Diversity of information sources: An evaluation of global think tanks knowledge construct

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>In the realm of policy making, place and prestige of think tanks is acknowledged for their contribution in policy analysis and recommendations. Governments around the world consider the reports and recommendations of leading global think tanks when developing their policies. However, in spite of there being a comprehensive list of typologies and functions of think tanks, much less is known about these ‘machineries of knowledge’ and what enables them ‘to know what they know, and the key sources of variation among them’. Drawing on the theory of epistemic knowledge, this study aims to provide insights about how knowledge is produced inside these machineries of knowledge by looking at source citations’ pattern of reports produced by the top 50 global think tanks. For this purpose, a total of 365 research reports on one country, i.e. Pakistan, published between 2007 and 2016 were retrieved. A total of 17,801 references were extracted and analyzed. The study finds that there is great variation across think tanks in the use of diverse information sources and the use also varies considerably over time even for the same organization.</jats:p>