European Think Tank Networks as Multipliers of Political Power and Expertise Monopolies

In spite of existence of the competition among European think tanks (TTs), they also cooperate with each other. This paper examines the strategies which European TTs employ to exert influence in the European policy-making relying on their network capital, which refers to the power derived from their involvement in TT networks. This form of capital is particularly important in the EU policy conditions due to their multinational, multi-lingual and multilevel characteristics. This paper builds on Bourdieu’s field theory and the concept of social capital as an analytic framework and is based on empirical data from website materials and semi-structured interviews with representatives of think tanks from Brussels, London, Paris and Ljubljana, their networks and European institutions (Commission and Parliament). The paper determines essential opportunities and challenges which TT networks represent for their members and for European institutions. Advantages from the “multiplier effect” of network membership vary from the most material as joint participation in the EU funding programs to the most intangible as political influence. However, network members need to invest in the reproduction of the social capital, while the profitability of these investments increases proportionally to the size of the available capital. Therefore, most visible network players are TTs, possessing political capital, based in Brussels or in major European capitals, acting as their coordinators or initiators. European institutions in the search for legitimacy of their policy decisions encourage creation of networks with large membership, which are intended to facilitate their dialogue with the diversity and multitude of stakeholders, i.e. reducing the number of actors and providing their representativeness, thereby benefiting from their social capital. However, the most visible network members continue to operate on their own but with additional “leverage effect”, which multiplies the overall number of actors, as well as marginalizes or even excludes some “weak” ones.