The think tank that builds think tanks
From an Arlington office, Atlas Network funds and trains roughly 600 free-market institutes in more than 100 countries — the quiet infrastructure that exports a market-libertarian politics worldwide.
The far-right international isn’t only operatives and conferences; it has an ideas-and-money backbone. Atlas Network is it: a U.S. hub that spawns and bankrolls local think tanks, which then supply the intellectual cover and policy scripts for right-wing movements abroad. We grade the network’s scale, lineage, and funding as fact, and treat the sharpest political-influence claims as the attributed reporting they are.
What this page is about
Atlas Network — legal name Atlas Economic Research Foundation — was founded in 1981 by British entrepreneur Antony Fisher, a disciple of F.A. Hayek, to connect free-market think tanks into a single global web. Described as “a think tank that creates think tanks,” it now partners with roughly 600 organizations across more than 100 countries, coordinating training, networking, and grants from an office in Arlington, Virginia (about $24 million in revenue in 2024).
Its lineage is the postwar market-libertarian movement — Fisher helped found Britain’s Institute of Economic Affairs and, in the U.S., the Manhattan and Fraser and Pacific Research institutes — and its funders have included Koch-family-affiliated money. Investigative reporting has tied Atlas-affiliated institutes to right-wing political movements abroad, notably in Latin America. This page grades the network’s existence, scale, and funding as fact, and treats the specific “Atlas engineered this country’s politics” claims as serious, attributed reporting rather than a finding of our own.
The same investigation, restaged one beat at a time. Step through it here, or present it fullscreen.
The think tank that builds think tanks.
From an Arlington office, Atlas Network funds and trains roughly 600 free-market institutes in more than 100 countries — the quiet infrastructure that exports a market-libertarian politics worldwide.
The machine, the money, and the footprint
'A think tank that creates think tanks': ~600 institutes in 100+ countries.
FACTAtlas Network, founded in 1981 by Antony Fisher, partners with nearly 600 organizations across more than 100 countries and reported roughly $24 million in revenue in 2024. Its self-described model is to provide the training, networking, and grants that stand up local free-market think tanks around the world — the reason it is described as 'a think tank that creates think tanks.' It is not a party or a campaign; it is the connective infrastructure that manufactures the 'independent' institutes whose research and messaging then feed into right-wing politics in their countries.
The lineage and the money: Hayek's disciples and Koch-linked funding.
FACTFisher — influenced by Hayek's The Road to Serfdom — had already founded Britain's Institute of Economic Affairs and helped launch the Fraser Institute, the Manhattan Institute, and the Pacific Research Institute before creating Atlas to link them all. Hayek, Margaret Thatcher, and Milton Friedman formally endorsed it. Its membership grew to include Koch-family-affiliated organizations, and it has drawn funding from American and European business to organize libertarian groups in the developing world — in 1981 helping economist Hernando de Soto found Peru's Institute for Liberty and Democracy. The ideology and the money are documented, not inferred.
The political footprint — documented as reporting, not asserted as proof.
SOME SMOKEInvestigative reporting — by The Intercept and others — has tied Atlas-affiliated think tanks to right-wing political movements abroad, with Latin America the most cited theatre: accounts link Atlas-network groups to the Brazilian protest apparatus (such as the Free Brazil Movement) that helped drive the campaign against President Dilma Rousseff. We grade the network's existence, scale, and funding as FACT and treat the specific causal claim — that Atlas 'engineered' a given country's politics — as attributed reporting: a serious thread to weigh and pin case by case, not a finding we assert in our own voice. The pattern is real; the precise degree of orchestration is where the sourcing must be exact.
Movements need institutions, not just candidates
A political movement needs ideas and institutions as much as it needs candidates. Atlas Network is the transnational far-right’s institutional layer — the machine that produces the local “independent” think tanks whose research and messaging then underwrite right-wing campaigns worldwide. It complements the operative layer (Cerimedo), the conference circuit (CPAC International), and the strategist (Bannon) documented across the Far-Right International hub — the infrastructure of a movement that treats borders as a formality.
Questions worth taking seriously
Isn't this just free-market advocacy, which is legal?
Yes — and we don’t say otherwise. Funding think tanks is lawful and common across the spectrum. What we document is the scale and structure: one U.S. hub deliberately building and bankrolling a coordinated global network of institutes, some of which reporting has tied to specific right-wing campaigns. The story isn’t “advocacy is a crime”; it’s that a single organization exports a political-economic program worldwide, and the public should be able to see the wiring.
Why grade the political-influence part SOME SMOKE?
Because the leap from “funded a think tank” to “engineered a country’s politics” is exactly where sourcing has to be careful. The network and its funding are documented fact; the strongest causal claims (e.g., that Atlas groups drove Brazil’s anti-Dilma movement) are investigative reporting we cite and take seriously, not something we can assert as proven. Grading it SOME SMOKE keeps the real, verifiable spine from being dismissed along with the harder-to-prove top line.
If you are named on this page
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This site aggregates and grades a record that other outlets and primary sources have already put on the record. Every FACT-graded claim above is sourced to court filings, government reports, sworn whistleblower disclosures, published investigative journalism, or named-source statements. The citations are the accountability mechanism; this section is how you get on the record too.