Thinking in splendid isolation? The organisation and policy engagement of think tanks in Belgium

In the last two decades of the twentieth century, think tanks proliferated dramatically. Once a predominantly American and British phenomenon, the think tank model is now globally dispersed. Think tanks appear in great diversity, with varying size, legal forms, policy ambit, organizational structures and political significance, leading to many hybrid forms, rather than one dominant model. In this chapter, the authors take a closer look at the organization of think tanks in Belgium, address how they organize themselves against the background of the Belgian (neo-corporatist) political system and clarify the nature of their policy work. Via a charting of the most well-known think tanks, the authors analyze which types of think tanks are active in the Belgian political arena, the resources that they have at their disposal and the policy output they generate. Are they serving as a bridge between knowledge and power, or are they themselves rather a manifestation of the knowledge-power nexus?