What does a Center for Strategic Studies

What is a Center for Strategic Studies? What Does It Do?

The strategic research center, which produces services in the form of many think tanks in Turkey and in the world, fulfills its functions as a non-governmental organization. In this article, the concepts of think tank and strategic research center are used as definitions that express the same purpose and have the same meaning.

Strategical research centers are organizations that function as  think tanks at their core. Like other think tanks, Centers for Strategic Studies is an organization that brings together a group of interdisciplinary scholars to conduct research around specific policies, issues, or ideas. Topics covered in such organizations can cover a wide range of issues, including social policy, public policy, economic policy, political strategy, military, culture, and technology. Think tanks and/or strategic research centers may also be referred to as policy institutes. As a strategic center, a think tank includes conducting scientific research in the fields it determines, creating a discussion area, generating ideas, following public policy and providing intellectual resources to the public.

Most strategic research centers or think tanks are  non-governmental organizations, but some are semi-autonomous organizations within the government or associated with specific political parties, businesses, or the military. Funding for such organizations often involves a combination of personal contributions with donations from wealthy individuals, and many also accept government grants.

Such centers often publish articles, studies, and even draft laws on specific policy or community issues. This information may then be used by governments, businesses, media outlets, social movements, or other interest groups.  Think tanks range from those associated with high-level academic or scientific activities to those that are clearly ideological and push for specific policies, and there can be a wide range of differences between them in terms of the quality of their research.

Strategic Research Centeri Financial Resources:

While most think tanks are considered nonprofits, some may be funded by the government, special interest groups, or corporations. It can adopt the production of products as a priority in line with the expectations, policies and interests of the financial source. This helps to determine the degree of academic freedom and goals. For example, a government think tank might involve planning national defense strategies, while commercial projects might involve the development or testing of new technologies.

Financing is also seen as an indicator of who or what the organization wants to influence. For example, in the United States, some strategic research centers and/or think tanks are funded by donations they receive. Some donors may provide support to influence votes in Congress or shape public opinion. Some may act out of a desire to position themselves or the professionals they fund for future government work. Again, some may donate to draw attention to specific areas of research or education and to pave the way for work in those areas.

Typesof Strategic Research  Centers:

Strategic research centers can be organized in various ways according to the functions they undertake as a common practice:

1. Ideological Strategic Research Centers:

These organizations work to solve a problem based on an ideological philosophy. The research, also known as defense tanks, aims to persuade policymakers to adopt their solutions.

2. Strategic Research Centers Based on Domain Expertise:

Such centers have a specific thematic focus, such as foreign policy, defense, poverty, strategy or the environment.

3. Strategic Research Centers Focused on Government Policies:

These are think tanks controlled by a country's government. For example, think tanks that focus on the government's foreign policy, inform the public about these policies, and in some cases work to support the public in the correctness of the policy implemented/to be implemented. They are organizations created by the government or government bodies or operating with government support.

4. Purpose-Oriented Strategic Research Centers:

Such centers have a similar feature and function to non-governmental organizations. For example, it carries out efforts such as gathering supporters for an aid project, explaining to the masses why it is important and necessary to implement this project, ensuring that more aid is collected, and using the revenues it receives as a result of its activities to finance other non-governmental organizations operating in line with the determined purpose.

5. Strategic Research Centers in the Context of Organizational or Geographic Connection:

This includes independent civil society, universities, political parties, corporate, global and regionally sponsored think tanks. Such centers can also be shaped according to sources of financing or business models. Policy research institutes affiliated to a university can be seen in this context. Research centers established as an institution or organization or operating under the enterprise/company are such places.

The  Role of the Center  for Strategic Studies and/or the Think Tank

The primary purpose of the Centers for Strategic Studies is to combine knowledge and policy-making to influence future policy processes, on a local and/or global scale. Most think tanks claim to work for the common good and education of the public surrounding a particular concern. By gathering the expertise of professionals in relevant fields, think tanks can legitimize their findings and share them in national and/or international media through publications, conferences and seminars.

The tactics and motivations behind how and who influences Strategic Research Centers and/or Think Tanks are important. Through ideas and networks, such organizations can successfully undertake the function of building public opinion for the change they are aiming for. In order to test whether it is a good strategic research center or a think tank in its field, it is necessary to look at whether it proposes evidence-based discussions, the objectivity of the reports and analyses it publishes, its ability to look at the depth and expansion of its issues, the fact that its outputs can have a counterpart in society, etc., rather than its "political, left, liberal, etc.). From this perspective, the majority of strategic research centers and/or think tanks are clearly or implicitly related to their ability to serve as important catalysts for ideas and actions. In our world, where we face many urgent problems such as extreme poverty, inequality, climate change, rapid urbanization, the spread of infectious diseases, armed conflict, international terrorism, organized crime and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, good ideas are essential to mobilize organizations that can bring solutions to the problems in these areas. At best, Strategic Research Centers and/or Think Tanks can mediate ideas, provide environments that encourage public debate, and lead the development of creative yet practical solutions to tackle pressing problems.

Various examples from the past can be given on these issues: For example,  Leo Pasvolsky, a Brookings Institution expert  , helped rebuild Europe after World War II by putting forward concrete proposals that helped shape the Marshall Plan.  The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace played a role in promoting the adoption of the  UN Convention Against Genocide by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948.

Acting as a catalyst for ideas is just one aspect of the role think tanks play. Another important role is to help set the policy agenda. Still, getting on the policy agenda is a complicated task. It may not always be possible to turn a persuasive idea into reality, and important opportunities may not be captured for various reasons. The problem here is that the "unpredictability" in the functioning of the events and decision-making processes that develop within the flexibility of politics is an important dimension. If Strategic Research Centers want to produce policy and ensure that decision centers take into account their outputs, they must first insist on embracing an idea on the government agenda, prove their expertise/know-how in that field to decision-makers with the right connections and communication channels, and act with good timing for this. Here, it is expected that the strategic research center has proven itself with pioneering studies in order to be known to the government as a popular strategic research center. The formation of public opinion for the acceptance of an idea developed and deepened and the idea of the strategic research center should be accessible to those who sit in the decision-making positions through the mass media by the masses. In order to succeed in getting the alliance of its supporters, the strategic research center must have sufficient resources to persistently make the idea they want to bring up known and to continuously improve it. It should not be forgotten that ideas cannot make the expected changes in policies at once. The purchase of ideas by traditional political forces and the fact that they become the 'own ideas' of those engaged in politics can make success a natural process.

In some cases, strategic research centers may move away from objectivity and may not be able to combine approaching governments, decision-makers and political parties that they do not support ideologically with 'correct analyses or suggestions' from a biased perspective with their ideological context. This biased stance may result in the strategic research center sometimes falling prey to the disease of 'adopting the wrong' in order to protect its financial source. Such strategic research centers and/or think tanks, unable to act 'independently' under their own narrow ideological obsessions or financial dependencies, are doomed to fall out of favor over time, even if they appear to have won in the short term.

As Robert Jervis' study of Perception and Misperception in International Politics shows, in some cases domain experts and policymakers may have a tendency to avoid or ignore information that contradicts their beliefs. Reports of experts who cannot get rid of their biases can exclude different opinions. Making consistently biased decisions, forming opinions that policymakers 'like' can become the character of such experts. In this context, it is important for success and continuity that a strategic research center provides a social and intellectual environment that can tolerate opposing views in order to preserve objective thinking, that can provide the appropriate ground for the collision of different ideas in discussions within the organization, that forces people to argue and become aware of their own prejudices, and that allows each opinion holder to defend his or her opinion in a way that can convince others. The best strategic research centers are expected to do just that. Such organizations can create a convenient platform service to develop new ideas and provoke public debate about the critical issues of the day. They can make evidence-based assessments.

Requirements for Strategic Research Centers to Succeed:

Ultimately, strategic research centers and/or think tanks need at least four elements to be successful. They need good ideas, a collaboration mechanism made up of actors to support them, a resource-scarce institutional capacity to nurture and guide these ideas in a dynamic context, and the communication skills and mechanisms to pave the way for the ability to capture the moment when the timing is right. The most important thing they need are tools to defend good ideas when the world needs them most. In other words, think tanks need to do what they are good at, to influence the people and groups that will buy their ideas, assessments, research, and analysis in the truest sense of the word, through various means of communication (websites, magazines, books, audio and video publishing, etc.).