Alleviating Think Tank Plagiarism
By
J.H. Snider, Ph.D.
President of iSolon.org and
Lab Fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at
Harvard University
Presented at the
World Conference on Academic Integrity
May 6, 2013
Montreal, Canada
Outline
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Why think tanks are important
Why think tank plagiarism is important
Definition of think tank
Definition of plagiarism
Incentives for plagiarism
Case study
Remedies
Conclusion
Why Think Tanks are Important
• More than a 1,000 think tanks in the U.S.
• Heavily subsidized by taxpayers.
• Influential.
Citations of Think Tanks in the Media
Source: “Think Tank Spectrum Revisited,” Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, June 1, 2012.
Ranking of Think Tanks by DC Events
(adjusted for annual expenditures)
Source: “The Most Popular Washington Think Tanks,” DC Linktank Blog, October 2012.
Downloaded May 4, 2013. See http://blog.linktank.com/most-popular-think-tanks/2/.
Why Think Tank Plagiarism is
Important
• Like academic institutions, think tanks place great store on
the independence and originality of their work.
• Like academic institutions, enforcement of research norms
is primarily via social sanction rather than law.
• But think tanks are also neither fish nor fowl. They may
claim to do “scholarship,” including follow academic
research norms, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they
should be held to those standards or that think tanks
actually take those standards seriously.
• My goal here: call attention to issues relating to plagiarism
in a particular type of important, taxpayer subsidized
institution that doesn’t neatly fit into either an academic or
non-academic category.
Mission and Message to Funders
“new
ideas”
Note the implied diversity and thus independence from funders.
Mission and Message to Funders
“new
ideas”
Ideal-type Definition of a Think Tank
A think tank is a type of nonprofit institution that makes
public policy recommendations. It is distinguished from other
institutions with a similar function—notably journalistic,
advocacy, and academic institutions--by the following criteria:
1. It is a nonprofit that is heavily subsidized by taxpayers;
that is, it is a 501(c)(3) corporation.
2. It is solution rather than problem oriented (unlike
investigative journalism).
3. Its recommendations grow out of research rather than
vice versa (unlike public advocacy/lobbying).
4. It uses a problem-solution rather than contribution-toliterature publication format (unlike academia)
Definition of Plagiarism
The false assumption of authorship in a way that is
socially harmful; the wrongful taking of and
representing as one’s own the ideas, words, or
inventions of another.” (See Lindey 1952 and Shaw
1982)
Key elements: 1) idea plagiarism is included, 2)
social harm is explicitly mentioned and emphasized,
3) no harm to the real author is required, and 4)
deception, not intent to deceive, is emphasized.
Think Tank vs. Academic
Incentives for Plagiarism
• Structure of publications: problem-solution vs.
contribution-to-literature.
• Very costly for enforcers
– No “peer review” as for academic journals,
conferences, and promotions.
– Libel and retribution become a much greater concern.
– Lay audiences who aren’t competitors.
– Lack of private institutions to internalize the cost of
plagiarism. (Incentives analogous to team doping use.)
– Collective action problems for those harmed.
The Benefits from Plagiarism:
The Mechanism
• The business analogy
– The me-too product launch and its marketing
campaign
• The think tank product launch and its
marketing campaign
– How journalists work and how this encourages
think tank idea plagiarism
– How funders work and how this encourages think
tank idea plagiarism
Nature of Think Tank Claims
to Originality
• The virgin birth of originality claims. (Claims
are likely to be made outside the work
product.)
• Undefined claims (that is, outside a specific
context).
• Claims in face-to-face or non-public settings:
to funders, at events, proximate causation.
Nature of Claims to Independence
• Independence claims are a type of originality
claim (e.g., students are expected to do their
work independently).
• Independence claims, like other claims to
originality, are usually made in a strategically
ambiguous way.
Free Speech
Zone
Unambiguous
Libel Zone
Libel vs. Free Speech Zone
Ambiguous
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Verifiability of Harmful Plagiarism
by Occupation
Unambiguous
Plagiarism
Unambiguous
Plagiarism
Ambiguous
Plagiarism
Ambiguous
Plagiarism
Text (e.g., Literary) Plagiarism Idea (e.g., Think Tank) Plagiarism
Legally vs. Socially Enforceable
Plagiarism by Occupation
Legally
Enforceable
Legally Enforceable
Socially Enforceable
Socially Enforceable
Literary/Text Plagiarism
Think Tank/Idea Plagiarism
Citation Type by Publication Format
Small Cite
(supporting facts)
Academic
(contribution-toliterature)
Think Tank
(problem-solution)


Big Cite
(the contributionto-the-literature)


Qualification on small cites: Could be legal brief/advocacy style citation; e.g., don’t cite
the work of opponents unless it is to criticize them, even if their research is useful.
Informal vs. Formal
Enforcement Options
Pre-Publication
(informal
enforcement)
Post-Publication
(formal
enforcement)
Academic
(e.g., peer
reviewed
publication)


Think Tank
(e.g., selfpublication)


Audience Characteristics
Subject Expertise
Motivation to Look
for Plagiarism
Academic
High
High
Think Tank
Low
Low
Case Study:
Conference Board of Canada
• Describes itself as “the foremost, independent, not-forprofit applied research organization in Canada.”
• Ranked #11 among Canadian think tanks in “2012
Global Go To Think Tanks Report.”
• In a May 2009 report on intellectual property,
plagiarized, with only minor text changes, a report
from the International Intellectual Property Alliance (a
U.S. intellectual property lobby).
• Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of
Ottawa, exposes the plagiarism.
• Mr. Geist’s findings are widely report in the Canadian
press.
• The Conference Board of Canada retracts the report.
The Retraction
• Conference Board initially responds that it “stands
behind its findings” and has corrected a missing
citation “in one instance.”
• After widespread press coverage, the Conference
Board retracts its report, implicitly blaming its author
by saying the report was written by a contract author
no longer with the Conference Board.
• The author responds by denouncing the Conference
Board, saying he left a year before the report was
released, did not include the relevant language in the
draft he submitted, and asked that his name be taken
off the report.
Backstory
• Professor Geist found three other reports from three
different organizations, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce,
The Anti-Counterfeiting Network, and the IP Council, that
plagiarized text, including recommendations and
arguments, derived from the lobbying associations of the
Canadian movie and recording lobbying industries, who, in
turn, derive many of their arguments from their American
lobbying counterparts.
• The same claims in different reports cited secondary
sources as if they were primary sources, thus creating
nested layers of plagiarism.
• The lobbying goal was to have essentially independent
organizations make the same recommendations.
Lessons Learned
• This was idea plagiarism overlapping with wholesale
text plagiarism, which made it easy to detect. But
smart idea plagiarists are rarely so lazy.
• The plagiarism involved no harm to the real author,
who was happy to be plagiarized.
• The person who exposed the plagiarism wasn’t
interested in plagiarism but discrediting the
Conference Board’s intellectual property arguments.
• The goal of the plagiarism was to claim not new ideas
but ideas independently arrived at. It was to
demonstrate a consensus of viewpoints.
Remedy Philosophy
• Legal enforcement of idea plagiarism norms is
impractical and undesirable.
• Social sanctions are the only viable method
for enforcing idea plagiarism norms.
But:
• Laws can create an environment that
enhances social sanctions.
Separate Legal and Social
Enforcement Mechanisms
Legal
Social
Legal Enforcement Mechanisms as a
Foundation for Social Ones
Social
Legal
Remedies
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•
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Libel Law. Encourage the free flow of ideas regarding plagiarism claims by
reforming libel law for think tanks and other charitable organizations.
Standardized Citation Metadata. Develop standardized metadata for citations.
Include them in the next generation of HTML tags, starting with a standards
body such as schema.org (the metadata organization for search engines).
Central Think Tank Publication Database. Create a PubMed-like central
database for think tank publications, with bibliographic information for
externally published work and full text for internally published work. (All NIH
funded articles must be submitted to PubMed upon acceptance for publication.)
Explicit Attribution Standards. Think tanks should publish on their websites
their research ethics policies, signed by their designated ethics official. Form
990 filings to the IRS should include a link to this policy.
NSF Funding. Fund surveys of think tank publication practices.
Producer and Advisor Credits. Encourage a norm for think tank publications to
include producer (financial interest) credits sorted by funding specificity; e.g.,
part of work, whole work, think tank program think tank organization. Advisor
/Acknowledgement (information interest) credits, including registered lobbyists,
trade association staff, legislative staff, and executive branch officials.
Some Questions
• Do we have a shortage of creative public
policy ideas?
• Are think tanks a no man’s land where neither
social nor legal sanctions work?
• What type of attribution is appropriate in a
think tank context?
• Is this really a problem? If so, is there a
practical remedy?
End