This chapter provides an overview of how policy analysis takes place in Mexican think tanks. We focus on two of the few organizations of this kind that currently exist in the country: the Centro de Investigación para el Desarrollo (Centre for Research for Development, or CIDAC) and the Centro de Estudios Espinosa Yglesias (Centre of Studies Espinosa Yglesias, or CEEY). We define think tanks as non-governmental research-oriented institutions, which aim to influence the policymaking process with the analyses and policy recommendations that they regularly produce on one or more policy areas. While think tanks have long existed in several countries, they are relatively new in the Mexican politico-administrative environment (the oldest, CIDAC, has been round for about 30 years).

As a point of departure, the chapter considers policy analysis as the various intellectual activities related to evaluating future policy options (Bardach, 1998; Dobuzinkis et al, 2007; Adachi, 2015). In the case of experts based at think tanks, these activities are mainly related to gathering and assessing information about options to tackle a public problem or advance a public objective; producing detailed analysis and assessment of these options’ potential consequences; and drafting policy recommendations in various formats.

These are then used by think tanks to either influence broader policy debates, or persuade government officials or politicians that participate in a given policy area of the merits of these policy proposals.

The chapter is based on original empirical information gathered by the authors. We carried out a set of semi-structured interviews with think tank leaders and policy experts from the two institutions mentioned. We first describe each case and then compare them. It would be difficult to suggest that our findings are representative of how Mexican think tanks conduct policy analysis. In fact, our interviewees noted that there are many important things that vary among those organizations that could have been included. However, because of the lack of previous research on this subject, we believe that the insights obtained from these two organizations are at least illustrative. Also, the experiences described here are probably as good as any others in terms of beginning to get an understanding of how policy analysis works in this kind of Mexican organization.