American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, known simply as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is a center-right[2] think tank based in Washington, D.C., that researches government, politics, economics, and social welfare.[3][4] AEI is an independent nonprofit organization supported primarily by contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals.
Founded in 1938, the organization is aligned with conservatism and neoconservatism but does not support political candidates.[5] AEI advocates in favor of private enterprise, limited government, and democratic capitalism.[6] Some of their positions have attracted controversy, including their defense policy recommendations for the Iraq War, their analysis of the financial crisis of 2007–2008, and their energy and environmental policies based on their more than two-decade-long opposition to the prevailing scientific opinion on climate change.
AEI is governed by a 28-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 by Robert Doar.[10]
History[edit]
Beginnings (1938–1954)[edit]
AEI grew out of the American Enterprise Association (AEA), which was founded in 1938 by a group of New York businessmen led by Lewis H. Brown.[11] AEI's founders included executives from Bristol-Myers, Chemical Bank, Chrysler, Eli Lilly, General Mills, and Paine Webber.[12]
In 1943, AEA's main offices were moved from New York City to Washington, D.C. during a time when Congress's portfolio had vastly increased during World War II. AEA opposed the New Deal, and aimed to propound classical liberal arguments for limited government. In 1944, AEA convened an Economic Advisory Board to set a high standard for research; this eventually evolved into the Council of Academic Advisers, which over the decades included economists and social scientists, including Ronald Coase, Martin Feldstein, Milton Friedman, Roscoe Pound, and James Q. Wilson.
AEA's early work in Washington, D.C. involved commissioning and distributing legislative analyses to Congress, which developed AEA's relationships with Melvin Laird and Gerald Ford.[13] Brown eventually shifted AEA's focus to commissioning studies of government policies. These subjects ranged from fiscal to monetary policy and including health care and energy policy, and authors such as Earl Butz, John Lintner, former New Dealer Raymond Moley, and Felix 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, and Murray Weidenbaum, met to discuss resurrecting AEA.[13] In 1954, Baroody became executive vice president of the association.
William J. Baroody Sr. (1954–1980)[edit]
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, including monographs by Edward Banfield, James M. Buchanan, P. T. Bauer, Alfred de Grazia, Rose Friedman, and Gottfried Haberler,.[15][16]
In 1962, AEA changed its name to the American 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, including Karl Hess, moonlighted as policy advisers and speechwriters for presidential nominee Barry Goldwater in the 1964 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 the IRS in the years following the campaign," author Andrew Rich wrote in 2004.[18] Representative Wright 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 his administration officials with him, including Robert Bork, Arthur Burns, David Gergen, James C. Miller III, Laurence Silberman, and Antonin Scalia. Ford also founded the AEI World Forum, which he hosted until 2005. Other staff hired during this time included Walter Berns and Herbert Stein. Baroody's son, William J. Baroody Jr., a Ford White 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 recruit neoconservatives who had supported the New Deal and Great Society but were disaffected by what they perceived as the failure of the welfare state. This also included Cold War hawks who rejected the peace agenda of 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern. Baroody brought Jeane Kirkpatrick, Irving Kristol, Michael Novak, and Ben Wattenberg to AEI.[20]
While at AEI, Kirkpatrick authored "Dictatorships and Double Standards", which brought her to the attention of Ronald Reagan, and Kirkpatrick was later named U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations.[21] AEI also became a home for supply-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]
William J. Baroody Jr. (1980–1986)[edit]
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]
During the Reagan administration, several AEI staff were hired by the administration. But this, combined with prodigious growth, diffusion of research activities,[23] and managerial problems, proved costly.[14] Some foundations then supporting AEI perceived a drift toward the center politically. Centrists like Ford, Burns, and Stein clashed with rising movement conservatives. In 1986, the John M. Olin Foundation and the Smith Richardson Foundation withdrew funding for AEI, pushing it to the brink of bankruptcy. The board of trustees fired Baroody Jr. and, after Paul McCracken then served briefly as interim president. In December 1986, AEI hired Christopher DeMuth as its new president,[14] and DeMuth served in the role for 22 years.[24]
AEI's board is chaired by Daniel A. D'Aniello. Current notable trustees include:[12]
Political stance and impact[edit]
The institute has been described as a right-leaning counterpart to the left-leaning Brookings Institution;[51][52] 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.[53] In 2015, a working group consisting of members from both institutions coauthored a report entitled Opportunity, Responsibility, and Security: A Consensus Plan for Reducing Poverty and Restoring the American Dream.[54]
AEI is the most prominent think tank associated with American neoconservatism, in both the domestic and international policy arenas.[5] Irving Kristol, widely considered to be one of the founding fathers of neoconservatism, was a senior fellow at AEI (arriving from the Congress for Cultural Freedom following the revelation of that group's CIA funding) and the AEI issues a 'Irving Kristol Award' in his honour.[55][56] Many prominent neoconservatives—including Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ben Wattenberg, and Joshua Muravchik—spent the bulk of their careers at AEI.[57] Paul Ryan has described the AEI as "one of the beachheads of the modern conservative movement".[58]
According to the 2011 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".[59] As of 2019, the American Enterprise Institute also leads in YouTube subscribers among free-market groups.[60]
Funding[edit]
In the 1980s about 60% of its funding came from organizations like Lilly Endowment, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Trust and the Earhart Foundation. The remaining of their funding was from major corporations like Bethlehem Steel, Exxon, J.C. Penney and the Chase Manhattan Bank.[192]
AEI's revenues for the fiscal year ending June 2015 were $84,616,388 against expenses of $38,611,315.[193] In 2014, the charity evaluating service American Institute of Philanthropy gave AEI an "A−" grade in its CharityWatch "Top-Rated Charities" listing.[194]
As of 2005 AEI had received $960,000 from ExxonMobil.[195] In 2010, AEI received a US$2.5 million grant from the Donors Capital Fund, a donor-advised fund.[196]
A 2013 study by Drexel University Sociologist Robert J. Brulle noted that AEI received $86.7 million between 2003 and 2010.[197]