Brookings Institution Press

The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global economy, and economic development. Its stated mission is to "provide innovative and practical recommendations that advance three broad goals: strengthen American democracy; foster the economic and social welfare, security and opportunity of all Americans; and secure a more open, safe, prosperous, and cooperative international system."

Brookings has five research programs at its Washington campus: Economic Studies, Foreign Policy, Governance Studies, Global Economy and Development, and Metropolitan Policy. It also established and operated three international centers in Doha, Qatar (Brookings Doha Center); Beijing, China (Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy); and New Delhi, India (Brookings India). In 2020 and 2021, the institution announced it was separating entirely from its centers in Doha and New Delhi, and transitioning its center in Beijing to an informal partnership with Tsinghua University, known as Brookings-Tsinghua China.

The University of Pennsylvania's ''Global Go To Think Tank Index Report'' has named Brookings "Think Tank of the Year" and "Top Think Tank in the World" every year since 2008. ''The Economist'' describes Brookings as "perhaps America’s most prestigious think-tank."

Brookings states that its staff "represent diverse points of view" and describes itself as nonpartisan, and various media outlets have alternately described Brookings as centrist, center-left, liberal, or right-wing. An academic analysis of congressional records from 1993 to 2002 found that Brookings was cited by conservative politicians almost as often as by liberal politicians, earning a score of 53 on a 1–100 scale, 100 representing the most liberal score. The same study found Brookings to be the most frequently cited think tank by U.S. media and politicians.

History

1916–1979

Brookings was founded in 1916 as the Institute for Government Research (IGR), with the mission of becoming "the first private organization devoted to analyzing public policy issues at the national level." The organization was founded on 13 March 1916 and began operations on 1 October 1916.

The Institution's founder, philanthropist Robert S. Brookings (1850–1932), originally created three organizations: the Institute for Government Research, the Institute of Economics (with funds from the Carnegie Corporation), and the Robert Brookings Graduate School affiliated with Washington University in St. Louis. The three were merged into the Brookings Institution on December 8, 1927.

During the Great Depression, economists at Brookings embarked on a large-scale study commissioned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to understand its underlying causes. Brookings's first president, Harold G. Moulton, and other Brookings scholars later led an effort to oppose Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration because they thought it impeded economic recovery.

With the U.S. entry into World War II in 1941, Brookings researchers turned their attention to aiding the administration with a series of studies on mobilization. In 1948, Brookings was asked to submit a plan for administering the European Recovery Program. The resulting organization scheme assured that the Marshall Plan was run carefully and on a businesslike basis.

In 1952, Robert Calkins succeeded Moulton as president of the Brookings Institution. He secured grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation that put Brookings on a strong financial basis. He reorganized it around the Economic Studies, Government Studies, and Foreign Policy Programs. In 1957, Brookings moved from Jackson Avenue to a new research center near Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C.

Kermit Gordon assumed the presidency of Brookings in 1967. He began a series of studies of program choices for the federal budget in 1969 titled "Setting National Priorities." He also expanded the Foreign Policy Studies Program to include research in national security and defense. After Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, the relationship between Brookings and the White House deteriorated; at one point Nixon's aide Charles Colson proposed a firebombing of the institution. G. Gordon Liddy and the White House Plumbers actually made a plan to firebomb the headquarters and steal classified files, but it was canceled because the Nixon administration refused to pay for a fire engine as a getaway vehicle. Yet throughout the 1970s, Brookings was offered more federal research contracts than it could handle.

After Gordon died in 1976, Gilbert Y. Steiner, director of the governmental studies program, was appointed the fourth and acting president of the Brookings Institution by the board of trustees. As director of the governmental studies program, Steiner brought in numerous scholars whose research ranges from administrative reform to urban policy, not only enhancing the visibility and influence of the Brookings program in Washington and nationally, but also producing works that have survived as classics in the field of political science.

1980–2022

By the 1980s, Brookings faced an increasingly competitive and ideologically charged intellectual environment. The need to reduce the federal budget deficit became a major research theme, as did problems with national security and government inefficiency. Bruce MacLaury, Brookings's fifth president, also established the Center for Public Policy Education to develop workshop conferences and public forums to broaden the audience for research programs.

In 1995, Michael Armacost became the sixth president of the Brookings Institution and led an effort to refocus its mission heading into the 21st century. Under his direction, Brookings created several interdisciplinary research centers, such as the Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy (now the Metropolitan Policy Program, led by Bruce J. Katz), which brought attention to the strengths of cities and metropolitan areas; and the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, which brings together specialists from different Asian countries to examine regional problems.

Strobe Talbott became president of Brookings in 2002. Shortly thereafter, Brookings launched the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and the John L. Thornton China Center. In 2006, Brookings announced the establishment of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center in Beijing. In July 2007, Brookings announced the creation of the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform to be directed by senior fellow Mark McClellan, and in October 2007 the creation of the Brookings Doha Center directed by fellow Hady Amr in Qatar. During this period the funding of Brookings by foreign governments and corporations came under public scrutiny (see Funding controversies below).

In 2011, Talbott inaugurated the Brookings India Office.

In October 2017, former general John R. Allen became the eighth president of Brookings. Allen resigned on June 12, 2022, amid an FBI foreign lobbying investigation.

As of June 30, 2019, Brookings had an endowment of $377.2 million.

Publications

Brookings as an institution produces an Annual Report. The Brookings Institution Press publishes books and journals from the institution's own research as well as authors outside the organization. The books and journals it publishes include ''Brookings Papers on Economic Activity

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases