In the last fifty years, many aspects of socialism have been rolled back around the world. Indeed, in the 1990s, following the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, it seemed as if classical liberal ideas had triumphed. But this did not happen by accident. The role of free-market think tanks was critical.

This volume draws on the experiences of thirteen authors involved in classical liberal think tanks in different parts of the world. The contributors identify the strategies that have proved successful in influencing the public policy and explain how they can be adapted to local circumstances.

Indeed, though the 'war of ideas' has been hard fought, it has been only partially won. New threats to freedom have emerged, including environmentalism and big-government conservatism. In some countries the burden taxation and regulation has never been greater. Taming Leviathan is essential reading for anyone involved in the battle against resurgent collectivism.

THE AUTHORS:

Daniel Doron is the Director and Founder of the Israel Centre for Social and Economic Progress (ICSEP). Doron helped found Israel’s Shinui (Change) Party, serves on various economic advisory boards, and appears frequently on Israeli and international TV and radio, as well as in print. Prior to ICSEP, he served in Air Force Intelligence during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence and served as Special Consultant to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv.

Doron studied sociology and economics at the Hebrew University and was a fellow at the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought and a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University. He teaches seminars at several Israeli universities and is a member of the Mont Pèlerin Society.

Colleen Dyble is the Director of Coalition Relations at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. In this capacity, Dyble facilitates coalitions among domestic and international think tanks and provides them with resources and contacts. She has developed and executed think tank management and economic policy networking conferences throughout Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, and regularly represents Atlas at international events. Dyble was a teaching assistant and guest lecturer at the Fund for American Studies’ American Institute on Political and Economic Systems in Prague, Czech Republic, and served on the Advisory Board of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Civil Society Network. She received her bachelor’s degree in International Political Economy and Spanish from the University of Puget Sound and her master’s degree in International Commerce and Policy from George Mason University.

Giancarlo Ibárgüen S. is the Executive President of the Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala, as well as an entrepreneur, educator and financial adviser to various companies. His articles on economics and telecommunications have been widely published throughout the international media and he has contributed to several publications of the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CEES) in Guatemala. Ibárgüen received his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University.

He serves on the board of numerous liberty-oriented and private sector organisations and he is a member of the Mont Pèlerin Society and the Philadelphia Society.

Cristián Larroulet is the Executive Director of Libertad y Desarrollo, a private think tank in Chile, and a founder and current Dean of the economics faculty at the Universidad de Desarrollo. Larroulet has published numerous books and scholarly articles in the areas of privatisation, public finance, economic regulation and economic and social development and is a regular columnist in the Chilean newspaper La Tercera. He is a member of the Mont Pèlerin Society and of the Chilean Academy of Social, Political and Moral Sciences.

Greg Lindsay is the founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Independent Studies in Australia. While studying philosophy at Macquarie University in the early 1970s, Lindsay became interested in the ideas underpinning a free and open society. A maths teacher by training, Lindsay taught for some years at Richmond Boys’ High School before founding the Centre in 1976. Mr Lindsay has been active in the international liberal movement and is currently President of the Mont Pèlerin Society.

Elena Leontjeva is the founder and former President of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute (LFMI) and currently serves on its board of directors. At the Institute, she was actively involved in establishing Lithuania’s securities market and stock exchange, implementing banking reform and creating a currency board system. In 1994, Leontjeva became State Councillor on economic reform issues and served in this position in seven consecutive administrations. She later served as the Economic Adviser to President Adamkus. She has published widely in the press and her input has been instrumental in tax, social security and institutional reforms. Leontjeva resigned from the presidency of LFMI in 2001 to dedicate herself to fiction writing.

Leon Louw is the Executive Director of the Free Market Foundation and the Law Review project in South Africa. Louw is a well-known speaker, the author of many published articles, and the co-author of two books, South Africa: The Solution and Let the People Govern. He is a member of the Mont Pèlerin Society and has delivered papers and addressed audiences in over thirty countries. Louw has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on a number of occasions.

Alex R. Magno is the President of the Foundation for Economic Freedom in the Philippines and a Professor of Political Science at the University of the Philippines. He is also the President of Stratdev Inc., a consulting firm, and Director of the governmentowned Development Bank of the Philippines, where he oversees finance infrastructure programmes for disadvantaged provinces.

Magno writes a thrice-weekly editorial column for the Philippine Star and chairs the Centrist Policy Institute, a think tank advising the ruling Lakas party.

Alberto Mingardi is the General Director of the Istituto Bruno Leoni in Italy, of which he was a founder in 2003. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Centre for New Europe in Brussels. He has worked at various public policy organisations in the United States, including the Acton Institute, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation and the Heritage Foundation. Mingardi translated Antonio Rosmini’s The Constitution According to Social Justice into English and edited a few volumes. His articles have been published in numerous international newspapers and journals. Mingardi specialises in political philosophy and holds a degree in Political Science from the University of Pavia.

Dr Parth J. Shah is President of the Centre for Civil Society in India. His work centres on the themes of economic freedom, choice and competition in education, and property rights. He conceptualises and organises classical liberal educational programmes for young people, appears frequently in print media, and speaks at numerous national and international conferences. Shah is on the editorial board of EducationWorld, Vishleshan and Khoj, and is an informal adviser to many non-profit organisations. He has edited numerous books and is the youngest Indian member of the Mont Pèlerin Society.

Margaret Tse is the CEO of Instituto Liberdade, the Director of HoldTse Investments and Equities Inc. and a public policy researcher. She was born in Brazil, but her family came from Shanghai (China) in 1948. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Business and Public Administration from the University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) and a doctorate in Business Administration from the Asia Pacific International University (Canada), and has taught at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul. She received the Libertas Award in 2006 and a Distinguished Women Award in 2007.

Masaru Uchiyama is the Founder and President of the Japanese for Tax Reform in Japan. He is a former executive manager of a medium-sized company in Japan and is featured in the Heritage Foundation’s Policy Experts guide. In 2007, the Japanese for Tax Reform became the first Japanese organisation to receive a Templeton Freedom Award from the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.

Bridgett Wagner: As Director of the Coalition Relations Department at the Heritage Foundation, Bridgett Wagner advises think tanks on ways to build support for their policy prescriptions and builds support for the Heritage research agenda ‘beyond the Washington Beltway’. She edits Heritage’s biennial Policy Experts directory and the online PolicyExperts.org, and oversees the InsiderOnline.org and its accompanying quarterly, The Insider: Conservative Solutions for Advancing Liberty. Wagner is a trustee of the State Policy Network and the International Policy Network. She also serves on the Advisory Board of the Council on Public Policy (Germany), the Executive Advisory Board of the Adriatic Institute for Public Policy (Croatia), and is a member of the Mont Pèlerin Society.

Michael Walker, PhD, LLD, is a Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute in Canada, of which he was Executive Director for 30 years, in which capacity he wrote articles, books, radio programmes and more than 700 opinion-editorials. Before that he worked at the Bank of Canada and the Federal Department of Finance. He is a director of public and private equity firms, the owner of the Prado Verde Group and a Director of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.

Atilla Yayla is the co-founder and President of the Association for Liberal Thinking in Turkey. He is a Professor of Political Philosophy and Political Economy at Gazi University in Ankara and regularly writes op-eds in the Turkish national daily newspapers. Yayla is the author of many articles and books in Turkish, including Liberalism; Introduction to Political Theory; and Dictionary of Political Thought, and is the editor of Islam, Civil Society and Market Economy in English. He is a member of the Mont Pèlerin Society.

Visit Taming Leviathan: Waging the War of Economic Ideas Around the World Download Page

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CONTENTS:

The authors 10
Foreword by Bridgett Wagner 17
1 Introduction 25
Colleen Dyble, Atlas Economic Research Foundation
2 A little bit of (intellectual) entrepreneurship
goes a long way 32
Greg Lindsay, Centre for Independent Studies (Australia)
3 Brazil: a contrast of ideas 41
Margaret Tse, Instituto Liberdade (Brazil)
Introduction 41
Historical roots from Portuguese colonisation 41
The influence of positivism and its fallacies 43
Gramsci’s hegemony theory 45
Rule of law versus rules of society 47
References 51
4 If it matters, measure it 54
Michael Walker, Fraser Institute (Canada)
Let’s go get them 54
People are not entitled to their own facts 55

If it matters, measure it 55
In the beginning 55
The key challenge – getting a share of the public’s mind 56
Measure what matters to the public 57
Like how many days do you work for the government? 57
Become a ‘go to’ source for relevant information 58
Measure the economic freedom of the world 59
Find out what families are concerned about and
measure it 60
Measure schools’ performance and millions will pay
attention 60
Media compete to publish the league tables 62
Measure hospital waiting lists and change public
opinion about the public health monopoly 63
5 The battle of ideas in Chile: the case of
Libertad y Desarrollo 64
Cristián Larroulet, Libertad y Desarrollo (Chile)
Introduction 64
From a socialist country to a free society 66
Intellectual entrepreneurs: the case of Libertad y
Desarrollo (LyD) 70
The battle of ideas 73
References 77
6 University Francisco Marroquín: a model for
winning liberty 79
Giancarlo Ibárgüen S., University Francisco Marroquín
(Guatemala)
‘Rebellious improvisers’ 79
Entrepreneurship in ideas 81
UFM highlights 82
Just the beginning 87
7 Awakening a slumbering elephant:
CCS in India 89
Parth J. Shah, Centre for Civil Society (India)
Why the Centre for Civil Society? Making a statement
through the institute’s name 90
The road to success: models and modes 92
Get the letterhead right: first a great liberal Board
of Scholars 97
Plan, plan; prepare, prepare 97
Focus on the youth: developing our own soldiers for the
battle 99
Putting a human face on liberalism: choosing issues and
strategies 100
Novel and sustainable solutions 100
Leading and managing: are you the right person for both? 101
A larger, long-term vision: India a liberal utopia! 102
8 An Israeli think tank – its challenges and
discontents 104
Daniel Doron, Israel Center for Social and Economic Progress
(Israel)
9 IBL: bringing the market back to Italy 114
Alberto Mingardi, Istituto Bruno Leoni (Italy)

10 Opening taxpayers’ eyes: an uphill battle
against taxation in Japan 124
Masaru Uchiyama, Japanese for Tax Reform (Japan)
Historical reasons for Japan’s high tax burden 124
Challenges to liberalism in Japan 126
Spreading the message 128
The Taxpayers’ Protection Pledge 130
Fukuma case study 131
Effective policies are likely to meet with high resistance 132
The good news 133
11 A short story of the free market triumphing:
between the two unions 134
Elena Leontjeva, Lithuanian Free Market Institute (Lithuania)
12 Fighting for economic sanity 145
Alexander R. Magno, Foundation for Economic Freedom
(Philippines)
The Foundation for Economic Freedom 145
Advocacy 149
A better society 152
13 The war of ideas: thoughts from
South Africa 155
Leon Louw, Free Market Foundation of Southern Africa
(South Africa)
Aerial bombardment versus trench warfare 158
Relevance 163
Projects 167
Conclusion 169
14 How the Association for Liberal Thinking is
changing the climate of opinion in Turkey 170
Atilla Yayla, Association for Liberal Thinking (Turkey)
About the IEA 180

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