Talk:Brookings Institution

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I changed this entry to reflect what I found about this thinktank's place on the political spectrum, since that's what I was looking for when I first accessed it. Vanu 20:49, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Center-right?

Brookins is considered center or center left, however heritage is clearly conservative, so call them center right is fairly generous. Just look at their own site's self-description:

http://www.heritage.org/about/

Also the wiki on Heritage describes it as conservative:

Similarly with AEI, it is clearly conservative (Lynne Cheney is a senior fellow, Muth, the President worked for Reagan, etc.)

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Enterprise_Institute

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=4456

Compare to Brooking's about and description in sourcewatch:

http://www.brook.edu/index/about.htm

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Brookings_Institution

--OneWorld22 07:25, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Funders list accurate?

Why are none of the foundations listed under Funders listed on Media Transparency's page for Brookings Institution (http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=570)? --Slark 21:35, 2005 Apr 13 (UTC)

[edit] Didn't Nixon want to fire bomb this place?

Didn't Nixon want to fire bomb this place?

see

GangofOne 01:29, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Political Orientation

I took out the word "liberal" from the introductory paragraph, although it is true that many of the people who work there are "liberal". However, it is 1) officially non-partisan, 2) has some conservative people on staff as well, and 3) its political orientation is complicated and has its own section below. Sound good? Thanks, Afelton 17:23, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Independent seems to be a more accurate description. "A Measure of Media Bias" by Tim Groseclose and Jeff Milyo, September 2003, quite definitively shows that Brookings research is cited with equal frequency by Republican and Democratic members of Congress. Is there a better test?

I'd like to see a footnote citation for this after the word independent at the beginning of the article.--Evil1987 20:46, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that "independent" is the best descriptor. Brookings is the only think tank without an institutional point of view, and the only one I know of to hire both Democrats and Republicans (Kenneth Dam, Ron Haskins, Mark McClellan and Peter Rodman, to name a few.)Annoyed2 (talk) 22:19, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Most think tanks that I know hire both Democrats and Republicans. Most are non-partisan organizations for tax reasons. Morphh (talk) 14:24, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Also on Political Orientation

I don't think that the link to MediaTransparency is fair and balanced, as it is looking only at conservative research funders. Perhaps there is a better link on funders that presents things in a more balanced light?

[edit] More on Political Orientation

I removed "Nevertheless, Brookings is widely acclaimed for its intellectual rigor and pragmatic approach to a wide range of policy issues." Unsupported claim.

[edit] Criticisms

For WP:NPOV, this article should have a "Criticisms" section. I'm not familar with the organization enough to know what criticism they have recieved but doing what they do.. I'm sure it is out there. Morphh 13:28, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] introduction

the introduction needs some info - what is it? a non-profit corporation? funded by who?

[edit] Nixon's "Hit List"

I have removed the section regarding the Nixon administration as it is highly questionable regarding NPOV and has a dubious source. Nicholasink 02:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

The comment about NPOV is flatly wrong, and the sourcing issue was trivial to fix. Raul654 04:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Hamilton Project

I just finished reading an article in The Nation by James K. Galbraith in which he repeatedly refers to The Hamilton Project as a focal point in economic policy.

Perhaps someone with knowledge of the principles put forth by the Project can add an entry about this seemingly important position. 67.102.1.234 20:11, 24 February 2007 (UTC)Floydian

[edit] this reads like a brochure

this whole entry reads like some brochure you'd pick up at their office. perhaps a bit of a more neutral or dispassionate rewrite is appropriate?

[edit] Changed to liberal

Any one-eyed jackaninny would realize that the Brookings Institution is a slightly left-leaning (aka liberal) think tank. I changed the introduction to a more accurate one. --Rotten 05:26, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed the word "liberal". However, I did not revert it to saying it was "independent". I'd like to see citations to some reliable sources before any such label is affixed, since obviously it would seem to be a bone of contention. Also, I'm not sure slightly left-leaning is the same as liberal. --Evil1987 13:16, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
The UCLA study mentioned in the article clearly states that the BI is liberal, as did the magazine article I cited (which is old, but should still be relevant). --Rotten 14:07, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
I edited out the quote and mention of Time (which I didn't think looked right in the lead) and called it "traditionally considered liberal", which I think is fair considering the source is almost 30 years old. I haven't had a chance to look at the UCLA study cited on the page yet, but I would say if it calls the think tank liberal, then add another footnote there (i.e. in the lead) and call it a "liberal think tank" (taking out the part about "traditionally considered"). --Evil1987 14:23, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
We probably need to clarify this as "traditionally considered liberal" could be infered to mean classic liberal, which Brookings is not. We should wikilink it to Modern liberalism in the United States or perhaps call them progressive. Morphh (talk) 18:42, 01 August 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to make a quick post regarding Annoyed2's continuous attempts to removal all material that presents Brookings as a left-leaning or liberal institution. The material is well sourced, even over-sourced, and it is in violation of POV policy to remove this viewpoint. Even the NYT calls them left. Anyone is welcome to find other sources to include that describe the organization as centrist, since FAIR (a progressive org by their own statement) is the only one we having saying so. Morphh (talk) 17:38, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Let me also say that the Time Magazine reference is not "outdated". The article should show the history of the Institution as well as the present. Morphh (talk) 21:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)


I'm happy to reply to the last message. Brookings is 90 years old, and arguably America's first think tank. As such, it has a history of independence, hiring both Democrats and Republicans. While Heritage self-describes as "conservative" and the Center for American Progress self-describes as "progressive," Brookings proudly has no point of view. To call them liberal or left=leaning when a) they have so many conservatives and Republican scholars and b) their most frequently quoted scholar, Mike O'Hanlon, is constantly blasted in the blogosphere for supporting the Bush Administrations war in Iraq, is just wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Annoyed2 (talk • contribs) 21:57, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It is neither wrong or right here on Wikipedia. It is a point of view, and must be presented per WP:NPOV policy. The material is referenced and significant. If you have other sources that state your point of view, you are welcome to include them and make an argument that they are centrist. Even if there is much evidence that they are centrist, it is improper to remove the view that they are considered liberal. They are very well known as a left-leaning organization. Having republicans doesn't mean anything - I know lots of big government republicans.. Not saying they are right or wrong.. that's just the policy Brookings tends to support. Morphh (talk) 22:08, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
I've added a paragraph to the intro that I hope is helpful. I've mentioned that they're often cited as "liberal" in the media (clearly true) and also that they've received some flack from liberals for being too hawkish (also true). Annoyed2, Morphh is right: if reputable sources routinely label Brookings as liberal, then you don't get to delete it just because you disagree with it. You're welcome to add additional information illustrating the various non-liberal positions they've taken, but you don't get to remove information from reliable sources just because you personally disagree with it. Binarybits (talk) 05:30, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Annoyed2, I added a new section titled "Criticism" that illustrates what I'm talking about. If you think that Brookings is centrist, rather than liberal, the way to demonstrate that is to find some examples and add them to the article. Don't just go deleting other peoples' well-sourced material. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Binarybits (talk • contribs) 05:41, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
I understand the point but putting it in the lead makes this a primary issue, which considering the history of Brookings, I don't think it is. In regard to the criticism section, who is being criticized here - is it Brookings Institution or the economist that works for them? Brookings states that support like this is outside the borders of Brookings and does not speak for the organization. Is this charge against the policy written by the Institution or a particular economist? Morphh (talk) 14:56, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
On putting it in the lead, the lead for every other think tank entry includes some mention of its ideological leanings. That seems like an important piece of information for readers to have at a glance. On the criticism issue, lots of think tanks make the point that their scholars' research doesn't necessarily represent the official view of the organization. Nevertheless, think tanks are often criticized for research performed by their scholars. Binarybits (talk) 05:02, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Most independent think tank"

I placed a {{fact}} template on "most independent". I don't have access to the full Encyclopedia Britannica article, so if this assertion is included there, please include a quote in the footnote. Thanks. --Evil1987 15:41, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Curious: Is Brookings a WP "Reputable/Reliable Source" and how many wikipedia articles cite Brookings?

I think that the Brookings institute constitutes what the Wikipedia community would consider a reputable source. But what the hell do I know? Not much most likely.

I am curious as to how many wikipedia articles cite Brookings or a Brookings published paper as a source.

How would someone find that out? Are there any search engines that or Wiki stats that can be used to determine the link topology within the Wikipedia?

And actually, I am using Brookings just as an example. It could just as easily be any other "Washington Think Tank", say CATO, or the American Enterprise Institute, or ...?

In fact, I think I will place this comment on their pages too. (And I did.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.76.64.16 (talk) 01:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

They are a reliable source for Wikipedia standards. CATO and AEI would be as well. Morphh (talk) 16:35, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Political stance

I think the lists are relevant references. How they are described by third party Internet lists like Google (which is not a generic search query in this case) is just as notable as what the NYT calls them (and certainly more notable than what FAIR calls them). I'd even say more important since Google has a much larger base of viewers. They specifically categorize them under the organizational grouping of Left Liberalism organizations. The Time Magazine reference is important as this article should look at the organization historically. Let the reader decide if they think the organization has "changed". Also, we have lots of references that show them as being described as liberal or left, yet very few that show them as centrist. Yet we state that they are most often described by the media as liberal or centrist. Liberal is supported by the references, centrist is not. Also note that "independent" does not describe a political affiliation like centrist or the Independent Party. "Independent" means they are a private institution that is prohibited from conducting political campaign activities to influence elections to public office - it goes to their status as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. So saying they describe themselves as "independent" is not contrary to them being left, right, or center. It is incorrect to phrase this as "they describe themselves as independent, but" - there is no but.. they are independent; however, this has little to do with their political leaning. To that point, if you find a references that labels them as "independent", this is not a label of "centrist". Morphh (talk) 13:55, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I took the directory references out because they seemed to be a sticking point for Abq815 and I thought we had enough documentation without them. But I certainly don't have a problem with putting them back in if you think they're important. And I agree that more documentation of the centrist label would be helpful. Binarybits (talk) 14:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't think there is a need to oversource it like we did (which came out of stress regarding the issue more than anything). I think we went crazy to make the point because it kept being changed by Annoyed2. I'd like to keep the google source and drop the others if that's acceptable to Abq815. Morphh (talk) 15:07, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I'd also like to note that the statement "Other U.S. liberals have criticized the work of Brookings' foreign policy scholars for being too supportive of the Bush administration's positions." This seems to be giving undue weight. Just because a couple of articles (one of which appears to be a blog) criticizes "O'Hanlon" (which is one scholar, not scholars as stated which seems to imply all of their foreign policy team) does not merit the inclusion as a policy stance of the Brookings Institution. The references do not support the statement. Morphh (talk) 16:36, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Morph thanks for starting this discussion and inviting me. I’m definitely new to wikipedia and appreciate any help I can get.
Before I get to the specific points of this discussion I wanted to first mention a salient point that is being missed when talking about Brookings political stance. Brookings has no political stance, but the experts that work there do. Brooking employs Republican, Democrat, Independent and unaffiliated scholars that represent a wide range of political views. “Brookings and its researchers are not so concerned, in their work, in affecting the ideological direction of the nation” and rather tend “to be staffed by researchers with strong academic credentials.”[1] The media and academics label Brookings as centrist, liberal-centrist, left of center, left leaning and liberal so I think its important to represent that.
Morph to your first point about the relevance of the Google listing I have to say I disagree. Who wrote the bi-line for Google? Who validated it? Just because a lot of people see it and read it doesn’t make it true or more valid. A citation should be based on well-founded research and/or notable opinion by a known source (writer, journalist, academic, etc…). The New York Times and Washington Post references are more valid then the Google entry because they are written by known respected journalists. Also I’m not sure I understand your claim that the FAIR report, an extensive and well-founded study, is less valid then a Google listing.
To your second point, I agree the Time Magazine reference is important as it lends itself to the history of Brookings political stance. However, I feel that it should be placed properly as its value decreases over time. Maybe the political stance section should be reworded to provide a history of political stance as well as a more current analysis. There are some great items in the History section that could be used here. Brookings apposed the New Deal for example.
To your final point, the reference is to the remarks of two Brookings experts upon their return from a trip to Iraq in February 2003. Mike O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack (as well as Peter Rodman and Bruce Riedel) are staunch support of the Bush Administrations handling of the war in Iraq. I believe this example was used as it got a good deal of media attention on the major networks. I guess this statement should probably be reworded and have some additional citations added, which I’m happy to do. Abq815 (talk) 15:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Good points. We still need to address the statement of Brookings labeling themselves as independent. This is not a political stance in the sense that it is being used in the article, which seems to imply centrist or views in line with "Independents". You hit on part of it above regarding Brookings as an organization. They are not affiliated with a party and can not represent or support such (they are independent). However, this does not exclude organization group think to a political philosophy or the positions of their scholars, which has been described more often then not as left, liberal, liberal-centrist, or centrist. The same thing applies to most think tanks. I think we're making progress... I just wanted to bring up the independent point again since it was not commented on in the replies. Morphh (talk) 16:21, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
We also need to address some of the material that looks like it was copied right off the Brookings website. It's starting to look promotional. The entire second paragraph in the lead and the political influence section. From our article - "We also offer a platform to world leaders,"... who is "we".. obviously copied directly from the Brookings website.[1] Copyright and bias people.. - it is good to document their achievements, lets just avoid copying their sales material verbatim. Morphh (talk) 17:15, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Morphh very true, independent doesn't imply a political stance. It merely states that their goals of quality research aren't based on a political ideology. For me the clear distinction in this article is characterization of the institution versus the scholar. The media will reference a political stance for the organization based on the expert or topic the piece is dealing with. For every conservative idea there is a liberal idea on the same issue. Take this example of two Brookings scholars testifying on the same senate committee one for the Republicans and one for the Democrats.[2][3] That being said, I'm sure we could find a reputable source for every possible political opinion regarding the institutions position. Therefore we should have a good introduction to this section laying out all of these salient points. Abq815 (talk) 18:29, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

We could probably integrate the criticism section into Political stance and then delete it. For the most part, it is already duplication. Morphh (talk) 20:34, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Plagiarism in this article

Comparing this article to the Brookings web site, some of the the text seems to be rampantly plagiarized. (And no, adding a citation does not excuse lifting direct quotations of extended phrases without putting them in quotation marks.)

I fixed some of the text in the intro, but there still seems to be a lot of copying elsewhere in the article. For example, if you look in the "History" section it seems that practically every phrase that I look at was directly lifted from the Brookings site. (Unfortunately, some of the cited pages in the history section are offline on the Brookings site, so you need to use the Internet Archive to view them.) For example, compare the text in the "History" section to these pages:

—Steven G. Johnson (talk) 22:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The History section on Wikipedia and the Brookings website appear to mostly come from two books commissioned by Brookings at major anniversaries (one of which is by historian James Allen Smith). I'll track down the citations so the history section can be updated with proper citation. Samsoneditor (talk) 23:55, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
The problem is not the citation. The problem is that you can't simply copy and paste phrases from another source---if you don't use quotation marks, that is plagiarism (not to mention possible copyright infringement), even if you cite the original source. —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 04:05, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree and brought up the same point in the discussion above. Some of it was corrected but there was much still to do, as you have pointed out. Thanks Morphh (talk) 14:05, 01 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sourcewatch

Someone added Sourcewatch as a source for the proposition that Brookings is a conservative organization. I don't think this really flies. Sourcewatch's website is a Wiki, so what appears on it at any given time obviously isn't rigorously fact-checked. The claims are not sourced. And even aside from the Wiki issue, Sourcewatch is clearly an organization with a political agenda, making it less credible than the NYT, WaPo, LAT, etc. We already cite FAIR as an example of what left-of-center groups think about Brookings. I don't see what adding a dubious SW link adds to the discussion. Binarybits (talk) 13:34, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree, this fails as a reliable source and should not be used. Morphh (talk) 14:02, 01 March 2008 (UTC)