Think Tank Networks in Mexico: How They Shape Public Policy and Dominant Discourses

Abstract

Neoliberal strategies implemented in Mexico from the 1980s onward have rolled back the frontiers of the state from many different economic and social spheres. As a consequence, planning research, monitoring, and evaluation tasks that formerly were undertaken in house by the state are increasingly being outsourced to think tanks, opening many points of access and pressure, both in the executive and legislative apparatus. The field of think tanks becomes more powerful within the national structure of power as the organizations involved in the field weave an increasingly dense network, and as the production and legitimation of policy knowledge and policy discourse are controlled by a smaller group of experts, political intermediaries, and large corporate leaders who have become key links connecting the most influential elites in the region.