Knowledge production through practices, the case study of policy institutes at NATO

There is a small but growing literature focusing on the proactive role of experts in crafting their recommendations and developing useful practices in order to access and shape the decision-making process. This paper intends to contribute to this literature by analysing the expertise that shaped NATO’s 2016 decision to launch four battalions in the Baltics in order to deter a ‘newly assertive’ Russia.
Doing so, this paper argues that relevant expertise for policy relies on two intertwined elements: a common discourse between think tanks and decision-makers and a set of ‘good’ practices on the side of the think tanks.
Research question: How practices and discourses allow think tanks and experts to be considered as provider of credible knowledge?
The first part of this paper relies on interviews and focuses on the different practices mobilised by experts and think tanks in order to have their expertise considered relevant. The second part provides a discourse analysis of the reports published by think tanks prior to the Warsaw Summit (2016). The discourse analysis will be both inductive, with a special attention on recommendations provided by think tanks and deductive following concepts of critical geopolitics.