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_(53821618777).jpg) AEI's headquarters nearDupont Circle inWashington, D.C. | |
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| Abbreviation | AEI |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1938; 87 years ago (1938) |
| Type | Public policythink tank |
| 53-0218495 | |
| Headquarters | Washington, D.C. |
| Location |
|
| Coordinates | 38°54′33″N77°02′29″W / 38.909230°N 77.041470°W /38.909230; -77.041470 |
President | Robert Doar |
| Revenue | $68 million[1] (2024) |
| Expenses | $71 million[1] (2024) |
| Website | www |
TheAmerican Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, known simply as theAmerican Enterprise Institute (AEI), is acenter-right[2]think tank based inWashington, D.C., that researches government, politics, economics, and social welfare.[3][4] AEI is an independentnonprofit organization supported primarily by contributions fromfoundations,corporations, and individuals.
Founded in 1938, the organization is aligned withconservatism.[5] AEI advocates in favor ofprivate enterprise,limited government, anddemocratic capitalism.[6] It is governed by a 29-member Board of Trustees.[7] Approximately 185 authors are associated with AEI.[8]Arthur C. Brooks served as president of AEI from January 2009 through July 1, 2019.[9] He was succeeded byRobert Doar.[10]
AEI grew out of theAmerican Enterprise Association (AEA), which was founded in 1938 by a group of New York businessmen led byLewis H. Brown.[11] AEI's founders included executives fromBristol-Myers,Chemical Bank,Chrysler,Eli Lilly,General Mills, andPaine Webber.[12]
AEA's early work in Washington, D.C. involved commissioning and distributing legislative analyses to Congress, which developed AEA's relationships withMelvin Laird andGerald Ford.[13] Brown eventually shifted AEA's focus to commissioning studies of government policies. These subjects ranged fromfiscal tomonetary policy and includinghealth care andenergy policy, and authors such asEarl Butz,John Lintner, former New DealerRaymond Moley, andFelix Morley. Brown died in 1951, and AEA languished as a result. In 1952, a group of young policymakers and public intellectuals including Laird,William J. Baroody Sr.,Paul McCracken, andMurray Weidenbaum, met to discuss resurrecting AEA.[13]
Baroody was executive vice president from 1954 to 1962 and president from 1962 to 1978. Baroody raised money for AEA to expand its financial base beyond the business leaders on the board.[14] During the 1950s and 1960s, AEA's work became more pointed and focused, includingmonographs byEdward Banfield,James M. Buchanan,P. T. Bauer,Alfred de Grazia,Rose Friedman, andGottfried Haberler.[15][16]
In 1962, AEA changed its name to theAmerican Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) to avoid any confusion with a trade association representing business interests attempting to influence politicians.[17] In 1964,William J. Baroody Sr., and several of his top staff at AEI, includingKarl Hess, moonlighted as policy advisers and speechwriters forpresidential nomineeBarry Goldwater in the1964 presidential election. "Even though Baroody and his staff sought to support Goldwater on their own time without using the institution's resources, AEI came under scrutiny of theIRS in the years following the campaign," author Andrew Rich wrote in 2004.[18] RepresentativeWright Patman subpoenaed the institute's tax papers, and the IRS initiated a two-year investigation of AEI.[19] After this, AEI's officers attempted to avoid the appearance of partisan political advocacy.[18]
Baroody recruited a resident research faculty;Harvard University economist Gottfried Haberler was the first to join in 1972.[11] In 1977, former president Gerald Ford joined AEI as a "distinguished fellow." Ford brought several of hisadministration officials with him, includingRobert Bork,Arthur Burns,David Gergen,James C. Miller III,Laurence Silberman, andAntonin Scalia. Ford also founded theAEI World Forum, which he hosted until 2005. Other staff hired during this time includedWalter Berns andHerbert Stein. Baroody's son,William J. Baroody Jr., a FordWhite House official, also joined AEI, and later became president of AEI, succeeding his father in that role in 1978.[11]
The elder Baroody made an effort to recruitneoconservatives who had supported the New Deal andGreat Society but were disaffected by what they perceived as the failure of the welfare state. This also includedCold Warhawks who rejected the peace agenda of1972 Democratic presidential candidateGeorge McGovern. Baroody broughtJeane Kirkpatrick,Irving Kristol,Michael Novak, andBen Wattenberg to AEI.[20]
While at AEI, Kirkpatrick authored "Dictatorships and Double Standards", which brought her to the attention ofRonald Reagan, and Kirkpatrick was later namedU.S. permanent representative to the United Nations.[21] AEI also became a home forsupply-side economists during the late 1970s and early 1980s.[22] By 1980, AEI had grown from a budget of $1 million and a staff of ten to a budget of $8 million and a staff of 125.[11]
Baroody Sr. retired in 1978, and was replaced by his son, William J. Baroody Jr. Baroody Sr. died in 1980, shortly before Reagan took office as U.S. president in January 1981.[11] According toPolitico, the think tank "rose to prominence" in this period "as the primary intellectual home ofsupply-side economics andneoconservatism."[23]
During theReagan administration, several AEI staff were hired by the administration. But this, combined with prodigious growth, diffusion of research activities,[24][original research?] and managerial problems, proved costly.[14]
In December 1986, AEI hiredChristopher DeMuth as its new president,[14] and DeMuth served in the role for 22 years.[25]
In 1990, AEI hiredCharles Murray (and received hisBradley Foundation support forThe Bell Curve) after theManhattan Institute dropped him.[26] During DeMuth's tenure, the organization turned further to the political right.[27]
AEI had severe financial problems when DeMuth began his presidency.[27] During theGeorge H. W. Bush andBill Clinton administrations, AEI's revenues grew from $10 million to $18.9 million.[28] AcademicDavid M. Lampton writes that DeMuth was responsive to the financial power of "America's hard right".[27]
The institute's publicationsPublic Opinion andThe AEI Economist were merged intoThe American Enterprise, edited byKarlyn Bowman from 1990 to 1995 and byKarl Zinsmeister from 1995 to 2006, when Glassman createdThe American.[citation needed]
AEI was closely tied to theGeorge W. Bush administration.[29][30] More than 20 staff members served either in a Bush administration policy post or on one of the government's many panels and commissions, includingDick Cheney andJohn R. Bolton.[6] In an address to the institute, Bush said "I admire AEI a lot—I'm sure you know that", Bush said. "After all, I have been consistently borrowing some of your best people."[31] In 2002,Danielle Pletka joined AEI to promote the foreign policy department. AEI and several of its staff—includingMichael Ledeen andRichard Perle—became associated with the start of theIraq War.[32] Bush used a February 2003 AEI dinner to advocate for a democratized Iraq, which he said would inspire the remainder of the Mideast.[33][non-primary source needed] In 2006–07, AEI staff, includingFrederick W. Kagan, provided a strategic framework for the2007 surge in Iraq.[34][35] The Bush administration also drew on AEI scholarsLeon Kass, who was appointed as the first chairman of thePresident's Council on Bioethics[36] andNorman J. Ornstein, who headed a campaign finance reform working group that helped draft theBipartisan Campaign Reform Act.[37]
When DeMuth retired as president at the end of 2008, AEI's staff numbered 185, with 70 scholars and several dozen adjuncts,[11] and revenues of $31.3 million.[38]Arthur C. Brooks succeeded him as president at the start of theLate-2000s recession.[39] In a 2009 op-ed inThe Wall Street Journal, Brooks positioned AEI to be much more aggressive in responding to the policies of theBarack Obama administration.[40] Under his leadership, AEI identified itself with "compassionate conservativism" and the maximisation of happiness.[41][42]Politico said that Brooks "helped elevate [AEI] into a bastion of free-market orthodoxy and center-right policy wonkery during the Obama years", before leaving to become a "happiness expert" andself-help guru.[23] In 2018, Brooks announced that he would step down effective July 1, 2019.[9]
On March 25, 2010, AEI resident fellowDavid Frum announced that his position at the organization had been "terminated."[43][44] Following this announcement, media outlets speculated that Frum had been "forced out"[45][46][47] for writing a post to his FrumForum blog called "Waterloo", in which he criticized theRepublican Party's unwillingness to bargain withDemocrats on thePatient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In the editorial, Frum claimed that his party's failure to reach a deal "led us to abject and irreversible defeat."[48]
After his termination, Frum clarified that his article had been "welcomed and celebrated" by AEI President Arthur Brooks, and that he had been asked to leave because "these are hard times." Brooks had offered Frum the opportunity to write for AEI on a nonsalaried basis, but Frum declined.[45] The following day, journalistMike Allen published a conversation with Frum, in which Frum expressed a belief that his termination was the result of pressure from donors. According to Frum, "AEI represents the best of the conservative world ... But the elite isn't leading any more ... I think Arthur [Brooks] took no pleasure in this. I think he was embarrassed."[49]
In January 2019,Robert Doar was selected by AEI's board of trustees to be AEI's 12th president, succeeding Arthur Brooks on July 1, 2019.[50] In October 2023, Doar led an AEI delegation (includingKori Schake,Dan Blumenthal, Zack Cooper, andNicholas Eberstadt, among others) to visit Taiwan to meet with PresidentTsai Ing-wen.[51][52]
As of 2025, AEI's officers includeRobert Doar, Jason Bertsch, John Cusey, Kazuki Ko, Katheryne Walker,Kori Schake,Yuval Levin,Michael R. Strain, andMatthew Continetti.[53]
AEI has a Council of Academic Advisers, which includesAlan J. Auerbach,Eliot A. Cohen,Eugene Fama,Aaron Friedberg,Robert P. George,Eric A. Hanushek,Walter Russell Mead,Mark V. Pauly,R. Glenn Hubbard,Sam Peltzman,Harvey S. Rosen,Jeremy A. Rabkin, andRichard Zeckhauser. The Council of Academic Advisers selects the annual winner of theIrving Kristol Award.[54]
AEI's board is chaired byDaniel A. D'Aniello. As of 2025, notable trustees include:[55]
AEI is a member of theAtlas Network offree market think tanks[56] and is an associate member of theState Policy Network of conservative and libertarian think tanks.[57][better source needed]
In the 2000s, AEI was the most prominent think tank associated with Americanneoconservatism.[5]Irving Kristol, widely considered to be one of the founding fathers of neoconservatism, was a senior fellow at AEI and the AEI issues an 'Irving Kristol Award' in his honour.[58][59]Paul Ryan has described the AEI as "one of thebeachheads of the modern conservative movement".[60]
AEI has close ties with pro-Brexit politicians in the BritishConservative Party. For instance,Sajid Javid,Michael Gove,Boris Johnson, andLiz Truss have all made regular appearances at its World Forum and other events,[56] andSuella Braverman andLiam Fox have been hosted by it.[61][62][63]
The institute has been described as aright-leaning counterpart to theleft-leaningBrookings Institution;[64][65] however, the two entities have often collaborated. From 1998 to 2008, they co-sponsored the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, and in 2006 they launched the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project.[66] In 2015, a working group consisting of members from both institutions coauthored a report entitledOpportunity, Responsibility, and Security: A Consensus Plan for Reducing Poverty and Restoring the American Dream.[67][68]
According to the2011 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report (Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program,University of Pennsylvania), AEI is number 17 in the "Top Thirty Worldwide Think Tanks" and number 10 in the "Top Fifty United States Think Tanks".[69] As of 2019, the American Enterprise Institute also leads in YouTube subscribers among free-market groups.[70]
AEI's research is divided into seven broad categories: economic policy studies, foreign and defense policy studies, health care policy studies, political and public opinion studies, social and cultural studies, education, and poverty studies. Until 2008, AEI's work was divided into economics, foreign policy, and politics and social policy.
Economic policy was the original focus of the American Enterprise Association, and "the Institute still keeps economic policy studies at its core".[38] According to AEI's annual report, "The principal goal is to better understand free economies—how they function, how to capitalize on their strengths, how to keep private enterprise robust, and how to address problems when they arise".Michael R. Strain directs economic policy studies at AEI. Throughout the beginning of the 21st-century, AEI staff have pushed for a more conservative approach to aiding the recession that includes major tax-cuts.[citation needed]
In 2002,John H. Makin, an AEI resident scholar, published a report supporting President Bush’s tax cuts, writing that the cuts "played a large role in helping to save the economy from a recession". In the report, Makin suggested that further taxes were necessary in order to attain recovery of the economy and that Democrats in congress who opposed the Bush stimulus plan were foolish for doing so.[71][non-primary source needed]
As the2008 financial crisis unfolded,The Wall Street Journal stated that predictions by AEI staff about the involvement ofhousing GSEs had come true.[72] In the late 1990s,Fannie Mae eased credit requirements on the mortgages it purchased and exposed itself to more risk.Peter J. Wallison warned that Fannie Mae andFreddie Mac's public-private status put taxpayers on the line for increased risk.[73] "Because of the agencies' dual public and private form, various efforts to force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to fulfill their public mission at the cost of their profitability have failed—and will likely continue to fail", he wrote in 2001. "The only viable solution would seem to be full privatization or the adoption of policies that would force the agencies to adopt this course themselves."[74]
In 2006, Wallison moderated a conference featuringJames B. Lockhart III, the chief regulator of Fannie and Freddie.[75] In August 2008, after Fannie and Freddie had been backstopped by theUS Treasury Department, Wallison outlined several ways of dealing with the GSEs, including "nationalization through a receivership," outright "privatization," and "privatization through a receivership."[76] The following month, Lockhart and Treasury SecretaryHenry Paulson took the former path by putting Fannie and Freddie into federal "conservatorship."[77] As the housing crisis unfolded, AEI sponsored a series of conferences featuring commentators includingDesmond Lachman, andNouriel Roubini.[78][79][80][81][82] Makin had been warning about the effects of a housing downturn on the broader economy for months.[83][non-primary source needed] Amid charges that many homebuyers did not understand their complexmortgages, Alex J. Pollock crafted a prototype of a one-page mortgage disclosure form.[84][85]
The claim that AEI predicted and warned about the2008 financial crisis is heavily disputed. In her book,Dark Money (2016), American investigative journalistJane Mayer writes that contrary to their claims, AEI took the "lead role" in crafting a revisionist narrative about the financial crisis, promoting what equities analystBarry Ritholtz called "Wall Street's 'big lie'". AEI's argument, "that government programs that helped low-income home buyers get mortgages caused the collapse", did not "withstand even casual scrutiny", according to Ritholz. Multiple studies, including those from Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies and theU.S. Government Accountability Office, did not support the conclusions about mortgages reached by AEI. Ritholz argues that AEI intentionally shifted the blame from the financial sector, many of whom worked or were affiliated with AEI, according to Mayer, to the government and the consumer, so as to continue promoting the questionable idea that the free market does not need regulation.[86]
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Kevin Hassett and Alan D. Viard are AEI's principal tax policy experts, although Alex Brill,R. Glenn Hubbard, and Aparna Mathur also work on the subject. Specific subjects include "income distribution, transition costs, marginal tax rates, and international taxation of corporate income... thePension Protection Act of 2006; dynamic scoring and the effects of taxation on investment, savings, and entrepreneurial activity; and options to fix thealternative minimum tax".[87] Hassett has coedited several volumes on tax reform.[88]
Viard edited a book on tax policy lessons from theBush administration.[89] AEI'sworking paper series includes developing academic works on economic issues. One paper by Hassett and Mathur on the responsiveness of wages tocorporate taxation[90] was cited byThe Economist;[91] figures from another paper by Hassett and Brill on maximizing corporate income tax revenue[92] was cited byThe Wall Street Journal.[93]
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From 1998 to 2008, the Reg-Markets Center was the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, directed by Robert W. Hahn. The center, which no longer exists, sponsored conferences, papers, and books on regulatory decision-making and the impact of federal regulation on consumers, businesses, and governments. It covered a range of disciplines. It also sponsored an annual Distinguished Lecture series. Past lecturers in the series have includedWilliam Baumol, Supreme Court JusticeStephen Breyer,Alfred Kahn,Sam Peltzman,Richard Posner, andCass Sunstein.[94]
Research in AEI's Financial Markets Program also includes banking, insurance andsecurities regulation,accounting reform,corporate governance, and consumer finance.[95]
AEI's work onclimate change has been subject to controversy. Some AEI staff and fellows have been critical of theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the international scientific body tasked to evaluate the risk of climate change caused by human activity.[96][97] According to AEI, it "emphasizes the need to design environmental policies that protect not only nature but also democratic institutions and human liberty".[87] American historian of scienceNaomi Oreskes notes that this idea became prominent during the conservative turn towardsanti-environmentalism in the 1980s. Corporations claimed to uphold a kind oflaissez-faire capitalism that promoted individual rights by pushing forderegulation. To do this successfully, companies would fund think tanks like AEI to cast doubt on science and spread disinformation by arguing that environmental dangers were unproven.[98]
In an essay from the AEI outlook series of 2007, the authors discuss the Kyoto Protocol and state that the United States "should be wary of joining an international emissions-trading regime". To back this statement, they point out that committing to the Kyoto emissions goal would be a significant and unrealistic obligation for the United States. In addition, they state that the Kyoto regulations would have an impact not only on governmental policies, but also the private sector through expanding government control over investment decisions. AEI staff said that "dilution of sovereignty" would be the result if the U.S. signed the treaty.[99][non-primary source needed]
In February 2007, a number of sources, including the British newspaperThe Guardian, reported that the AEI had offered scientists $10,000 plus travel expenses and additional payments, asking them to dispute theIPCC Fourth Assessment Report.[100] This offer was criticized asbribery.[101][102] The letters alleged that the IPCC was "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent, and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and asked for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".[103][104]
In 2007,The Guardian reported that the AEI received $1.6 million in funding fromExxonMobil, and further notes that former ExxonMobil CEOLee R. Raymond is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.[105] This story was repeated byNewsweek, which drew criticism from its contributing editorRobert J. Samuelson because "this accusation was long ago discredited, andNewsweek shouldn't have lent it respectability."[106]The Guardian article was disputed in aThe Wall Street Journal editorial.[107] The editorial stated: "AEI doesn't lobby, didn't offer money to scientists to questionglobal warming, and the money it did pay for climate research didn't come from Exxon."[108]
In 2007, AEI scholars published a report promotingcarbon taxation as an alternative tocap-and-trade regimes. "Most economists believe a carbon tax (a tax on the quantity of CO2 emitted when using energy) would be a superior policy alternative to an emissions-trading regime," wrote Kenneth P. Green, Kevin Hassett, andSteven F. Hayward. "In fact, the irony is that there is a broad consensus in favor of a carbon tax everywhere except on Capitol Hill, where the 'T word' is anathema."[109] AEI also backs the carbon taxation policy due to an incentive to reduce the use ofcarbon-intensive energy that would result. "The increased costs of energy would flow through the economy, ultimately giving consumers incentives to reduce their use of electricity, transportation fuels, home heating oil, and so forth". Along with consumers reducing their use of carbon-energy, they will be inclined to buy more efficient appliances, cars, and homes that apply "more attention to energy conservation".[110] Other AEI staff have argued for similar policies.[111][112] Thernstrom and Lane are codirecting a project on whethergeoengineering would be a feasible way to "buy us time to make [the] transition [from fossil fuels] while protecting us from the worst potential effects of warming".[113] Green, who departed AEI in 2013, expanded its work onenergy policy. He has hosted conferences onnuclear power[114] andethanol[115][116] With Aparna Mathur, he evaluated Americans' indirect energy use to discover unexpected areas in whichenergy efficiencies can be achieved.[117][118][non-primary source needed]
In October 2007, resident scholar and executive director of the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies Robert W. Hahn commented:
Fending off both sincere and sophistic opposition to cap-and-trade will no doubt require some uncomfortable compromises. Money will be wasted on unpromising R&D; grotesquely expensive renewable fuels may gain a permanent place at the subsidy trough. And, as noted above, there will always be a risk of cheating. But the first priority should be to seize the day, putting a domestic emissions regulation system in place. Without America's political leadership and economic muscle behind it, an effective global climate stabilization strategy isn't possible.[119][non-primary source needed]
AEI visiting scholarN. Gregory Mankiw wrote inThe New York Times in support of acarbon tax on September 16, 2007. He remarked that "there is a broad consensus. The scientists tell us that world temperatures are rising because humans are emitting carbon into the atmosphere. Basic economics tells us that when you tax something, you normally get less of it."[120] AfterEnergy SecretarySteven Chu recommended painting roofs and roads white in order to reflect sunlight back into space and therefore reduce global warming, AEI's magazineThe American endorsed the idea. It also stated that "ultimately we need to look more broadly at creative ways of reducing the harmful effects of climate change in the long run."[121]The American's editor-in-chief and fellow Nick Schulz endorsed a carbon tax over a cap and trade program inThe Christian Science Monitor on February 13, 2009. He stated that it "would create a market price for carbon emissions and lead to emissions reductions or new technologies that cut greenhouse gases."[122]
Former scholar Steven Hayward has described efforts to reduce global warming as being "based on exaggerations and conjecture rather than science".[123] He has stated that "even though the leading scientific journals are thoroughly imbued with environmental correctness and reject out of hand many articles that don't conform to the party line, a study that confounds the conventional wisdom is published almost every week".[124] Likewise, former AEI scholar Kenneth Green has referred to efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as "the positively silly idea of establishing global-weather control by actively managing the atmosphere's greenhouse-gas emissions", and endorsedMichael Crichton's novelState of Fear for having "educated millions of readers about climate science".[125]
Christopher DeMuth, former AEI president, accepted that the Earth has warmed in recent decades, but he stated that "it's not clear why this happened" and charged as well that the IPCC "has tended to ignore many distinguished physicists and meteorologists whose work casts doubt on the influence of greenhouse gases on global temperature trends".[126] Fellow James Glassman also disputes thescientific consensus on climate change, having written numerous articles criticizing the Kyoto accords and climate science more generally forTech Central Station.[127] He supported the views of U.S. SenatorJim Inhofe (R-OK), who claims that "global warming is 'the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,'"[128] and, like Green, cites Crichton's novelState of Fear, which "casts serious doubt on global warming and extremists who espouse it".[129] Joel Schwartz, an AEI visiting fellow, stated: "The Earth has indeed warmed during the last few decades and may warm further in the future. But the pattern of climate change is not consistent with thegreenhouse effect being the main cause."[130]
In 2013, the magazine of the UK'sInstitute of Economic Affairs published an article by AEI fellowRoger Bate entitled "20 years denouncing eco-militants", in which he argued that "evidence of climate impact is still hard to prove, and harm even more difficult to establish", and dismissed calls for a ban on theinsecticide DDT as "green alarmism".[131] In 2018, British investigative websiteopenDemocracy repeated that AEI "has long been funded by ExxonMobile",[131] an allegation repeated byEsquire the same year, describing AEI'sDanielle Pletka of spreadingdisinformation about climate change on theMeet the Press TV show.[132]
AEI's foreign and defense policy studies researchers focus on "how political and economic freedom—as well as American interests—are best promoted around the world".[38] AEI staff have tended to be advocates of a hard U.S. line on threats or potential threats to the United States, including theSoviet Union during theCold War,Saddam Hussein'sIraq, thePeople's Republic of China,North Korea,Iran,Syria,Venezuela,Russia, and terrorist or militant groups likeal Qaeda andHezbollah. Likewise, AEI staff have promoted closer U.S. ties with countries whose interests or values they view as aligned with America's, such asIsrael, theRepublic of China (Taiwan),India,Australia,Japan,Mexico,Colombia, thePhilippines, theUnited Kingdom, and emergingpost-Communist states such asPoland.[citation needed]
In 2015, AEI gave Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu itsIrving Kristol Award.[133]
AEI's foreign and defense policy studies department, directed byDanielle Pletka, is the part of the institute most commonly associated with neoconservatism.[5] According toVanity Fair, in 2002 it was seen "as the intellectual command post of the neoconservative campaign forregime change inIraq".[41] Prominent foreign-policy neoconservatives at AEI includeRichard Perle,Gary Schmitt, andPaul Wolfowitz.[citation needed]Joshua Muravchik andMichael Ledeen (the latter seen as an "ultra neo-conservative"[134]) spent many years at AEI, although they departed at around the same time asReuel Marc Gerecht in 2008 in what was rumored to be a "purge" of neoconservatives at the institute, possibly "signal[ing] the end of [neoconservatism's] domination over the think tank over the past several decades",[135] although Muravchik later said it was the result of personality and management conflicts.[136]
In late 2006, the security situation in Iraq continued to deteriorate, and theIraq Study Group proposed a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops and further engagement of Iraq's neighbors. Consulting with AEI's Iraq Planning Group,Frederick W. Kagan published an AEI report entitledChoosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq calling for "phase one" of a change in strategy to focus on "clearing and holding" neighborhoods and securing the population; a troop escalation of seven Army brigades and Marine regiments; and a renewed emphasis on reconstruction, economic development, and jobs.[35][non-primary source needed]
While the report was being drafted, Kagan and Keane were briefing President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and other senior Bush administration officials behind the scenes. According toBob Woodward, "[Peter J.] Schoomaker was outraged when he saw news coverage that retired Gen.Jack Keane, the former Army vice chief of staff, had briefed the president on December 11 about a new Iraq strategy being proposed by the American Enterprise Institute, theconservative think tank. 'When does AEI start trumping theJoint Chiefs of Staff on this stuff?' Schoomaker asked at the next chiefs' meeting."[137]
Kagan, Keane, and SenatorsJohn McCain andJoseph Lieberman presented the plan at a January 5, 2007, event at AEI. Bush announced thechange of strategy on January 10.[34] Kagan authored three subsequent reports monitoring the progress of the surge.[138]
AEI's defense policy researchers, who also include Schmitt andThomas Donnelly, also work on issues related to theU.S. military forces' size and structure and military partnerships with allies (both bilaterally and through institutions such asNATO). Schmitt directs AEI's Program on Advanced Strategic Studies, which "analyzes the long-term issues that will impact America's security and its ability to lead internationally".[87]
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Its Asia studies program is directed byDan Blumenthal. The program covers "therise of China as an economic and political power;Taiwan's security and economic agenda;Japan's military transformation; the threat of anuclear North Korea; and the impact of regional alliances and rivalries on U.S. military and economic relationships in Asia".[87][139] Blumenthal and his team wrote several articles forForeignPolicy.com and other outlets during the Obama presidency advocating for military support and funding for Taiwan.[140]
Papers in AEI's Tocqueville on China Project series "elicit the underlying civic culture of post-Mao China, enabling policymakers to better understand the internal forces and pressures that are shaping China's future".[141]
AEI's Europe program was previously housed under the auspices of theNew Atlantic Initiative, which was directed byRadek Sikorski before his return to Polish politics in 2005.[citation needed]Leon Aron's work forms the core of the institute's program on Russia. AEI staff tend to view Russia as posing "strategic challenges for the West".[87]
Mark Falcoff, now retired, was previously AEI's resident Latinamericanist, focusing on theSouthern Cone,Panama, andCuba. He has warned that the road for Cuba afterFidel Castro's rule or the lifting of theU.S. trade embargo would be difficult for an island scarred by a half-century of poverty and civil turmoil.[142]Roger Noriega's focuses at AEI are on Venezuela,Brazil, theMérida Initiative with Mexico andCentral America,[143] and hemispheric relations.
AEI has historically devoted significant attention to theMiddle East, especially through the work of former resident scholars Ledeen and Muravchik. Pletka's research focus also includes the Middle East, and she coordinated a conference series on empowering democratic dissidents and advocates in the Arab World.[144] In 2009, AEI launched the Critical Threats Project, led by Kagan, to "highlight the complexity of the global challenges the United States faces with a primary focus on Iran and al Qaeda's global influence".[87] The project includes IranTracker.org,[145] with contributions fromAli Alfoneh,Ahmad Majidyar andMichael Rubin, among others.
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For several years, AEI and theFederalist Society cosponsoredNGOWatch, which was later subsumed into Global Governance Watch, "a web-based resource that addresses issues of transparency and accountability in theUnited Nations,NGOs, and related international organizations".[87] NGOWatch returned as a subsite of Global Governance Watch, led byJon Entine. AEI scholars focusing on international organizations includesJohn Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations,[146] andJohn Yoo, who researchesinternational law and sovereignty.[87]
AEI's research oneconomic development dates back to the early days of the institute.P. T. Bauer authored a monograph on development inIndia in 1959,[147] andEdward Banfield published a booklet on the theory behind foreign aid in 1970.[148] Since 2001, AEI has sponsored the Henry Wendt Lecture in International Development, named for Henry Wendt, an AEI trustee emeritus and former CEO ofSmithKline Beckman.[149][non-primary source needed] Notable lecturers have includedAngus Maddison andDeepak Lal.[citation needed]
Nicholas Eberstadt holds the Henry Wendt Chair, focusing ondemographics,population growth and human capital development; he served on the federalHELP Commission.[150][151]
Paul Wolfowitz, the former president of theWorld Bank, researches development policy in Africa.[citation needed]
Roger Bate focuses his research onmalaria,HIV/AIDS,counterfeit and substandard drugs,[152] access to water,[153] and other problems endemic in the developing world.[non-primary source needed]
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AEI scholars have engaged in health policy research since the institute's early days. A Center for Health Policy Research was established in 1974.[154] For many years,Robert B. Helms led the health department. AEI's long-term focuses in health care have includednational insurance,Medicare,Medicaid,pharmaceutical innovation, health care competition, and cost control.[87]
The center was replaced in the mid-1980s with the Health Policy Studies Program. The AEI Press has published dozens of books on health policy since the 1970s.[citation needed] Since 2003, AEI has published theHealth Policy Outlook series on new developments in U.S. and international health policy. AEI also publishedA Better Prescription in February 2010 to outline their ideal plan to healthcare reform, calling for putting the money and control in the hands of the consumers and continuing the market-based system of healthcare, a form of healthcare that "relies on financial incentives rather than central direction and control."[155]
According toopenDemocracy, "In the late 1990s, while he was funded by the tobacco industry,[AEI fellow Roger] Bate argued against the science which shows that exposure to tobacco causes cancer."[131]
Helms long argued against the tax break foremployer-sponsored health insurance, arguing that it distorts insurance markets and limitsconsumer choices.[156][157][158][159]
Scott Gottlieb, also a medical doctor, rejoined AEI after a term as commissioner with theFood and Drug Administration.[160] He has expressed concern about relatively unreliablecomparative effectiveness research being used to restrict treatment options under a public plan.[161][non-primary source needed]
Roger Bate's work includes international health policy, especially pharmaceutical quality, HIV/AIDS, malaria, and multilateral health organizations.[citation needed] In 2008,Dora Akunyili, then Nigeria's top drug safety official, spoke at an AEI event coinciding with the launch of Bate's bookMaking a Killing.[152][162][non-primary source needed]
Paul Ryan, then-minority point man for health care in the House of Representatives, delivered the keynote address at a 2009 AEI conference on mandated universal coverage, insurance exchanges, the public plan option, medical practice and treatment, and revenue to cover federal health care costs.[163][non-primary source needed]
In 2004, asPurdue Pharma, a company known as the maker ofOxyContin, one of the many drugs abused in theopioid epidemic in the United States, was facing a threat to its sales due to rising lawsuits against it, resident fellowSally Satel wrote an op ed for theNew York Times. She commented, “When you scratch the surface of someone who is addicted to painkillers, you usually find a seasoned drug abuser with a previous habit involving pills, alcohol, heroin or cocaine. Contrary to media portrayals, the typical OxyContin addict does not start out as a pain patient who fell unwittingly into a drug habit.”[160] According toAP, Satel "sometimes cited Purdue-funded studies and doctors in her articles on addiction for major news outlets and occasionally shared drafts of the pieces with Purdue officials in advance, including on occasions in 2004 and 2016." In 2018, she was hired byJD Vance's charity,Our Ohio Renewal, to a residency in Ohio. When this was criticised because of her ties to Purdue, Satel denied having consulted with Purdue.[164]
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TheAEI Legal Center for the Public Interest, formed in 2007 from the merger of the National Legal Center for the Public Interest, houses all legal and constitutional research at AEI. The institute was influential in thelaw and economics movement in the 1970s and 1980s with the publication ofRegulation magazine and AEI Press books.Robert Bork publishedThe Antitrust Paradox with AEI support.[165] Other jurists, legal scholars, and constitutional scholars who have conducted research at AEI includeWalter Berns,Richard Epstein,Bruce Fein,Robert Goldwin,Antonin Scalia,[160] andLaurence Silberman.[citation needed]
The AEI Legal Center sponsors the annual Gauer Distinguished Lecture in Law and Public Policy. Past lecturers includeStephen Breyer,George H. W. Bush,Christopher Cox,Douglas Ginsburg,Anthony Kennedy,Sandra Day O'Connor,Colin Powell,Ronald Reagan,William Rehnquist,Condoleezza Rice,Margaret Thatcher, andWilliam H. Webster.[166][non-primary source needed]
Ted Frank, the director of the AEI Legal Center, focuses onliability law andtort reform.[167]Michael S. Greve focuses on constitutional law andfederalism, includingfederal preemption.[168] According toJonathan Rauch, in 2005, Greve convened "a handful of free-market activists and litigators met in a windowless 11th-floor conference room at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington" in opposition to the legality of thePublic Company Accounting Oversight Board. "By the time the meeting finished, the participants had decided to join forces and file suit... . No one paid much attention. But the yawning stopped on May 18, [2009,] when the Supreme Court announced it will hear the case."[169]
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AEI's research program has published studies on political processes and institutions since the 1970s. The AEI Press published a series of several dozen volumes in the 1970s and 1980s called "At the Polls"; in each volume, AEI's researchers assess a country's recent presidential or parliamentary election. In the early 1980s, AEI researchers were commissioned by the U.S. government to monitorplebiscites inPalau, theFederated States of Micronesia, and theMarshall Islands.[170][non-primary source needed] Ornstein led a working group that drafted theBipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.[171][172]
AEI publishedPublic Opinion magazine from 1978 to 1990 under the editorship ofSeymour Martin Lipset andBen Wattenberg, assisted by Karlyn Bowman. The institute's work on polling continues with public opinion features inThe American Enterprise andThe American and Bowman's AEI Studies in Public Opinion.[173][non-primary source needed]
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AEI's social and cultural studies program dates to the 1970s, whenWilliam J. Baroody Sr., invitedIrving Kristol andMichael Novak to take up residence at AEI. Since then, AEI has sponsored research on various issues, including education, religion, race and gender, and social welfare.
Supported by theBradley Foundation, AEI has hosted since 1989 the Bradley Lecture Series. Notable speakers in the series have included Kristol, Novak,Allan Bloom,Robert Bork,David Brooks,Lynne Cheney,Ron Chernow,Tyler Cowen,Niall Ferguson,Francis Fukuyama,Eugene Genovese,Robert P. George,Gertrude Himmelfarb,Samuel P. Huntington,Paul Johnson,Leon Kass,Charles Krauthammer,Bernard Lewis,Seymour Martin Lipset,Harvey C. Mansfield,Michael Medved,Allan H. Meltzer,Edmund Morris,Charles Murray,Steven Pinker,Norman Podhoretz,Richard Posner,Jonathan Rauch,Andrew Sullivan,Cass Sunstein,Sam Tanenhaus,James Q. Wilson,John Yoo, andFareed Zakaria.[174][non-primary source needed]
Education policy studies at AEI are directed byFrederick M. Hess. Hess co-directs AEI's Future of American Education Project, whose working group includes Washington, D.C. schools chancellorMichelle Rhee[175] and Michael Feinberg, the cofounder ofKIPP.
AEI is a national allied organization of theAmerican Federation for Children founded in 2010 byDick andBetsy DeVos of theDeVos Family Foundation.[57] The AEI were supportive ofBetsy DeVos' positions when she served underDonald Trump as Education Secretary in 2017-21. Hess supported her plan to gut theBorrower Defense Rule, that enables defrauded students to seek debt relief. In aNational Review op-ed, Hess praised DeVos’ proposal to basedebt forgiveness on student income as “clearly better for colleges, taxpayers, and students”.[176]
In a 2024 report co-authored withThe Heritage Foundation, AEI argued that higher education institutions should not give faculty stipends to join or attend conferences of professional organizations because these groups make statements on political issues.[177]
In the 1980s, about 60% of its funding came from organizations likeLilly Endowment, theSmith Richardson Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Trust and theEarhart Foundation. The remaining of their funding was from major corporations likeBethlehem Steel,Exxon,J.C. Penney and theChase Manhattan Bank.[178]
As of 2005[update], AEI had received $960,000 fromExxonMobil.[179]Purdue Pharma, a company known as the maker ofOxyContin, one of the many drugs abused in theopioid epidemic in the United States, donated $50,000 a year to the AEI from 2003 through 2019, plus contributions for special events, adding to a total greater than $800,000.[160]
In the 2009 tax year, its four largest funders were adonor-advised fund,Donors Capital Fund ($2,000,000),Paul Singer ($1,100,000), theKern Family Foundation ($1,071,912) and theTaipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO),Taiwan’s equivalent to an embassy. Seventh largest was theUS Chamber of Commerce ($473,000).[140] In 2010, AEI received aUS$2.5 million grant from the Donors Capital Fund.[180] Foundations associated with theKoch brothers have been major funders of the Institute.[56]
A 2013 study byDrexel University Sociologist Robert J. Brulle noted that AEI received $86.7 million between 2003 and 2010.[181]
AEI received more than $1.6 million from theCharles Koch Foundation between 2011 and 2016, over $5 million from conservative donor advised fundsDonorsTrust andDonors Capital Fund between 2012 and 2016, over $1.7 million from theSarah Scaife Foundation between 2012 and 2016, $480,000 from theBradley Foundation from 2012 to 2016, and $425,000 from theCoors Foundation between 2011 and 2016.[57]
In 2014, thecharity evaluating serviceAmerican Institute of Philanthropy gave AEI an "A−" grade in its CharityWatch "Top-Rated Charities" listing.[182] AEI's revenues for the fiscal year ending June 2015 were $84,616,388 against expenses of $38,611,315.[183]
In 2017-2018, the AEI received significant funding from theDick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation, including $1 million in 2017.[184]
