Cultures of expertise and technologies of government: The emergence of think tanks in Chile

Abstract

This article analyses the relation between the formation of a corpus of technologies of government and the establishment of bodies of actors that lay claim to this type of knowledge. In order to investigate this phenomenon, I examine the major milestones in the emergence of think tanks in Chile with the intention of uncovering not only the political aspects of technologies of government but also cultural ones, which come into play through people's beliefs and practices. I approach think tanks in the following three ways, which appear to be different dimensions of the same phenomenon: (a) as global assemblages; (b) through the genealogy of their emergence and (c) within their spheres and ‘sites’ of activity. Despite their differences in ideas and values, think tanks share the characteristic of being sites where neoliberal governmentality can be reproduced through a migratory technology of governing that interacts with situated sets of elements and historical conjunctures. The effects of this phenomenon are manifested in the establishment of a market for expertise opened up by think tanks, ‘freed’ from state bureaucracy and underpinned by a logic of competition that is supported by networks that blur the boundaries between public and private institutions.