This article is about the United States-based organization that supports think tanks. For the European police organization, see ATLAS Network. For other networks, see Atlas (disambiguation).
Atlas Network was founded in 1981 by Antony Fisher, a British entrepreneur, who wanted to create a means to connect various think tanks via a global network. Described as "a think tank that creates think tanks," the organization partners with nearly 600 organizations in over 100 countries.[4][5][6]
F.A. Hayek, Margaret Thatcher, and Milton Friedman, all friends of Fisher, formally endorsed the organization.[11][5] Atlas Network connected various think tanks via a global network,[16] and was part of a transatlantic network including academics, journalists, and businesspeople who supported and promoted like minded ideology.[17] In the words of Richard Meagher, it was founded as a "think tank that creates think tanks".[4][18] Timothy Mitchell writes that by 1979, when Thatcher won the election, "what had begun as a fringe right-wing intellectual current" had just become "the most powerful political orthodoxy in the West".[3]
Early years, expansion, and influence
Fisher conceived Atlas Network as a means to connect various think tanks via a global network through which the organizations could learn best practices from one another and "pass the best research and policy ideas from one to the other".[19] Initially comprising only Fisher's think tanks, Atlas Network grew to include many others, including those affiliated with the Koch family.[7] Major American think tanks in Atlas Network have included the American Legislative Exchange Council, Cato Institute, The Heritage Foundation (until 2020),[9] and the Heartland Institute, which are active in conservative politics.[7]
Although it is thought that the organization is named after Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged,[20] Atlas Network has denied this.[21] Atlas Network states on its website that it is nonpartisan.[22] Atlas Network has received funding from American and European businesses and think tanks to coordinate and organize libertarian organizations in the developing world.[3][1] In 1981, Atlas Network helped economist Hernando de Soto found the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD) in Peru,[5] and also invested in the Institut Economique de Paris (IEP) in France.[23] In 1983, Fisher helped launch the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) in Dallas, Texas,[5] and the Jon Thorlaksson Institute in Iceland (now replaced by the Icelandic Research Centre for Innovation and Economic Growth).[23] Atlas Network helped establish the Hong Kong Centre for Economic Research in 1987 and the Liberty Institute in New Delhi in 1996.[5] Atlas Network grew from 15 think tanks in nine countries in the mid-1980s to 457 think tanks in 96 countries as of 2020.[5]
Atlas Network has been described as "self-replicating, a think tank that creates think tanks".[4] The 2019 and 2020 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report, which is "one measure of a think tank's performance and impact ... designed for use in conjunction with other metrics to help identify and evaluate public policy research organizations around the world", ranked Atlas Network as 54th among the "Top Think Tanks in the United States".[24][25] Atlas Network's think tank partners "produce white papers, meet with politicos, liaise with the media, write legislation, and much more", as described by WNYC.[26][27] In 2018, academic Karin Fischer described Atlas Network campaigns for deregulation and property rights as having so much influence that the World Bank's Doing Business Index "follows exactly Atlas' policy recommendations".[28]
Atlas Network has promoted entrepreneurship in Africa and other parts of the world, including what it calls "freedom-oriented idea entrepreneurs."[29][30][31]
Tobacco and oil industry links
According to The Guardian, more than a fifth of Atlas Network affiliates worldwide had either opposed tobacco controls or taken tobacco donations.[32][33] A 2017 paper in the International Journal of Health Planning and Management said that Atlas Network "channeled funding from tobacco corporations to think tank actors to produce publications supportive of industry positions."[34] The University of Bath's Tobacco Control Research Group said Atlas Network "appears to have played a particular role in helping the tobacco industry oppose tobacco control measures in Latin America" during the 1990s.[35] In 2021, Le Monde and The Investigative Desk identified 17 Atlas Network partners engaged in lobbying and advocacy for "tobacco harm reduction", which supports vaping as a substitute for smoking.[6]
Atlas Network and its affiliates, such as the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Cato Institute, the Fraser Institute, the Heartland Institute, the Macdonald–Laurier Institute, the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, the Montreal Economic Institute, and Second Street,[36] have been linked to oil and gas producers, efforts opposing governments' and activists' efforts against climate change,[37][38] and the spreading of climate change denial.[39][40] According to documents described in The Guardian, Atlas Network collaborated with Canada's Macdonald–Laurier Institute in a push for oil and gas development on Indigenous land.[41][42] After The New Republic blamed Atlas Network for its partners' efforts in some countries to criminalize climate protests, particularly in Germany,[7] Atlas Network said it supports free speech for climate protesters.[43] Some academics have described Atlas Network as an "oil-industry-funded transnational network",[36] as well as "the predominant vehicle for fossil capital's global mobilization against climate science and policy",[44] and its affiliates as being "partly funded by Koch and allied capitalists, with heavy support from fossil fuel-based fortunes".[38] Atlas Network told The New Republic that it has "no partnerships with extractive industries such as oil and gas companies, we receive no funding from oil and gas companies and have not received funding from oil and gas companies for nearly 15 years."[7]
Political ties
The Intercept,The Guardian, and The New Republic have described Atlas Network as having ties to right-wing and conservative movements, including the administration of Donald Trump in the United States, Brexit in the United Kingdom,[45] and anti-government protests in Latin America.[46][7] A 2024 study analyzing 52 Atlas Network partners found that "while some Atlas-affiliated partners show readiness to confront the threat of nationalist and authoritarian societal mobilization, others conceive it as a tactical or strategic opportunity to advance free market causes."[47] According to The Guardian, "Atlas took no position on Brexit itself, and many of its European partners were opposed, but directors of UK groups in the network were prominent in the official campaign to take Britain out of the EU."[45] In Brazil, Atlas Network had a role in the Free Brazil Movement, which led to the rise of Jair Bolsonaro,[2] and it sponsors the Liberty Forum where policies of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva were opposed.[7][48]
Atlas Network partners opposed the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[47] Atlas Network worked with its partners to create the Ukraine Freedom Fund, acquiring, transporting, and providing goods to Ukrainians,[50][51] and supporting Atlas Network partner groups in the country.[47] The Washington Examiner reported that the humanitarian aid totaled $3.5 million by December 2022.[51] According to Reason, Atlas Network supports nonprofit organizations that fight against authoritarianism and support free markets, self-determination, and rule of law.[52]
Leadership
As of 2020, Debbi Gibbs is Atlas Network's chair.[53] The chief executive officer of Atlas Network is Brad Lips. Lips joined Atlas Network, then known as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, in 1998,[5] and became CEO in 2009.[54] He is the author of Liberalism and the Free Society in 2021.[55] He stated that he advocates for a "freedom philosophy",[56] and quoting Friedman, has summarized Atlas Network's function as "to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable."[45] In an opinion article in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Lips argued for funding market-oriented nonprofit groups instead of increasing traditional foreign aid.[57] He said that Atlas Network is nonpartisan and "willing to talk to all parties".[58]
Matt Warner is the organization's president, while Tom Palmer serves as executive vice president for international programs.[59][60] Warner and Palmer co-authored the book Development with Dignity: Self-Determination, Localization, and the End of Poverty.[61] Palmer, known in American libertarian circles since the 1970s, has promoted economic libertarian efforts in various countries including Communist and post-Communist Eastern Europe, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan; after the 2022 Russian invasion, he traveled inside Ukraine to help coordinate Atlas Network aid.[50] He has spoken out against far-right and far-left authoritarian populist movements in the United States and other countries.[62][63] Palmer blames "envy and resentment" for driving collectivist impulses that are authoritarian in nature.[64]
Only 30 people work specifically for Atlas Network, although more than 1,000 people participate in it via its partner think tanks, according to Global Think Tanks: Policy Networks and Governance, published in 2020.[65] Atlas Network is organized into centers by region.[66] Entrepreneur Magatte Wade is director of the Center for African Prosperity and the historian Ibrahim B. Anoba is a fellow at the center. Wade said in Reason that the solution to Africa's economic problems lies in a "cheetah generation" of young Africans who embrace free markets, individualism, human rights, and transparency in government.[67] In her words, "[Africa is] poor because we don't let our entrepreneurs work."[68] Antonella Marty of Argentina served as a fellow for the Center for Latin America, which publishes the annual Index of Bureaucracy.[69][70] Atlas Network also runs the Center for United States and Canada and the Center for Asia and Oceania.[71][72]
Atlas Network has been described as a "connector", putting "freedom intellectuals" and local think tanks in contact and financing their trips.[73] The organization offers training, consulting, and professional certification related to fundraising, marketing, organizational leadership, and think tank management through its Atlas Network Academy program.[65][74] In 2020, Atlas Network trained nearly 4,000 people in promoting free-market voices,[75] preparing nearly 900 people to work at global think tanks.[6]Philadelphia described Atlas Network as "supporting free-market approaches to eliminating poverty and noted for its refutation of climate change and defense of the tobacco industry."[33]
Atlas Network holds four regional Liberty Forums (in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe) and an international conference in the United States.[59] At its December 2021 "Liberty Forum and Freedom Dinner" in Miami, Florida, for think tank partners from around the world, Mario Vargas Llosa and Yeonmi Park were among the 800 attendees, and Yotuel Romero performed.[4][76][77][78] Llosa, a Nobel Prize winner and classical liberal, is considered a friend of the organization.[79][80] Adam Weinberg, an Atlas Network executive, wrote in the New York Post that its Liberty Forums are "like an Anti-Davos", offering trade-show-type environments for think tanks to exchange ideas.[81]
In Canada, Atlas Network partners with about a dozen think tanks.[41] Atlas Network has also partnered with the F. A. Hayek Foundation in Slovakia, the Association for Liberal Thinking in Turkey, the Lithuanian Free Market Institute, and Libertad y Desarrollo in Chile to establish Free Enterprise Training Centers.[59] The organization also partners with Chile's Fundación Piensa and Argentina's Libertad y Progreso.[80]
In 2021, Atlas Network partnered with Cuban anti-communism activist Ruhama Fernandez to share her story after Fernandez was arrested for criticizing the Cuban government.[82] The Ukraine-based Bendukidze Free Market Center is also an Atlas Network partner.[83] Commentator Deroy Murdock, an Atlas Network senior fellow as of 2017, wrote that the organization "encourages institutions to use local knowledge to reduce government obstacles to upward mobility", featuring local entrepreneurs who overcome such obstacles.[84]
In the early 2000s, Atlas Network moved to distribute general purpose funds through grant competitions.[88] The organization provides limited amounts of financial support to new think tanks on a case-by-case basis. Grants are usually given for specific projects and range between $2,000 and $5,000.[89] In 2020, Atlas Network provided more than $5 million in the form of grants to support its network of more than 500 partners worldwide.[90][91] According to Atlas Network, its grants fund coaching, networking, pitch competitions, award programs, and other "ambitious projects for policy change".[81] By the end of 2024, Atlas Network claimed 581 partners in more 100 countries worldwide;[92]The Guardian reported it had "more than 450 thinktanks" in May 2024.[17]
The organization funds Costa Rica's IDEAS Labs, which helped reform the country's pension laws in 2020.[76] Atlas Network also supports the Philippines-based Foundation for Economic Freedom, which works on property rights.[76] Atlas Network supports the Burundian think tank CDE Great Lakes, which has helped reduce the paperwork and fees required to start a business in the country. The think tank works with local entrepreneurs, such as "Papa Coriandre", who formalized his small business and has since grown it from two to 139 employees.[93]
Awards
Atlas Network's Templeton Freedom Award, supported by Templeton Religion Trust and named after Sir John Templeton, was established in 2004.[94] In 2015, the Acton Institute was awarded $100,000 for its documentary film Poverty, Inc.[95] In 2020, the Center for Indonesian Policy Studies won the award for its Affordable Food for the Poor Initiative.[96][better source needed] In 2021, India's Centre for Civil Society was the winner.[97] In 2022, the Sri Lanka–based Advocata Institute, an Atlas Network partner, won its Asia Liberty Award and the Templeton Freedom Award.[98][99]
The organization's Think Tank Shark Tank competition allows professionals to pitch their projects to judges.[100] In 2018, Dhananath Fernando won the Asia Think Tank Shark Tank championship for his research on the high cost of construction in Sri Lanka and his proposal to lower the taxes on construction materials.[101] In 2019, Students for Liberty and Entrepreneurship (South Sudan) led by John Mustapha Kutiyote won the award for promoting home ownership by women.[102][103][independent source needed] Students for Liberty Brasil won the 2021 Latin America competition for their project on educating Brazilian favela residents about property rights.[104]
Research by the activist website DeSmog said Atlas Network had received millions of dollars from Koch-affiliated groups, the ExxonMobil Foundation, and the Sarah Scaife Foundation.[7] As of 2005, Atlas Network had received $440,000 from ExxonMobil itself.[105] In 2023, Atlas Network said it had received no funding from oil and gas companies "for nearly 15 years".[106]
Of Atlas Network partners, 57% in the United States received funding from the tobacco industry between 1990 and 2000.[34] Analysis in the InternationalJournal of Health Planning and Management in 2016 said that a lack of transparency and data about think tank funding had made it difficult to ascertain the amounts of tobacco industry funding to Atlas Network and partners since 2003.[34] Atlas Network said that corporate funding accounted for less than 2% of its total donations in 2020.[6]National Review said in 2021 that "fossil-fuel and tobacco interests" provided less than 1% of Atlas Network's funding over two decades, versus 98% from individuals and foundations.[76]
As of 2020, Atlas Network had assets of $13,849,965.[107][needs update]
^Mirowski, Philip; Plehwe, Dieter, eds. (2015). The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making of the Neoliberal Thought Collective (paperback ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN978-0-674-08834-4.
^"Atlas Network". Tobacco Tactics. Tobacco Control Research Group, Department of Health, University of Bath. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
^ abNeubauer, Robert; Graham, Nicolas (30 November 2021). "Fuelling the Subsidized Public: Mapping the Flow of Extractivist Content on Facebook". Canadian Journal of Communication. 46 (4): 911, 928–929. doi:10.22230/cjc.2021v46n4a4019. ISSN0705-3657. Meanwhile, the Fraser Institute, the MLI, Second Street, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the Montreal Economics Institute, the Manhattan Institute, and the Cato Institute—whose materials are all repurposed as information subsidies or shared directly—are all members of the Atlas Network, the oil-industry-funded transnational network that supports market fundamentalist think tanks and whose members include a rogue's gallery of climate denying organizations (including America's Heartland Institute alongside the Fraser Institute). Atlas Network groups often interlock, with members moving from group to group throughout their careers.
^ abMackert, Jürgen; Wolf, Hannah; Turner, Bryan S., eds. (2021). "Introduction: Waves of Democracy". The Condition of Democracy: Volume 1: Neoliberal Politics and Sociological Perspectives. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN978-1-000-40191-2. OCLC1252704834. Retrieved 1 January 2025 – via Google Books. Their vehicle is something called the Atlas Network, which at this writing claims over 400 affiliates in 95 countries, their operations partly funded by Koch and allied capitalists, with heavy support from fossil fuel-based fortunes ... The timing suggests one critical prompt. While the Atlas Network had been created a decade and a half earlier, its work notably escalated at this particular moment in the late 1990s. That was just as global recognition of climate change spread and parties across the spectrum began coordinating policies to address it, with the Kyoto Protocol adopted in 1997 being the prime example.
^Brulle, Robert J.; Roberts, J. Timmons (2024). "Introduction". In Brulle, Robert J.; Roberts, J. Timmons; Spencer, Miranda C. (eds.). Climate Obstruction Across Europe. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 14. ISBN978-0-19-776208-0. Global networks of think tanks—especially the Atlas Network—have also played a key role in diffusing denial internationally.
^ abDembicki, Geoff (18 July 2022). "How a conservative US network undermined Indigenous energy rights in Canada". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 July 2022. A US-based libertarian coalition has spent years pressuring the Canadian government to limit how much Indigenous communities can push back on energy development on their own land, newly reviewed strategy documents reveal. Atlas Network partnered with an Ottawa-based thinktank – the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) ... .
^Walker, Jeremy (2022). "Freedom to Burn: Mining Propaganda, Fossil Capital, and the Australian Neoliberals". In Slobodian, Quinn; Plehwe, Dieter (eds.). Market Civilizations: Neoliberals East and South. Near futures. Brooklyn, New York: Zone Books. ISBN978-1-942130-68-0.
