RALEIGH – I consider it to be a hopeful sign that only one-fifth of think tanks in the United States are based in Washington, D.C. Most are located in state capitals, on university campuses, and in other communities around the country.

That’s a good thing if you like federalism and diversity. It’s also one of the intriguing findings of a new international survey of think tanks published by the Think Tank and Civil Societies Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. A team led by Dr. James McGann, director of the program and a political scientist at Villanova University, conducted the survey.

McGann last directed such a study in 1999, so it’s interesting to see some changes over time in how think tanks are structured and focused. From 1999 to 2007, there was a decline in concentration on policy advocacy and technical assistance to governments, for example. There’s also been an increase in work on international cooperation and development issues and a decrease in work on the environment. These trends seem driven largely by events outside the U.S., so I couldn’t really venture a guess about causes.

Regionally, the type of work think tanks do varies in telling ways. North American and Western European think tanks dominate the list of groups with a strong Internet presence. The Western Europeans publish more books, while the North Americans do more policy briefs and short pieces. African and Middle Eastern think tanks garner scant media attention, largely because they are so often located in countries with government-run media controlled by one-party states.

I’ve written before about the increasing importance of think tanks in fostering debate, promoting policy innovation, and challenging governments, mass media, trade associations, and other social institutions in the marketplace of ideas. Here in North Carolina, the ranks of think tanks and other public-policy groups have swelled over the past two decades. I think most Tar Heels actively involved in political life would say that these organizations now affect policy discussion in Raleigh and other communities more than ever before.

It’s probably reasonable to date the foundation of the think-tank sector in North Carolina to 1967. That’s when the North Carolina Fund, a project of the Ford Foundation, created MDC Inc., still in operation in Chapel Hill. The North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research opened its doors in the 1970s, followed in the 1980s and 1990s by the John Locke Foundation, the Terry Sanford Institute at Duke, the Institute for Emerging Issues at N.C. State, the Common Sense Foundation, the N.C. Justice Center, Democracy North Carolina, and the N.C. Family Policy Council, just to name a few.

More recently, there’s been a new wave of organizations formed both on the Left and Right such as N.C. Policy Watch (recently merged with the Justice Center) and the Civitas Institute. As of late 2005, the last time I conducted an assessment using tax returns and other data, there were roughly 32 left-of-center think tanks, institutes, and policy-advocacy groups based in North Carolina, with a combined annual budget of approximately $18 million. There were 16 right-of-center organizations, JLF being the largest of them, with a combined annual budget of just over $9 million.

I’ve just started a new assessment, but my guess is that the proportions will not have changed much in the past couple of years. Oddly, many politicos in Raleigh are under the impression that conservative and free-market groups in North Carolina are more numerous and better-funded than their lefty counterparts, neither of which has ever been true.

Nor is it really the point. There are now substantial, professional public-policy organizations in North Carolina representing just about every ideological tint or issue focus you might wish to seek. No matter what you believe, it’s not hard to find public-policy work that will challenge and perhaps even infuriate you.

That’s another good thing.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.