Think tanks and political parties in times of Trump

Abstract

The increasingly sharp political polarization in Washington seems to be causing changes in the occupation of spaces of power by American think tanks. It would be the case, more specifically, of those more traditional institutes and closer to the decision-making centers, or that aim to achieve this status, gravitating the main organs of the federal Executive and the Congress. This article, therefore, deals with the rearrangement that seems to be taking place in this institutional universe since the beginning of the Donald Trump administration and that affects the Republican and the Democratic parties. On the one hand, there is a president with a centralized personality and a self-declared policy outsider who privileges a very close group of collaborators in their decision-making process, with little openness to the broad external advice of think tank specialists. On the other hand, among progressive Democrats, the search has also been for alternative sources of programs and public policies, which is reflected in the more fragmented dialogue, using smaller and more specialized institutes, as well as the Academy Following the waves of this revolving door phenomenon is one of the facilitating ways to anticipate agendas and measures to be adopted by the government, as well as to understand part of the functioning of the complex American political system.