How Do They Decide?

One of the very important functions of think tanks in the world is the production of discourse (Foucault, 2002). Discourse is a set of rules, patterns, and criteria that, within a specific time and place, impose themselves on individuals within that domain and influence the types of actions they perform according to the rules and criteria of that discourse (Armstrong, 2015: 29). From the perspective of Laclau and Mouffe, discourse shapes people’s perception and understanding of social realities and is a dominant form of meaning production. Paltridge believes that discourses are not free of ideology, and ideology shapes discourse (Rasula, 1989). He also sees ideology as the focal point of discourse. Accordingly, discourse has a central signifier, which, like a magnetic field, influences other concepts and signs of each school, and this central signifier is ideology. However, most scholars reject equating discourse with ideology. They argue that ideology includes the fundamental attitudes and beliefs of each social group, while discourse is broader and encompasses all actions and forms of social and political life of institutions and organizations (Soltani-Far, 2017: 12). The term discourse analysis was first used in 1952 in an article by Zellig Harris, a well-known linguist.