Soft power in global governance: fsQCA of thematic specialization strategies of European think tanks

Abstract

This article analyzes the strategies designed after the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) by European think tanks specialized in economic policy and evaluates the main issues that served to boost their capacity for international influence between 2009 and 2018. It studies the 19 European think tanks in the economic policy category highlighted by the 2018 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report. 91,393 news items published on the think tanks evaluated during the decade after the GFC are analysed and a causal model is proposed to understand the thematic specialization strategies of think tanks in the media sphere. The model includes economic and media diffusion attributes and was tested using Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). The results confirm that the main areas of specialization of economic policy think tanks include emerging issues related to the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The stability of the Eurozone is a cross-cutting issue that is integrated into the internal policy discourse. The solution to the proposed model reveals five strategies followed by European think tanks.