Decolonization-driven academic critique pushed empire toward think tanks

Evidence

At that point, various factors, particularly the impact of successful national liberation struggles on the field of Middle East studies, led to a flurry of books and articles critical of both Orientalism and modernization theory. Policy makers found it more challenging to find scholars who fell in line with US imperial aims. This led to the rise of think tanks that established close ties to the US national security state, as Khalil demonstrates. Unmoored from the standards of academic rigor, think tanks would play an instrumental role in furnishing empire with theory and policy. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 263

Categorization

• XREF: Directly traces the mechanism from academic Middle East studies’s turn critical into the think-tank channel that later produces Islamophobia — the reader’s core 1967-1979 channel question. — connects to: As academia grew critical, think tanks filled the role of supplying empire with theory.; Think tanks replaced academic Middle East studies when scholars turned critical of empire — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 251; Decolonization scholarship made academia less useful, shifting state reliance to think tanks — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 746 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: Which specific 1970s-80s think tanks and which defectors from academia formed the bridge? Bayoumi names Khalil but the particular institutions matter for the reader’s channel tracing.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 263

Broader Connections

• Think tanks arose to replace critical scholars with imperial-friendly policy theory #expands (0.90)