Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) recently introduced The Think Tank Transparency Act of 2023. The Act, if passed, would require non-profits to report to the Department of Justice any contracts and agreements signed with foreign entities. Speaking about his bill, Bergman explained, “The American people deserve to know what these think tanks are up to, and who they’re working for. The assumption that they are non-political, pseudo-academic entities advocating for policies that are in the national interest is no longer accurate, given the increasing amount of funding they receive from foreign governments, often earmarked for specific projects.”
The Act has been a long-time coming. In recent years, there have been a number of scandals involving countries from Norway to Russia to China, with plenty of Persian Gulf oil money in the mix. A few think tanks appear to engage in something close to pay-to-play schemes. Others carefully stage-manage events and allow speakers to scrub guest lists to avoid the possibility of tough questions. Several years ago, for example, the Center for New American Security disinvited me from an event because a guest representing the Kurdistan Regional Government was upset that I had written about corruption in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Brookings Institution was the scene of a fight when Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s security forces tried to evict critical journalists ahead of a 2016 speech.
Every think tank scholar should endorse Bergman’s call for transparency. The unethical actions of a few are capable of besmirching a whole industry in which the vast majority of scholars seek to pursue policy-relevant studies, and go wherever the evidence leads. Exposing anyone who might act as unregistered foreign agents is a necessity. Transparency should never be a problem.
Indeed, there is already precedent. As the bill notes, 30 years ago, Congress enacted Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 because of its concern about growing efforts by foreign states to buy influence through academia. Congress did not impinge on universities; it simply mandated that colleges and universities report the money they receive from foreign states.
Frankly, such calls for transparency and reporting requirements did not stop universities from engaging in pay-to-play from foreign donors. As the transparency initiative moves forward, it behooves Congress to examine and close the loopholes universities used to bypass concerns about foreign influence. Too many universities and think tanks subordinate free inquiry to public relations.
When Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Yale in 2006, the university quarantined protestors on Old Campus, a quad completely out of sight of the Chinese delegation. This served as one of the first in many warning signs about potential censorship and the dangerous decline of free speech at Yale University.
Beyond any legal remedy, there should be a code of ethics to discourage universities and think tanks alike from allowing panel members or speakers the ability to vet the audience at public events. Think the Chicago Statement on Free Speech, but with regard to academic honesty across the think tank industry.
The bigger loophole, however, is the ability of individuals to act in a corrupt manner even when institutions say they do not accept foreign funding. If Saudi Arabia pays an individual scholar $10,000 through a public relations firm to pen an op-ed, it is disingenuous for the think tank at which he works to deny taking foreign money. When individual scholars receive money indirectly — if not directly — from state-affiliated oil companies like Azerbaijan’s SOCAR or Turkey’s Calik Holdings, it is likewise disingenuous to suggest their home organization does not take foreign money. Entire institutions seemingly have sprung up in Washington with innocuous, academic-sounding names to funnel cash to scholars sympathetic to Azerbaijan and Turkey. Scholars across town use the grants they receive from such cut-outs to avoid acknowledging foreign funding.
Arguably, closing the individual funding loophole can extend to those who regularly receive payment for appearances on foreign media like Russia’s RT, Iran’s PressTV, or Turkey’s TRT. At the very least, paid appearances should be acknowledged.
Many think tank scholars are not pens for hire. Rather, they migrate to organizations with whose outlook they most agree. Foreign money is mostly a problem when it is secret or when those donating do not respect the intellectual independence of the institutions to which they seek to make gifts. Transparency should be the standard not only for universities and think tanks, but also for individuals. The Think Tank Transparency Act is a great first step, but more needs to be done both in Washington and on university campuses across the country.
Now a 1945 Contributing Editor, Dr. Michael Rubin is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Dr. Rubin is the author, coauthor, and coeditor of several books exploring diplomacy, Iranian history, Arab culture, Kurdish studies, and Shi’ite politics, including “Seven Pillars: What Really Causes Instability in the Middle East?” (AEI Press, 2019); “Kurdistan Rising” (AEI Press, 2016); “Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes” (Encounter Books, 2014); and “Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos” (Palgrave, 2005).
