An important case in point is the Atlas Economic Foundation (later Atlas Network), started in the early 1980s by Antony Fisher, the founder of the UK’s Institute of Economic Affairs. Marie-Laure Djelic and Reza Mousavi trace the development of the Atlas Network under the long-term leadership of the Argentine economist Alejandro Chafuen, from a modest network of fifteen think tanks in nine countries in the mid-1980s to a partnership of 457 in ninety-six countries. Beyond strongholds in North America and Europe (both West and East), the network is strong in Latin America and has reached significant membership in the Asia-Pacific Region and even Africa. In only a few decades, Atlas moved from the equivalent of small trade or handcraft to mass production, creating replicable templates for the production and diffusion of neoliberal ideas.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 43