Foreign Countries Buy Influence in America at Think Tanks

A story that strattles the line between Foundation Work and Transparency….though most should…this one is about once again the power of influence buying in the United States…A definite regular transparency problem executed by all sorts of non-profits…in this case….research groups called “Think Tanks.”

From the New York Times

WASHINGTON — The agreement signed last year by the Norway Ministry of Foreign Affairs was explicit: For $5 million, Norway’s partner in Washington would push top officials at the White House, at the Treasury Department and in Congress to double spending on a United States foreign aid program.

But the recipient of the cash was not one of the many Beltway lobbying firms that work every year on behalf of foreign governments.

It was the Center for Global Development, a nonprofit research organization, or think tank, one of many such groups in Washington that lawmakers, government officials and the news media have long relied on to provide independent policy analysis and scholarship.

More than a dozen prominent Washington research groups have received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments in recent years while pushing United States government officials to adopt policies that often reflect the donors’ priorities, an investigation by The New York Times has found.

The money is increasingly transforming the once-staid think-tank world into a muscular arm of foreign governments’ lobbying in Washington. And it has set off troubling questions about intellectual freedom: Some scholars say they have been pressured to reach conclusions friendly to the government financing the research.

1 Money and Influence in the Think Tank World

Foreign governments are a major source of money for think tanks in Washington, making donations, in many cases, with a goal of…