In the global marketplace of ideas, think tanks and researchers play a vital role in shaping public discourse and informing policymaking. However, not all actors operate with integrity or academic rigour.
A growing number of pseudo think tanks and researchers—organisations and individuals that mimic the appearance of legitimacy while serving narrow ideological, political, or commercial agendas—have found success in influencing policy decisions across the world.
This article explores the strategies they use, why they are effective, and what can be done to safeguard policymaking from disinformation disguised as expertise.
You could consider reading this alongside Katy Murray’s What policy experts can learn from conspiracy theories.
Defining “pseudo” in policy research
Pseudo think tanks are not new. They feature, for example, in the story of how Big Oil interests ‘made us doubt everything’ in relation to climate change..
In the boom days of the evidence-informed policy discourse in Peru in the second half of the 2010s, several pseudo think tanks emerged as part of a concerted effort by parts of the private sector to derail any proposals to reform the pension system. They used a model popular in the UK or the US, adopted by campaign or single-issue interest groups that employ labels like “citizens”, “taxpayers”, or “institute” to project legitimacy and credibility. They called themselves think tanks even though there was very little thinking being done.
Before exploring the strategies these organisations use, it’s important to clarify what we mean by pseudo think tanks and pseudo researchers. I am describing them as:
- Pseudo think tanks are organisations that present themselves as independent and research-driven, but whose primary purpose is to advance a particular agenda, often that of their funders. While they may also lack transparency, academic rigour, or objectivity, these shortcomings alone do not make a think tank pseudo. What defines them is the deliberate use of the think tank label to lend credibility to advocacy or lobbying work not grounded in genuine research.
- Pseudo researchers, similarly, are individuals who claim academic or technical authority in order to promote a concealed agenda. Like pseudo think tanks, they may disregard key research standards such as peer review, methodological transparency, or the disclosure of conflicts of interest, but it is the strategic misuse of their status that marks them out.
Motivations may differ—political influence, financial profit, or ideological goals—but the effect is the same: policies are shaped by actors who rely not on evidence but on manipulating narratives, mimicking legitimacy, and constructing manufactured authority.
This is what sets them apart from think tanks or researchers who may indeed have biases (as we all do) or fall short of best practices, but who are not deliberately exploiting the appearance of legitimacy-from-research to mislead their audiences.
Mimicking the aesthetics of legitimacy
One of the most common and effective strategies is imitating credible institutions’ visual and structural hallmarks. This includes:
- Adopting the label that best serves their objective: Pseudo think tanks will include labels like “institute” or “centre” in their names, refer to themselves as “research organisations” or “think tanks” and boast of their “independence”.
- Professional branding: Pseudo think tanks often sport polished websites, elegant logos, and well-designed reports that resemble the outputs of respected organisations. Their websites will have all the hallmarks of old and established think tanks with heavy archives that make finding who is behind them and funds them purposefully hard.
- Academic façades: They host “policy briefings,” publish “research reports,” and organise “expert panels” filled with sympathetic voices, blurring the line between scholarship and lobbying. Their staff will likely have academic-sounding titles such as “fellow” or “senior researcher.”
- Networks and affiliations: Pseudo think tanks will likely point at the networks they are part of or their members’ affiliations (often academic, sometimes also pseudo-organisations).
This mirroring creates cognitive shortcuts for journalists, policymakers, and the public, who may assume quality and independence based on the appearance alone.
Research by On Think Tanks on the factors that explain the credibility of think tanks showed that audiences rely on these “visual” clues to judge an organisation’s trustworthiness; they rarely, if ever, verify the rigour of their research.
Leveraging media to manufacture credibility
The media still carries weight when it comes to awarding think tanks and experts credibility. Media fracture makes it easier for pseudo-think tanks and researchers to build a solid reputation without being questioned. Pseudo-experts have mastered the art of media manipulation through:
- Strategic op-eds and media appearances: By consistently appearing in sympathetic outlets or writing in mainstream publications, pseudo-researchers gain visibility and perceived authority. (It is very obvious when the person contacting you to place an article from a think tank works for a PR agency and not their communications team.)
- Astroturfing: Some organisations promote their messages through orchestrated campaigns that simulate grassroots support.
- White coat effect: A confident demeanour, academic title, or foreign accent can lend pseudo-researchers undue credibility in media appearances.
These tactics can boost public trust. And when these are coordinated with other actions, they can also pressure real policymakers to respond to seemingly urgent, public-facing “research findings.”
Funding as influence
Not all credible think tanks disclose their funding sources. Some well-established, reliable think tanks have non-disclosure policies.
But pseudo-institutions often obscure or strategically deploy funding in pursuit of their objectives. This includes:
- Dark money networks: Funding often flows from political action committees, corporations, or ideological groups through intermediaries.
- Donor capture: Some pseudo think tanks are shameless mouthpieces for their funders.
- Legitimising through partnerships: Their funds often allow pseudo think tanks to partner with legitimate institutions, thus benefiting from their legitimacy.
As with the use of the think tank label, pseudo think tanks do not just hide their funding, they weaponise it.
Exploiting policymaker weaknesses
In Anthony King and Ivor Crewe’s excellent The Blunders of our Governments, asymmetry of knowledge and expertise is highlighted as one of several critical factors explaining policymaking mistakes. Many policymakers lack the time or resources to critically evaluate the quality of evidence presented to them. Pseudo actors exploit this through :
- Timely, digestible outputs: Quick, simplified briefs win over busy decision-makers more effectively than dense academic studies.
- Echo chambers and policy capture: In some cases, pseudo think tanks embed themselves within advisory bodies, think tank networks, or government panels, gradually gaining influence over policy agendas.
- Ideological convenience: Policymakers may turn to pseudo-research because it supports positions they already hold, allowing them to justify policy preferences with seemingly objective evidence.
Every time a legitimate think tank holds back from joining a debate or publishing a report because “it is not 100% ready” they give away the advantage for these groups to grab hold of policymakers attention.
Weaponising uncertainty and polarisation
In polarised environments, pseudo-researchers often thrive by muddying the waters, making legitimate think tanks work much harder. This works by:
- Both-sidesism: By framing their views as one side of a legitimate “debate,” they exploit journalistic norms of balance and gain coverage even when their claims lack merit. In this, the media has a lot to answer for. Over the years, they have contributed to making a non-expert opinion as legitimate as a fact.
- Undermining experts: By casting doubt on credible research, particularly in areas like climate change, public health, or education, they create confusion and slow policy action. Research is never straightforward, and most people do not really understand what it involves. It is, therefore, relatively easy to point at normal practices (e.g., cleaning a database) and label them dubious or suspicious.
- Crisis opportunism: During moments of disruption—economic crises, pandemics, political upheaval—pseudo actors step into the vacuum with quick answers, often based on ideology rather than evidence.
Mixing with “real” think tanks
A very effective strategy for these pseudo think tanks and experts, as well as their funders, is to work with “real” think tanks and experts, especially where there are ideological affinities.
In this way, pseudo think tanks advocating pseudo-science against policies to curb climate change refer to and even collaborate with think tanks like the Cato Institute or the Heritage Foundation, which may often hold and promote policy positions which are on the edges of the Overton window but are nonetheless established think tanks.
In the BBC’s Radio 4 Documentary series “How they made us doubt everything,” several think tanks, individuals, lobby groups, and pseudo-think tanks or public interest groups interlink to help create and sustain a sense of reputability.
- Cato Institute: A libertarian think tank that has historically received funding from fossil fuel interests. The series discusses how the institute contributed to climate change scepticism.
- Jerry Taylor: Formerly affiliated with the Cato Institute, Taylor was a prominent climate change sceptic. He later changed his stance and founded the Niskanen Center, advocating for evidence-based policy.
- Global Climate Coalition: A now-defunct industry group that lobbied against immediate action on climate change. The series discusses its role in promoting uncertainty about climate science.
- American Petroleum Institute (API): An industry group representing oil and gas companies. The series references internal documents from API that reveal strategies to cast doubt on climate science.
Why these strategies work
The success of pseudo think tanks and researchers lies not just in their tactics but in systemic vulnerabilities. For example:
- Media dependency on content: Journalists rely on expert quotes and reports without deep vetting. In a context where the media is poorly funded, the need to create ready-made quotes and press releases is even more dramatic.
- Academic inaccessibility: Real research is often dense, slow, and behind paywalls. Legitimate think tanks and researchers’ efforts to assert credibility often tend to focus on the robustness of their research (which adds to its complexity and difficulty in communicating it to a wider audience) instead of on what matters to the public (such as its accessibility or relevance).
- Political expediency: Policymakers seek research that supports their agenda, regardless of quality.
- Information asymmetry: The public, including policymakers and journalists, is always less informed than interest groups and has greater difficulty in accessing the necessary information.
Crucially, it is easier to create doubt than to develop, share and convince others of an evidence-informed argument.
What can be done?
There isn’t a silver bullet solution or counter-strategy. Real think tanks, their funders and broader society needs to respond with determination.
This phenomenon, combined with increasing authoritarianism and loss of funding for serious policy research, can have negative effects across the sector, regardless of think tanks’ ideological preferences.
The broad sector can respond by:
- Enforcing transparency and accountability:
- Disclosure requirements: The media, in particular, should demand and enforce transparency norms on funding sources, affiliations, and conflicts of interest.
- Funding transparency: Funders interested in and concerned about this issue should demand that their grantees disclose their funding sources and affiliations.
- Boosting evidence and media literacy:
- Training for policymakers and journalists: Provide tools to assess research claims critically.
- Public awareness campaigns: Educate the public on how policy research is produced and misused.
- Supporting investigative journalism and watchdog networks:
- Expose bad actors: Invest in journalism and watchdogs to track pseudo activities.
- Create counter-narratives: Promote accessible, evidence-based responses to pseudo-research.
What “real” think tanks can do
Think tanks must respond. If they present themselves as think tanks then, I would argue, they should be treated as such; and challenged to meet minimum standards.
Individually, and as a sector, think tanks should:
- Invest in methodological transparency: State methods, assumptions, and limitations clearly.
- Follow financial transparency: Even those who currently resist calls for greater transparency can help counter pseudo-think tanks, which are ultimately a threat to all think tanks.
- Communicate proactively and accessibly: Engage directly with audiences using clear outputs.
- Name and expose pseudo-practices: Call out harmful practices without being partisan.
- Strengthen collective credibility: Network with other real think tanks, regardless of their ideological leanings, and speak up for the sector.
- Treat this as a researchable subject: Pseudo think tanks are dangerous tools. They are wielded by more powerful actors. By understanding the causes and consequences of this disruption, think tanks can play a central role in recommending solutions.
Conclusion: The battle for better-informed policy
The challenge posed by pseudo think tanks and researchers is not just one of misinformation; it is a challenge to good governance itself. When policy is shaped by those whose objective is to distort evidence, the consequences can be grave, ranging from environmental degradation to inequality and public health crises.
Vigilance, transparency, and investment in real expertise are essential to ensure that policy remains grounded in evidence, not disguised as science.