American Enterprise Institute (1938

American Enterprise Institute (1938- ) Encyclopedia article by Matthew M Caverly for, Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Organizations that Shaped America: An Encyclopedia and Documents Collection, (Eds.) Harwood and Ainsworth, published by ABC-Clio.  The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is a think tank that promotes conservative ideas through research. AEI was established in 1938 as the American Enterprise Association (AEA) by a group of New York businessmen led by industrialist Lewis H. Brown (1894-1951). Brown and others established AEI as an alternative public policy research and proposal-generating group to the Brookings Institution that had been associated with the Progressive and later Liberal Movements in American politics. Probably due to its founder’s original intent, AEI took on a largely economically focused analytical and issue promotion agenda. The organization carved out an intellectual and policy focused orientation around supporting the free market ideology of capitalism. It did this in opposition to the influence of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal” domestic public policy program. FDR and the Democrats’ program for political-economic relief, recovery, and reform related to the Great Depression were seen by AEI as “creeping socialism.” During the early years of the research institute’s existence it recruited and maintained a large proportion of the executive business class within its Board of Directors including the Chief Executives of most of the country’s largest corporations. This included a diversity of such economic giants as General Mills, Chrysler, and Bristol-Meyers. The relationships established in the years just prior to and after the Second World War (1939-1945) between the AEI and big business would continue on into the present and remain one of the major continuities of this organization. One of the things that differentiated AEI from later think tanks and something that it has held in common with its ideological opponent the Brookings Institution, was its emphasis on analytical rigor. The idea was that for the policy research institute to be competitive with other academic houses like universities it needed to maintain the same levels of selection, assessment, and quality management for its research programs. In 1943 and 1944, AEI moved from New York City to Washington D.C. in order to get closer to the target of its policy advocacy and to establish a high-standard clearing house for public-interest based research. What was originally termed the, “Economic Advisory Board,” and later re-named the, “Council of Academic Advisors” was established with an aggressive and highly funded policy research, analysis, and advocacy agenda. Prominent economists like Milton Friedman (1912-2006) and Ronald Coase (1910-2013); as well as legal scholar Roscoe Pound (1870-1964) were early members of the board giving it credibility.  The Cold War provided an opportunity for AEI to tie itself directly to the political- military-industrial complex because its free enterprise focus was able to take on a bipartisan appeal, at least during the early years of ideological conflict with the Soviet Union. Thus, during the 1950s and into the early 1960s AEI, took on government sponsored research into numerous areas of the economy including policy analyses related to fiscal, monetary, healthcare, and energy issues. One of the final things that AEI’s first generation of executive leaders did was to push the think tank into a close relationship with the Congress and later the Executive branches of government by offering itself up as a third-party reviewer of extant and proposed policies. In particular, AEI developed a long standing relationship with key congressional leaders and future executive branch office holders including Gerald Ford (1913-2006) and Melvin Laird (1922- 2016). It was also during these years that AEI became a publisher of monographs devoted to the full range of policy areas, including moving into foreign affairs studies. After the passing of founder Lewis Brown (1894-1951), leadership within the organization moved steadily in the direction of William Baroody, Sr. (1916-1980) who served in as AEI president between 1962 and 1978. Baroody, Sr. was succeeded by his own son, William Baroody, Jr. (1937-1996) who held the helm at AEI until he was forced to resign due to the think tank’s dire financial situation in 1986. Nonetheless, the two Baroodys brought AEI to near unparalleled levels of influence within Republican administrations and Congress (at least among conservatives) in the 1970s and 1980s. This rise in popularity within the Conservative Movement allowed AEI to bring in some of the most influential conservative politicians and public intellectuals in the country as “Distinguished Fellows.” The most impactful of these was the arrival of Irving Kristol (1920-2009), largely credited with being the “father” of neo- conservatism, a particularly hawkish brand of foreign policy promoted by former Democratic Party liberals. Neo-conservatives were also associated with being staunchly opposed to the turn made by liberals in the 1950s and 1960s toward an emphasis on social issues and its related moral relativism. They also feared the calls for accommodations with communism, including the New Left’s opposition to the Vietnam War (1955-1975). To neo-conservatives, such actions were dangerously counter-productive. In AEI the neo-conservatives found an intellectual home from which to develop their ideas, agenda, and lobby for influence within the media, public, and government.  Besides Kristol (1920-2009), other notable neo-conservatives who have served or currently serve stints at AEI include: Jeane Kirkpatrick (1926-2006), Michael Novak (1933- 2017), John Bolton (1948- ), and former Vice-President Richard B. “Dick” Cheney (1941- ). In fact, the “Kirkpatrick Doctrine” that authoritarianism was tolerable and even supportable in the fight against communism because such regimes were not and could not become totalitarian was announced in a publication she produced for AEI. In a later generation, the policy proposals put forth by long time AEI associates and neo-conservatives Richard Perle (1941- ) and Michael Ledeen (1941- ) became the basis for the argument for regime change in Iraq which culminated in the George W. Bush administration’s onset of the War in Iraq (2003-2011). Long before the arrival of the neo-conservatives to AEI in the 1970s, the think tank became a “House of Ideas” for public choice theory which envisaged market-based solutions for public policy problems. AEI Fellow James M. Buchanan (1919-2013) was one such practitioner who ultimately founded the Virginia School of Political Economy based on work that he started while as a fellow at AEI. The 1970s also brought other voices to AEI that ultimately caused an internal division within the think tank over the definition of conservatism. President Gerald Ford (1913-2006) had a long and fruitful relationship with AEI. Thus, when he retired from the presidency in the wake of the 1976 election he joined AEI and brought much of his West Wing with him in 1977. Some of these included traditional conservatives but many were of the moderate version of the ideology to which Ford himself adhered. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur Burns (1904-1987), economist Herbert Stein (1916-1999), and prolific advisor to presidents of both parties David Gergen (1942- ) came in with Ford and were involved in the internal struggle with movement conservatives. Such conservatives were represented by the likes of future Associate Justice Antonin Scalia (1936-2016) and former Attorney General Robert Bork (1927-2012) both of whom were also Ford administration alums. For his part, President Ford largely stayed above the fray and busied himself with founding the American Enterprise Institute’s World Forum (AEIWF). This was an annual informal sessions and recreational activities held from 1977 through 2005. The forum allowed senior governmental personnel to improve international relations and discuss public policy problems. A final area of policy advocacy enrichment from these years at AEI came in the form of developing the supply-side economic theory that became the hallmark of Republican taxation and budgetary policies in the Ronald Reagan administration, George W. Bush administration, and, arguably, elements of the Donald Trump administration. These ideas at their core are associated with cutting taxes and domestic spending in order to stimulate economic growth. Most of AEI’s economic policy work over the last thirty years has supply-side at its base. AEI publishes a magazine currently called, The American, and its policy centers produce a prodigious amount of research into all areas of economy, society, and foreign affairs. As of 2017, the think tank has seven policy centers all located in Washington, D.C. dealing with economics, foreign and defense policy, healthcare, education, politics and public opinion, poverty studies, as well as society and culture. In all of these, there has been a tendency for AEI to remain largely economic in its analytical orientation even though it has long since broadened its scope of substantive policy analysis and advocacy. The think tank is currently under the stewardship of Arthur C. Brooks (1964- ), who has led AEI into a more directly confrontational role with Democrats; this was especially projected during the Barack Obama administration. Brooks has also been active in promoting the social and cultural studies center in order to give AEI more exposure in social policy and moral issues. However, below the level of top administration and the general orientation’s of the organization, there is actually a certain amount of ideological fluidity. This is especially true in the political and public opinion studies center and the education center. Matthew M. Caverly See also: Further Reading: Cigler, A., & Burdett, L. 2011. Interest Groups Politics, 8th edition, Washington, D.C.: CQ Press. Rich, A. 2004. Think Tanks, Public Policy, and the Politics of Expertise, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Weaver, R.K. 1989. “The Changing World of Think Tanks,” PS: Political Science and Politics, 22(3): 563-578.