Cassilis

A slightly religious flavour to this weeks roundup for obvious reasons. When it comes for formal reports & publications etc. think-tanks usually operate on longer news cycle but if the story's big enough then even if it's just a press release to throw their tuppence worth in they'll have something to add. My thanks to Matt Wardman who was kind enough to flag this new roundup feature the other day, even if he did slander it with the tag 'intellectual' and suggest I need a better name - feels like a superficial, New Labour-esque branding exercise to me since there's a directness to 'Think Tank Roundup' that's hard to trump. Still, if you think you can let me know in the comments.

Theos

• A feature more than a particular topic but the Public Theology think tank Theos run a Media monitoring page tracking stories with a religious theme or comments pieces in the national press relating to religion. Always a useful feature and slightly busier than normal over the last week or so!

Ekklesia

• Ekklesia use the current row as an excuse to renew their call for the disestablishment of the Church of England. Jonathan Bartley, co-director of Ekklesia, says: "The Archbishop has provided the clearest evidence yet that he realises that the special privileges and exemptions that the Church has enjoyed historically are no longer tenable.. [he] now seems to be wishing to explore whether special protection and exceptions might be extended to other religions too..[l]etting go of privilege is a far better witness to the Christian message than either clinging on to it, seeking to preserve it on a wider basis, or speaking for others rather than engaging them as equals"

Compass

• With tiresome regularity Neal Lawson (once a full-on Blairite) lays into what he sees as the failing of the entire New Labour project and this weeks attack is online at Compass now. I'm sure he'd vigoroulsy deny the charge and throw me some line about social democracy but why the man doesn't just go an join the Socialist workers or something is beyond me...
• Also on Compass a thoughtful piece by Josh Ryan-Collins on "the gap between the political rhetoric and the frontline reality of public service delivery". Josh suggests we need a broader understanding of the term 'public benefit' than the hard cash version Whitehall seems intent on using when it comes to improving public services.

Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)

• Interesting paper by Ian Kearns paper looking at how National security policy should be framed with reference to more than just the terrorist threat. Climate change, energy security and national infrastructure all have a critical part to play in a debate that tends to be dominated by terrorism at the expense of all else.
• Also on IPPR Julia Margo wants to extend the Government's Sure Start programme to "support at-risk children and families and stop them turning to crime and anti-social behaviour."

The Heritage Foundation

• An alarming piece by Ariel Cohen on a renewed enthusiasm for the Red Square military parades in Putin's Russia - "The world should take notice of Russia's increasing militarism. The parade is designed to generate nostalgia among the Russian people and to signal to the U.S., NATO, and Russia's neighbours that Russia's power is back. Most importantly, it illustrates President Vladimir Putin's emphasis on the military and security services at the expense of modern, democratic institutions"

The Council on Foreign Relation

• A couple of final interesting things on the Presidential race from this US think tank. The first is a very useful and comprehensive guide to all the foreign policy issues facing both parties and all the remaining candidates in the race.
• The second is an interesting debate about post-conflict resolution and how, given the obvious failings in that field in Iraq & Afghanistan there might be merit in looking again at whether these efforts are military or civilian led.

That's it for this week - hope there's something of interest there and as ever, if you spot something you think I should flag here let me know.

Labels: Think Tank Roundups