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BARACK OBAMA chose John Podesta, the president of the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think-tank, to help manage his transition. The new government will probably lean leftwards in its attachment to such groups, whereas George Bush favoured the more right-wing American Enterprise Institute. According to a survey by Foreign Policy magazine, the rise of such ideas centres is relatively recent: nine out of ten American think-tanks have been created since 1951; the total in America has more than doubled since 1980. In Washington, DC, alone there are approximately 350 such institutions, more than in any other country in the world. The English-speaking world dominates, too. China's massive population is served by just 74 think-tanks.