”We are starting to grow up”

Timbro has received strong financial support from Stiftelsen Fritt Näringsliv (The Swedish Free Enterprise Foundation) and has therefore been able to pursue activities that have not always been financially profitable.

”That’s true; we haven’t needed to be commercial. But philanthropic activity is also a part of the market. There is sufficient capital within the trade unions and Social Democrats for them to be able to do the same thing. And we need competition.

Several Swedish think tanks need new partners. Our aim is to set the agenda. We want to lead the debate in the right direction. This is an absolutely vital part of our work. We are not lobbyists in the way that we want merely to change some small passage in the text of a Parliamentary Bill.”

There are, of course, many prototypes in the US. Last year Stureakademien (Ed.: Timbro’s nursery) went to Washington DC to visit among others Cato, the Heritage Foundation and the Brookings Institution.

”On the other hand, we in Sweden cannot compare ourselves with our American models. They have greater financial resources, and that’s quite a decisive difference. But naturally there‘s always development potential for us as an organisation. We have a great number of contacts with think tanks in the US, but there are actually also international delegations who come to us to see how we work. What‘s more, we also think that it’s a good idea to collaborate with those who don’t think the same way we do.”

During the 1980s Timbro published classic and conservative writers in Swedish translation, everything from Edmund Burke to Robert Nozick. That work has largely ceased. Why?

”In the 1980s there was no Amazon internet bookshop. For this reason, it was important to translate classic works. It was part of Timbro’s task to do what no one else was doing. We‘ve actually resumed some of that work again. Last year we published Adam Smith and P J O’ Rourke’s book on Smith and The Wealth of Nations. And now we’ll be publishing Thomas Paine, who was published by Ordfront previously, together with Christopher Hitchens’ book on Paine. In this way, we’re trying to make book publications into larger projects.

We shouldn’t forget that we’ve also had our own names that have become very successful. Johan Norberg is, of course, the most obvious example, but there are also others. Kristian Karlsson’s book on Corporate Social Responsibility, Mauricio Rojas’ books and Erik Zsigas’ Popvänstern (”The Pop Left”) and Hejdå Östeuropa! (”Goodbye Eastern Europe!”) went very well. In addition, we have both Johnny Munkhammar and Fredrik Erixon, who have received considerable attention abroad. And naturally, that’s something we can be proud of.

One might describe Timbro as a dynamic arena in which writers and co-workers can gain a platform. They’re here for a while and then they move on to other tasks in politics and business.”

Do you consider that people today take think tanks more seriously in public debate?

”We’re 30 years old this year, so we usually say that we’re starting to grow up. But it’s still the case that we feel ourselves to be the underdog in many debates, that it’s us against them. Issues pop up all the time where free enterprise in an open society is threatened. And then we have to be there.

Our strategy is to be a player who dares to put forward views that aren’t liked by everyone. We work on the development of ideas, so you shouldn’t always show a great deal of consideration. We have to do our own thing.”

Have you never felt tied to political parties, either through personal links or shared political interests?

”We carry out very political work, but we’re not a branch of the Moderates or the Centre Party. There used to be a widely held notion that we were part of the Moderates, but that’s not true.”

Are there areas which you feel you do not dominate? Where you would like to occupy more space?

”The cultural area is clearly a commanding height in today’s society, and it’s a huge problem that there aren’t very many people there who share our views.”

Have you never seen any ethical problems in your influence on research and social debate? Can unrestricted research in the future be threatened by sophisticated influence from think tanks, for example?

”There are three parts to this problem. The fact that the universities are free from politicised boards is one way of guaranteeing unrestricted research in the future. But the second part of the problem is whether a certain amount of ideological control develops into an academic religion, as is the case, for example with gender studies.

The third problem is whether diversity in the research community is threatened, whether there is a tendency towards too great a one-sidedness. And I think that it often becomes politically very biased. Universities are a part of society in which I think it’s important to break the dominance of the Left.”

Translated by Phil Holmes