Neoliberal think tanks were standardized through explicit managerial blueprinting

Evidence

Early on, though, Fisher had thought of making the rules for think tank creation and development explicit. In 1983, he circulated a fifty-page text—Some Do’s and Don’ts for Public Policy Institutes. The Atlas team worked to refine and make these recommendations more explicit—producing “recipe books,” modular “management toolkits,” and ultimately a blueprint that became accessible through the website in 2000. … There were start-up guidelines—how to select a name; how to write bylaws; how to define the mission and set up a proper governance. There were functioning guidelines—how to organize everyday activities; how to remain independent from government and political parties; how to conduct market analysis. And finally, there were development guidelines—how to raise funds; how to find and work with authors; how to market and sell ideas; how to project competence and expertise. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 580

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the broader literature on Atlas Network’s global template-making; connects to how Taylorist management logic gets applied to ideational production. — connects to: Atlas systematically recruited and trained global think tank entrepreneurs — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 566; Neoliberal think tanks were built through direct coaching from older ones — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 575; Corporate managerial templates were imported into think tanks in the early 1990s — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 577 (+10 more)
• SEED: Angle: the ‘industrialization of think tank creation’ — how a movement allegedly about spontaneous order actually built franchised, blueprint-driven institutions.

Broader Connections

• Partisan think tanks converted neoliberal philosophy into practical political tools. #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1912
• The think tank originated as a deliberate instrument of intellectual engineering #corroborates (0.82) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1910
• Neoliberalism triumphed through fringe think tanks, not academic economics #corroborates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 377
• Atlas Foundation exported the neoliberal think-tank model worldwide #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1943
• The neoliberal thought collective is a multilevel, multiphase, multisector political capacity-building project #expands (0.78) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 1325
• Neoliberal intellectuals formed a thought collective as a unit #expands (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 10