Geography of “think tanks”

Abstract

The article deals with the geographical study of a think tanks (TTs) phenomenon. Since the last quarter of the 20th century their creation and distribution has accelerated dramatically around the world. The spatial unevenness of their growth has reduced the macro-regional imbalances in favor of the global South, as well as rotated the top 10 countries lowering the United States position and rising those of the Asian countries, primarily that of China. TTs with basic functions are becoming a widespread phenomenon and a necessary attribute of a large city. The TT’ elite, consisting of large internationally recognized organizations, which are capable to influence the solution of the most difficult problems and endow selected megacities with competitive advantages, is very limited. 174 such structures are based in 89 cities of 55 countries. 25 of them are concentrated in megacities of Europe, ¼ each in megacities of America and Asia, and less than 110 in other regions of the world. As calculations show, their actual placement does not depend on a city’s demographic and economic potential, its investment attractiveness, or the level of globality and is primarily determined by the factor of being a capital city. According to the territorial concentration of the leading TTs, several categories of expert analytical centers of the world are distinguished: the largest (more than 15 TTs, Washington), large (10–15, London, New Delhi), medium (5–10, Beijing, Brussels), small (2–5, 28 cities) and emerging (53 cities). Despite the evident role of TT resource in increasing the international importance of cities and the country’s authority, Russia is still lagging behind and is represented in the world ranking of expert analytical centers by Moscow only.