1.1 Think Tanks and Expert Knowledge

The development and functioning of think tanks has been attracting scholars since the introduction of the concept itself. Guston (1999, 2001) Guston, David H. “Stabilizing the Boundary between US Politics and Science:: The Role of the Office of Technology Transfer as a Boundary Organization.”?Social Studies of Science?29, no. 1 (February 1999): 87-111.// Guston, David H. "Boundary Organizations in Environmental Policy and Science: An Introduction."?Science, Technology, & Human Values 26, no. 4 (2001): 399-408. has introduced a concept of “boundary structures”. These boundary structures were described as organizations, which formation was aimed on creation of collaborative processes between science and policy. This definition allows us to describe the purpose of think tanks.

In the original boundary organization's theory it was assumed that the “principal-agent” problem could play a huge role in these relations. The science, as it was believed, could be the agent only. But further development of the concept proved it to be wrong. Cash (2001) Cash, David W. "“In Order to Aid in Diffusing Useful and Practical Information”: Agricultural Extension and Boundary Organizations."?Science, Technology, & Human Values 26, no. 4 (2001): 431-53. and Clark (2002) Cash, David, William C. Clark, Frank Alcock, Nancy M. Dickson, Noelle Eckley, and Jill Jдger. "Salience, credibility, legitimacy and boundaries: linking research, assessment and decision making." (2002). were studying the process of functioning of these organizations within the conceptual framework and were able to depict more details on not only how these organizations are functioning and how the mediation works. For instance, these organizations are breaking barriers between science and policy, and functioning and interaction between those two different spheres requires “responsibility and accountability for both sides of the boundary” and “they provide a space to legitimize the use of boundary objects”. Ibid

Further studies extended the understanding of how boundary organizations can be functioning. Thus, it was tested and applied for studying international non-governmental organizations (Miller, 2001) Miller, Clark^{. "}Hybrid management: boundary organizations, science policy, and environmental governance in the climate regime."?Science, Technology, & Human Values?26, no. 4 (2001): 478-500.. Rod & Paliwoda (2003) Rod, Michel RM, and Stanley J. Paliwoda. "Multi-sector collaboration: a stakeholder perspective on a government, industry and university collaborative venture."?Science and Public Policy?30, no. 4 (2003): 273-284^. applied the concept to multi-sectoral interactions, proved that the theory can be applied for multiple number of actors and defined a new sphere, between which boundary organizations are functioning - business. Franks (2010) Franks, Jeremy. "Boundary organizations for sustainable land management: The example of Dutch Environmental Co-operatives."?Ecological Economics?70, no. 2 (2010): 283-295. and Leith et al. (2015) Leith, Peat, Marcus Haward, Chris Rees, and Emily Ogier. "Success and evolution of a boundary organization."?Science, Technology, & Human Values?41, no. 3 (2016): 375-401^. were able to demonstrate an example of successful interactions of boundary organizations and their ability to influence both science and policy.

As it was aforementioned, think tanks were attracting scholars ever since their appearance in the 1950's. Basically, all the conducted studies are focused on several main questions of the definition of think tanks, their multiway classification and how exactly think tanks are influencing decision-making processes. McGann (2000) McGann, James G., and R. Kent Weaver. "Think tanks and civil societies. New Brunswick." (2000)., Rich (2005) Rich, Andrew.?Think tanks, public policy, and the politics of expertise. Cambridge University Press, 2005. and Abelson (2010) Abelson, Donald E. "Think Tanks--Definition, Their Influence and US Foreign Policy." Interview by Leonhardt van Efferink (2010). separately came to the conclusion that think tanks are “rely on expertise and ideas to obtain support and to influence the policymaking process” (though using slightly different sentence structure). Many scholars are arguing whether an organization should meet the specific criteria in order to be called a “think tank”, and these rigorous criteria are yet to be agreed widely among scholars as well. Though there is no consensus among researchers about the definition, the term “think tank” “generally has been employed to describe non-profit, non-partisan (not to be confused with non-ideological), independent (in terms of governance) organizations engaged in the study of domestic and/or foreign policy issues”.

There are two main approaches to studying think tanks. Elitists, led by McGunn (2000) McGann, James G., and R. Kent Weaver. "Think tanks and civil societies. New Brunswick." (2000). , are assuming that the ability of any think tank to influence decision making process is conditional upon these think tank's links with elites. Thus, think tanks must focus both on sustaining independence or making contribution, which is possible mainly with strong ties with elites.

However, the introduction of elitist's approach led to a huge argument and an emergency of pluralists. Abelson (2002) Abelson, Donald E.?Do Think Tanks Matter?: Assessing the Impact of Public Policy Institutes. Montreal; Kingston; London; Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002. has agreed with Dahl (1989) Dahl, Robert Alan.?Democracy and its Critics. Yale University Press, 1989. were able to demonstrate the excesses of elitists' approach by refuting the assumption that think tanks are not able to influence public (not governmental) policy. According to both scholars, think tanks can compete with non-profit organizations, labour unions and other non-governmental organizations.

Neo-institutional approach allows us to trace how the institutional framework influences the behaviour of a think tank as an actor. Hall et al. (1996) Hall, Peter A., and Rosemary CR Taylor. "Political science and the three new institutionalisms."?Political studies?44, no. 5 (1996): 936-957^. argues that every actor (think tank, in this case) aims at pursuing a variety of goals, set by different internal rules, purposes and beliefs, and strategically considers every available option in order to maximize benefits. Thus, think tank's activities are defined by not only their resources (financial, manpower etc.), but also by possibility to participate in development and implementation of real political decision. Abelson, Donald E.?Do Think Tanks Matter?: Assessing the Impact of Public Policy Institutes. Montreal; Kingston; London; Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002.

A sizable portion of think tank's studies addressed the classification of these organizations on a different basis. One of the most referenced is made by Johnson (1996). Johnson, Erik C. "How think tanks improve public policy."?Economic reform today?3 (1996): 34-8. He divides think tanks by 5 general functions:

? Corporate created or business affiliated are consulting business, but unable to influence public policy

? Advocacy groups - basically, non-profit organizations with independent sources of financing

? Governmentally created or state sponsored (limited independence; can influence decision-making process)

? Academic research groups are affiliated with universities and research laboratories. Due to specificity, this organizations can conduct the most comprehensive research projects, but their ability to influence decision-making process is limited

? Political party think tanks can't be called independent, since they are strongly affiliated with political parties and other forces

Typology of think tanks also attracted many Russian scholars, who developed different approaches of how to categorize those organizations. Zaytsev (2012) divided think tanks into reflective (with a main field of activities in social and cultural sphere; these organizations do not influence policy making directly) and functional groups (i.e. trying to use different available instruments to influence policymaking). Zaytsev, Dmitry. "Analytical Communities in the Local Policy Process: Creating Self-identity."?International Journal of Business and Social Science?3, no. 5 (2012). Medushevsky (2010) N. A. Medushevskiy. "Fabriki mysli v ES: Sravnitel'nyj analiz evropejskogo i amerikanskogo issledovatel'skix podxodov." Vestnik Rossijskogo universiteta druzhby narodov. Seriya: Politologiya 1 (2010). // Медушевский, Николай Андреевич. "Фабрики мысли в ЕС: Сравнительный анализ европейского и американского исследовательских подходов." Вестник Российского университета дружбы народов. Серия: Политология 1 (2010). dedicated two different models - European and American - with a difference in approach of how to define think tank. The most popular among Russian scholars typology was made by Gorny (2008). M. V. Gorny. “Fabriki mysli i centry publichnoj politiki v konce XX-nachale XXI vekov.” Publichaya Politika. (2006)/ // Горный, Михаил Бениаминович. "Фабрики мысли и центры публичной политики в конце ХХ-начале ХХI веков." Публичная политика. URL: http://www.civisbook. ru/files/File/Gornyi_fabriki.pdf (2006). He identified academic research groups, advocacy tanks, party-affiliated tanks and contract-based tanks. There are many more classifications made by different scholars, e.g. by generation. A. A. Balayan and A. Y. Sungurov. Fabriki mysli: mezhdunarodnyj i rossijskij opyt: Uchebnoe posobie. Saint-Petersburg, Higher School of Economics, 2014 // Балаян, Александр Александрович, Сунгуров Александр Юрьевич. Фабрики мысли: международный и российский опыт: Учеб. пособие. СПб.: НИУ ВШЭ, 2014. Sungurov (2012) created a dualistic approach on how to define think tanks, based on the clear ideological motivation of organizations. A. Sungurov, O. Zakharova, L. Petrova, N. Raspopov. "Instituty-mediatory i ix razvitie v sovremennoj Rossii." Polis 1 (2012): 165-178. // Сунгуров, А., О. Захарова, Л. Петрова, Н. Распопов. "Институты-медиаторы и их развитие в современной России." Полис 1 (2012): 165-178. The first group is basically technical think tanks - they are not ideologically boosted and present themselves as a client for different forces (e.g. business, political party or government). The second group consists of ideology-based think tanks (exact ideology does not play a role), which do not have to wait an order to produce activities. They are called “centers of public policy”.

1.2 Expert Knowledge and Decision Making

A fundamental study on how to evaluate think tanks' influence of policy-making process was conducted by Abelson (2006, 2011) Abelson, Donald E.?Capitol Idea: Think Tanks and US Foreign Policy. McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP, 2006. // Abelson, Donald E. "1. Is Anybody Listening? Assessing the Influence of Think Tanks."?Think tanks and public policies in Latin America?(2010): 11., who based development of his model on the research of Lindquist (2006) Lindquist, Evert.?Think tanks, foundations and policy discourse: Ebbs and flows, investments and responsibilities. Canadian Policy Research Networks, 2006. and McNutt et al. (2009). McNutt, Kathleen, and Gregory Marchildon. "Think Tanks and the web: measuring visibility and influence."?Canadian Public Policy?35, no. 2 (2009): 219-236. He specified quantitative and qualitative. A quantitative approach is based on the influence's assessment by correlation analysis between publications or recommendations of a think tank and decisions made. However, this says little about the very influence of think tanks on the decision-making process. Thus, “to measure think tanks' influence is to measure the ability to influence as opposed to measuring the correlations between an institute's research or recommendations and particular policy outcomes”. Ibid

A qualitative approach, as opposed to qualitative, in collecting information from secondary sources and interviewing. A strong advantage of this approach may be the possibility to trace and determine connections between think tanks and politics, and to explain why certain think tanks are able to influence policy making.

The analysis of institutional changes, institutional framework and think tank's role in the development of civil society is presented in studies made by D. North (1991), March (1983), Hall (1996), Spires (2011), Cleary (1997) and Angley (2010). North, Douglass C.?1991.?"Institutions."?Journal of Economic Perspectives,?5 (1): 97-112 // March, James G., and Johan P. Olsen. "The new institutionalism: Organizational factors in political life."?American political science review?78, no. 3 (1983): 734-749. // Hall, Peter A., and Rosemary CR Taylor. "Political science and the three new institutionalisms." Political studies 44, no. 5 (1996): 936-957. Elaborative explanation of the concept of organizational-institutional approach could be found in works of Lawrence (2009), Ansell et al.(2016) and Greenwood et al. (2017).²⁹

1.3 Process Tracing in Policymaking

Process tracing gained significant popularity over the course of its existence, since it allows “the systematic examination of diagnostic evidence selected and analyzed in light of research questions and hypotheses posed by the investigator” (Collier, 2011) Collier, David. "Understanding process tracing." PS: Political Science & Politics 44, no. 4 (2011): 823-830.. It offers an extremely wide field for qualitative research and within-case study by applying different hypotheses and theories to test. There are three main types of CPT: case-centric (a detailed narrative on how specific outcome or event was predesignated), theory-testing (to test pre-existing theories and related causal mechanisms) and theory-building (allows to build a new theory by identifying different causal mechanisms from the given evidence). Kay, Adrian, and Phillip Baker. "What can causal process tracing offer to policy studies? A review of the literature." Policy Studies Journal 43, no. 1 (2015): 1-21. It also provides 4 main types of hypothesis testing:

? Straw-in-the-Wind Tests provide neither a necessary nor a sufficient criterion for accepting or rejecting a hypothesis, and they only slightly weaken rival hypotheses;

? Hoop Tests do not yield a sufficient criterion for accepting the explanation, but establishes a necessary criterion;

? Smoking-Gun Tests (provides a sufficient but not necessary criterion for accepting the causal inference

? Doubly Decisive Tests (strong inferential leverage that confirms one hypothesis and eliminates all others) Collier, David. "Understanding process tracing." PS: Political Science & Politics 44, no. 4 (2011): 823-830.

CPT is extremely complex, and many scholars attributed their concerns about how to expand it over different areas of political science (Kay, Baker), and avoidance of common mistakes during its application. The most significant and defining works on CPT operationalization and application were done by George & Bennet (2005) George, Alexander L., Andrew Bennett, Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller. Case studies and theory development in the social sciences. mit Press, 2005., Hall (2006) Hall, Peter A. "Systematic process analysis: when and how to use it." European Management Review 3, no. 1 (2006): 24-31., Collier (2011) Ibid, Beach & Pedersen (2013) Beach, Derek, and Rasmus Brun Pedersen. Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines. University of Michigan Press, 2013. and Bennet & Checkel (2014) Bennett, Andrew, and Jeffrey T. Checkel, eds. Process Tracing: From Metaphor to Analytic Tool. Strategies for Social Inquiry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.. Understanding and tracing the decision making process is frequently quite a challenge, which Beach & Pedersen (2011) Beach, Derek, and Rasmus Brun Pedersen. "What is Process-Tracing Actually Tracing? The Three Variants of Process Tracing Methods and Their Uses and Limitations." The three variants of process tracing methods and their uses and limitations (2011)., Baker & Kay (2015) Kay, Adrian, and Phillip Baker. "What can causal process tracing offer to policy studies? A review of the literature." Policy Studies Journal 43, no. 1 (2015): 1-21. and Tansey (2007) Tansey, Oisнn. "Process tracing and elite interviewing: a case for non-probability sampling." PS: Political Science & Politics 40, no. 4 (2007): 765-772. all had suggestions on how to overcome.

1.4 Political Discourse Analysis

Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) is a part of the widely spread Context Discourse Analysis and basically refers to analysing anything related to politics. Such a definition leaves lots of space to confusion, since almost every discourse could be potentially defined as political. To overcome this challenge, Wilson (2001, 2015) Tannen, Deborah, Heidi Ehernberger Hamilton, and Deborah Schiffrin, eds. The handbook of discourse analysis. Vol. 1. Malden MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2015. suggested to delimit political discourse as something specific only for formal and informal political contexts and political actors, and focus on the, hence considering all “politicians, political institutions, governments, political media, and political supporters operating in political environments to achieve political goals”. In his comprehensive description and guideline for PDA, he also derives different types of political discourse, its history, and different techniques on how to utilise specific linguistic forms and tricks.

Van Dijk (1997) Van Dijk, Teun A. "What is political discourse analysis." Belgian journal of linguistics 11, no. 1 (1997): 11-52. provided the most complex typology of PDA at the time, and many scholars, including abovementioned Wilson et al., are elaborating on his ideas and typology. Among others, he derived an analysis of political ideologies to determine basic belief systems for every political actor, including organizations.

With the introduction of modern technologies, discourse analysis becomes much more accessible. Dunmire (2012) Dunmire, Patricia L. "Political discourse analysis: Exploring the language of politics and the politics of language." Language and Linguistics compass 6, no. 11 (2012): 735-751. provides a refreshed look on the theoretical basics of PDA (including linguistic aspects), discusses different conceptions of what comprises the political and the appropriate objects for studying with PDA, as well as the relationship between PDA and critical discourse analysis (CDA), and provides an overview of different theoretical and analytic frameworks.

1.5 Political Expert Knowledge

The role of expert communities in the decision-making process have been extensively studied recently. Scholars, puzzled with the role of think tanks and expert knowledge in the policymaking process, conducted lots of studies on the topic. In order to track it, it is necessary to develop a new model, hence move towards identifying public policy as a dependent variable, and not just an “output” of the political system. Analytical effort should not be considered as an “input”, on the other hand, and the whole system of gaining analytical knowledge and its eventual enforcement should be considered as a process. The first “modern” wave of knowledge evaluation was promoted by Wiess (1991) Wagner, Peter, Carol Hirschon Weiss, Bjцrn Wittrock, and Hellmut Wollman, eds. Social sciences and modern states: National experiences and theoretical crossroads. Vol. 9. Cambridge University Press, 1991. and Cronbach (1980) Cronbach, Lee J., Sueann Robinson Ambron, Sanford M. Dornbusch, Robert D. Hess, Robert C. Hornik, Denis Charles Phillips, Decker F. Walker, and Stephen S. Weiner. Toward reform of program evaluation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1980., seeing research and knowledge as an “ path-breaking studies able gradually to change the policy vocabulary and the interpretative frames of policy-makers rather than studies oriented to short-term 'solutions' and political consultancy”, as described by Radaelli (1995) Radaelli, Claudio M. "The role of knowledge in the policy process." Journal of European public policy 2, no. 2 (1995): 159-183.. Hence, it requires a rejection of the мknowledge-driven model' (basic research, applied research, development, application) and `problem-solving model' (in which exiting problem is studied and the lack of research is removed with certain solution), since “perceptions and understandings change over time and this

has something to do with knowledge”. Radaelli also supports Haas (1992) Adler, Emanuel, and Peter M. Haas. "Conclusion: epistemic communities, world order, and the creation of a reflective research program." International organization 46, no. 1 (1992): 367-390. model of policy evolution, consisted of four stages - innovation, diffusion, selection and persistence - and outlines, that in order for the epistemic community to be successful, it has to act under the conditions of uncertainty (i.e. it has to be insulated from mainstream view, which can disrupt the research outcomes), allowing those communities to produce a research without seeking for different expected outcomes from different sources of action (actors).

During the research, he also broadened a model of the `third community' by Lindquist (1990) Lindquist, Evert A. "The third community, policy inquiry, and social scientists." Social scientists, policy, and the state. New York: Praeger (1990): 21-51., arguing that the traditional model of academic and political communities, previously seen as independent and non-related to each other. Lindquist describes this community as composed of policy-related individuals, such as political consultants, directors of influential policy institutes etc. Turns out that the `third community' model with actors, who have policy-related knowledge have a significant;y more chances to make an impact on the policy making process. He also derives a three-dimensional model of knowledge, based on the `arenas' this knowledge is used:

- Information data - institutionalized policy-making rules, where knowledge is basically used as a primary source of information (e.g. statistics), and there is no room for qualitative ideas and discussion;

- Ideas - used in case of crisis or in the situation where there was no public policy implementation before;

- Argument - during the times of struggle and zero-sum games, the only possible way for different actors to enter a `political game'; also it is frequently used for justifying decision, which were already made.

Think tanks are usually involved in the second and third stages (“ideas” and “argument”), but depending on their stated purpose and the field of operation, they could rarely participate in the providing viable information data (mainly quantitative). Randelli provides an extensive analysis of the studies on the political knowledge, conducted at the time, deriving main models and comparing them in order to find and formulate the best way to study how knowledge and the public policy are interacting.

Another important step in the development of studying political functions of expert knowledge was taken by Boswell (2008) Boswell, Christina. "The political functions of expert knowledge: Knowledge and legitimation in European Union immigration policy." Journal of European public policy 15, no. 4 (2008): 471-488., who criticized rationalist theories of organizations. She argues that the traditional, instrumental way of threatening knowledge as a way for bureaucracies (which are `by default' are set to pursue its goals in the most rational structure and evidence-driven actions) to base their action on the reasonable and empirical ground, and to “adjust policy outputs”. Despite the fact that scholars, such as Wiess (1986) Weiss, Carol H. "Research and policy-making: a limited partnership." The use and abuse of social science (1986): 214-235., Randelli (1995), and March (1994) March, James G. Primer on decision making: How decisions happen. Simon and Schuster, 1994. have attempted to derive another type of knowledge, she takes a step further, developing a new, symbolic function of knowledge. In fact, there are two main symbolic functions: legitimization (organization leans on the expert knowledge to enhance its legitimacy to broaden its influence in different policy fields) and substantiating (when organization `lends its authority to particular policy positions, helping to substantiate organizational preferences in cases of political contestation'). There are several conditions to recognize those two types of symbolic knowledge are being used:

- For legitimizing knowledge, these are (1) looser fit between structure/substance of research and policy, (2) looser ties between decision-makers and research units and (3) clear interest in widely publicizing knowledge institutions;

- For substantiating knowledge main indicators are (1) structure and substance of research reflect lines of contention, (2) some exchange between decision-makers and research units and (3) selected interest in publicizing utilization (to relevant policy-makers).

She derived those indicators during the research of European Commission policy development towards migration and asylum seekers, and was successfully able to test her hypotheses, including vital discovery of organizations concerned about their legitimacy, both external (from political structures, social expectations and other groups of interests) and internal (since the organization cannot function without its participants). Organization's members concerns about reducing uncertainty both within and outside the organization is an essential point for those symbolic functions to actually appear, and this discovery provided an insight on how formal organization's goals and structures could not meet the norms, beliefs, practices and patterns of behaviour, created by its members in order for organization to keep functioning properly under peer pressure (both external and internal). The evidence, provided in the study, shown, that when the Senior management of European Migration Network was concerned about fulfilling the substantiating function, other active members were focused on the instrumental function to support the organization's claims in the field (i.e. legitimize) as a provider of trustworthy instrumental knowledge.

In her sequential research, Boswell (2009) Boswell, Christina. "Knowledge, legitimation and the politics of risk: The functions of research in public debates on migration." Political studies 57, no. 1 (2009): 165-186. argues that the existing theories on the knowledge utilization in political debates - one implying limited usage if knowledge, since it has to be `dumbed down' for the debates to be more appealing, hence losing its initial significance and the large portion of scientific novelty and comprehensiveness; and the other suggesting the the political knowledge is in use the most in the situation with the most political risk (i.e. controversial issues) to “define and justify possible policy responses”. To proof that the difference between these two theories, hence between types of usage of knowledge in the political debates, is not necessary contradictory, and to define obstacles leading towards certain type of knowledge usage in the debates, she analysed a the debates in the UK media in 2002-2004 over the sparse and risky topic - migration (including both UK and the EU initiatives at the time).

After all, the claim that the knowledge, used in the debates, is usually simplified, was confirmed; but it was not ruled out completely. Actors in the debates, such as the government, mass media and opposition parties, were very likely to back their claims by the scientific knowledge in the areas with a high political risk (such as migration, in this case). Moreover, it turns out that politicians are desperate to back their claims by expert knowledge during the debates, shifting a discussion toward areas and political preferences they could back with scientific research. Media, on the other hand, were more interested in the counter posing other actor's policies and claims with the studies, which results are opposing, to expose politicians and heat the debate over risky, controversial topics. It is also more likely for the governing bodies to distance themselves from the independent scientific communities and individuals to avoid being involved in the situation, where the lack of ethical credibility of the research, especially over the politics of risk. The decision making body, in this case, is more likely to ground their decision on the indoubtfuly credible organizations, such as different government bodies and departments. She her discoveries are described in one comprehensive work. Boswell, Christina. The political uses of expert knowledge: Immigration policy and social research. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

2. Research Design & Methodology

Tracking the role of expert support for political decisions in any political regime, including the current one, requires tracking political events corresponding to a particular decision. These events are not always directly related, however, the establishment of these relations is one of the objectives of this work. For this purpose, four expert communities based at different times in different political circumstances were chosen as an example. About how the role of thought factories changed during the reign of V. Putin can be judged by the direction of the reports of these think tanks, as well as by their role in making political decisions - in other words, it is necessary to determine the functions that they performed. To establish these causal links and create these thought factories, as well as to track the evolution of expert knowledge to provide political decisions, the causal process tracing is used, which allows using an analytical causal explanation to test existing theories of development and demand for expert knowledge. To assess the direction and functions of thought factories in different periods, using the example of several reports of each organization using Political Discourse Analysis. In addition to the direct assessment of reports on the focus, the references to these organizations in the media, interviews with their participants or close persons were also examined, and their sites were reviewed. Also, a semi-structured expert interview was taken from a representative of each of the thought factories of each of the think tanks.

In order to do so, following question should be raised:

1. What was the role of selected think tanks in the public policy development in Russia?

The answer to this question using the selected methods will allow tracing the role of expert support of political decisions in Russia using the example of selected organizations.

2.1 Causal Process Tracing in Decision Making

Since its introduction, case study Causal Process Tracing established itself as one of the most common methods to analyse and test causal links between specific events. For the purpose of this study, there is a need to establish connections between social, economic and political events and the appearance of these four above mentioned organizations.

Here are some examples of variables which should be considered as influential to answer some of these questions. All these are examples of social events, led to slight political shifts, or vice versa:

? Severe political competition between the President and Oligarchs in the early 2000's

? Terrorist acts across Russia in 1999-2004, linked with

? Second Chechen war

? Putin's speech in Munich

? Mass protests 2011-2012.

? “Foreign Agent” law

? Anti-corruption protests 2016-2017

? Competition between selected think tanks for influence on policy making process and others.

However, there is an issue to be addressed while applying CPT to the decision making process. Unlike causal regression, which allows only to suggest some causal claims, CPT allows to analyse “processes that are path dependent or rooted in strategic interaction” Hall, 2006. But its application requires an introduction of comprehensive theory to test in order to avoid some common testing errors. This theory should be pre-existing and not to be mixed with the personal preferences of the scientist. For the purpose of this study it requires an introduction of an expert knowledge in political decision making, hence linking think tanks with the government and a necessity of expert knowledge for any political regime.

2.2 Political Discourse Analysis

Political Discourse Analysis (PDA), as a part of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), is performed in order to establish the exact direction, in which those four organizations were heading in their studies, hence to avoid any speculation on the topic. First of all, political discourse should be divided from other discourses, including the latter CDA. As argues T. van Dijk (1997) Van Dijk, Teun A. "What is political discourse analysis." Belgian journal of linguistics 11, no. 1 (1997): 11-52., the easiest and the most obvious way to do so is to distinguish politicians (or actors/authors) as the professional politicians, including those directly related to the political institutions, and analyse their texts and speeches. However, an implementation of the discourse analysis approach is required to extend this group of people by including those, who are getting paid for their political activities. Moreover, it allows us to take into account not only individuals, but entire organizations, which is crucial for the purpose of this study.

There are a variety of methodological approaches on how to perform Political Discourse Analysis. Since this method in the study serves the purpose of defining ideologies, towards which selected organizations are leaning, the political ideologies PDA is performed to basic beliefs systems based on the studies they produced. For each organization, random publications are selected, published in the years when each organization is considered the most active. Then, they are subdivided into two categories: traditional pro-governmental and liberal pro-governmental, based on sentiments towards democracy, liberal market, and foreigh affairs (especially towards Western European countries and the US).

However, these organizations are not functioning in vacuum, and to provide additional context, which allows more comprehensive understanding of general paradigm shift in Russia, two other organizations will be added - Center for Strategic Development (1999) and the Institute of Contemporary Development (INSOR, 2008), which in the respective time produced significant impact on the expert knowledge and policy development in the Presidential Administration.

Interviews with the representatives and people, related to these organizations, or their public announcements, published in the media, are to be considered untrustworthy and were not included in the study. Although it is sometimes a viable source of information for the development of this study, there are few references to provide a general picture on how these organizations are functioning.

In addition to PDA, an analysis of the websites of the initial organizations was performed to estimate accessibility and openness of selected organizations, a special scale was developed to measure website's quality. Online presence is an essential feature of any organization nowadays, so we were estimating information availability and usability on official web pages of selected think tanks (see Annex 1). It also allows make some implicit conclusions on the main functions these think tanks are taking and compare different kinds of openness with the state of political paradigm at the time.

2.3 Data Collection & Analysis

Gathering internal data is a difficult challenge, since these organizations have a reputation of being very private, and senior management are people strongly affiliated with highest state bodies, from governmental funds and State Duma to Presidential Administration. Thus, recognition of internal structures and links could be limited due to the fact that access to staff is limited, and the amount of any kind of information about internal issues, including the way of research organization, who are experts, and some informal and formal links, depends fully on the informants and their ability to answer these question and on the extent to which they're ably to reveal internal affairs.

3. Leaning towards ideologies

In order to establish what expert knowledge was in demand at the time, it is necessary to derive selected think tanks by their ideology. That will provide a strong insight on how political regime changed over time, and how experts and the public were related to that process. There are four main organizations in this study, all established during the different stages of the development of the political regime in Russia, from 2004 to 2017. However, a little bit of extra context is required to get a more comprehensive picture, which leads to the introduction of other two significant organizations: Centre for Public Planning (CSR, 1990) and Institute of Contemporary Development (INSOR, 2008). The first one is still active and mainly famous for developing a strategy for V. Putin for his first elections, and the latter was established by D. Medvedev shortly after his election as a president to develop and support his liberal course, or so-called modernization.

Also, an analysis of the presence of these four main organizations is provided. An accessibility of information on their web sites was evaluated for us to get clearer understanding on how those think tanks are functioning in terms of providing necessary information to the public (hence, do they fulfill a role of public justification).

3.1 Liberal think tanks

Traditionally, it is taken for granted that during the first two presidential terms, Putin tolerated liberal movements, and even was a part of the liberal movement in the very beginning of his presidential career (prior to 2002-2003), or at least pretended to be a part of it. His first ever strategy was developed by CSR, known for its liberal orientation, especially in economics. Up to 2007, CSR continuously provided different strategies for the future development of the country, which were adapted by the government.

The first organization, Institute of Public Planning, was established in 2004, right at the verge of his victory in the 2004 Presidential elections. At the time, internal expert communities, related to the government, were mainly developing economic policies and provided consulting. Ath the very beginning of its existence, this organization mainly provided a consultation on some economic and legal domains. However, by 2008, a need for such knowledge in the Presidential Administration rapidly decreased, especially since V. Putin had to leave his presidential seat.

D. Medvedev, seen as a liberal president, though strongly dependent on Putin and the party, had to gain access to the expert knowledge, supporting his ideas (and the “liberal bloc” in the party). Hence, he established INSOR in 2008. It develops different domocratic and liberal strategies, and actively encourages external experts and the general public into conversation in order to spread this ideas and gain feedback.

Since the President and the Prime Minister were seen as a tandem, and were unable to contradict each other directly not only to lose public image, but to prevent the party from severe internal conflicts, they had to lean on the expert communities again. INSOR and INOP, linked with them respectively, happened to be a perfect platform to decide these contradictions. From that moment on, a “war of reports”, or “the war of roundtables” begins. INOP is no longer providing a colourful picture of democratic Russia, but, hivewer, still follows that notion of the abominability of authoritarianism.