at least have the framework that we can reach over to a convergence agenda and not be on one side of things. So, that’s what I’m trying to do. Not democracy, therefore, pure and then, on think-tanks, that’d be a very long answer, but also maybe not now, an informed one, because I’m trying to think of think-tanks that are proving really successful today and many of the ones I don’t know, you know, and don’t know well, I think, and includes yours. We talk, but we haven’t talked much in the last ten years, so…
Sasha Havlicek
Yeah, yeah.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
…I think, what I’m aware is that, I think, actually, all think-tanks are adapting, because most think-tanks, and certainly in the West, have to survive and either their Governments will cut back their funding or donors will cut back their funding, if they’re not adapting. I just had Michael Fullilove in, who’s not here tonight, who’s the President of the Lowy Institute. He’s described how the last two years, they’ve developed the Asia Power Index. You can go in as one of their members and play around online and change – they said, “This is what constitutes the Power Index,” but maybe you think there’s too much emphasis on military power. So you go to their website and actually dial down military power and see how the numbers pop out the other side.
You know, we’ve set up, at Chatham House, our resourcetrade.earth thing, you can go in there, see where the checkpoints are, look to the future. You know, so trying to get people to take greater ownership, on the analytical side, is a critical element of then making them being open to the ideas. Because, as I said earlier, the big danger right now is people have switched off the ideas, they don’t like the ideas, so they switch off the facts.
I will just close to say that I don’t think the outright, you know, and those who espouse an outright agenda are think-tanks. But I’ll stop on that.
Sasha Havlicek
Thank you, and I would love to take some questions from the floor. I’ll take them in groups of three, if I may, and if I can just ask you to state your name and your affiliation, when you speak. Please, madam. I think there’s – do we have? That’s good.
Hilde Rapp
Thank you. Hilde Rapp, Centre of International Peace Building and a Member. Robin, thank you so much and you too, Sasha, for a really brilliant exposition of the challenges and opportunities. I will be very brief. I’ll just pick out one piece of the pie. You mentioned the sustainable – UN Sustainable Development Goals and it seems to me that they are a catalogue of positive aims about what we might all want to aim for and because they have very well-formulated – okay, there are problems with them – indicators, which are mapped across, especially in the last two goals, 16 and 17, where you’re talking about both governance issues and about international co-operation and partnership, could be quite a big, central pillar for this discussion. Because also, what they encourage and require, is both vertical and horizontal co-ordination, communication, integration, and I just wondered whether you could comment on that, please.
Sasha Havlicek
A wonderful idea. Gentleman over here and then gentleman near the front. Well, in order, yes.
Peter Marshall
Peter Marshall, of Chatham House of some 55 years. Listening to this, the fascinating way you put this Robin, as a holistic problem, but looking at it, equally, you’ve had to disaggregate it into an enormous number of complicated small pieces, including this excellent suggestion made by the previous speaker. Is the qui – you know, your task, can it be formulated in this overt, perhaps simple proposition? A rules-based system is inadequate. It’s necessary, but not sufficient condition. What you’ve got to have above it is a values-based community or society. Now, the exactly what goes into the contribution, the individuals make to this community, can be enormously complicated, as in the case of China, as you have put, Robin, but can we validly keep this overall concept in mind or is it just too unrealistic?
Sasha Havlicek
And third question here.
Professor Malik Dahlan
Dr Niblett, fantastic contribution and – my name is Malik Dahlan, Professor of International Law and Public Policy, Queen Mary University of London. I’m also a RAND Europe Senior Research Fellow. I had a long history with think-tanks, including Brookings, RAND, right now, and setting-up one myself. So, I was thinking of either writing you a long email or just reviewing your paper, but what I’ll ask – I’ll focus my question on two aspects, which I think are really important here. One is your view about professionalising the industry or the function of think-tanks. So many people out there are calling themselves think-tanks. There’s also some necessary demarcation with management consultants and the like, so there was a period where it was fashionable to say, “We’re a do tank.” The – so, I’d love your views on that.
The second aspect, and I hope the whole, you know, audience indulges me here. I know that friends from the US, certainly some from here, who tend to been from the right wing thinking, so let’s call it right, centre-right, do not feel that Chatham House is a welcoming platform and I want to make the distinction here that I’m not talking about the ‘whackos’ or the ‘popularists’, but certainly the dignified distinction and I consider myself a centre-right thinker that deserves the time for serious engagement on these big questions. How come we’ve become so polarised and how are we able to engage on what we view as necessary issues? Certainly things such as let us talk about threat, even if we don’t view the world positively. The half empty sometimes is important.
Sasha Havlicek
Important, yeah, very important.
Professor Malik Dahlan
Thank you.
Sasha Havlicek
So three questions, first one on UN Sustainable Development Goals, can they be a rallying focus? The second on values-based community. I did note, Robin, that you avoided the use of the term ‘values’ in favour of principles and I’m interested in your perspective in that. Also, because, ultimately, does that underpin the concept of an international society, which I’d love to come to a little bit later and then this point on professionalisation, demarcation and, yes, left/right, which is a real challenge.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Great questions and I was just saying, if we go over a bit of time, there are drinks, so we will go over time. We started a bit late, so I think we’ll go over time, yeah. I’m in charge, we’re going over time. I’m sort of in charge – you’re in charge of the conversation, but I can – still in charge of the room. So, I have very little to say on the UN SDGs comment, other than to say that’s a really good idea. I mean, I like the fact that as you said, it requires national governance improvement, the effectiveness, the failure of administrative capacity, in so many of these states where healthcare’s not being provided, and if you don’t have good national governance, you’re screwed. And yet, it requires support at scale, as was discussed at a panel here, yesterday evening, how do you get the private sector involved at scale, which requires, therefore, incentives that can be provided beyond what just the international financial institutions can do, with some type of partnership?
So, in a way, for them to be successful, those 17 goals, you’re going to have to work at both levels simultaneously. That might be a good organising principle. I’ll see if a few of my colleagues here from Chatham House will ke – will take that into account. So I’ll just say, thank you, good idea.
Hilde Rapp
I’ll might write you an email about it.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Write me an email, I’d appreciate it. Peter always does, so that would be good. Turning to Peter, second. Now, I was very – one of the reasons I was very worried about doing this lecture is, I really haven’t read any international relations theory since 1991 or 2 or something and – or maybe it was 3, but any case, a long time ago, and I thought here I’m going to talk about Martin Wight and my former MPhil thesis Supervisor, Ann Dyton, did say, “I was a bit disappointed not to see more Martin Wight in your international affairs article,” and I didn’t want to tell her I just did not have time to do that research. But I did have a quick gander through two or three pages this afternoon of something and I saw a very interesting breakdown by Barry Buzan, the great Scholar of the English School, a current one, and he talks about the three approaches to international affairs. The state system, billiard balls, states just end up in conflict ‘cause they bounce into each other, it’s inevitable, yeah?
International society, states affect each other, but they don’t trust each other, so it’s quite difficult to find rules, but you try to and – think Paris Climate Change Agreement, yes, nationally determined contributions. In the end, we all have to trust each other, and then, world society. The world society was based on the idea that values dominate across states and that there are shared values and that they are ones that can be – that provide an underpinning principle to the ability to have the international society, and apparently, this is one of the big debates. Do you need to have the values in place to have an international society or could you have an international society, without the values there as a priori requirement?
So your question, whether you meant or not, has gone right, bang into the heart of this apparently unresolved dilemma for international society proponents. Now, where I come at it, I think, to answer your question is, we’d better not wait for the values because I think – I don’t know. They may or may not come, but I work in a think-tank. I’m looking at six months ahead to three years ahead and I don’t think those values are going to be coalescing that quickly, that’s for sure. So, I’m interested about how think-tanks might take whatever we mean or I mean or people mean, by international society, and can you be building rules, building predictability, building trust in areas where the value element or the principles’ element does not overly get in the way. Now, it might be difficult to come to some agreement on governance of the internet because the values element is going to get in the way, but it shouldn’t be difficult coming to an international rules system on climate mitigation, yeah?
So let’s pick our areas. Let’s be practical, as we’re in a think-tank, and think about how this plays out. So that’d be my answer to your point there. I mean, the idea of ‘do tanks’ I always think it a little bit markety because in the end all – I think successful think-tanks, in the end, and this has been my view since I came to Chatham House and it was my view and the view of others’ think-tanks where I’ve worked in the past, is that if you can do great analysis and you’re doing great convening, it should be for a purpose. And if you have independence and you can claim independence, that independence should not be protected and polished and kept in a cupboard. It should be used to do good or to make a difference and so, although it might, for most think-tanks, be just the top of the pyramid, and there’s a lot of convening, and a lot of analysing and working groups, but I think all of us at Chatham House, and I would say in the other institutes I know and respect, are trying to take that and come up with ideas and input them or get support for them to make a difference. So, all think-tanks should be ‘do tanks’ will be my answer to that.
On the centre right, I mean, Chatham House, I mean, Nigel Farage has sat where I’m sitting so, you know, we’ve certainly, I think, at this institute, found a way to be inclusive on platforms. I think, in the end, what you write, of course, reflects the people who work in the institute and how they’re recruited, and maybe there’s a certain way of looking at the world that may enthuse an institution. But we certainly do our best and I think most people know, today, that you absolutely need to have centre right and centre left engaged. It’s much easier to do it in the UK and in France or in Ger – well, in Germany maybe, certainly in many countries it’s easier to do than in the US, where people are more tribal. Though the Centre for New American Security, I think has done a pretty good job at trying to make sure it has centre right and centre left. CSI and Spy on the Martyr was based on that or it’s Board. So, I think it’s doable and we should – if we’re not doing it enough here, we should be do it more.
Sasha Havlicek
I think we’ve got time for two more questions. I’ve got one here and then the lady over there. Yeah.
Cornelia Navarro
Cornelia Navarro from University of Buckingham. You’ve pulled us back from globalisation to internationalism and the English School’s with you on that. Internationalism implies rule-based, as you pointed out to, but this also implies the role of the state. You’ve said nothing about the role of Chatham House, in relation to British foreign policy. Is British foreign policy irrelevant to building a new rule-based international order?
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
What a great question, yeah.
Sasha Havlicek
And over here, the gentleman in the front row.
Adam Roberts
And my question is in a similar spirit. Adam Roberts, Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University. You spoke about the danger of returning to a balance of power approach and it’s a question in my mind whether it’s the right way of framing a question, to suggest that either we have an international order or we have a balance of power approach. There’s a very long tradition of trying to reject a balance of power approach, but finding that certain power considerations are still relevant and important. So, I was not sure about the framing of that particular issue and I suspect that Martin Wight wouldn’t have been sure about the framing of that particular issue. But perhaps related to that, the approach that you suggest that think-tanks might commonly take, the search for common ground between – and common standards, should surely include, and you weren’t quite explicit about this, a recognition of failures on the part of western states and no failure, I think, has been more repeated and continuous than the lazy assumption that if only you get rid of a bad Government, all will be well. And that democracy is easy to instil in a country where it has not hitherto, been extensively practised and, maybe, Chatham House itself and other think-tanks, need to recognise that we live in a plural as well as liberal world.
Sasha Havlicek
Absolutely, over to you, and not to waste any time.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Thank you. Maybe I’ll start with the last question ‘cause it’s fresh in my mind, and as I turned up as a rather long in the tooth MPhil student at Oxford University to do my MPhil. Adam Roberts was the Head of the Department at the time or the Leader of the whole department, if I’ve phrased it right, Adam, and reminds me of what I did, when I got there, which I get rigorous questions about, “What do you really mean by that?” And the idea of the balance of power does, you know, does not equal order and therefore, is risky is, I suppose, is classic think-tankery because, as a think-tanker, I’m sitting here, looking right now and thinking, can China and America have a balance of power? And I think to myself, not easily, but maybe, and would I want to live in a world where we, in essence, found a new quasi bipolar, let’s called it, whether it be a world in which those two were facing-off against each other? And I suppose, my instinct to think is, I don’t – I want to fight against that being the outcome. Not least because I think, and that will take me in a minute to the second question, countries like Britain will find themselves in a very difficult position, working out how to play that one. It won’t be like the Cold War at all, in terms of choices.
But to your – so, no, I recognise balance of power can provide periods of order. I think we live in a world of accelerated risk because it’s sort of accelerated information, accelerated population growth. All of those books that talk about the singularity. We’re on a rocket of technological change. We don’t have time, I think, to experiment with a 50-year period of balance of power order that might then lead to crisis. I think we’re in a – and again, maybe I’m being think-tankery about it. I think the pace of change is so fast that I’m nervous about balance of power and order being equal, but I’m sorry for taking Martin White in vain, if I did on that one.
Whether we need to have common standards and recognising failures of the past. I recognised, I thought quite fervently, the failure that I think my period of think-tankery is most associated with, which actually is maybe overly believing in the deterministic value of globalisation. I still think it’s good. It’s just we weren’t balancing the disaggregate affects from the aggregate affects. I think the Iraq War, having worked in Washington from 97 to 2007 and being at the CSIS, one of the main think-tanks there, through that whole process, was a complete abjuration. I don’t think – I don’t see a systemic thing in it. I don’t see it as a – mistakes were made by individual policymakers of epic proportions, which have had impacts as Osama Bin Laden hoped they would, way into the future and way beyond his demise. But it was a unique moment where that appalling attack – attacks in Washington and New York, allowed a pitch to take place within White House foreign policymaking that totally knocked the balance out of kilter into the neocon favour. The neocon answers were not well-thought out answers to foreign policy. It wasn’t a School of Foreign Policy thought. I’m – I’ve got to be careful ‘cause some of those people are definitely alive and I know some of them, but it was – yeah, amateur hour, at best, yeah? Amateur hour mixed with an ideological view of how you could change the world, an appalling failure.
I think the choices for Britain were complicated, you know, when the President of the United States, a country that’s been providing, as they still were in those days, roughly 300,000 – well, they were declining at that point, but had been 300,000 troops to protect your border says, “I’m going in against a threat that I believe is a direct threat to my homeland, are you with me or against me?” It gets difficult. Again, I won’t say more than that. So, again, I think yes, there were lessons to learn, but I just think Iraq had lessons of Government and how Governments should be done and process that the Chilcot Inquiry has teased out very effectively, but I don’t think it was systemic to your fi – of the sort of your first part of your question.
Which brings me to Britain, and I’ll finish on this one. Is Britain’s foreign policy irrelevant to building, let’s call it the International Society Rules-Based Order. I am generally a positive thinker in life and there’s a few things I do think positively about, and that’s just a preamble to say that actually, I do think a Brexit Britain or a Britain that has left the EU, if it leaves the EU, will be relevant to a rules-based order and building it. Will definitely be relevant because it will be one of those countries that will depend, even more than before, on the rules-based order ‘cause we are going to be squashed between an America and China that suspect each other hugely, an America that will appeal to the past and even the present, in terms of the security it provides to us, and a China that will appeal, especially to the future and to the recent past of the – and now it’s the Golden Era to say, you know, “We’re part of your global Britain answer,” and we’re going to be squashed or caught or pulled, whatever verb you want to use, between those two phenomena, as will Australia, Canada, South Korea, most of the big European countries that care about foreign policy, and many other countries around the world. And so, I’m a big believer that actually, this is a moment where countries, which tend to be mid-sized big, who have a sense of agency, but no longer feel a sense of belonging as much as they did to any particular alliance or system, need to come together to try to think about how creatively they can try to embed those rules-based structures, at a time when the big boy in town, the hegemony, would be America has taken its toys and pulled them back into the pram, and a China which is still going through massive, complicated transitions and has to think hugely about itself.
So, I – yeah, I think there is a– there’s an opportunity, whether it’ll be played is a whole another matter, but there’s an opportunity for the United Kingdom, with other countries, if it plays its cards intelligently, humbly, yeah, which doesn’t always associate with the word ‘Brexit’, but humbly and with, yeah, look, we need others and we need this system. Then I – and it will have to be with Europeans and even with the EU as much as it is with others, ‘cause the EU is the rules-based order par excellence, too much in some cases, but certainly par excellence. So, from a Chatham House perspective we, I think, I, my colleagues, those who work in this area, will certainly be trying to make sure that it’s not just a Chatham House voice, trying to push for a rules-based order, but that we’re supportive to a British Government that might want to do that. But let me say, Chatham House is a London-based institute that sees London as the capital from which you can think truly creatively about. Let’s call it an international society, and if there’s other Governments that want to play in this sandpit, we’ll work with them, too.
Sasha Havlicek
Thank you. Robin, if I may, I’m going to abuse my role as Moderator and take you to task, just in this final moment and then I really want to rally behind the Manifesto, because I think it’s quite important. On your points about values…
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yes.
Sasha Havlicek
…and on the ‘do tank’ piece.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah.
Sasha Havlicek
I think this is important because you noted, in your paper, how much of a failure the think-tank community was in not identifying the evolution of the threats, as they came at us in a post-Cold War.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah.
Sasha Havlicek
Well, here we are today, at a moment in time, where half of Europe has descended gently into soft fascism and we haven’t blinked yet. And where we have a machinery that has been investing in cultural – in the cultural underpinnings of these moments, for over a decade and a half, very, very successfully deploying all the new modalities in the toolkit, which is to say with data analytics, with our tech marketing, with micro targeting, all of the stuff that, of course, , you know, Management Consultants bring to us. They are in the doing space and they are extremely successful at that doing space. They are also in the values space, which is why they’ve been so successful at capturing all of the anxieties of this last two decades, in terms of identity. And, what we are not doing, in response, is addressing those fault lines that are ultimately now, I think, of both systemic and, sort of, existential importance. We are going to lose democracy.
Now you talk about this as a manifesto for western think-tanks, which is the only reason I raise it, but in the context of western think-tanks, surely there’s something bigger to fight for, and you say three things about purpose, think big. Now, indeed, I do think, is the time to think big and certainly, my institute has been designed to try and look at how do we recapture? How do we reclaim the ideational space? How do we play – make a play for the ideational centre of gravity to pushback extremes to where they belong, but they are mainstreaming today and they are co-opting the centre, undermining the middle? So big – you say think big, let’s do that and let’s come together around a common set of objectives there.
You talk about innovating. The ‘do tank’ thing. Having bits of press in the media, you know, in earned media is not doing.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
No.
Sasha Havlicek
And I think innovation, in the think-tank space, has to be – you talked a little bit in your paper about going to subnational – to the subnational level, engaging cities. We do that. We have a network of 120 cities. We – and it’s not just about talking to them, it’s about giving them the tools and the data. The understanding of the divisions in their communities, the resources and the training and the capabilities to respond. It’s about getting at the educational piece. This is about civic culture. How do we get into the education space and start to build what we need culturally to respond to these threats? How do we use our tech marketing for our benefit and where is our counter-Bannon’s Movement, the Movement that he’s established? Where is our machinery? That is something we’ve been trying to build out, data analytics, our tech – we must get in that game. It is a polemic, but we must get in that game, and diversity. We sit here today not so diverse and one of the challenges, of course, is that we’re constantly having this conversation without listening deep down, at a number of, sort of, levels to what actually people feel is a problem to them and we are losing them. And so, we must be building networks of influencers within different constituencies. Influencers that will be able to reach a person who’s at risk of being radicalised and recruited into far-right extremism, into Islamist extremism, into populist movements. We do know how that works and we do know how to respond. Surely, our Manifesto needs to include all of these things?
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
This is why I’m so pleased, Sasha, you accepted the invitation to chair this session because, you know you’re leading a think-tank that is definitely doing and it’s just – when you look across the variety of think-tanks in the UK in particular, let me add, it’s a fantastic, we are – I’m very proud to be Head of a think-tank in the UK, with you, and with the others that we all share this space with here in the United Kingdom, because I think we are very creative, and we are less tied into, as you are in Washington, our own policy flywheel, yeah? Because although the British Government is relatively important, it isn’t – it has to play with others to be influential and so, we’re able to look out and be a little bit more creative. And I think the, you know, I would say, tick, tick, tick to the points you made and I was not not doing them. The fact – the reason that I wrote what I wrote and the reason that I talked about these principles, we can call them values or some of them are values, some of them are principles, was because I did want to put a marker down that I think we, as a community, if we’re part of an independent civil society, cannot be part of the emergence of a soft fascism.
We are the antithesis of the emergence of that process and what the Russian Government and its allies – and here it has many, including, western Governments, today are doing is actually, they’re trying to take values and play it against what’s the perception of our lack of values? And this is where you’ve got to be very careful. I think we have to be very careful about how we play with the word ‘values’ because values can be emotionalised in a way that – can then be used cynically for a foreign policy purpose.
These Governments are not upholding values, they’re trying to achieve a foreign policy aim, which is to weaken the European Union and certain western Governments. So, you know, when I get into the values bit, I think we have to be very careful. Where do we go to, as think-tanks, and where do media organisations, advocacy organisations and foundations, they go maybe somewhere where we don’t go. If we get too big – to be influential at the scale you’re describing, you need size and scale and a lot of money, and think-tanks, I think their value is generally, to be smaller and to, yes, go further down the river, provide more capacity, but to be a lot tighter in how they focus. So yes, we should help develop tools. We should help provide the data. We need to make sure the data can be accessed and spread and available, but with the doing bit, I haven’t quite worked out, but I know where that boundary is, I think for Chatham House at least, between us then becoming an advocacy organisation for a competing process.
We can believe in these things, without having to then, you know, put ourselves on just one site of the fence, such that we close them off. I think I’ve swung ahead of our Russia-Eurasia Programme here, who I’m sure was nodding through a lot of what you were saying in those points and, you know, we’re very blunt about when we think things are being done against our wellbeing and undermining our systems and our principles, undermines our wellbeing. So we will call that out, but I think there’s a line somewhere between your call to arms and my Manifesto.
Sasha Havlicek
Yes.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
We’ve got to, kind of, work out the working line in-between it and so will my Board Members, who are sitting here. We had quite an active discussion about this in our last Board Meeting. So, this is live stuff. So I must stop here.
Hilde Rapp
And a good partnership.
Sasha Havlicek
Yes, thank you, Robin. I am very conscious of having over – I mean, our time is up, but maybe just on a slightly last positive note. The Edelman Trust Barometer tells us that while peer-to-peer discussion has been seen for now and quite a long period of time as the most trusted source of information, you know, social media and so on, that is now in decline in 2018. There is now renewed confidence in technical experts and academics, 63% and 61% respectively. Our time, maybe, is coming back.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Brilliant.
Sasha Havlicek
So thank you [applause].
