The Stockholm Network is a corporate lobbying company and network of European "market-oriented" think tanks. Its clients include Pfizer, Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) and Schering-Plough Corporation.
It was was founded in September 1997 by young British journalist Helen Disney in collaboration with six institutes:
1. Centre for the New Europe (CNE, Brussels),
2. Edmund Burke Foundation (Netherlands),
3. Timbro (Sweden),
4. Circulos de Empresarios (Spain),
5. Paradigmes (France)
6. Social Market Foundation (Great Britain).
The Stockholm Network describes itself as "Europe's only dedicated service organisation for market-oriented think tanks and thinkers" and employs seven people in its London office. Led by director Helen Disney, the Stockholm Network produces a weekly e-newsletter and a flow of expensive, glossy publications, such as the "State of the Union" report on "Market-oriented reform in the EU" and the newsletter 'Eye on Europe'.
The discourse of the Stockholm Network is far more strategic and media savvy than most radical neoliberal think tanks, whose ideological zeal often prevents them from reaching a larger audience. Layers of mainstream rhetoric conceal the Network's ideological agenda, where virtually every aspect of society is to be left to unregulated markets.
It is only during internal workshops that the undiluted free market fundamentalism of the Stockholm Network is revealed.
This means that the explicit agenda of the Network is not so obvious, and may explain why there appear to be some unlikely members. Another reason may be that the Stockholm Network uses a very flexible definition of "members".
For example, the European Policy Centre (EPC), one of the leading think tanks in Brussels, was listed as a member of the Stockholm Network, but without having given its consent. The same goes for Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (INSM), a German think tank advocating neoliberal reforms under the slogan "New Social Market Economy". INSM only agreed to an exchange of links but features as a member in Stockholm Network publications.
Fundraising to win the battle of ideas
A conference organised by the Stockholm Network earlier this year, provided an opportunity to see how think tanks perceive their own role within politics and their plans to increase their corporate funding. It highlighted the increasing confidence of these groups who see an expanding space for their ideas in the current political climate.
In February 2005, around 50 people from across Europe attended the Stockholm Network's "Workshop for European Think Tanks" entitled "Selling Yourself". In an up-market hotel in central Brussels, they heard Tim Evans of the Centre for the New Europe (CNE) explain that "free market conservatism" and "anarcho-capitalism" is a product of huge value to corporations and foundations that want to promote these ideas. In his opening pep talk, Evans called on the assembled think tanks to aim for nothing less than winning the "battle of ideas". The Brussels-based CNE, known for its annual Capitalist Ball (an invitation-only event held in a luxurious venue in central Brussels), plays a key role in the Stockholm Network.
As well as providing a network function, the Stockholm Network is a think tank itself. It regularly organises debates in Brussels, often under the title "the Amigo Society". These debates, held in Hotel Amigo in central Brussels, focus on issues like (the commercialisation of) health care and (the costliness of) social security, public pension systems and other features of the welfare state. The Stockholm Network also co-hosts events in London and other cities all around Europe. Debates in London, often held in association with the Economist magazine, have titles such as "An apology for capitalism?" (referring to corporate social responsibility, which the Stockholm Network finds unnecessary). Speakers and special guests at recent Stockholm Network events included pro-globalisation guru Johan Norberg, Dutch Social Security Minister Hans Hoogervorst and then European Commissioner Bolkestein.
Helen Disney is the private owner and Director of The Stockholm Network as well as Market House International. She has a strong background in think tanks and the media. Formerly an editorial writer for The Times and an editorial writer and commentator for the Daily Express, she continues to write regularly on a range of public policy topics for newspapers, magazines and websites.
Cuttings include the Daily Express and Sunday Express, Public Finance, Public Service Magazine, and The Sprout, a satirical Brussels-based magazine, as well as regular weekly entries for the Centre for the New Europe's health weblog, CNE Health.
She also makes regular appearances on TV and in radio debates including 'Heart of the Matter', 'Kilroy', BBC News, BBC Radio Scotland , Radio 4's Talking Politics and the BBC World Service.
Since 1997, she has been Director of the Stockholm Network, a unique service organisation of over 100 European market-oriented think-tanks. The Network acts as a one stop shop for organisations seeking to work with Europe 's most innovative policy experts and thinkers.
Helen also undertakes consultancy work on public policy issues for corporate clients.
From 1996-2000, she worked at the Social Market Foundation, an independent pro-market think-tank in Westminster , where she was Deputy Director and Editor of The Review, a quarterly journal.
She has edited a number of think-tank publications including The Sex-Change Society by Melanie Phillips, published by the Social Market Foundation, and Europe's Welfare Burden , and Breaking Down the Barriers published by Civitas: The Institute for the Study of Civil Society for the Stockholm Network.
Helen is a member of the Chartered Institute of Journalists, Women in Journalism and the Women Writers Network. She holds a degree in French and Italian from Bristol University and speaks conversational Spanish.
Nicole Gray Conchar is Director of Development at Market House. Her career in public policy and think tank fundraising spans more than ten years. From 1992 to 1998, she was Director of Sponsor Services at the Cato Institute in Washington DC, responsible for raising high dollar contributions from individuals and for executing major donor events around the world. She moved to New York City in 1998 to become Development Director at School Choice Scholarships and, concurrently, Membership Director at the Manhattan Institute. In 2000, she became Director of Development at the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington, New York and served as its interim President.
She took leave of absence from the public policy and think tank world on two occasions to work on Steve Forbes' 1996 and 2000 presidential campaigns, helping to raise over one million dollars of funding for each campaign.
Prior to relocating to the United Kingdom in 2003, Nicole was founding Executive Director of the Donald & Paula Smith Family Foundation. The mission of the Foundation is to defend free speech and a free society. This is achieved through the critical examination of ideas and the sponsoring of public policy debates and related activities in the New York City area.
Nicole Gray Conchar is Development Director at the International Policy Network, and founder of the Donald & Paula Smith Family Foundation.
Members of the Network
The London-based think-tank Civitas, which also acts as the Network's administrative centre, Timbro a free market think-tank in Stockholm, Paradigmes a pro-market consultancy in Paris and The Centre for the New Europe (CNE), a pan-European think tank based in Brussels. Participants in Stockholm Network events are high-profile politicos and thinkers, including government officials, Ministers, MPs, policy experts, journalists, academics, philanthropists and business leaders.
In Sweden members include:
1. Timbro
2. Ratio Institute
3. Eudoxa
4. Captus
Quotes;
"The Stockholm Network is a cooperative group of European free-market think tanks which aims to create the preconditions for a "reform-minded" and "well-informed" debate on the European welfare state." 2000
On its website the groups states that it "brings together more than 131 market-oriented think tanks from across Europe, giving us the capacity to deliver local messages and locally-tailored global messages across the EU and beyond."
"The Stockholm Network is funded by a wide range of individuals, corporations and foundations. A mixture of for-profit and not-for-profit organisations, some SN supporters are the world's largest global enterprises."
"The Stockholm Network does not have a board. Privately owned by Helen Disney, the organisation is structured to avoid the bureaucracy and factionalism that sometimes comes from more complicated arrangements. Instead, we consult informally with other think tank leaders, patrons and supporters on a regular basis to receive feedback on our work and ideas for future development."
The Network is interested in ideas which stimulate economic growth and help people to help themselves. We promote policies which create the social and economic conditions for a free society. These include:
* Reforming European welfare states and creating a more flexible labour market.
* Creating competition and choice in healthcare, through reform of European health systems and markets.
* Creating a market in which world class education can flourish.
* Emphasising the benefits of globalisation and creating an understanding of free market ideas.
Publicising Think Tank Activities
We asked our members by what means they publicise their think tank activities. The results showed that 47% of our members publicise via blogs, and 23% use RSS Feeds and 7% stream their events live over the Internet.
"2007 our work is kindly supported by many sponsors, both corporate and private":
Amazon EU
Beacon Books
Bertrams Books
BGN Distributie
Blackwell’s Book Service UK
Blackwell’s Business & Law Bookshop
Bookshop J Story Scientia
BUPA
Burson Marsteller
Civita A/S
Coronet Books Inc
Daunt Books
Dawson Books
DEA S.p.A.
The Economist
Eli Lilly
Elisa Kangaskoski
Erasmus Booksellers
EU Bookshop
EU Observer
European Bookshop Ltd
Exxon Mobil Corporation
Fachbuchhandlung fur Sprachen
FSF Ltd - Public Finance Magazine
The Fund for American Studies
Gardners Books
General Healthcare Group
GlaxoSmithKline
GML
Hannay Booksellers
Heffers Booksellers
Hill & Knowlton
Holt Jackson Book Co.
IFPMA
Institute of Directors
IPN
KLIO Bookshop
Kueper International
Booksellers
LCS Consulting
Lehmann - Mulheim
Marsh Inc
Massman International
Booksellers
McDermott Will & Emery
Merck
The Merck Foundation
Merck Sharp and Dohme
Microsoft
Motion Picture Association
Muenstergass-Buchhandlung
Nuffield Hospitals
OLFZI
Patrick Barbour
Pfizer Inc.
Pfizer UK
PhRMA
Precise Public Affairs
Progress & Freedom
Foundation
Schering Plough AB
Schweitzer Sortiment Wien
Starkmann Ltd
Strassner GmbH
TSO Bookshop
Uitgevrerij Peeters
UST Public Affairs
VeriSign Inc
Verizon
Sources:
Wikipedia
Sourcewatch
AboutUs
Related:
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Money Spinner
Pfizer and Microsoft sponsored rightwing thinktank in the Netherlands
Covert industry funding fuels the expansion of radical rightwing EU think tanks
ExxonMobil covertly funds EU climate skeptics
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'Terrorism Studies' And The War On Dissent
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The Stockholm Network
Timbro
Timbro was founded in 1978 by Sture Eskilsson and the Swedish Employers' Association (Svenska Arbetsgivareföreningen) (which in 2001 merged with the Swedish Industrial Association to form the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise).
Timbro is a subsidiary of the Swedish Free Enterprise Foundation, which is financed by the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (Svenskt Näringsliv).
Timbro is a subsidiary of the Swedish Free Enterprise Foundation, which is financed by the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise.
Chief executive officers of Timbro have been:
* Mats Svegfors, 1981–1983
* Mats Johansson,
* Odd Eiken,
* P. J. Anders Linder, 1996–2000
* Mattias Bengtsson, 2000–2004
* Cecilia Stegö Chilò, 2005–2006
* Maria Rankka, 2006–present
Other notable people currently or previously associated with Timbro include;
Johan Norberg
Fredrik Erixon
Johnny Munkhammar
Fredrik Segerfeldt
Erik Zsiga
Kristian Karlsson
Dick Kling
Dick Erixon
Mattias Svensson
Sven Otto Littorin
Ulf Kristersson
Henrik Landerholm
Christofer Fjellner
Johan Forssell
Carl Rudbeck
---
MEDIA CULPA: SvD editorial blog a sandbox for free market think-tank Timbro
Pfizer Forum
Center for the New Europe
The Centre for the New Europe is a think tank based in Brussels whose Web site was apparently first registered in St. Paul, Minnesota by Richard Miniter, a conservative American pundit, WSJ editor, senior fellow at the Center for the New Europe and author of "Losing bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror" articles like "Rabid Weasels - The sickness of "old Europe" is a danger to the world."
Its hosts events for policymakers, parliamentarians and journalists, and publishes reports and books on a range of free market topics.
Founded in 1993 by a Belgian lawyer and a Belgian journalist after a meeting in the Hilton Hotel on the Toison d'Or in Brussels, it is very strongly pro-free-market, with a particular focus on the privatisation of healthcare. It is a member of the International Policy Network and regularly collaborates with other members of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation network. It is also a member of the Stockholm Network of European free-market think tanks.
The funding of the CNE is intransparent. It failed to answer a think tank survey by the Corporate Europe Observatory in 2005. However, the annual reports of Exxon Mobil reveal that CNE in 2003 and 2004 received $40,000 and $80,000 respectively for its "Global Climate Change Education Efforts".
Tim Evans of the Centre for the New Europe (CNE) explain that "free market conservatism" and "anarcho-capitalism" is a product of huge value to corporations and foundations that want to promote these ideas.
On 11 August 2005, economics editor Dr. Karen Horn reported in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on the growing influence of European Think Thanks. She emphasized the pivotal role of Pierre Garello, Universität Aix-Marseille III, and Hardy Bouillon, Centre for the New Europe, in establishing the Annual European Resource Bank Meetings and described other important network activities in Europe: The free-marketeers rise up.
Sources:
Sourcewatch
Related:
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Here Comes the New Europe
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Heritage Foundation
The creation of the influential Heritage Foundation was probably the single most important event in the development of a national network of conservative policy-oriented institutions.
Heritage was founded in 1973 by the anti-labor, racist, homophobic brewery magnate Joseph Coors together with prominent right-wing activist Paul Weyrich and wealthy right-wingers Richard Scaife and Edward Noble.
Conservative activist Paul Weyrich was its first head. Since 1977, Heritage's president has been Edwin Feulner, Jr., previously the staff director of the House Republican Study Committee and a former staff assistant to U.S. Congressman Phil Crane
In 1989, Edwin Feulner was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal, the second highest civilian award in the United States awarded by Ronald Reagan. He is also past president and current Treasurer and Trustee of the Mont Pelerin Society.
In May of 2007 Feulner wrote an editorial titled "Our right to go to war"
The initial funding came from Coors ($250,000), Scaife ($900,000), and "significant sums" from Noble. Large corporations, including Gulf Oil, also made early contributions. In the early 1980s, Heritage reported that "87 top corporations" were supporters. By 1995, it had an annual budget of $25 million.
The Heritage Foundation is a New Right think tank. Its stated mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of "free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense." It is widely considered one of the world's most influential public policy research institutes.
The Foundation wields considerable influence in Washington, and enjoyed particular prominence during the Reagan administration. Its initial funding was provided by Joseph Coors, of the Coors beer empire, and Richard Mellon Scaife, heir of the Mellon industrial and banking fortune. The Foundation maintains strong ties with the London Institute of Economic Affairs and the Mont Pelerin Society.
With a long history of receiving large donations from overseas, Heritage continues to rake in a minimum of several hundred thousand dollars from Taiwan and South Korea each year.
In autumn of 1988, the South Korean National Assembly uncovered a document revealing that Korean intelligence gave $2.2 million to the Heritage Foundation on the sly during the early 1980s. Heritage officials "categorically deny" the accusation.
Heritage's latest annual report does acknowledge a $400,000 grant from the Korean conglomerate Samsung. Another donor, the Korea Foundation - which conduits money from the South Korean government - has given Heritage almost $1 million in the past three years.
The Heritage Foundation concerns itself with many issues, from missile defense to Europe to public administration, and about 20 other subject areas. It regularly publishes comprehensive articles, papers, journals, etc., expressing its strong neo-conservative opinions in these subject areas.
While the Foundation has contributed many ideas and positions on contemporary public policy, it is best known for the support generated by its foreign policy analysts in the 1980s and early 1990s to provide military and other support to anti-communist resistance movements in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Nicaragua and other nations, a policy that came to be known as the Reagan doctrine.
In a February 2003 paper, the ultra-right Heritage Foundation urged continuing pressure on Venezuela to restructure its economy to promote private enterprise and investment, and called on international organizations supported by the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to “continue to advise the full spectrum of Venezuela’s political parties, civic groups and unions.”(link)
The CIA also helped create the conservative think tank movement. Prior to the 70s, think tanks spanned the political spectrum, with moderate think tanks receiving three times as much funding as conservative ones. At these early think tanks, scholars typically brainstormed for creative solutions to policy problems. This would all change after the rise of conservative foundations in the early 70s.
The Heritage Foundation opened its doors in 1973, the recipient of $250,000 in seed money from the Coors Foundation. A flood of conservative think tanks followed shortly thereafter, and by 1980 they overwhelmed the scene. The new think tanks turned out to be little more than propaganda mills, rigging studies to "prove" that their corporate sponsors needed tax breaks, deregulation and other favors from government.
Heritage has received support from nearly 100 major corporations, including Chase Manhattan Bank, Dow Chemical Company, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, GlaxoSmithKline, Mobil, and Procter & Gamble
Sources:
Media Transparency
Sourcewatch
DKosopedia
Charity Navigator
Related:
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CARR
The Adam Smith Institute
Madsen Pirie, Eamonn Butler and Stuart Butler (the Butlers are brothers) were students together at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. In 1973, they left Scotland to work with Edwin Feulner, who became co-founder of the free-market think tank the Heritage Foundation, in 1973.
The Adam Smith Institute (ASI), based in London, has been a major force for the introduction of market-based policies in Britain. It operates as a UK think tank.
In the early 1990s, the Institute extensively licensed and sold its name around the world. IIR, the world's largest conference company, has the rights to the name Adam Smith Institute in Russia. In Western Europe, Marketforce Communications Ltd has the right to organise conferences under the ASI name. At one point Business Seminars International Ltd had a license to use the ASI name.
After their apprenticeship in the United States, Pirie and Eamonn Butler returned to Scotland in 1977 to found their own think tank, the Adam Smith Institute, set up with the help of Antony Fisher of the Institute of Economic Affairs. Stuart Butler is a conservative activist in Washington, D.C., remaining at the Heritage Foundation.
Sources:
Sourcewatch
Related:
THE INFLUENCE OF THE ADAM SMITH INSTITUTE
Dr Pirie Changes Trains
American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) is an extremely influential, pro-business right-wing think tank founded in 1943 by Lewis H. Brown. It promotes the advancement of free enterprise capitalism, and succeeds in placing its people in influential governmental positions. It is the center base for many neo-conservatives.
More recently, it has emerged as one of the leading architects of the Bush administration's foreign policy. AEI rents office space to the Project for the New American Century, one of the leading voices that pushed the Bush administration's plan for "regime change" through war in Iraq. AEI reps have also aggressively denied that the war has anything to do with oil.
American Enterprise Institute (AEI) serves as home base for a long list of influential figures, including several former George W. Bush administration officials like John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, John Yoo, and David Frum. President Bush highlighted the institute's standing in the policy world during a January 2003 speech at an AEI dinner celebrating neoconservative forefather Irving Kristol. After commending AEI for having "some of the finest minds in our nation," the president said: "You do such good work that my administration has borrowed 20 such minds."
Having helped lead the effort to push public support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq—including by creating influential advocacy groups like the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)—AEI writers and scholars turned their attention to Iran and other Mideast hotspots during the final years of George W. Bush's administration.
The Guardian reported further that AEI "has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil, and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees"
Among AEI's more outspoken scholars on expanded U.S. intervention in the Middle East have been Michael Ledeen and Reuel Marc Gerecht.
Quotes:
"Introduction to 2005 Irving Kristol Lecture
Christopher DeMuth
President, AEI
Vice President and Mrs. Cheney, President Aznar, distinguished guests, welcome to the American Enterprise Institute(s 2005 Annual Dinner and Irving Kristol Lecture. My AEI colleagues and I are very gratified that such a large and accomplished congregation should be gathered here this evening. We are especially grateful for the generous support of our good friends at Pfizer and of the esteemed ladies and gentlemen of our Dinner Committee.
President Bush(s bold recasting of American foreign policy, and stirring recent developments in Iraq, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and now throughout the Middle East, maybe more this afternoon, maybe Iran is next, have given us what Michael Novak wrote of in a 2004 book--“some faint reason to believe that the narrative of liberty will not be finished until it has suffused every society on Earth.” (Link)
Sources:
Sourcewatch
Rightweb
ExxonSecrets
MediaTransparency
CharityNavigator
PFAW
CooperativeResearch
Related:
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Wolfowitz Returns Home
Office of Special Plans
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Michael Ledeen Lies During FOX News/White House Iran War Push
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The Cato Institute
Founded in 1977 by Charles Koch and Edward H. Crane, the Cato Institute moved to Washington, D.C. in 1981 in a bid to become an influential player in Washington policy circles.
Today (1997), Cato is a multi-million dollar, multi-issue research and advocacy organization with a staff of 40-plus senior managers, policy analysts, and communications specialists. It is also assisted by the work of over 75 adjunct Cato scholars, including ultra-conservative law professors Richard Epstein (University of Chicago) and Henry G. Manne.
The Cato Institute is a non-profit public policy research foundation (think tank) with strong libertarian leanings, headquartered in Washington, D.C.
The Cato Institute is named after Cato's Letters, a series of libertarian pamphlets that Cato's founders say helped lay the philosophical foundation for the American Revolution.
Its stated mission is "to broaden the parameters of public policy debate to allow consideration of the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets, and peace" by seeking greater involvement of the "lay public in questions of public policy and the role of government." Despite its decidedly ideological agenda on many topics, members of the Cato Institute are often cited as non-partisan experts on news programs.
Following the November 1994 elections, the Institute published and delivered to every member of Congress The Cato Handbook, a 358-page, 39 chapter volume containing policy reforms and proposals in every vital public policy area, including budget and tax reduction, social security, Medicare, education, environmental reform, and foreign and defense policy.
One year later, the Institute launched its Project on Social Security Privatization, co-chaired by Jose Pinera, Chile's former minister of labor and welfare, and William Shipman, of State Street Global Advisors, which has been actively promoting private alternatives to social security, both financially and via an extensive public relations campaign.
Cato in 1983 published an article calling for privatization of the system. The article argued that companies that stand to profit from privatization -- 'the banks, insurance companies and other institutions that will gain' -- had to be brought into alliance. Second, the article called for initiation of 'guerrilla warfare against both the current Social Security system and the coalition that supports it.'"
The Cato Institute has been a tireless defender of the tobacco industry. Robert A. Levy, a Senior Fellow at the Institute, has published numerous editorials in support of the tobacco industry. In one 1999 piece written with Cato fellow Rosalind Marimont and published in the Cato magazine Regulation, Levy claimed that the public health estimate of over 400,000 Americans dying each year from smoking was a lie.
In line with the organization's libertarian principles, Cato scholars have been vocal in defense of civil liberties in the face of encroachments by the Bush administration.
However, one Cato scholar, Roger Pilon, has been known to set aside libertarian principles to endorse the Bush administration's moves to restrict civil liberties as part of the war on terror. In 2002, a Cato news release endorsed new Justice Department guidelines giving greater latitude to FBI agents to monitor Internet sites, libraries and religious institutions. "As reported in the press, the new FBI surveillance guidelines present no serious problems," declared Cato legal affairs analyst Roger Pilon, a former Reagan administration official who writes frequent Cato commentaries.
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch previously served on the board of directors of Cato, which has numerous ties to the Republican Party.
Quotes:
Cato Institute scholar Arnold Kling writing at TCS Daily:
"I believe that what we need going forward is a policy of disarming Muslims. I believe that we must keep devout Muslims away from weapons, and keep weapons away from devout Muslims. I can work with Muslims, send my children to school with Muslims, and be friends with Muslims. I do not have an issue with their religion, as long as they do not have weapons. However, the combination of weapons and Islam poses unacceptable danger to the rest of us."
Sources:
Pfaw
Sourcewatch
Related:
The Cato Hypocrisy
The Cato Institute: "Libertarian"In A Corporate Way
Cato: Happy Birthday, Milton Friedman
Rumsfeld: Tribute to Milton Friedman
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The Cato Institute or Anarchism seen through the Multinationals’ Eyes
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